Panacea

An unspoken and common question in these times:

"How can I achieve reliable, unending comfort, while I retain the power to change and achieve anything I desire, and the lifeforce to continue to derive pleasure and joy from it?"

A present counter-question comes: "How do we know that pleasure and joy derive from the fulfilment of one's desires?"

"By experience".

"So is the world a vast field of Pacman-food dots (of pleasure/satisfaction), and our purpose to maximise our score? Are the dots the source of the pleasure/satisfaction?"

"Not the source, but the catalyst that triggers the reactions within to feel them. The 'money' that can purchase 'the goods' within us, so to speak".

"What if you could farm and cultivate these nourishments yourself?"

"Then the acquisition and search for external fulfilment becomes unnecessary. But is that realisable?"

"Maybe. The parts are all there. Pleasure and satisfaction are not present in the objects and fulfillments outside. They are the relief felt upon the resolution/dissolution of the discomfort of a desire"... "Perhaps we do not need to scratch as much if we find and treat the causes of the itch. Like skin rashes".

offense

what is offense?

like hunger and weariness,

tis not a conscious choice.

yet at times it involves the mental

for logical implications at times produce the conclusion that offends.

tis the emotion produced by the perceived defiance

of a part of self one holds dear.

something one believes to be oneself

challenged by a word, perception, or action.

The association of what one rejects

to oneself.

The reaction is offense, and its basic force attempts

to invalidate that association,

the source of the word or the action that caused it.

Hence anger is a common consequence,

seeking to force that association to invalidation or destruction,

or at least to a farther distance.

Shame is another,

and it seeks to hide the old and dear from the new

and prevent their unpleasant conflict

within.

tis the reaction to the impending calamity

that the rejected may touch and merge with self.

Primordial

The Why is a powerful question. It seeks the cause, the root of something. As we seek and learn the causalities around us, we come to understand the things in the world around us as meaningful and interconnected, instead of disparate phenomena which, when not understood, seem needless. Ignorance of interconnectedness also allows one to find weak cuts in the world around us - subsets of the world disconnected from the rest. And because they seem to be disconnected, one can habituate to divert the discomforts and the evils one sees in the world towards the other disconnected subsets - the pernicious habit of blame.

The Why itself, when followed, is the detective's search. Each new connection finds a deeper motive of the thing that is, and digs deeper into the nature of our life experience. And the deeper we know about our experience, the more power we have to change it, to maintain and update it, and to align it with our current needs. Often the deeper parts of our psyche, ignored, remain stale and forgotten. Seeking them is required to remember them.

When the graph of Why is followed, I wonder, does this graph have a root source? A primordial root, whence all phenomena arise? If so, it should be reachable from any node in the graph. The Why of matter, the Why of stars. The Why of society, the Why of hate. The Why of food, the Why of cars, the Why of blood, the Why of sex. The Why of resentment, the Why of light. The Why of pride, the Why of words, the Why of water, the Why of colors. The Why of walls, the Why of plants, the Why of nations. The Why of breath, the Why of time, the Why of song. the Why of ignorance, the Why of love. Why?

I think this is what children seek.

Junkies

I ponder on the motives that bring me to write. Anything, this, when I write... what drives me? Why do I do it?

The first motive is often the impulse to express. I come across something in the realm of ideas, of thoughts, and there is something particular that feels sparklier than the rest. A thought or idea worthy of sharing, worthy of keeping. My tool to do that is writing. Thence comes the first impulse to write.

I notice at these moments, that other motives often, and rather quickly, attach to this endeavour. Some of them are:

1. I want other people to see/notice how original/creative/insightful/verbally fluid I am. Craving for attention, for social approval. Like sugar, it feels.

2. I want to keep it as a precious memento, another pearl to add onto my bead. An item to add to my collection, the next one in the set of hundreds. It is a desire of hoarding, of accumulation and satisfaction of having.

3. Recognition. This is the same as the first.

4. Self-growth. I think: "This is valuable. It may yet help me in times that I have forgotten this. These words will bring me back to this idea, and allow me to shift my perspective to the one I have now, which I consider valuable".

5. To prove a point. Sometimes my thought or idea arises as a response to something I heard or something I see in the world around me, usually endorsed by other people. Then sometimes my desire of writing turns toward the aim of proving another wrong. Of competition, of argument, towards the aim of superseding the other's opinion with mine.

I notice these secondary motives arise after the first, and they attach themselves to the action, looking to derive value from it. Like junkies waiting for the next hit, they see a new likely source of value, and they launch themselves upon it, trying to derive their share from that expression.

Like junkies looking for their next hit.

Two Questions

I notice I feel one of two main questions when I observe or engage with a thing:

1. How does this help/hurt me?

or

2. How does this feel?

The first underlies a utilitarian approach, where my interest in the thing depends on its relationship to me. I seek either to extract gain from it, or to avoid harm from it, and that is all. Under this perspective, the thing is a goal, a mine, a tool, or a bane, a villain, an obstacle. It must lie on either side of the spectrum of preference, and exists only as a relationship to myself.

The second question seeks to know the thing, to explore it. It is not driven by either desire or fear, as the first often is, but by curiosity. "What IS that?", I wonder, and I imagine myself as the thing. "How does it feel to move my body like that dancer? What is the curve of that birdsong like? What is it like to lay at the mercy of the elements like the rock does, yet to suffer no harm therefrom? What is it like to stretch a thousand arms high into the air, to host myriads of insects in me, and to sway between the earth and sky lifelong? Whence comes that anger? What is it like to have fluid and fungible bodies, like clouds? What is the experience of being light? Why does a material universe experience consciousness?" In each of these cases, my mind morphs into the thing and attempts to experience it. By embodying it, I engage what I observe about the thing, and infer and imagine what it feels like to be that thing.

Both of these two questions cannot be active at the same time. When I care about gain and loss, my perspective is skewed, and having a faithful understanding of the thing feels immaterial. It is only when I release the preferences in me that my mind is free to explore and play, unbiased by preset directions and standards.

Care

I don't know if I really care about other people at all.

About their wellbeing or their growth.

I behave as if I do. I sometimes feel that I do.

But I don't know that I really do.

Because when I trace back into myself the causes for which I feel an urge to help other people, they fall into one of these categories:

• I help others because doing so enhances my reputation, and raises my social approval. If another person receives my help, and if other people see me helping others, I usually gain social approval from their perspective. Therefore, performing a helpful deed increases my own social score.
• Helping others increases the likelihood that they will sometime help me when I need it. This is a consequence of the social score explained above, but it seems useful to emphasise in particular.
• Desire of usefulness and fulfilment. If someone around me has a clear lack or need, and I am able to provide for that lack, to help bridge a gap or fulfil a need, my urge towards utility wants to fulfil it. It is a desire towards satisfaction, an urge towards completeness, that drives this urge, not any particular care for the person him/herself. I don't in particular care that that person feels well or that he/she does not incur harm. What I care about is that the lack is fulfilled, because I somehow perceive the lack as my own. Sometimes. And when I do, I at times place effort into resolving the lack or need. Into satisfying what is still lacking. When I don't, I feel no urge.
• So in summary, my urge to help is either an attraction towards my own social score, or towards fulfilment of lacks that I feel as mine, even if they are not materially mine.

I ponder on these things because I notice I care nothing for people's deaths. If a person dies, to me it is no tragedy at all. The dead feel no pain nor suffering, they have no lack. The people around them feel as they feel, but they have no clear lack that can be fulfilled. They simply feel an absence of a person, and they sometimes suffer for it. No urge to be satisfied there, and I feel no urge towards doing anything. Whatsoever. No urge to console, no urge to help, nothing. Except if it helps one of the reasons above... material help, or something that enhances my social score. But not care... I notice I do not feel their pain.

And that makes me wonder. Just wonder. Ponder. Think.

Imagined Speech

struggle and strife always precede growth

it is the response to inadequate systems that creates crises and forces us to grow

so may there be struggle

may there be strife

but let us avoid hatred

and pay attention to our fears

for if they control our behavior,

then we do not understand what we do,

and our energies will be spent in wasteful directions.

let us strive to understand,

and to act in the best way we can see.

knowing always that everyone else

also believes they do their best,

and encouraging also others

to also understand

and to recognise fear and hatred

just as symbols of misunderstanding.

and may we not feel superior because we understand

nor inferior because we do not understand.

may we all be drops of water in the ocean

in which sometimes we are higher than the others,

and sometimes lower.

but we're all together, unavoidably,

and we can only continue growing

if we help each other to grow together

even as we think different things.

so may there be striving and let there be strife

from our ideas and from those of others

and before we act out of hatred,

may we strive to truly understand,

and not react in violent fear.

Blame effects

Blame is composed of two main parts:

• Assignment
• Retribution

Assignment is cause-linking. An unwanted event X has happened, and one aims to understand whence it came, which motives or actions link to it most directly. Via these threads of cause, assignment of blame seeks the owner of the closest intentional motive or action, preferably conscious, that led to X.

Retribution is an action by the blamed; demanded, coerced, or forced upon by the blamer. It is sometimes intended to restore the damage caused by the unwanted event. It often is also intended to harm the blamed, either physically, emotionally, and/or mentally.

Harming the blamed causes eventual imbalance. Unneeded wounds do not cure. They fester and spread.

poverty

afraid of poverty.

I feel fear of poverty.

Why?

Because it seems to induce helplessness. At least social helplessness.

Does it? Are my social relations broken and destroyed if I lose my wealth?

Not all. But the seemingly ubiquitous, impersonal, convenient, good-acquisition transactions would. Goods that I acquire and feel satisfaction therefrom.

Without wealth, I become of no value to the anonymous society.

But there are other parts of society?

Yes. My friends, my family. The people with whom I have established personal, emotional, mental connections.

So not all of your social web would be destroyed?

No. But the future looms. The future of my body demands continuous sustenance. Regular shelter, regular maintenance of essential goods like clothes and communication devices. This maintenance requires materials, skills, and manufacturing that I do not possess, and so I am bound to being valuable to those entities that can provide me with their own valuable product.

It is this condition I fear. One of helplessness to provide for my own well-being. Where a continuous state of material lack seeps into my remaining social connections, and drains them and erodes them as parts of me succumb to asking for favors in order to survive.

You are afraid of asking for favors?

Yes. If I ask a favor from a friend, my perceived value to that friend lowers. I am then less valuable to him than I was before.

Are you?

It seems so. Maybe. I have avoided asking for favors from friends in general, since I was maximizing my own perceived value.

But was it for others or for yourself?

For others, I'm not quite sure, because I am not them. For myself, certainly, since that is how I feel.

So why do you fear erosion of your social connections?

Because I like them. I like them and they like me. Maybe I like them because they like me. Could that be?

Yes, that could be. A hoarding of social esteem, perhaps.

Do you fear you will become friendless?

Yes.

Or despised by the ones that once held you in esteem?

Yes.

Are you afraid of losing your freedom to use commercial services you had gotten used to, like airline flying and spontaneous satisfactions of the appetite? Like whenever you found something you liked in a store?

Yes.

Why do you fear that?

Because that's what I know now. If I lose that, I don't know how my life would be. I'm afraid I don't have the survival skills necessary to... survive, without wealth in this world.

And what if your wealth erodes?

Friends may help me. But eventually they will not want to.

Why not?

Because I am less important to them than they are for themselves.

And what happens then?

Then perhaps some emotions between us are hurt, and I'll separate myself from those who once liked me. And they will not want to spend time with me or to help me.

And what then?

Then I don't know what I would do. It's very unknown. And I fear that this state becomes that of the confused, desperate, aimless wanderer, without purpose and without value. Without value to others, and that that feeling would then crush my own self-worth, and have me feeling worthless myself.

Do you believe that would actually happen?

I don't know. But the fear is there.

Do you fear dying from lack of sustenance?

No. I fear the potential of misery, desperation, and incompetent struggle that can happen when all the flows of resources and social values towards me have dried. I fear becoming social litter, the object of pity and of anonymous rejection. Being rejected by default, being worthless to anyone I meet.

But is poverty, or wealth, a determinant factor in the essentials of this world?

No. They are artificial constructs.

But they are?

Yes, they are. But they float above the deeper truths I know and feel exist.

Are you willing to dive beneath those layers to find the truths in the deep?

My will, yes. My mind, yes. My emotions, doubting. My body, maybe. 

Why does it doubt?

Because it's afraid. It's afraid of failure. Of thinking there is something to be found and finding nothing. Of betting on a theory that leads to something false. Of having chosen wrongly.

But do you seek a reward at the end of the path?

Yes, I think. The reward of truth. The reward of genuineness. Of following precisely my own direction, whether it aligns or not with the flows that surround me. With the tethers of work, family, social approval, etc.

So you seek to eschew social approval?

Yes. My emotions gasp at the idea, but yes.

Complete freedom of direction is what you seek?

Yes.

Can you build your own flow so resources through your own direction?

Perhaps, yes. Creations of supplies, of demands. New canals and trenches and streams that keep my body, and mind active, healthy, purposeful, and valuable. First to myself, and then to others.

Seek you truth?

Yes.

Does it pivot on social approval?

No.

Then it must be transcended. Otherwise it veils the view.

Ahh.

But are you willing to experiment with the reputations, credibilities, and values you have cultivated for so long in your life in other people?

In exchange for revealing your truth?

....

Yes.

Do you know how to do it?

Not in practice, maybe I have never acted genuinely. But I want to try. To continue trying.

I'll strive to shine

just as I am.

know

explorers of what can be known

is what we are

know-nauts.

we weave silver threads

from what we know towards that which we wish to know

we carve light through the dark unknown

and know things different,

according to whither we weave.

matter-ward, we build physics.

neighbor-ward, we explore the social.

know-ward, philosophy.

inward, to know the psyche.

starward, to know astronomy.

process-ward, to build systems.

tool-ward, to know engineering.

past-ward, to know history.

food-ward, to know agronomy.

skyward, to know meteorology.

flow-ward, to know fluid dynamics.

and so on.

explorers of the knowable,

spiders weaving our silver webs.

wanting to get a better view.

wanting to fill in the blanks and unknowns.

wanting to know.

to see what is us

and to know it.

Crew

A ship's crew

quickly coheres

when the storm blows and thunders

Once the storm is weathered,

and the crew's wills are again untethered

each one sways by chance

and the collective gradually misaligns

with no storm to battle

the crew can become

haphazard cattle.

A motive to cohere can help the crew align.

But if no storm is present, to what shall they align?

Agreement on a destination,

is an idea, a guiding direction,

and can unite the aims of the navigators,

as a start.

Once the crew knows the ship has somewhere to go

some can recognize that it will need to be driven,

and those who know how will man the sails

row the oars

move the rudders

in organized concert.

Then once others see the work united

and seeing how the labor needs to be sustained,

those who know how can make and prepare the materials

the foods, drinks, and clothes

the whole crew requires.

And so on the others contribute,

the rhythm-makers, the star-seers,

the log keepers, the story singers.

Each can give what they can,

and the whole move in synergy,

if there is a trust and knowledge

of the one concerted goal.

And the more the collective knows,

the easier can each recognize imbalance,

and help show it and rectify it

before extremes arise and spread the imbalance,

and mayhap storms catch the misaligned crew unprepared.

Introspective

An example of introspective analysis:

- I don't know what to do.

- Why not?

- Because I have this problem X, and I don't know what to do about it.

- Why is X a problem?

- Because I don't like X, because X causes dissatisfaction for me.

- Why does X cause dissatisfaction for you?

- Because it doesn't let me do this thing I want to do. It doesn't let me have this thing I want, that I expect, expectation E.

- So while problem X is true, you can't have fulfil expectation E?

- Right.

- So you want to remove problem X?

- Right.

- You want to solve/resolve/dissolve problem X, so then it is possible for you to fulfil E?

- Right.

- And only by you acting, can you solve the problem X?

- Yes.

- So how do you do solve it?

- I don't know.

- Well, what can you do?

- Well, I could take action A, or B, or C.

- So you do know what you can do.

- Yes, but I don't know if any of them will actually solve problem X.

- Well, you never really know if any action will have any desired effect.

- Not always, but in this case I have very little certainty.

- Ok, but you do know what you can do. So you do know what to do.

- Yes, but I don't know how to choose between them.

- Why not?

- Because I don't know if the option I choose will work.

- What does it mean for an option to work?

- An option works if it solves my problem. And it doesn't work if it doesn't solve it.

- And what's the problem if it doesn't work?

- Then I don't fulfil my expectation E.

- But you don't fulfil your expectation E already. Why not choose any option and try it?

- Because if I choose A and it doesn't work, then maybe it means option A was the wrong choice.

- And if it's wrong, it doesn't work?

- That's right.

- How do you know that any of these options will actually work?

- I don't know if they will.

- So you don't know if there is a right option.

- No.

- Then why not just choose any option?

- Because it could be wrong.

- But maybe all of them are wrong.

- Right. But if I choose one option and it doesn't work, then maybe another option would've worked.

- But you don't know that for sure.

- No.

- And you can never know. Why not do it anyway?

- Because I'm afraid it's the wrong choice.

- And how do you experience that it was the wrong choice? How do you experience wrongness?

- Feeling disappointment, and then feeling regret.

- Are you afraid of feeling disappointment and regret?

- Yes.

- Why?

- Because it feels bad. I don't like how they feel.

- And if you choose nothing, can you also feel disappointment and regret?

- Yes, also. But maybe less, because I won't have put energy into it.

- But surely, if you choose no option, your problem X will not be solved.

- No.

- Is it better to then, to maybe feel disappointment and regret by choosing an option, and maybe having problem X solved? Or to surely feel those same feelings, and surely continue to have your problem unsolved?

- I'd rather only maybe have my problem solved.

- Then you need to do something.

- Yes.

- You'll choose an option?

- Yes.

- Why?

- Because then maybe my problem will get solved. Because maybe I can fulfil my expectation E.

- Instead of surely failing to fulfil it?

- Yes.

- Ok.

Flow

The world is Flow.

It exists as flow. It moves, creates, transforms, and destroys via flow. Each object and each relationship within it truly is made up of the combination of flows that compose it. Of its inputs and outputs. Of the connections it shares with other objects, of its natures, types, and affluences, and of which objects it flows from and into. flow of supplies, flows of matter, flows of attention, flows of energy, physical force, money, knowledge, or emotions, or ideas. Flow encompasses, permeates, and defines each of the objects and concepts in our world.

There are at least two basic types of flow in the world, in relation to how types of objects are defined. There is horizontal flow and vertical flow. Horizontal flow is that which flows between objects in the same plane, or of the same type, and vertical flow is that which flows across objects of different types, as a a waterfall or as rain.

Naturally, these definitions are subjective and not definitive or categorical. They depend on the specific types and planes defined for our purposes. But for a basic example, I will define one plane as that made out of people.

In the plane of people, there is flow of approval and of rejection between people, according to people's opinions of one another. One person's opinion of another influences both persons, and if viewed by other people around them, it influences their opinions as well. Person A's opinion will likely be imitated by those people who approve of people A, and will be probably be rejected and opposed by those who disapprove of A. Approvers of B will have their approval strengthened when seeing that A approves of B, and disapprovers of B will likely have their opinion strengthened by the disapproval of B. In both cases, they will also direct some of their approval towards the like-minded A.

The whole set of connections of opinions between people in this plane is a web, and it encompasses the whole of social approval. And in this framework, we recognize common human behaviors such as people wanting to associate with people whose approval ratings are high, and to dissociate from those whose approval ratings are low. Wanting to be friends/close with wealthy people, influential people, famous people, noteworthy people, these are all forms of the same phenomenon, as are the desire to stay away from poor people, rejected people, disabled people, or in general from people who have a generally low social rate of approval.

This framework is represented in the PageRank algorithm coded by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The recognition that value is derived from the recognition and approval of value itself, is key to the horizontal flow of value. Value can flow between objects of the same type by association and by connection, by approval, by opinion. Or it can flow between web pages via links, or through academic papers via bibliography references. As commerce, through the flow of goods and money. As heat transfer, a mere transfer of molecular energy at the macro scale. In all these cases, however, notice that value is not truly created. It is mostly transferred (with minor forces of friction) between objects of the same type. Shared, shifted, resonated at most, but it merely involves a shared or a perceived value that arises in a minority of "valuable-seeming" hubs. It is not truly created value.

Vertical flow, in contrast, can acquire and produce value in a different manner. An example of vertical flow is the production or manufacture of goods. A flow of energy from the sun, water, and elements to the plants, from through the plants onto their fruits and grains, through the care and harvest of the farmer onto raw food, through the processing, cooking, and mixing of ingredients to prepare a full meal - that flow is vertical. It traverses multiple planes of types of objects - it is converted, processed, from one type to another, with a value in mind - the production of sustenance for a person. Such a process, can be argued, actually produces value. People who want food will likely want to associate themselves with the person who can make food. In such an example, vertical flow is that which produces the key value that spurs/incentivizes horizontal flow.

Vertical flow requires energy, as it takes energy to move through the various planes, to transform an object from type to type to type. This energy may be in the form of natural elements, planning, willpower, manual labor, and knowledge, or organization. In any case, this is what can produce value in the human context, and what then spurs horizontal flow, connections between people, to occur.

Flow is the movement of this world. I see this as represented by Rhea being the equal partner of Kronos. Yes, everything moves through Time, and the manner in which it moves and changes is via Flow.

With this text I do not mean to undermine horizontal flow. It is, in fact, in the plane of humans, the very weave of our society. It has, however very often been considered as the main source of value in the world, when in fact it is only its distributor. It is at times perceived as the illusion of value lying in approval, glamour, and wealth, as it can distance the viewer from the actual herders of vertical flow.

What I mean to transmit is that the role of horizontal flow is mostly that of distribution, while that of vertical flow is one of creation/production/transformation. Both are inextricable from our world, but it is important to recognize them both and their differences, so that we may recognize when and how value is produced, and when it is merely transmitted, or when done unconsciously, leaked.