Tag: Face

What is Safe to Ignore?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

The ongoing foray into medical things has thrown up a few things which may or may not be safe to ignore. As a part of the ongoing saga I am going to have a full cardiovascular MOT or road worthiness test. The presence of excess iron has many knock on implications and I have already been prescribed one medication which is no longer recommended.

You can call me rusty.

It is a long old haul and the garden is suffering a bit from lack of attention.

It seems so far that the Jury has decided that I don’t have five of the genetic mutations which I have tested for. I am going to discuss these further, a little. My status as a mutant has not yet been confirmed.

Traditional western medicine is based upon symptoms. By the time symptoms are apparent disease has arrived. More recently tests are done with a mind to early prophylaxis where possible. What may be, is clear in some case and less so in others. The UK mass newspapers are full of misdiagnosis horror stories.

“I went to see multiple GPs. They sent me home with a box of Rennie’s. Later in A&E after I tripped up on the way home from the pub, they found a basketball size alien tumour of extraplanetary origin growing in my kidney. I have two and half weeks to live!”

These cases are rare and anomalous. The tendency is to discount and not pay sufficient attention to things which do not fit your story, your view of how things might be.

“It is impossible to have extra planetary tumours growing in the kidneys. They are usually found in the spleen!! Everyone knows this! DOH.”

People can be very dismissive about things which later turn out to be highly important. They ignore things which are not safe to ignore.

I like to offer people options. The easiest option is that I am an eccentric borderline nut-job burn out. I suspect that as an explanation this would find purchase in the minds of many. It is a pigeonhole into which I can be fitted easily. I can then be ignored. I may be briefly entertained but never taken seriously. To develop this a little further. If one is enamoured with intrigue, one could say that whacko-nut-job-eccentric is my cover.

With a high degree of certainty one can predict answers to certain questions. This is because denial is a Pavlovian response in some. I have asked a number of people if they feel they have unresolved karma with me. To date no-body has answered that question. Nobody has tried. They have ignored it and let it drop. It is easy to discard and discount. On my part it has been a genuine and well-intended question very largely for their benefit. But of course people know best and are unwilling to do the work needed to answer a question of moderate depth and wide implication. People want to preserve face above all else. FOLOF, fear of loss of face.

Is such a question safe to ignore?

In the “normal” world and within its confines and rules, yes. But this is a world and philosophy bridging question and the limited “normal” context loses its imagined wide applicability. Ignoring such a question ignores and devalues a way of being held by hundreds of millions of people.

A lot of people think small details can be ignored. A prime minister preaching about lock down may deem it his God-given right to party. Ignoring, conveniently, the detail which he said that we didn’t ought. A small detail ignored can come back to bite you on the bum with rabid and perhaps gangrenous teeth.

“The law was not broken in its strictest and most convenient {for us} interpretation.”

Obsessing about detail can be very tiring. So knowing what is and is not important makes life easier. We all make choices and assign priorities whether consciously or by default.

People may argue the toss when it is very unwise so to do. The toss once argued for cannot be u-turned always. You may have won the toss but you can be up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle. The toss will not keep you warm in a nuclear winter.

My own opinion is that it is not safe to ignore your dreams. Experimental evidence has suggested this to me. This morning’s dream had someone I once knew trying to manipulate a situation, to find some kind of pretext. It was suggested that some kind of trap is in preparation. It revolves around the number of conspiracy three, three people. In every conspiracy there has to be at least three. Without being paranoid I am opening myself up to the dream both at night and during the day to see what, if anything, the dreaming has to add to this morning’s dream.

It is very easy to imagine important and significant the wrong things entirely.

We can ignore the things we did not ought to. We may need to pay strict attention and focus to things which we might otherwise flippantly ignore.

What is safe to ignore?

Importance and Priority

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

People can deem all sorts of things as important; these can be personal or of a wider more general import. I think it fair to speculate that the majority have a me-centric sense of importance. The things which matter to them concern themselves, their lives and those of family and friends. Things on their agenda are more important than those not.

I am important in the lives of one human being and three cats and maybe some birds which we feed. That is the extent. My priorities are in and around this sphere of influence. My significance to the wider world is very small. In terms of social kudos I have none. My passing is unlikely to impact beyond my circle, my sphere.

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I have just gone and lost a piece of tooth filling. Which is actually both important to me and ever so slightly urgent. I am due to have a titanium implant fitted soon. It is due next to the broken tooth. Unless the tooth is repaired, they may not go ahead with the implant. In my me-centric world this is horizon stuff. We need to know so that we can free up a dental slot by prompt cancellation if that is the case.

The concatenation of various health problems is getting to be boring.

What happens here, in principle, has a wider impact elsewhere. But I doubt anyone in San Francisco needs to fear the butterfly effect from our compound.

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Self-perception has implications. We watched a film last night “The Substance” and surprisingly it had a big affect on me. This is unusual. It was about human folly and the desire to be young / look young and operate in an appearance obsessed society. People go to extraordinary lengths to keep up appearances. I can’t remember being much concerned about how I looked. All I wanted as a teenager / early twenty was for my fairly severe acne to pass. Being called “pizza face” is not a great deal of fun, named after a Margherita.

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In an earlier post I postulated that “face” was one of the most expensive of all human notions, human folly. It appears to be very important to some and they will kill and maim in an attempt to preserve face. Face is behind conflict, face is behind war, face {loss} is causal of revenge. The weird thing is that face is a completely man made illusion. No leopard or tiger would acknowledge your sense of face or kudos in the jungle at dusk. Yum, yum…

As I was making coffee this morning, I noted that although I imagine that I have some knowledge to share. This notion is not widely held. It is not held important on a wider scale. It does not matter what I imagine.

Out there somewhere important people are busy doing things they deem important. They have their priorities whether considered or otherwise. I have never been so disinterested in all the hot air, hype and show which fills the news.

The world has lost its sense of direction. It is heading deeper into petty squabbles over who sells what for what price in the sandpit or behind the bike sheds. The world is arguing the toss about who is or isn’t a fair trading partner.

Thousands of people are dying and the world is focussed on “deals” and “bargains”.

The great car boot sale is on!!

Thousands no longer get antivirals; ordnance efficacy can be tested in vivo in Gaza and Yemen. Let’s boost arms spending hype so we can sell more weapons…

I think the priorities of humanity have been badly skewed and it is not getting better…

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…

Atlantis and Kneejerk Adamant Assertion

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I’ll wager that if I raised the notion of an advanced civilisation on Atlantis many tens of thousands of years ago in certain circles, I would get the kneejerk adamant assertion that this is made up, fictional, delusional and that no evidence has ever been found. With an implicit nor is there likely to be any found, ever. Just like you can’t find evidence for unicorns, there is no evidence for Atlantis. Yet in the media, tales and recreations of Atlantis exist.

People who are fond of opining like their soap boxes and to hold court thereupon to an {admiring} crowd. The tendency to assert without due consideration is recently pandemic and can be found everywhere and all over the font of wisdom a.k.a. the internet.

The following quotation is there to be found attributed to Kelvin.

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There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.

Lord Kelvin

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This sentiment was proven inaccurate. Those keen to uphold the hagiography of science can be found stating that there is no evidence he ever said this. {There is no evidence that he did not.} A founding prophet of a religion must not be tarred with the brush of quotable dogmatism. The faithful are defending the prophet who helped to inscribe the laws of thermodynamics upon the tablet given from the mountain top.

Knowing humans and scientists like I do, I think it is entirely possible that someone would opine thus, particularly if they were enjoying themselves holding court or relaxed after a few ports in the club.

In 2023 an additional chamber was found under the great pyramid.

“Precise characterization of a corridor-shaped structure in Khufu’s Pyramid by observation of cosmic-ray muons.”

Nature Communications 14, 1144, (2023)

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Using a very esoteric scientific technique something thought not to exist was “proven” to be there. Speculation as to purpose follows. Maybe it was the Aliens or Patrick Duffy a.k.a. the Man from Atlantis who built it?

Truth is nobody knows for sure how it was made nor what it was made for.

Kneejerk adamant assertion is at best lazy. It is all about face and being aligned to the current status quo unwilling to risk heresy or apostasy as measured by the omnipotent “they”.

Socio-political conformity encourages adamant assertion.

It is not very open-minded.

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Are you prone to kneejerk adamant assertion?

If so, why, what do you get out of it?

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OMG What Have We Done?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

From time to time people can get very caught up in the brouhaha of a moment of confrontational politics. They can become polarised in thinking and very stubborn. They can entrench and vote against something just to spite others or to “prove” a point. The next day they may wake up and for just a fleeting instant have a realisation that they have been hasty and made a bad decision. Then before their eyes the long drawn out tedium of Brexit unfolds. The “wise, mature and measured” presidency of Trump clicks into gear. The thing which they voted for unfolds in ways which they had not ever considered, because calm thought was never a part of the process for them. It is too late to undo what has been set in motion.

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This sentiment of OMG what have I/we done is not restricted to politics it happens on the micro and nano scale in our daily lives. People stick with their “decisions” even if they are stupid in order to save “face”. They can be very stubborn and adamant in their near fervent justifications but deep down we all know when we are kidding ourselves.

I will place a bet; the Trump presidency will not increase world harmony as it is holistically measured.

It seems to me that we all have to endure this strange American psychodrama where everything is a “what is in it for me” deal. That a US president is even gobbing off about Greenland, Panama and Canada is a bit of a shocker.  It may indeed be time for the USA to try its hand as being an overt imperial power as opposed to pseudo-covert.

If we can take any lessons from the invasion of Ukraine it is that the bogeyman Russian conventional army can be stopped in its tracks even when it has air superiority. The Russians can probably endure more loss and body bags than the softer western nations. Remember it was the USA which hyped the Russian and Chinese bogeymen to all and sundry.

Now it seems Trump is playing kissy-kissy with Vlad.

OMG what have we done? Is probably not yet a widespread sentiment in the US of A.

I remember watching a news interview with an African man about the January 6th Capitol attack. He said it was just like watching the goings on in his country. The USA was no more sophisticated than a country in turmoil between corrupt factions. Since Independence there had been many coups and changes of government. The rule or law had failed.

The division bell has sounded and the snowball of US isolationism has started rolling. If any sensible calculations were made, there may be an error. Will a man with six prior bankruptcies be the saviour which makes America great again?

There is a part of me which will be pleasantly surprised if it all works out well. That part is not holding its breath.

On a personal note, our residence rights expire in March next year.  If the anti-immigration mantra continues to be harshly chanted, we too may have to sling our hooks.

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We reap what we sow…

Now Brits stand in line with their blue passports and wait, just like those from the kingdom of Lesotho, the DRC and Rwanda.

I know let us send our immigrants to Rwanda it is a stable country and safe…with nice backhanders…

What a cunning plan…

The Problem of Both And

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

This “problem” can be found on all sides. It stems from the desire to have both one thing and another. It has a root in idealism but also in an unwillingness to choose or decide.

At the moment relatively wealthy humanity is accustomed to having multiple up to date electronic devices, frequent new cars, foreign holidays involving air travel and conspicuous consumption which is sometimes diarised for show in social media. Yet in the back of the mind there is the spectre of anthropogenic climate change. There is a weak desire to slow this down. People want both their current way of life and to limit the ravages of global warming. Most approaches to planetary heating back “solutions” which do not significantly impinge on current lifestyle.

This is an obvious fallacy.

But it is one that is not addressed because in affect it is taboo and politically very unpopular. In wanting both and decisive action is delayed and put off. The advocates of striving to limit climate change themselves travel by air. People cross their fingers and hope we can limit climate change without changing our behaviours. The fairy godmother of technology will wave its magical AI wand and ta-da we have a solution for global warming. In the meantime, business green washes to keep the greenbacks rolling.

There is an awful lot of kidding and people are willing to be kidded because their conscience is assuaged by flashy on tone public relations. Look the oil manufacturers and producers are transitioning to green alternatives…😉

“Phew, I can have my holiday in the Maldives after all…”

Elsewhere I have predicted that the impact of climate change needs to get catastrophic before humanity wakes up. By which time it will be very late, perhaps too late.

We saw it coming, we did fuck all.

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“Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospect; it has to be shattered before ascertained.”

Vladimir Nabokov

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Humanity has a monkey with its hand in the cookie jar mentality. Inside the cookie jar are lovely cookies. We put our hand in it to extract the cookie but we cannot pull it out with the whole cookie in hand. The villagers are coming with sticks. We are so tempted by the cookies; we do not want a beating by the villagers. What to do?

This is a catch 22 which stems from greed and desire. In the absence of desire, there is no dilemma. Drop the cookie and get the hell out of Dodge. But it is a lovely cookie with banana and chocolate chips….

I cannot have both the cookie and avoid a beating.

No desire, no greed, no problem. Let go. Do a runner.

Most catch 22s stem from wanting something, some desire or some ambition. They are based on preferred outcome. In the absence of these the dilemma dissolves; it is a figment of mind and emotion.

Humans have a face in a jar problem. Inside the jar is their face, their social self-image, which they are clinging on to. They may want to resolve a relationship or ameliorate it but they are burdened by their face which they hold clenched in their fist. They are unable to shake hands whilst their fist is clenched tight around the mask of face. So, for most of their lives they walk around with their face clenched bare knuckled in fist and never know the freedom of an open palm free of social encumbrance. They may want to save both their face and a relationship. However, this is impossible, humans are stubborn and before long, it is too late.

You can see this human folly all around you.

Life is not a quantum superstition state. Sooner or later the both-and must be measured and collapse into either-or. The coherence of the both-and is finite. Decision is not something people are fond of.

Sometimes nature, the universe, or a planet will make the decision for us…

Wanting both-and is greedy.

LIFE is way bigger than petty human want and desire…

The Price of Face

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

22 is the dark jewel egotism and it can create many catch 22 situations. People do not as a rule, in the common socio-political construct, like to lose face. This notion of “face” can be very expensive indeed.

One can cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

Face is the dreaming symbol for social self-image which belongs to the class of mayas and illusions. Despite what your social media tries to push, you are not the image imagined and advertised thereupon. That is just some stuff you made up.

People like to “win” arguments or battles in order to save “face”.

I have been in numerous situations where people have expected me to act in accordance with what they imagine face saving behaviour might be. They were fighting a “battle” on the assumption that the normal rules of society and “face” applied.

“He will come round, he will break. He will say sorry because of the guilt trip I laid upon him.”

When this does not happen a kind of catch 22 situation results. The protagonist does not want to lose face but starts to understand that holding breath and crossing fingers is not the answer. What to do? If one gives in, one loses faces. So, one cuts off one’s nose to spite one’s face and leaves a totally unnecessary bloody mess. Because the “he” here did not succumb to the manipulation a loss, perhaps profound has resulted. It was about something not real – face.

Face can be very expensive indeed.

Tens of thousands have people have died because people do not want to lose face.

Deterrence as it is often used / bandied about relies on this notion of face. 

“They killed a few thousand in October. How dare they!!”

“We will destroy their country, kill fifty thousand, maim a hundred thousand more so as to save face because we were caught napping! Are we not heroes? That’ll show them!”

People can try to justify so many things with this emotive notion of face. It is cyclical and silly.

He offended me, I must offend him back or get him cancelled as punishment. My face got upset that he called me fat even though my BMI is 40. I must make him pay for offending my face. I’ll send the message on my way going to the pharmacy for my Ozempic.

Face it seems requires punishment as deterrence for questions or contradictory versions of reality. Face does not like to be challenged because it is the outer expression of egotism, self-importance and victim martyr tendency…

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Has face and the attempt at preserving thereof ever worked out very expensive for you?

Was it worth it in the final analysis?

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