It's been a long time since I posted on here. I cannot say with 100 percent certainty why I stopped posting. Perhaps, I lost interest. Perhaps, it's the novel I've been working on. Perhaps, it's just my natural inclination toward doing nothing. Perhaps, it's my inborn perfectionism. Perhaps, it's a foul mood. Perhaps, it's a grand mood. Perhaps, it's a minor obsession with movies, golf, hunting, hiking, and reading. Perhaps, it's all of these things. I know very well what the experts say, they say write every day, especially if you want to build a big audience. You must write everyday for your blog!
Well, I didn't write for a few months on here, so what, big deal. Everyone is so hyperactive nowadays. I'm not built like that, I'm slow moving, and I like to stew, and boil on low heat, and sit around, and stare, and read, and learn things, and disappear, and procrastinate consciously, and flaneur, and just be, I don't know if there's a word for all that but there should be, it could be something like, megitate, a portmanteau of meditate and vegetate, or it could be something like mediluxurate, a combination of meditate and luxuriate (kinda sounds like a big pharma concoction for constipation, don't you think?). Either way, it's nice to do nothing in particular, and see what comes to you out of the ether. And that's what I did.
Nevertheless, while doing nothing in particular for this blog, I've been busy generally, with all kinds of activities. And I'd like to talk about them soon. Recently, I have been writing and thinking privately about a great many things.
I've been contemplating a great deal the long-term societal effects of smartphones. I'll go into more depth on the topic in an essay titled, "Smart Phones, Dumb People." I suppose the title gives my stance away a bit, but who cares, it's true. I cannot tell you the number of times I've seen accidents almost happen to myself or others because of people staring at their phones while driving. That's a serious example. But of course, there are plenty of others which do not involve life and death and limbs. People are spending their waking lives consumed by the applications on their phones. They are forgoing human experiences for virtual ones. People eat dinner while playing on their phones. They try to hold a conversation in real life while messing with their phones, sacrificing involvement in each activity to do both. They "exercise" at the gym, mixing sets and lifts with phone sessions. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not get big and bulky with half-hearted focus. Attention spans are shrinking for the average man and woman. Consequences of that, are pretty troubling for most and profitable for some. What benefits society receives from smartphones have to be reckoned with the costs. I think I have a solution for living with smartphones, that optimizes human well-being, while keeping up with the march of technology.
Another thing I have been thinking about is running. I've been doing a lot of it lately, and recently undertook a big challenge related to it. There's a spiritual lesson in it that, to put it bluntly, led me to an inner formula to transform the disliked to the liked and then the liked to the neutral and then back in any direction I like. I think there's a nugget of wisdom for others there that can nicely transfer to any human endeavor.
I've also been hunting a great deal since deer season started here in Texas. I had some pretty exciting moments. And have learned a thing or two about rifles, rifle scopes, and a little thing called scope bites. Hunting is fun, and I know not everyone agrees with it, but at the end of the day all consumption is based on death. You think plants want to be eaten? The ethics around it, though, are intellectually interesting and worth discussion.
As always, I've kept up my obsession with the game of golf. Lately, I've been in a plateau. My best scores are in the mid to high 70s. And my average scores are in the 80s., sometimes high 80s. It's been tough at times to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I've thought about giving up the game a few times. But I have a few new insights and I'm going to let the process play out, as I try them and a new tool to help with my ball-striking.
I've also been thinking about the economy and markets. Things are so over-valued, but they generally always are in fiat money world. Interest rates are going up and that would seem to be the death knell for the bull market. But as economic historians and market wizards well-know, bull markets can hobble along for a long time until they finally get mauled by a bear. I'd like to muse more on this, and perhaps give some original advice on what market speculators should do in a later post. My thoughts are not fully formed yet.
In the course of doing research for my forthcoming novel, I've read a great deal of content from Miles Mathis. He's a genius or a crackpot depending on who you ask. I'd say he's probably closer to the former. Though, that doesn't mean he is infallible or without bias. He started out as an artist, a painter. And he's quite good from what I've seen of the work he has posted online. From that he branched out to studying science, math, history, physics, and a whole plethora of subjects, including current events. His general theory of things can be summed up as lies, damned lies, and conspiracies. A lot of his papers, as he calls them, strike me as a bit facetious and crowd pleasing (as in, he built a rep on crazy conspiracy theories, so every person or event involves a crazy conspiracy). He claims a lot of famous people faked their deaths. He claims a lot of historical events were actually faked events. He claims a lot of science is actually fake and fudged up, even going so far as to question equations and what they purport to calculate. By my nature I'm predisposed to like a lot of what he says. So, consequently I consciously remain skeptical of it. He could be, as he likes to accuse others of being, just another Intelligence asset, meant to misdirect and confuse the masses. Another curious thing about this character, he likes to pin a lot of conspiracies and power plays on Jewish individuals and families. I don't know if this makes him brave, stupid, or perceptive. I myself have Jewish blood in me, and don't take offense to his notions. But I've been around Jews, they're smart, smart as whips, but are they smart enough to run the world sea to sea with endless schemes that are as devious as they are profitable, without any other group to check their power? I tend to think not. The world is a far too diverse and complex a place for any one ethnic group to prevail so absolutely. That being said, I think only a fool would deny that Jews have done pretty well for themselves on this planet, materially speaking. I think the jury is out on the question. The only real way to know who runs the world would be to do genetic testing on all the richest and most powerful families in the world. And see, just how related they are. Everything else is just speculation, unfortunately, no matter how astute, logical, and well researched it is, it is, nevertheless, just speculation.
What else? Lately, I've given a lot thought to what it takes to achieve mastery across many subjects and activities. Call it, my "renaissance man" inquiry. I don't have any definite insights yet, except this, it will take a lot of work and dedication and focus and involvement, and there aren't really any shortcuts. There are methods to speed up learning. But I wonder how much of it just comes down to intangibles like Intelligence, Memory, etc. Of course, those things can be improved. But not everybody can be Leonardo Da Vinci. Almost by definition, true genius is rare and singular. Yet, each of us can awaken the genius within, to be the best version of ourselves. Comparison is the thief of joy. The task before us, is not to measure ourselves by the capabilities and achievements of others, the task before us is to measure ourselves by who we were yesterday, are we wiser today than yesterday? are we stronger today than yesterday? are we more capable? are we more joyful? are we more at peace?
Aside from the aforementioned, I've also started doing something for the first time in my life. This is a conscious choice to get good at something I've always told myself I was no good at. Art. In particular, oil painting. Boy is it tough. But it's a lot of fun. It's creation on a whole other level. In some ways, it's more exciting than writing. Though, I don't want to rush to conclusions. One thing I have discovered about learning new skills, it's your ego that gets in the way. And in many ways, the meta-skills necessary to keep learning complex skills and subjects are emotional mastery and mental mastery, a sort of higher consciousness. The mechanics of learning are a great mystery to me, why do some learn fast and other slow, what are the best ways to learn, what meta-skills (like meditation) can be developed to aid in learning ? (Aside: I think deep understanding of learning, including transfer learning, one-shot learning, etc. are necessary for breakthroughs in the creation of an artificial general intelligence.)
There's more to say, but I'll save it for another day. I'll be writing more in 2022 than ever before and look forward to sharing my journey with you. Good Luck in the New Year!
Hozzászólások