Tag: human folly

two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Running over the same old ground, what have we found?

Pink Floyd

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The {western} world lacks courage to even begin to question the way it “lives”. It is largely comfortable, though bored. It is comfortably numb. It goes through the motions of life; it exists as opposed to lives. Life is repetitive. There is not enough entertainment generated by {AI} algorithm on Netflix and the like. Net-fix can be had from the data pushers at around ten euros a month. There is a repetitive mediocrity similar to the 1970s middle of the road, which at least gave painful birth to punk. The world is in a “safe” doldrum numbed by the opiates of social media and endless trite imagery. It slices itself with plastic surgery, fills itself with chemicals and scars with tattoo. Allegedly mental health is in decline. The notion of being offended and entitled is pervasive. Complaint is all around us. And all we hear about these days upon the high altar is “deal” none of which are permanent, nor worth the paper upon which they are written. The insidious mantra percolates. A deal is professed as the answer.

The fear of being cancelled is a new 21st century one. Incorrect usage of Newspeak has the baying mob of vigilante thought police at the door. A polished glossy fake mediocrity is the ticket to fame and fortune. We have grey as a pervasive life tone. Table turning, upsetting the apple cart or boat rocking, are taboo. Against this the quasi-fascist nationalist right wing grows more vocal and separative.

Remember folks we tried nationalist fascism last century and it did not go so well…

People who are generally comfortable are very risk averse. They fear missing out on the latest trend or fad. They dread being shunned by whichever tribe they imagine a belonging to. It seems human folly is more addictive than ever. They will not twist; they stick with the cards they have. Because the erroneous notions of guarantee and proof beforehand, have taken hold. No bodhisattva has ever given a Tripadvisor five star rating for their journey. Click on to the next web page. There is no proof it will work. There are no “reliable” ratings.

I’ll speculate that humanity is indeed lost and directionless. While comfortable there is no compulsion to do anything whatsoever. We can sit on the sofa with our home delivered food clicking through hundreds of channels of shit on the TV and internet. Maybe we find something that piques our interest for the first series. We watch the second series knowing well that it will not be as good. Like a coke-head, the subsequent lines do not give the same hit. The novelty has worn off.

So what do we do? Maybe a little more retail therapy? Perhaps some more inane social media posts? Or we can eat drink and shag ourselves stupid. The NHS will clear up the mess…

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We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Running over the same old ground, what have we found?

Pink Floyd

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The Cormorant Totem – Morvran – Morfran – Bilidowcar

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

“Cormorant is a contraction probably derived from Latin corvus marinus, “sea raven”; in the early 19th century, the similarly derived spelling “corvorant” was sometimes used. Cormoran is the Cornish name of the sea giant in the tale of Jack the Giant Killer. Indeed, “sea raven” or analogous terms were the usual terms for cormorants in Germanic languages until after the Middle Ages. The French explorer André Thévet commented in 1558: “the beak [is] similar to that of a cormorant or other corvid”, which demonstrates that the erroneous belief that the birds were related to ravens lasted at least to the 16th century.”

Of late we have had a cormorant on the bank of the pond between it and the river. Today there were two, they looked to be a breeding pair. At the same time heron the larger has been in the water. The heron is more nervous than the cormorants who must be Breton morvran. Having a pair in the garden is a first for us. I can get within twenty metres when they are on land. They just watch me. The heron would have flown off if I get that close. Cormorants fly better than herons and take off is quicker.

I should look to the cormorant totem.

Cormorants are diving birds at home in water and air. They dive deep into the watery depths. They co-parent. They shit good fertilizer. The Chinese train them to fish for them. They are at the smart end of the bird family.

Depending on whom you read this totem is about diving deep into the unknown confident that you will find morsels there. It is about looking deeper for solutions and answers. Looking deeper to fathom more profound meaning. It also about balancing air and water.

I am a little bit puzzled because it is tricky for me to imagine something which is far into the unknown for me. Perhaps I am blasé. I have had some experiences that many might consider strange, weird etc…

At first pass whatever it is that might be unknown seems likely to be proximal unknown as opposed to distal unknown. That is the sort of unknown which lies well within the normal remit of human folly and various sociopolitical interaction. There may be unexpected but that can differ from completely unknown.

Personally I have no pressing things which need to be solved. I am not in need of answers or explanations.

Upcoming on the cards is, for now, still my hip operation. This could bring up something unknown from the depths and need hidden reserves from me. I am due another prostate specific antigen test and a whole heap of preoperative blood tests. I expect that my iron levels will have increased a bit more in line with the general rustiness of my body.

An obvious unknown or rather a forgotten might be living without pain in my right hip.

The thing about the unknown is that it is by definition unknown. The deep unknown lies close in perceptual “space” to the unknowable. That would be an interesting turn up for the books. I am game.

Something which is just another unfamiliar variant of human folly is the more likely.

We shall see…

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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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…

Goal Orientation – Suffering and Dissatisfaction

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If you search for “coaching” you will find many people offering their services as coaches and often a part of this is setting goals or targets for success and advancement. Few notice the similarity of goal and gaol. People can become prisoners of their goal orientation. Society is obsessed with measurable metrics and tick lists of things to do, to the extent that life can be a wearisome endless list of devoirs. It is de rigueur to have goals and ambition it seems.

Siddartha wanted so badly to end suffering for all sentient beings, suffering, or dukka, can be translated as dissatisfaction.

I’ll make a statement: goal orientation is directly causal of dissatisfaction.

If you fail to make a goal you are dissatisfied, if you make a goal, you are temporarily done but the next goal awaits lurking on the horizon. Any “satisfaction” is fleeting. This measurement obsession more often than not suggests some measure of inadequacy, could do better.

People then have massive internal dialogue about whether of not they are meeting their goals. Internal dialogue is nearly always negative and hence the being suffers unnecessarily because of this internal “mental” cacophony.

Goal orientation and rush often skip hand in hand. Focussed only on the goal there is a tendency to finish quick and this can cause poor application to task and lower standards. Goal orientation can prevent impeccability. Eye on goal one does not fully absorb into whatever it is one is doing. There are distractions from other pending goals. Quality suffers on the noose of measurable quantity. Goals hang.

The antithesis of spiritual development is rush. It is impossible to rush it, but many try and seek milestones to prove progress. The hangover of societal obsession with goal orientation is difficult to ease.

Striving is a form of suffering.

Relaxation and complete absorption is the antidote. Complete absorption brings completion but without obsessional suffering. Complete absorption quietens the internal dialogue and therefore reduces dissatisfaction. Everyone knows when they have been impeccable. Impeccability is not an absolute. If you give completely of your current very best that is all you can do, this never brings dissatisfaction. Subsequent comparative internal dialogue can cause the nine headed hydra of dissatisfaction to rise again.

Internal dialogue is a primary cause of dissatisfaction and suffering.

Endless measuring is causal of dissatisfaction and suffering.

Comparison mind is directly causal of dissatisfaction.

Rational thinking causes dissatisfaction. Therefore, rational thinking is an irrational unwise thing to do. It does not make sense.

Of course, under certain circumstances one needs some rationality.

If one is ever goal oriented one never experiences the moment, the eternal now, because the goal is very distracting. Not being fully present causes dissatisfaction. If one lives in the twin worlds of what if and if only, there is rarely now. The past whether melancholic or rose tinted, the future whether idealised or catastrophe is not now, it is mind-stuff often of the nature of internal dialogue. Trash.

Goal orientation causes impatience which is a form of dissatisfaction. Goal orientation when one is driving a car is a cause of road rage.

Letting go of goal orientation is liberating.

Try it, having no goals is harder than it might seem, because societal habituation near worships them.

Hence there is suffering and dissatisfaction, which we might call samsara or saṃsāra, which is another term for endless human folly.

Working With Dreams

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Before I start to delve into my Attack Themed dreams I am going to talk a little about working with dreams.

I have a pet theory.

“Face is one of the most expensive and destructive follies of our human existence.”

People will do all sorts of stuff to try to preseve the Samsaric illusion of face. They will lie, maim and argue the toss. People do some truly dark shit to try to save “face”.

I have had some dreams in which I am attacked over and over. People who would not consider themselves evil are capable of a malevolence which they deem justifiable. From an evolutionary point of view, it is emotionally primitive, primordial even, evil. They would never accept that they are evil.

My secondary predilection after dreaming is for the clarity of the East, which makes me, in that context, a stalker of/in time. In the context of the eternal now, time is not quite as linear as physics would have us believe. The dreaming being out of matter is not so beholden to the laws of matter, one of which is “linear” time, the entropic arrow of disorder. We are counter entropic beings, one day we lose that battle and pop our clogs. Earth to earth, dust to dust.

 I’ll make a statement.

It is impossible to rush dreaming, dreaming needs time to coalesce.

Impatience and dreaming are not good bedfellows. Relaxation and abandon are key. Firm conclusions are an anathema to dreaming, any “conclusion” must be fluid and provisional. Grasping and latching on to interpretations is unwise. Dreaming in, is a practice of fluidity.

Early on I had prescient dreams. I would dream at night and the next day those dreams played out on campus in South Kensington. I have had dreams which have taken a decade to manifest. I have noted the death of some people in the dream with a physical plane temporal accuracy. If you keep a “lab book” you can cross reference. I also “see” dead people in dreams.

Of course I could be prone to confirmation bias, seeing connections which are not really there, because I want to. I am not a concluding kangaroo jumping forever to rigid conclusions.

In order to work with dreams, you might need a hypothesis. You could get all anal and Germanic. Or you could use the working hypothesis that the dreamer, your Soul, is trying to guide the physical plane you, the dreamed. If that is the case it implies that following the guidance in dreams is wise. There is a major caveat. The dreamer may suggest things contrary to your ambitions and desires. You may not like the “advice” and throw your toys out of the cot. The control junkie personality is unwilling to hand the steering wheel over to the dreamer. Although we may deem otherwise control is an illusion. We can micromanage during a day, but life has a bag of spanners which it enjoys chucking at us.

It takes courage to follow dreams.

To surrender the control is not for the feint of heart. One must be bold.

At the moment I am still working with the Human Puzzle dream. Subsequent to that I had many dreams which pointed to something unknown. The unknown, by definition, has few clues. One has to use the four postulates of stalking.

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Which says be humble, don’t get attached but do get busy. It says expectations are silly.

Concrete mind does not like the uncertainty of dreaming.

To work with dreams, one needs to relax and to let go. But you must be in it for the duration to find out where the journey goes.

I have no idea what, if anything, will come along before I go to the crem.