the death dream

I had gone on a short drive, alone. It was to a spot I'd been to previously - the start of a hiking trail. The road to it was steeply uphill and more dirt track than road, but my car could handle it fine. The trail started on private property, and there was room for one car to park next to the gate. The parking spot and gate were at a sharp right hand bend to the trail heading up to that point. There was no other car parked - I was alone. I parked, but instead of getting through the gate and on to the hiking trail, I stood on a rocky outcrop on the other side of the path. I looked at the sky. The sky was a bright, cloudless blue. I closed my eyes, face to the sun, feeling it warm me.

I opened my eyes. The sky was still blue and cloudless. I looked down for the first time, and was surprised to see it was not a hillside, but a straight drop to the ocean!

The ocean was a deep blue, almost black, despite the bright sunlight, suggesting it was very deep. The cliff I was standing on the precipice of was pretty steep - I'm not sure how I ended up in such a precarious spot. I tried taking a step backward towards safety, but I was not on level ground - the rock was at a steep incline behind me and I was unable to step backward. My attempt to step backward caused me to lose my footing and actually take a small (but quite steep) step forward and downward.

I was scared.

I tried to sit against the rock face I was on, in the hope that it would give me more grip and a chance at dragging myself back up to safety - however, I was unable to sit. I had a heavy backpack that got in the way when I leaned backward, and leaning backward caused me to slide forward and down even more.

I was beginning to panic.

I tried to guage the height of the cliff and the steepness of the descent. I considered sliding down instead of trying to get up - what if it was safer to get to the ocean and somehow try to swim ot safety, maybe lose the backpack once I hit the water?

The struggle of trying to stay in one place and not slide down any further was beginning to exhaust me. I was ready to give up. It felt like there was no hope of getting out of that spot, and anything I did would simply prolong my struggle.

I felt like the best course of action was to take a clean leap forward so that I could plunge straight off the cliff and hit the water feet first.

I was conscious of my inability to swim, and worse, the incredible weight of my backpack which seemed very firmly secured to me and was surely going to drag me down with it.

I looked up again, then closed my eyes, felt the warmth of the sun for what might be the last time ever,. I savoured that feeling for as long as I felt I could, and then opened my eyes.

I was in bed, and my morning alarm was about to ring - it literally rang seconds later.

I woke up, glad to be alive.

ps: this is the spot, based on the route I drove in the dream: Robin's Well

Video killed the bookworm

I love to read. I used to read a lot. In fact, I was never even a fan of podcasts, let alone videocasts. However, I realize now that I've been consuming most of my information through videos. I do occasionally take the time to read, although it's mostly email - specifically, there is one mailing list of sorts I'm subscribed to. Actually, make that two, but the second one has lost my interest, so while I'm still subscribed it just fills my inbox while I muster the courage to select-all and delete.

Anyway, back to the first one. An article caught my attention today, and I clicked on it and started reading it.

My attention was drawn by the headline, of course, which set this article apart from others in the newsletter like bonobos' use of combining sounds to produce more nuanced and complex expressions, and something about dinosaurs drinking water beside their prey at ancient water bodies(!)

I digress though. The article read like any other, until I happened to notice the name of the author. Sabine! She was the person who introduced me to nautilus, probably from a sponsorship embedded in one of her videos. And yes, I subscribe to her science news videocast. My mind instantly switched from "reading" to a simulated narration of the article in her voice, complete with her German intonation and characteristic facial expressions (she is a pretty good science videocaster, I'd say!)

The change in my reading experience stunned me. 

Reading may be efficient, but listening and watching people speak taps into our humanity... even if it's something as dry as competing theories for cosmic inflation, and the listening and watching is run by a wildly imperfect simulation in my head. 

It's no wonder video killed my inner bookworm. 

algorithmic complacency!

Ever since I posted my last blog post about the need and desire to create a new social network, I've been more conscious of discussing it with people who might be interested. Those conscious discussions seem to provide me with a bit of mental momentum towards my goal (or rather, the direction of my goal - I haven't really thought about it enough to actually define my goal in that regard). Imagine my surprise though, when "the algorithm" popped this video up on my youtube!

As the video wound on (and I dug into my dinner), I realized that I used to resist algorithmic complacency, until at some point, a switch flipped, and I stopped: I stopped reading every tweet, every email, every WhatsApp message. I think that switch flipped when the mental effort of curating every feed of information felt like a battle against that platform's intention to force feed me things of its (as opposed to my) choosing.

The problem I'm trying to solve suddenly both seems a lot clearer and a lot more daunting. It's almost like a junkie trying to get other junkies to collectively quit.

Time to close youtube and immerse myself into something non-algorithmic, for tonight.

social (and not commercial) media

It's been over 10 years in the making, but I have gone from guessing to being absolutely sure that the time has come for a new social media that is truly social and not commercial. It's an idea that's been brewing in my mind for a while. It needs to mimic human relationships: humans only speak one-one or in small groups, and sharing something involves repeating it, typically not verbatim. Human communication is typically verbal, and pictorial sharing is pretty limited.  Our time and social batery is not allocated by "engagement" or other clickbaity metrics, but by the meaning we derive out of the interaction.

It should be easier to create and maintain than the vast behemoths that pretend to be social media these days. I will get around to creating it soon.

parabola

January 12, 9:30pm. I heard a thud. Rushed to find you lying on the floor. The call to 999, 20 minutes of CPR, a shot of adrenaline, a couple of jolts from the AED were all to no avail. 21 days in the ICU, begging you to open your eyes, and when your eyes finally opened, to elicit some sort of acknowledgement, were to no avail.

14 of those 21 days in, the doctor told us, behind closed doors, that the person we knew and dearly loved was no longer there.

Two days later, the doctor told us it would be unethical for them to try to keep you alive. 

We found this hard to accept. How could someone say this? It sounded like reading out a death sentence to the innocent. 

They took off the ventilator. They took off the feeding tube. They took off the intravenous fluid. You are now in your natural state, they said. 

They replaced the array of instruments that beeped every few minutes or seconds with a clock that ticked away silently. 

The clock felt ironic. The clock drove home in no uncertain terms that they were waiting for you to die. We were waiting for you to die because we were told there was nothing left for you.

Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to days. 

We couldn't accept this any more. Surely you were not meant to die! You were alive with no medicines, no intervention, no ventilator, no food, no water! There had to be some sort of mistake! 

You were moved from the cold dark ICU to a sunny private room. You seemed better. Would they let us take you home? We didn't know if we could even ask the question and if they would find it ridiculous. 

23 days after you entered the hospital, you went home. Not your home on earth though.

"This body, this body holding me

Be my reminder here that I am not alone in

This body, this body holding me

Feeling eternal, all this pain is an illusion"

wiggle your big toe

nothing is easy. nothing ever was. I just need to remind myself why I struggle. it's hard to remember why, when even the few sources of support seem to be working against "me".

after all, what is "me"? right now it feels like everything is a struggle against my own body, my own mind, even my own emotions. my own predisposition and limitations as a human being. the structure and fabric of human society and relationships. perhaps even my own cognitive and emotional biases. 

when I take away the struggles, it almost seems like there's nothing left, other than the residue of greatness I have absorbed from the people around me. the dead, more than the living... or maybe that's another emotional bias I'm struggling with. 

has it always been like this? or have I been gradually shrinking, atrophied, under the cover of my disguise? 

when I look back, the only things I see that are truly me seem to be the fight. is that it? is that all? 

it's hard to say. some times, it's hard to think about.

but if I don't fight, however hollow a life of fighting may seem, I'll probably lose the only bits of myself I can currently see.

it reminds me of that scene in Kill Bill, when Uma Thurman, having woken up from months or years of coma, spends what seems like an eternity trying to wiggle her big toe. 

once she did that, she knew everything else was possible.

"wiggle your big toe" 

Murphy's law

When inserting a microSD card into the dashcam, the spring overpowered my fingernail and launched the microSD card straight into the AC vent, where it bounced right down the vent and into the innards of the AC itself. and no, setting the fan to MAX didn't blow it back out 🤦‍♂️ 😂

The physics of the situation was so improbable that I was more amused at what happened than sad that I've lost a perfect microSD card of the exact maximum capacity that my dashcam supports (32gb)!