Category: postulates

Spiritual or Soular Challenges and Karmic Merit

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have been mulling over this subject on and off for a number of days now. It is surprisingly difficult to put into words nevertheless I will have a go.

I’ll start this off with a postulate.

In any given lifetime we are presented with challenges which we are required to face in order to evolve. We must endeavour to engage with these with as much willingness as we can muster and try to face them and learn therefrom. They are pivotal to our development as incarnate beings and are a requirement of/for our Souls. They are a part of the lessons we chose to try to learn for ourselves in selecting our birth.

Whether or not you agree with this postulate does not matter especially in the context which it sets up. It frames life no matter if you believe it or like it or think it is poppycock. If the postulate holds it has consequences spanning lifetimes. If you do not accept the postulate and yet it still holds it has consequences. If it is a pile of bull I made up because I was bored and it is raining outside there are fewer consequences. You are “free” to act like an arrogant arsehole should so wish.

Place your bets…

Modern life has boundaries and laws. It has social contracts and is heavily laden with social expectations. There are the itchy back game endless transactions. There are thousands of “shoulds” and “oughts”. These are to an extent culture and peer group specific. Some things are expressed in law and in general it is wise to follow these laws or you could find yourself fined or in gaol. These are “hard” and are relatively non-negotiable. The shoulds are more bendy. The requirement to behave according to a “moral” code is partially enforced by humans and peer groups. These are subject to the vagaries of time. It is no longer socially acceptable to black up for a black and white minstrels show. Morals are flexible and some consider themselves less beholden than others. But you can get cancelled and if you hang out with a famous paedophile in your Y-fronts it can change your future.

Often that which seems too good to be true, is. People like shiny things and fail to appreciate the price attached. The free lunch is a cornerstone of mythos.

The Soular challenges that I am thinking about are not required by law, nor by peer pressure , nor social compliance. Even if you might “get away with it”, by not doing it, these challenges ask that you rise up above that mentality. In listening to your Soul you have no choice but to be utterly impeccable even if that has to it a seeming cost, pecuniary, social or otherwise. The reward is karmic merit gained and a heart enlivened because you have been at your impeccable best.

Doing things when there is no pressure to do them and when nobody else sees them is not something which transactional beings tend to do. There is no apparent immediate reward. There is no “look at me” kudos to be had.

Simply an impeccable and often compassionate act is sufficient in and of itself. It is satisfactory. There is no drum roll, no heralding trumpets. No great big drama.

The acts which gain karmic merit are often to be found in overcoming selfishness, pettiness and greed. They may be invisible to others. But karma has eyes which see more than the profane. These acts are nearly always about “getting over your-self” and they engender a wider humility and understanding of the universal and not the me-personal. Most of all these acts are about attitude. If the attitude in benevolent and not seeking of personal reward, the acts have a nice hue, a rich colouration. There is a subtle perfume to them. They smell nice.

But in order to engage with these challenges one is required to overcome social fear. Often one has to stand out from the crowd in some way. One has to make some kind of an integrity based stand. Which may have a price. In most cases the barrier to doing the act has been bigged-up to gargantuan proportion. Only hindsight concludes, “what was all that fuss about?”  The mind and little-self does its best to dissuade.

Most of these challenges are to do with mind and perception is some way.

Spiritual and Soular challenges can be very subtle indeed. The opportunity is readily missed in the maelstrom of modern living.

There is no, “what is in it for me?”

This mentality of reward and even bribery of a kind is far too prevalent in our times. It does not generate karmic merit.

To do a genuine, as opposed to for show, 180 degree shift away from personal reward is not to the liking of most.

But if you want to evolve you need to change the way you think, the way you act and the way you orient towards life. Otherwise you will stay the same. It is not rocket science.

If you have been lucky enough to have a relatively easy incarnation then chances are it will have a number of subtle yet very important challenges for you to face. You gave yourself the wherewithal so to do…

You can try to run and hide from these challenges but that is not an evolutionary attitude, is it? If you are too important to face your challenges and learn from them what does that say about your attitude to learning and evolution? Maybe you are already so evolved that you are above all that…

Evolution after all is just for the plebs….

Social Discomfort – Social Anxiety Disorder

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I think it fair to suggest that social discomfort is a pillar of comedy. We all find it funny if sometimes uncomfortable.

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The more uptight, pompous and status oriented one is the more likely one is to experience social discomfort. Heaven forbid that someone do something inconsistent with their social position, something gauche, something off trend. A pleb should kneel and kotow. They must know and accept their place.

At the Babraham Institute once, one Ph.D. student wrote in the feedback for a course that I gave, that it was unprofessional for me to say that my former employers, Imperial College, were a cold efficiency employer. They were not a hugs kisses and birthday cake bunch. He felt perhaps that I was slagging them off. Though many would have been happy to be called cool {cold} and efficient, competitive and perhaps ruthless. As a young man he had a lot to learn about reality and maybe his idealism would soon be tarnished.

Psychologists have a fundamental assumption, that people like to socialise and that they SHOULD do so. It underpins much psychological diagnoses according to my non-erudite and hence inexpert eye. It is clear to me that my unwillingness to play the social game has impacted on my career advancement. One could say that socialisation is a societal pre-requisite for promotion, a needed social skill.

On the DSM-5 social anxiety scale one is asked if one avoids social contacts, extensively prepares for them and self-medicates in order to face them, the so-called Dutch courage. It suggests that one is fearful of social situations. Maybe one simply does not like them and therefore avoids them {like the plague}. It is not uncommon for people to get pissed, smoke weed and snort Charlie in social situations.

Does that make them psychologically ill and diagnosable?

I’ll postulate.

Modern psychological wisdom is prejudiced against introverts and introversion. Such behaviours are seen as faulty and in need of fixing.

As usual it is the extroverts who dominate the “air time” or soap box.

In terms of the anxiety disorder, I meet the avoidance criteria but not the fear.

Is it bad not to want to surround yourself with gobshites arseholes and knobheads? To not share a finger buffet and talk endless shit with them?

Why not avoid something that you do not enjoy?

This kind of avoiding seem pretty darned sane to me.


In general I dial back on the boffinaciousness because it causes social discomfort and nobody likes a know-it-all. Which means that you often have to wait for people to catch up. I used to self-handicap with a lot of weed, which also enhances patience in all areas apart from munchies.

In France some are seemingly embarrassed to speak poor English, where no English are embarrassed with their appalling French. It is weird. Is it about control? There is social discomfort. They do not slow down {in French} and talk to you like a moron as is common {in English} in the UK. I sense a discomfort.

I went to see the zebra at the zoo.

I’ll postulate further.

Social discomfort and the fear thereof is very limiting and causes many problems. Things that need to be broached and discussed are avoided in case of social awkwardness occurring.

Fear of loss of face {FOLOF} is almost as big as fear of missing out {FOMO}.

Even though I am very introverted I have good interpersonal skills as a part of my chameleon toolkit. Strangely the most important social skill of all is being able to listen. It puts people at ease.

Is being uncomfortable with BS a clinically diagnostic malady? This is a social discomfort but not one of awkwardness of embarrassment, simply preference

Is there a DSM-5 criteria list for the Avoidance of Bull Shit Personality Disorder?

Do we need to train people to better accept tolerate and otherwise believe bull shit?

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Messaging Assumption and Miscommunication

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Postulate.

The human ability to get entirely the wrong of the stick is close to infinite.

Herein lies the mystery of perception, bias and multiple failures in communication both as a purveyor and acceptor. People may not be aware that they are, whether consciously or not, sending messages which others are receiving and perceiving and assimilating.

I suspect that because I am largely silent and can be not expressive, people tend to imagine that I am judging and being critical. They may expect some verbal response / discussion / mutual bullshitting when talking and when none is forthcoming, they can get unnerved. The feedback mechanism is missing. They expect chit-chat. In the absence they can confer multiple meanings which simply are not there.

People can read all sorts of shit into things. They may imagine I am sending a message when I am not. People might read this blog and imagine that I am messaging them directly.

The likelihood of miscommunication in the context of different cultures and frames of refence is enhanced. People may imagine that their customs are transferable. The French attitude of laissez-faire can be interpreted as complete indifference, fence sitting and not giving a shit, disinterest. It can be read, “that person can’t be arsed, sod ’em, they are not serious. Let’s move on to someone who has a point of view or opinion.”

In trying not to impinge a different message can be received. “Waste of time.”

I’ll assume with a high confidence integral that many people have made hugely erroneous assumptions over the years as to my motivations, what I am thinking and where I am coming from. This {my} assumption is based upon my interpretations of their behaviours and could be invalid. There may be transference of their ways of thinking and prejudices onto me.

There are certain types of people who like to argue the toss and “win” arguments / debates. They like to “score” points.

If someone like this expresses a point of view and one does not counter it, remaining silent even. They can assume agreement and/or victory. The lucky recipient of opinion may disagree totally but cannot be arsed to verbalise. Agreement can be assumed and the illusion of being right /accurate taken from the non-intervention.

Many introverts cannot be bothered to do the thinking for gobby extroverts. It is not important to them nor is share of air time or limelight kudos. The introverts can be disinterested in interaction.

I am reasonably confident that I have by accident, thrown a spanner into the works, with my interactions with the French medical profession. I have not behaved in the manner to which they are accustomed and they have not had the skill or experience to handle it. There has a result been extensive miscommunication and they have made assumptions about what might transpire, what I understand and how I perceive them. It can be very hierarchical. Most medics have not interacted as I have. My need to chat and discuss is vanishingly small when viewed from the angle of French customs. If I want to find out my first port of call is research which I will do thoroughly.

Once miscommunication has gone beyond a certain point the situation becomes very difficult if not impossible to salvage. This is because face and pride have now come into play and dominate, often unilaterally, subsequent interpersonal dynamics.

Postulate

The human notion of face and implicit loss of face is one of the most expensive bits of human folly in terms of relationships and loss of human life.

Face in this context is illusion, a socio-political construct which sells gossip magazines, tabloid newspapers and underpins the scripts of television soap operas.

“Face” lies aback assumption and miscommunication. People get offended, an emotional overaction, if things do not comply with assumption and social expectation. People can assume that the {their} worldview is common and that everyone holds similar prejudices to them.

Once people have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick the tendency is to grasp this ever more tightly. Mis-perceptions and mis-assimilations of reality are more concrete and fixed than one might imagine.

There is no better demonstration of miscommunication than the game of “Chinese whispers”. Yet surprisingly, given this knowledge, the faceless and ubiquitous “they” are somehow the font of all truth and knowledge….

There is not a lot you can do or say which is contrary to the omniscience of “they”. No matter how well you communicate it, it cannot be perceived accurately because “they” dogmatically forbid it.

The wrong end of the stick beckons with the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole…

The Proliferation of Syndromes and Deterioration in Mental Health

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In my life time I have seen a marked proliferation in so-called mental health or developmental syndromes and those diagnosed therewith. They are quite trendy. Unsurprisingly the number of people qualified to make said diagnoses has also increased. There is a demand for diagnoses hence a growing supply of those qualified to diagnose. There is money in it, several grand per diagnosis.

Is this a real phenomenon or a market created one?

I heard the other day that some people were giving fluoxetine to pet dogs, FFS.

Anything which strays from the peer defined normal is at risk of being labelled a syndrome conferring fame upon the person who “discovered” it.

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We can lock up the weird and abnormal. Give ‘em loads of drugs and excuse them from the workplace in case they disturb the humdrum predictable mediocrity of petty power struggles and cock waving. Give them some unemployment benefits and teach them how to weave baskets and package wellness products that do not work but smell nice.

Is ADHD real or are people just bored fucking rigid with the way school is taught, controlled and examined?

Discuss…

I have tutored quite a few people diagnosed with ADHD, 1:1. I had no problem keeping their sharp attention for an hour or more. One just has to invent and teach better, to stimulate instead or bore.

I have a hypothesis. It says:

The apparent mental health crisis is simply tens of thousands of minds rejecting the way “normal” society is and the societal compulsion to conform therewith. It is not a mental health crisis rather an increasing failure of society.

It is not going to get better. There are no fairy godmothers.

The average, normal fearfully compliant people, don’t like this.

What percentage of people need to be treated for mental health “problems” until it is the so-called normal who are diagnosed as having a syndrome?

The human mundane-obligatory-compliance syndrome, FOMO for short. There are hordes who already suffer and can be diagnosed therewith. It is a social media pandemic.

There will come a time when those with so-called mental health problems are the majority. This will flip the entire notion of sanity, whether polite or otherwise.

I’ll wager that if I had to sit “A” level physics and chemistry as they are currently examined in the UK, I would not do well. I would get frustrated at the intransigence and tick box, mark by template mentality. I would not be happy having to adhere to verbatim parrot dogma.

I have an honours degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in chemical physics.

I would probably join the Royal Marines instead of going to university if I was 18 now. I would certainly not have written ~60 science based publications.

People don’t like to face reality; they tend to prefer increasing the number of exceptions and justifying new extensions to rules and theories. They tend to keep ideas and notions, long after their sell by and use by dates.

If it does not fit, make it a syndrome, a special case, an exception. Write several theses about why it errs or strays from the norm. Refer to multiple other authors who are doing the same things. Make a career out of it…

But whatever you do, you must not question the societal norms… that is heresy.

Evil and Exorcism – Quantum Exorcism

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Last night we watched the film “The Rite” starring Anthony Hopkins {even though he was not the main character}. In the film a young man, reluctantly training to be a priest, encounters the phenomenon of exorcism via the seasoned exorcist Hopkins, and the trainee ultimately performs his first full blown exorcism of a demon which identifies as Baal which had possessed Hopkins. There was not much in the way of special effects and it was not a CGI tour de force. I suspect with Hopkins it could be done as a radio play, like Under Milkwood. The human mind could conjure some scary stuff, in the wee small hours. His voice is evocative.

Needless to say, there were a few noises in the {our} house here during and after the film. These could have been demons but were most probably the stray cats. Notably stray cats also featured in the film.

The crux of the film, in the denouement, is that the trainee exorcist priest accepts the reality of the devil the demon which by “quantum entanglement” proves the reality of God. One implies the other. Once the protagonist has acknowledged both he can call, now in full faith, on God to evict the demonic tenant.

Developing this tenuous theme further, good and evil exist as a quantum superposition state in each of us. It is by our actions that we resolve the superposition state and are then either mostly evil in orientation or mostly good. Schrödinger’s cat is either a bad feline or a good one. We look, we test, we observe and the good/evil wavefunction is resolved.

A residue of good exists {perhaps} in an evil person and vice versa. Nobody exists as a 100% pure good eigenstate; nobody is 100% impure evil. The coefficients can very over time.

If we do not believe in good or evil the wavefunction {and the cat} do not and cannot exist.

I’ll postulate that the best trick evil has ever managed is to render the entire subject or evil largely taboo in modern society. Few say that some of the alleged content of “Only Fans” is wicked or evil. We could say humanity has been hoodwinked to lower our standards.

Evil has done a “good job”, a phrase that certain American political figures are keen on.

The film suggests that modern psychological intervention may help those “possessed”. It does not mention some of the barbaric horrors which the psyche-profession has enacted over the decades and centuries upon the so-called insane. Bad things have been done in the name of “science” as well as in the name of “religion”.

This crux of accepting, acknowledging without drama perhaps, the notion and influence of evil is a game changer. Whilst one imagines that evil does not exist, one is free to indulge in self-centred and gratuitous pass times. The norm is never questioned and the evil “demon-adviser” on the shoulder says “go on, everyone is doing it. You would not want to miss out, would you?”

A little more clarity, where one sniffs the sulphur in the air and notes, if only as a hypothesis, evil; can change orientation. This, if only for as long as it takes to succumb to temptation. Noting might be seen as a first step in acknowledging the influence of evil.

The film suggests that the “demon” “evil” had been stalking the trainee from his young days as a child, subsequent to the death of his mother in the Adams Family profession of undertaker.

Temptation need not be entirely salacious. It can be as simple as taking a short cut, cutting corners, being economical with the truth, bullshitting. The notion of getting something for free or at a reduced price is a cornerstone of temptation. Talking bad of, belittling, slagging off; are not exactly luminous beacons.

I’ll wager that no human being alive has never succumbed to some temptation or other.

One could say that some, in lust for power, turn to the dark side. The coefficient of the evil wavefunction is higher. The superposition is skewed to darkness and not light.

If one has largely succumbed to evil then there is little hope of redemption by self. The habit has become entrenched. One needs external assistance to exorcise the evil or re-balance the quantum superposition.

Hence one needs a Hermit-like quantum operator {exorcist} to act upon the evil-good superposition state to change it from one state to another. To lift it up from the low point and to address the uncertainty as to whether good and evil are actually real world things. To rebalance.

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What is your g/e probability?

Are you largely Good or largely Evil?

Are these two variables coupled?

If we are certain in one what limit does that put on the other?

Are you sure?

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Something Which You Later Rely On

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Postulate: There is a growing tendency for a whole bunch of people to have a profound sense of entitlement and to take very many things and people for granted. They somehow deserve this inexhaustible bounty, it is their due to which they are entitled, owed even.

In the UK the police have powers of arrest and search subsequent to cursory inquiry. These powers for stop and search were misused historically. As a white now 60 year old male with a “posh” voice and good manners, it is unlikely that I will have any run ins with UK police, were I there in that country. I would not hear the following.

“You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

I have, when younger, had interactions with the police, several of which might have resulted in at least a night in the cells maybe more. Because I was civil, even when well off my face, I was not detained nor beaten up. I could say that I was lucky. My mother used to say that I can be charming. I am white, not brown, I wear no religious trappings, and my face is not covered in tattoos. Although I did not rely on it, my relative privilege helped me out. Here in France, I could not rely upon the command of English and UK based savoir faire.

The gendarmerie make checks here from time to time on cars. On one such occasion we were flagged over in our right hand drive Peugeot which the wife was driving. The officer came to my window, the normal one for a driver here. I showed him my carte de Sejour and French driver’s license and we were on our way. Odd.

I am more wary of the police here, because they are armed and there is a communication barrier. They do shoot “criminals” or “terrorists” here promptly and there is little public outcry. I have found that the French do not respond well to being challenged or disagreed with. They tend to react, then think. So, I would be ultra-cautious.

I am conscious as an immigrant that my right to remain is conditional and could be easily revoked. Consequently, we are very comprehensive in meeting our legal and tax obligations. We keep “kilograms” of justificatory paperwork, a marathon paper trail. Our right to stay card expires a year today. We have heard nothing about how to renew our “right” which was granted under the “Brexit” withdrawal “agreement”. A shift to the political right here could change everything. We could get booted out.

So, we have booked a short trip to Jersey to feel how we might feel to be surrounded by English speakers for the first time in six years. I am not relying on a renewal. We have a loose contingency which involves a move to a cheap part of the UK. Given our health challenges neither of us take health for granted because we do not have good health.

At the moment Trump is alienating people around the globe, feeling entitled so to do and perhaps taking for granted that others will continue to suck up. He is not a purveyor of goodwill. There may be irreparable damage to relationships ongoing. I am not sure he has thought things through fully, if he has, he does not care. I think it likely he is being reactionary and still resentful of anything Biden related. He may estimate that his “allies” in terms of nations, will always be there.

He is exhibiting a sense of entitlement. He perhaps thinks that the USA is entitled to Panama, Greenland and Gaza sur mer. The USA is entitled to preferential trade terms even though their livestock are riddled with anti-biotics.

In this he is mirroring much for humanity at large. He mirrors a ME-first orientation, expressed as US or USA first.

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In the past I know that I have helped people and been of use to them. I did this in a non-transactional manner, for free if you like. There was no game of itchy backs. I’ll speculate that I have been taken for granted on numerous occasions. I don’t feel upset by this but I have noted a marked surprise when I have disappeared and could no longer be relied upon. The grant, if you like, has been withdrawn. People can be complacent that the things or people they take for granted will always be there.

The universe is impermanent and people can fail to appreciate the loan of gift which it temporarily confers.

I am aware of a supposition here in that the medics are working to a French life expectancy of ~83-4 for me, whereas my gut feel is that I will in no way last that long. If I say this out loud it might get a strange “reassuring” response / reaction. This life expectancy is to an extent taken for granted and people even plan to it.

People can think that they are owed a long life, that they have all the time in the world. However, the sands in the egg timer do run out. When someone dies “young” the newspapers report it as a “tragedy” that they were “taken from us” prematurely. They wail and wring hands. Death is an entirely natural process. There is no tragedy. Many die with regrets about things which they could or might have done but failed to do, perhaps because they lacked courage. They might live in the land of “if only”.

People above all take alloted time for granted and as a consequence they squander and waste it. One day tomorrow never comes. It is then too late.

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Do you think that the universe owes you?

Are you getting all that you are entitled to and deserve?

Are you hard-done by?

Is life not fair?

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