Random Thoughts

My dark night of the soul has been lodging with me for years now. To be fair, it does the washing up sometimes, but it really ought to start looking for somewhere else.

Consciousness is the relation between inner and outer, observer and observed. It’s not just the result of matter interacting; it is the loop where the distinction between subject and object folds in on itself.

Meaning arises because the universe, through us, temporarily has a mirror. That mirror gives rise to art, ethics, despair, beauty, absurdity—all the phenomena that define human experience.

The fact that we seek meaning—and can construct it—suggests our role is not passive. We’re feedback. And perhaps, just perhaps, that feedback is what allows reality to mean at all.

What We Choose

Every mark you make, word you speak, or choice you act upon is a vote for the kind of world that will exist tomorrow. Culture, politics, ecosystems, economies—these are not fixed structures. They are the accumulation of our daily decisions.

You are the mechanism. A sculptor shapes stone; a society is shaped by millions of tiny gestures—how we treat strangers, where we place our attention, what we choose to support, what beauty we cherish.

If you choose cynicism, you strengthen it. If you choose generosity, you plant it like seed.

Despair whispers that you are powerless. But that’s a lie peddled by those who profit from your apathy. In truth, everything depends on your attention—what you notice, what you nurture, what you refuse to let die.

You don’t need to change the whole world. Just stop feeding the version you don’t believe in. That alone is the beginning of something else.

And if enough of us do that—then the world shifts. Not all at once. But unmistakably.

Small Choices

Every time you reach for your phone when you’re bored, you’re rehearsing distraction. Every time you choose silence over honesty, you’re reinforcing fear over connection.

These aren’t grand decisions. They’re micro-choices—so small they slip beneath your notice. Yet together, they shape your character, your body, your relationships, your work.

The danger is that habits hide. They blend into the wallpaper of your day. You don’t decide to become impatient, or lethargic, or unfulfilled—you drift. Day after day, letting unconscious routines steer the ship.

But the opposite is also true. You can interrupt that drift. The smallest deliberate act—standing up instead of scrolling, a breath instead of a reaction, one honest sentence instead of silence—can be a microscopic course correction.

And over time, those course corrections become your compass, helping you to find your way.

Notes in the Margins

Criticism is valuable—no work is ever perfect. But its usefulness depends entirely on its quality. Poor criticism often says more about the critic than the work; all too often, it’s just petty nastiness, driven by jealousy or some other nonsense, oblivious to how absurd it appears. Middling criticism is little better: it might vaguely gesture at areas for improvement, but it lacks clarity, suggesting either a failure to engage or a grim fixation on the negative. Good criticism stands apart through its specificity—it identifies real issues and invites meaningful improvement. The best kind, however, goes further: it offers thoughtful prompts that ignite ideas and open new paths for creative exploration. Expert teachers, coaches, managers, and directors are masters of this—they are able to challenge and inspire. A lack of criticism, contrary to what some might think, is not kindness; it breeds blandness and paves the way for tediousness. This is the slow decline often suffered by those who rest on status or past acclaim, rather than confronting the true quality of their present work.

AI

Every aspect of a person could be sampled, scaled, and extrapolated by AI. Not just voice, features, movement, but also personality and way of thinking. In other words, there could be multiple automated versions of you interacting with the world and acting on your behalf.

AI would then start adapting these avatars as characters encountering generated digital scenarios, either as entertainment in a game, or for gathering data from the interactions and outcomes.

The philosophical questions posed in sci-fi are: What if the avatars were sentient? What if you are actually such an avatar experiencing a scenario? How do you know reality isn’t a single player game and everything you experience isn’t a computer simulation?

The answer is we don’t conceptually understand the nature of reality and maybe it would spoil the point if we did.

Error et descensus

One must remember:

Evil pretends to be the divine.

The wilfully guilty frame others for their sins.​

Cruelty cloaks itself as the guardian of reason.

Those with nothing to say hide behind a wall of words.

The ignorant deceive with feigned wisdom.

Hence, truth must resonate more intensely.

JBK

I’m not interested in your hair, eye or skin colour. I don’t care what type of person you fancy. I don’t care what you identify as or belief system you follow. Just be kind.

Journal 2021-11-13

To be open with yourself and the world, and not concerned with how that is perceived, is freedom from a prison of mental constructions; however there is a lack of empathy, poetry and charm in being blunt with people, or saying anything that comes to mind. The happier circumstance is to connect beyond words.

Random Thoughts:

AI assistants combined with augmented/virtual reality will transform human experience. Artists could create paintings digitally and 3D print the paintings into the physical world, automating the textured brushstrokes with the help of AI. Exact textured cloning of existing masterpiece paintings would be available as home printouts.

I’ve met some real idiots in my time, most of whom were in the mirror.

Journal 2021-11-11

My engine is fuelled by plants, which means the system is cleaned, rather than clogged up with rotting flesh.

There is an irony when people dictate the morality of others, while actively supporting the meat trade. The single biggest thing that most people can do to make a positive change in the world is to stop eating animals, so as to help end the mechanised suffering we perpetrate on other creatures and the planet.

Journal 2021-07-10

Confirmation bias afflicts even the most objective thinkers. I am generally sceptical that people, especially in our current febrile state, have the wise nuanced answers to the big questions of society, philosophy and the human condition. I think we are usually wrong, despite the confidence and self-certainty of the protagonists, who are wrapped-up in the self-constructed “isms” and other ideological belief identities into which life is forced. But things always change. We are improving. It is better to say “I don’t know” or “I don’t know who I am” and to experience where reality turns on the journey.

Approval Addiction

A fear of loneliness leads to desperate actions initiating pain. Enjoying the peace of solitude is breaking free from this chronic condition; and provides the realisation that if you are already complete in yourself, then there is more love in you to share. If you are indifferent to other people’s opinions about you:

·       You don’t need to pretend or hide anything;

·       You don’t need to worry about impressions or what was said;

·       You don’t need to conform to rigid or mistuned expectations;

·       You don’t need to be offended or hurt by words;

·       There is no need to show off and chase false, empty priorities;

·       You break an addiction to the approval of others;

·       You break free from inhibitions;

·       You have freedom to be who you are.

To be ultra-confident you can either be a deranged narcissist or you can be yourself completely. The former is fragile, needing lies and selfishness to delay its inevitable demise; the latter invites a playful, open curiosity to life and what is. For there is no desire to convince others that you are happy when you are actually happy. There is no desire to show off to others when you have a sense of fulfilment. There is no hunger for external validation if you appreciate yourself.

Negativity, like a virus, will attack you and attempt to feed on your energy. A thick skin is some defence, but is fragile and needs constant fierce protecting in a battle that will be eventually lost. Rather than becoming one of the infected, with it eating away at you from the inside and spreading or intensifying the infection of others, it is better to be immune. When you don’t need validation by anyone else’s good opinion, you have the chance to be who you are.

There is a greater chance of releasing your magic if not consumed by self-aggrandisement or conforming to other people’s expectations, especially if the current norms are harmful and wrong. If you are not trying to appease anyone; if you are not trying to appeal to a market demographic; and you don’t need anything: watch out, you might actually do something worthwhile. The challenge is to release what is within you, uncorrupted by falsity and lies.

Success in transcendent goals is not the same as success in negotiating positions of status in the current society, which of course will change with the relentless passage of time. It just so happens, however, that those people who were motivated mainly by intrinsic value, rather than by their individual psychological desires, produced the best long-lasting examples of beauty and creative human potential.

Original thinkers, artists, and spiritual figures often had some of their best insights in the wilderness, in periods of solitude outside of bustling society. Distance from the current melees gives a person a better perspective of the whole picture; whereas insiders of the throng who are unaware of their predicament are generally condemned to behave as they think they are supposed to, blind to anything more than the current array of behaviours, even in extreme cases where it is insane. It is a trend in history that the most interesting creators tended to be outsiders for defining periods in their lives; and sometimes the untamed spark that made them great was dampened when invited in from the wilderness—for it is a usual human failing to be carried away by expectations and hype. There were a certain set of conditions in place that instantiated quality; and once personal perceptions change, the conditions change too.

Creating something great isn’t the same as temporary popularity, as the latter can be mere pumped up, generic mania—and not necessarily correlated with merit. To do anything well, the basics need to be mastered; this involves studying how the best do what they do, and, initially at least, learning by imitation. When you fully commit to bringing an understanding of yourself and your idiosyncrasies into how you live, using all the tools you have gathered, you then have the freedom to break the constraints and to produce something worthwhile in the world.

From brain teasers to magic tricks, it is usually a wrong assumption that hides the answer. Beliefs, and accepted ways of doing things, are full of assumptions, both conscious and unconscious.

Completeness

A fear of loneliness leads to desperate actions initiating pain. Enjoying the peace of solitude is breaking free from this chronic condition; and provides the realisation that if you are already complete in yourself then there is more love in you to share.

The Machine

Slot-in, copy and repeat, replace yourself, wear-out, then die.

Look down on someone to be a success.

Or change the program.

Journal 2020-12-05

Live a day like it is a life in entirety.

First thought on waking is gratitude for the new day you will see.

Last thought is gratitude for the day you have lived.

Perspective

The first stage of learning is being unconsciously incompetent: you don’t know what you’re not good at because you don’t know what you don’t know. Well-being skills can be learnt. One typical motif is that how you look at anything changes your experience; for example: anxiety can feel like pleasurable excitement, as the body in both mental modes vibrates in a similar state of high energy; or a difficult situation is your challenge to evolve and an opportunity for personal discovery; or peace of mind is your inner state of being, not the possession of external conditions. And so on, all empirically true but under-practiced.

Anger

Anger. What a silly thing.

Is it of any use? Nope, it unbalances you.

The orcs in the Lord of the Rings are driven by fury and are utterly useless at combat.

Energy from anger is polluted, destructive, counter-productive.

It can be used to instil fear, to incite others and to self-aggrandise - which is why it has been the emotion of choice by demagogues and sociopaths.

It is often learned as the default response to any frustration.

There is often anger at other people for not behaving as it is believed they should.

The reality however is that you have no real idea what has and is happening in the other person’s life you are judging.

The fact is you only ever see a tiny aspect of all the parts in motion.

Journal 2020-11-20

Never ever put yourself down. 

Reasons:

1. Some people will revel in doing it for you. For their sake as much as yours, don’t make the conditions easy for them.
2. Don’t diminish life; whoever you are, you are amazing and unique.
3. Faux modesty is dishonesty.
4. Don’t insult other people’s good opinions.
5. Be strong for others. 

 Some personal pep talk points:

1. Be in a position to help.
2. Your growth should enable others to grow too. 
3. This isn’t a zero-sum game.
4. Relative measurements are irrelevant.
5. Have fun!

Journal 2020-11-08

I seem to get satisfaction out of pushing myself physically – maybe because in my mind I am subscribing to the motto “no pain, no gain”. A variation on the theme is that anything initially perceived as negative can be viewed as part of a greater improvement process.

Journal 2020-10-30

Original thinkers, artists and spiritual figures often had some of their best insights in the wilderness, in periods of solitude, outside of bustling society. Distance from the current melees gives a person a better perspective of the whole picture. More generally, insiders of the throng who are unaware of their predicament are condemned to behave as they think they are supposed to, blind to anything more than the current array of behaviours, even in extreme cases where it is insane.

Journal 2020-10-29

All human beings are unique.

Uniqueness doesn’t have a category.

Categories confine a life to a label stamped on the head.

Categories are boxed, ordered and under control.

Categories deny humanity.