- Tiny Min[d]ed Thoughts:
Had to retire this:
Bēstiārius in the pursuit of Arete
6/4/24 Progress part 1
Agnosticism and secularism seem to be in the same vein and have a relationship. I cannot yet tell which one is the parent in the relationship. More research will give a definitive answer.
From what I can tell, so far, agnosticism was first a general zeitgeist that gained significant traction as an alternative or mid line to atheism in the 18th century. Thereby, secularism was a medium by which people who were not completely opposed to religion; or as an object of speech use by people who merely wanted to study things not within the purely religious realm could express in order to explore the physical subjects that are not of the strictly religious nature. Well at least that seems to be the origin of how secularism was originally used being more worldly and material in nature but not necessary its own belief system. Or a once in a hundred year event, which lends itself to explaining why its an artificial religion.
But I’ll have to read at least half a dozen books, and dozens or so articles, before I am comfortable with asserting this relationship as undeniably being so.
5/30/24 NEW AGE, NEW LENS
I have been MIA. I have some pretty good excuses, like graduating, and moving a couple hundred miles in order to study for a state exam. But excuses are like assholes everyone has one.
On the bright side I have been reading a lot, I have outlined some ideas that plug into some of the topics I have previously written about and I have began to formulate new approaches for dealing with some the ideological issues, conflation that I observe.
But before I begin to publish anything new I need to rewrite, and edit many if not all of my old articles. When I first put them down, I was exercising my mind to see if I could maintain writing week by week on topics I found interesting, all while attending school full time and working part-time. This endeavor ultimately sacrificed quantity over quality. However, now is the time to invert this trend, before I journey through and to the new venues that I am compelled to express.
Dimensions incoming
11/14/23 Peace is meaningless when you have less to gain by maintaining it…
“nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it”
-John Jay
11/13 Weakday Warrior
Keep habits during the week and breaking them on the weekend makes one a . . . .
11/12 One’s Habits Shape Their WORLD
The smartest people I have ever met were not only gifted to see beyond what is in front of them, but also have had habits that they are committed to effectuating every single day. In essence combining smarts, knowledge, and wisdom into their daily practices.
Even the people who are missing the natural smarts, can harness knowledge and wisdom to be well above average. I have met people who are technically dumb, or slow, but their habits make them so proficient that they are experts due to the repeated habituation of working out that skill. Thereby, the wisdom of their repeated actions, plugged into the knowledge that is was tougher for them to obtain levels them out and over time advances them further then most who are by all metrics smarter. “hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard”.
I have met people who are smarter and more knowledgeable then myself. But since they have no habits, or real world experience, they live in the abstract, having seen the crucible yet never forged anything of teleological value through it. These are the great-minds who never have children.
11/11 The Genius of Holidays
The tendency that humans have towards forgetting the event, thoughts, pains and confrontations that formed their way of engaging with the world is plain to see. The crazy and genius idea of creating or attributing days of remembrance for these happenings is blessed. The longer a people group has customs and traditions of creating such a DATE (holiday), the wiser it will be over time.
11/10 the Paradox of Consumption
in order to learn something one must immerse themselves in the topic. However, most information is now propagated in bite-sized (fun-sized) bits.
The more accessible information is the easier it is to forget. The tougher it is to access the information the easier it is to remember. Thus, the immersion in the current mediums online, while providing a larger breadth of types information that is spread out and easier for individuals to consume, has by its very nature made people more ignorant since we have more micro-points that we can cite but have lost the axiom and big picture to extrapolate those points to. Lest now almost all forms of news provide the axiom which they deem in based to judge the news off of, without the honesty of relating the source which they have based the “facts” off of.
In a legal Complaint (the document which a lawsuit is based on and filed to the appropriate court) there always a statement of facts. But those state of facts are colored with the intent of the filer of that document. How one represents facts is in it of itself are an argument. As any litigator is a priori aware of.
Social media is only healthy in small doses. Even those doses should be thought of as being useful on a prescription (DR’s note) basis.
11/9 Iconography
Formal analysis, studying of the motifs. The motif is an element of the image, a recurring subject or image repeating a pattern. The pattern is a composition created using a reoccurring motif. (step back before any abstraction)… circular definition, perhaps.
Motif with a theme. Figure out the meaning, it must overstep to the realm of religion, fantasy, pop culture, or literary narrative –> sacred.
Symptomatic of the times –> capturing the zeitgeist (kinda)
Remove the lens of presentism, if you can.
Functionalism? TBD
11/8 I v. G
Innocence versus Guilty. The (false) dichotomy set up by all systems of justice. Human justice will never be perfect.
11/7 Ratiocination
You let the representation of yourself die, not you, that is why we think.
man is so fond of systems and abstract deduction, that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally. he is ready to deny what he can see and hear just to justify his logic.
you come up against a wall, you want to give up and curse the wall but there is no one to actually be mad at. So you want to how to get through it…
happiness is in the Journey, progressing towards an aim makes us happy. w/o a noble aim, one has nothing but shallow and trivial pleasures and they don’t provide sustenance, since one will not be able to stand the pain of life without it meaning something important.
11/6
Procrastination, the timeless adversary that we often treat as a dear friend.
“Never attribute to conspiracy what is more easily explained by incentives and incompetence.”
11/5 I wish I could remember who wrote this:
Now, let’s think about a different scenario. Let’s talk about someone you do trust. Say this person is someone who you spend a lot of time with, maybe you talk to them every night. They make you laugh and entertain you. But every now then, they bring up things that aren’t funny. Remember, you trust them, something which inspires more trust, particularly when you enter into conversations you know little about, so you listen. They start talking about a recent tragedy. You listen more. They start asking you questions and providing answers you agree with, that we all would agree with. They get you saying, “Yes”. It’s sales trick, but it works. Then they start getting emotional and weepy at the pain they feel about the subject. This triggers the sympathetic response, primarily in those high in the “care” foundation. Then they start making you afraid, not because of what they will do, but because of what others will do. It can happen to any of us. Then the message shifts to one of responsibility. They explain exactly who is responsible and make it clear with a great deal of evidence about who is to blame and why. They layer in lots of evidence that any common sense person would agree with. Now you aren’t sad and you aren’t afraid. You’re angry. Nevermind that your brain stopped working the way you thought it did about three minutes ago. You are no longer thinking rationally as your amygdala is in control. Remember that the amygdala cares about survival and anger is good at survival. Not so good at nuance or critical analysis, but great at overcoming fear. Now your lizard brain is what is writing your brain’s autonomic responses to this stimulus and all follow on conversations are going to be shaped by the deception taking place right now. Thanks to this conversation, you will never, ever trust anything someone who might be one of those others has to say again. This matters the next day, when people start talking about all the things he said, and how most of it was inaccurate, half truths, or intentional lies. But you don’t believe them because they’re bad people, terrible people, and they have blood on their hands because they are personally responsible for what happened. There’s actually a term for this. It’s called “brain hijacking” and it works very, very well.
10/31 Ritual
Some actions, when completed or participated in, become a form of worship without requiring any additional effort beyond the act itself. These actions often encompass celebrations, traditions, or annual events that involve specific clothing, cuisine, dance, music, or other symbolic elements that represent the essence of the occasion. Although these actions may appear innocuous, they hold a profound significance as expressions of worship. Granting power to an idea that one is oblivious to is a contemporary manifestation of a Liturgy.
10/30 PAGANS
Pagans dance, pagan prance, They are all looking for the lance. Yet what they seek seems out of sight, Lost in shadows, beyond the light. In every ritual, every stance, They hope to catch a fleeting glance. But the lance, with power divine, Evades their grasp, eludes their line. Mysteries old, secrets kept tight, Challenge them every moonlit night. Yet still they dance, still they yearn, For the lance's touch, for its return. Though it might seem a futile quest, In their hearts, they never rest. For sometimes the journey, the endless dance, Holds more meaning than the lance.
10/25 Liberalism is a Cruel Mistress
Recently many people who call themselves liberals’ have gotten the wool pulled from over their eyes. These people now realize that the persons who they thought were their friends, allies, or comrades are nothing more than ideologues. Funny enough there is no reflection that all of Liberalism is an ideologue. Liberalism is not founded in empiricism, facts, logic or divinity. Liberalism is the vague feeling that things should be more loose and relaxed when it comes to morals, or other standards by which society should orient itself. Thus, when people who have diminished, ever-changing or vaguely defined moral backbones find something that is near and dear to their hearts. They expect the Liberal Apparatus to follow along since the other items that were accepted as part of the agenda were fought for in solidarity. But the woman(Liberalism) they once thought was a pure maiden is really a prostitute that will sell the popularity of current morality (sometimes articulated as ethics) and its bounds to the highest seller. . . So to those who are caught up in the middle between the line of Liberalism and Traditionalism. Now is the time to make that choice and be faithful to that choice or pay the consequence of an identity crisis at the behest of civil, and political commotions which would appear to be the latest time one ought to have said internal battle.
10/24 JUST write IT
Sometimes I feel like writing, sometimes I don’t and other times I feel the compulsion to write.
10/23 Judaism Vs. Zionism
Although often conflated they are not the same. Both critics and advocates of Zionism conflate it with Judaism. Both sides are playing a dangerous game by acting as if Judaism and Zionism are not distinctly different and separable.
8/29 Responsibility Vs. Freedom
Responsibility without freedom is oppression; freedom without responsibility is extortion (the freedom to do what one wants while not being liable for the harmful consequences).
5/25 (my) Turbulence, MRS. S (was) Tremendous.
I recently received the news that the lady, who was extremely influential to me in my youth and probably the main reason I didn’t get expelled from middle and elementary school, passed away.
Lets call her Mrs. S.
She was an extremely kind and thoughtful lady. These are three of my main formative memories of her.
She was the first person that I ever seen doodle. She would usually doodle flowers or things like that. I thank her for that since doodles helped me through some really tough, and boring classes.
The second memory points to her sense of humor. She had a thick and heavy New York accent. As a child, I thought she spoke or said certain words strangely, and I would often mimic her accent. One day I decided to write down all the words that she used to say that made her accent more evident. I showed her the list, she laughed, had it laminated and hung it on her office wall.
Her act of not being insulted or taking it in a bad way showed me so much about how it goes a long way to show appreciation for people who noticing things. Was the lamination a bit over the top perhaps, but to me it is still hilarious and a sentimental memory that taught me the value of appreciating people’s differences.
The third memory was that she helped me feel like I was a part of something. Mrs. S was unofficially the Guidance Counsel at my school. I do not remember if I was disruptive or just did not like being in some classes, but either way I would find my way to her office. I did not feel like I was in trouble when I was in there. This makes the memories hard to place, since I cannot recall if I have always felt that way or reedited my memories as such.
Many times, I would just sit in her Office because I did not want to be in class. Sometimes she would talk to me, trying to get me to verbalize myself, but I really had nothing to say, and other times she would do her work while I sat there in silence just staring at the wall. I liked looking at the walls, they’re plain, amorphous, yet have so many details that no one else sees, so they are a canvas for the imagination.
The school I went to was small, so beyond her unofficial Counselor duties, she had other duties. One of the duties was being the editor for a book the school was publishing. The book was a composition of short stories about an affluent figure in the community. Families would submit their personal or familial stories relating to this figure. But since most of these families had broken English or mainly wrote in other languages. The stories would come in with horrendous grammar.
So part of Mrs. S’s job was to edit them before publication. Since I was basically in her office several times a week anyways. She would let me help her fix the grammar of the stories. We would sit there and read them aloud and see if they flowed correctly or sounded grammatically broken, then we’d restructure them appropriately or leave them be. This happened about an hour or two a day for a 3-month period, recurring annually over three years. I got assistant editor “credits” for 6th through 8th grade, but that is not the point.
I had something that I enjoyed doing, that was bigger than myself, added value to the community and gave me a sense of helping out my community. This will always be something I reflect upon and am thankful for.
May Mrs. S rest in peace and her memory bring nothing but joy and improvement to the world. DBE.
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5/23 THREE MINUTE THOUGHT’S
To master any skill is to stroll on the edge of insanity:
One has to crush their conception of a processes along with the identity that one created based on one’s believed knowledge and rebuild the process from a belief in different fundamental building blocks in the form of habits that produce the best results at the highest rate of return. All while battling the remnants of the crushed conception that doesn’t want to fade away.
But these habits have to be more than just “oh this is something I do with my free time” or more than what one unconsciously acts out. These are habits that have to be analyzed at the chasm of every subsection that can be noticed.
With enough practice the novelty of a subsection has its own intricacies and processes to it. At a point, while immersed in a subsection time dilates itself within the activation of a practiced function.
Imagine doing this with dozens of sections with different segments of subsections. It can be madness to constantly be checking if the manner in which it is being completed is correct.
Is an error due to the new manner of achieving the goal of the fragmented function or is the form by which the mechanism is being carried out not yet perfected?
(within the context of the purpose for this improvement)
Each aspect must be carried out to a point beyond habit so that it is second nature. Now there are now subconscious subsets, substructures mentally mapped out, of how things can be approached and the elements of what one is dealing with eliminates some subsets while highlighting others as potentialities.
Remembering why a certain method is better, can slow one down. Yet one does not want to make a mistake but then your efficiency is interrupted. TRADE-OFFS.
Ultimately, one must trust their intuition for certain periods and then analyze afterwards or schedule self-reflective performance reviews to check in on the way the systems have been delegating duties and the efficiency of such allocations.
But then again this just could be autopilot.
Or integration.
The Wall 