Thoughts on the mind, magic, writing, language, art, philosophy, psychology, culture and just about everything I suppose. Or, who am I kidding, this is probably some kind of fiction too. Some longer and more coherent thoughts, some short random ideas.
Meaningfulness is a human concept. Like tealfulness. If you like the color teal, which is kind of rare in nature and society, you would probably complain: “My life isn’t tealful enough.” But it’s just another metric – irrelevant to nature. You have to put the teal in yourself.
Sometimes I see people on social media claim that: “The civilization is too far gone, let it crash and burn so we can build a new and better society.” Though I understand it stems from disillusion and powerlessness, I think this is a really dangerous sentiment.
Because, unless there is a total annihilation of the human race, there will not be a new society. It will still be the same old one, but worse than ever, broken by climate disasters, famine, plagues and ruthless exploitation by the few with power.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe that ruining all the progress mankind has made so far would somehow be beneficial, or even necessary, to build a better society. We would lose all the good things. And the bad things would still be there.
To most people – yes. even white westerners – this will be living hell. Except for a small, powerful elite, of course. The very rich are already investing in bunkers. Trying to figure out how to keep their guards loyal when money becomes useless. How to stay in power.
Thinking that “It’s easier to start over” is a fallacy that somehow manages to ignore the unfathomable tragedies and countless deaths an actual system collapse would cause. This idea is conditioning people into believing that there is nothing we can do.
We do not live in a perfect world. There is certainly much work to be done, many things to improve. But there is actually less suffering among humans than ever before. And we already have the means and knowledge to make a better world today. Why not build on that?
We need to work with what we got. Starting over is not an option.
Freedom of knife is like freedom of speech. Just as you’re free to speak your mind, you’re also free to use a knife. You can cut bread, paper, woodcarvings and do many other useful things with a knife.
Both freedoms, knife and speech, are however limited. To keep us from hurting each other it’s illegal to stab people. No one (except surgeons) are allowed to use knives on other humans. Fair enough.
There are also some uses of knives that are very inappropriate even if they are not restricted. If you pretend to stab a friend, they might flinch but then you both laugh. All good, it’s a part of your banter.
But you if pretend to stab someone who is living with a death threat or someone who has actually been attacked and hurt, they will be very scared and suffer for real, even if you intended it as a joke.
“People are too sensitive, you can’t terrify anyone anymore!”
If this is how you defend yourself and continue to complain about how your freedom of knife is getting restricted… Well, then I’m afraid you’re most likely very stupid or a psychopath. Either way, leave the knife at home.
There is also a possible side-effect to the pretend. Some dimwitted people might confuse fake stabbings with failed real stabbings and start to believe that stabbings are okay since they see them everywhere.
Knives, like words, are lethal. Don’t stab, make a sandwich.
Once a story is published the author no longer holds authority over it. Any further influence from the writer severed. Any intention behind the choice of words irrelevant. The story becomes it’s own entity. The sole authority of what’s real and what’s our interpretations.
I’m not comfortable with labels. I know they’re a convenient shortcut in lieu of a longer explanation. But they tend to be so god damn sticky. Even when you peel off the paper there often remain an unpleasant patch of glue that you’ll never get rid of. Both metaphorically and actually.
Every thing has, among other characteristics like mass, the inherent property of Additional Value: 1.
Application: If you add a thing to a group of things, the number of grouped things rise by the AV of the new thing, which is 1.
This profound philosophical insight I bestow upon mankind today.
I don’t claim to be a great writer, but I write stories I would like to read myself, explore topics and themes that interest and inspire me, write in a style that suits my sensibilities and I always perceive the adroit subtleties woven into the text. I am my own biggest fan.
Again, I’m not bragging. I always think my writing could be better and I constantly strive to improve. My point here is to acknowledge that I’m happy with my writing. A hard but important act for me and any other writer struggling with anxiety and rejection sensitivity.
There is a concept in many stories that I’ve been meaning to write an elaborate essay about. But since I never seem get around to it I’ll just write something shorter and less nuanced here and now.
The Chosen One.
I don’t like the concept. Yes, I know it’s a classic archetype, and it’s used in many good stories, though more or less successful. But eventually it gets boring with millions of chosen ones loitering our collective fiction doing heroes journeys ad nauseam.
There is one main thing that bothers me. It’s the notion that The Chosen One, one single person and no one else, can fix this huge problem that society is facing. It is the implication that some persons possess a character superior to everyone else.
Often heritage is invoked. Which makes it even worse by saying that some genes are more noble than others. But however they are chosen, this superiority makes them better at fighting, magic or whatever than those that has already been doing it for years.
I understand that the concept appeals to feelings we all have: “I’m such an ordinary person – I wish I was a secret princess with magical powers about to manifest so I can escape this boring life.” Nothing wrong with delusions of grandeur.
But when stories repeatedly promote salvation from one single person, be it chosen ones, kings, queens or eccentric billionaires, they are fostering the harmful belief that if you’re just “chosen” enough you can and should deal with any problem on your own.
No one is self-sufficient. People are most likely to succeed with the impossible when they work together and help each other. That is our strength as humans. That is the real triumph we need in the final act of the story.
Therefore we need to leave The Chosen One behind and move on by making new stories that instead inspire whole groups of people to go on collective hero’s journeys and help each other.
Instead of writing any of the novels, short-stories or essays I have planned I spend my entire forenoon sipping on coffee and staring unfocused at the screen while just thinking. I think that thinking is my favorite activity. Maybe I should just stop publishing my writing and just sit and think about my stories. Would avoid a lot of hassle.
The contents of my bookshelf is so good that if it somehow came alive as a person I would totally let it fuck me senseless.
The long-awaited summer holiday – but then you mostly lie staring at the ceiling, hoping to fall asleep to avoid the tears of hopelessness. You turn down social gatherings out of weariness, consume unhealthy foods and swell up like a sugar donuts in a deep fryer.
Nothing is quite real, the body hangs loose as you drag yourself off to shop for food, while the self clings to a tunnel opening that leads into fiction’s seemingly comfortable embrace. There you float in relative safety, forgotten by yourself, for a while, then it begins to fade.
Then you long to taste someone happy, so that you can be happy yourself. But you wish in vain. Actually you just lie there sweating on the damp sheets, actually you just lie there all sticky and staring at the ceiling before you finally sink back into half-sleep.
The vipers wrap themselves ever tighter around the heart.
If the thoughts of most people are like dolphins jumping up, one by one, from the blue water of the pool, eating a fish handed to them by their handler, then my mind is a dark and turbulent sea filled with lots of circling shark fins and bites you never see coming.
I am two persons. One is thinking, one is talking. None control the other. So you should know that what I say out loud is only an approximate interpretation of what I’m thinking – not what I’m actually thinking.
My thinking is me; my talking is me. But my writing? Well, my writing is not me – it’s some kind of demonic possession.
Nothing is certain to me at the moment. Who I am, what I do, what I am writing, where I am living, where I am going. I want to do something completely different. I want to move somewhere else. I want to delete every social media because no one on them knows me anymore and I got my actual friends in other channels. I wanna do wage-slavery as little as possible, live a simple and inexpensive life and spend my time on more important things. I’m not sure how I will manage this yet. I need a vision. I need to see beyond the web of illusion that has caught the modern world, that has trapped me here, tired and disillusioned, without knowing what I really want. But change is coming. A seed is planted. Nothing is certain. Everything is permitted.
I circle and return to things I once left.
I repeat a cycle through interests and thoughts.
But the circles gets wider and wider to contain
all the new knowledge and understanding
that I gather every lap around.
My life moves in spirals.
If you look at modern history and politics the last 70 years it becomes more and more plausible that it’s all a consequence of multiple and increasingly complicated time-travel events. They probably started as misguided attempts to correct an initial mistake in altering the original timeline, but then the error cascade escalated beyond control and the time-travelers panicked when their plot got too messy to understand. Either that or we have a world in disarray because of incompetence and chance.
Having explored my psyche extensively for the past few years I’m now turning to the outside. My carefully constructed model of reality needs to acknowledge that reality is indeed real.
The ego is a construction that grows more and more rigid with time until it becomes a prison that stops you from exploring and growing. Like a house full of valuables that you can never leave because you have to guard it against thieves.
Ego death, in a magical sense, is a transformation, a temporarily transcendence from self-centeredness, a way of cleaning out bad habits, misconceptions, etc, that bog down the mind, before the inevitable resurrection as a (hopefully) better person follows.
With magic I change reality. But it’s my model of reality that changes, and maybe yours, not actual reality itself. Actual reality may change though, through actions we make as a result of our changes in those inner models of reality.
2020 in review
I got my short-story The DreamCube Thread published in the British anthology Vast. I wrote, recorded and animated Ellinor’s Theme Song. I also published some things under another name, but I’ll ramble about that elsewhere.
On the downside I descended deeper into fatigue and anxiety again (unrelated to Covid-19). All personal development and my work with magic kind of stopped as I lost all energy. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. It felt like I took several steps back. From everything.
2021 in preview
I wanna get a grip of myself again. To feel like a person again. To understand what my goals are. What I want to do. Who I will be. To move forward again. So this year the focus will be on my mental and physical health. This time maybe with the help of professional health care. We’ll see how this turns out.
But while that massive work in progress develops I will probably do more of what I hoped to do last year: write some shorter stories, make some music and hopefully get back into doing more visual art. Whatever emerges will be posted here or maybe my Twitter.
Be seeing you.