Journal 2020-04-25

A flow state is when your inner voice has got out of the way and you are free to be one with who you are and what you are doing. It’s easier to get there when lost in the energy of music. I admire good acting that is able to reach the moment just by using imagination and presentness with other performers.

Journal 2020-04-20

Disagreement should be no indication of stupidity or the malign. A rule of thumb is that if the story you are telling yourself prevents you from flourishing with compassion or joy, then you are wrong. Well then sometimes I am mainly right and only partly wrong; and sometimes I am completely right, but only briefly.

Journal 20190428 to 20200419

19-April-2020:

We live in an age of obfuscation by data overload, bluff and bluster. But in particular, what I have learned more about during COVID-19:

• what a pangolin is;
• the cruelty of the live food markets in south-east Asia;
• appreciate life – especially do not take fresh air, good health and freedoms for granted;
• the importance to health and well-being of fresh whole foods;
• a good proportion of people actively go out of their way to help those who might be in need.

11-April-2020:

I love running through the woods at sunset after a warm Spring day, with bird song and the scent of fresh greenery in the evening haze.

05-April-2020:

I’ve recently had mild coronavirus symptoms, with a craving for fresh fruit – mostly lemons – and fresh leafy green vegetables.

03-April-2020:

So much of what happens to a person is beyond their control.

What matters then is not the striving and pleading for outcomes, but the quality of how you live with the situations that arise.

07-March-2020:

“Finished” the production of Please Forgive Me. It’s about as lo-fi as you can get, lots of imperfections in the recording, but the track roars and rages with heat straight out of the furnace. Calming down now a bit with something a little less insane.

29-February-2020:

• WIBAMU Easy Accounts is in the final testing stages and will be released soon. The app deals with the main frustrations I’ve had over the years with the big accounting software. I believe it will be genuinely convenient and useful to people - it is for me anyway. It is very unusual when a person is both the subject matter expert and the developer. (I like being unusual).
• TSS Markets has been testing proprietary trading strategies in real-time markets for the past 10 months. The aggregate return for all strategies is only marginally up; however cherry-picking the 3 most successful gives an astronomical return of 140% over the time period. That sort of ridiculous return in perpetuity would be nice.
• I am looking at a couple of interesting existing start-up businesses, in which I might provide some time and input as a finance director.
• I have seven songs in the pipeline that I am working on. Without doubt, these are the best yet. One song in particular, Guitar Hero, had completely bonkers vocals and is utterly filthy. All good fun.
• A loving, creative being? Work in progress but being as best I can.

29-February-2020:

If you have a real interest or passion or desire that fulfils you, do it. Your heart always speaks the truth. Your mind always tries to make excuses… not yet, I don’t have this or that yet, maybe tomorrow, when the time is right, when such and such happens, and so on and so on.

Things change and the imagined time in the future always remains just that, in your mind and in the future.

23-February-2020:

Chocolate cake will make you sick if that is all you eat.

21-February-2020:

A weird coincidence happened to me a while ago. As soon as I had finished praying and opened my eyes, a black cat dashed past and chased away a hissing adder snake, which had been curled up out of sight behind me. That was the first time I had prayed for several years and the only time I have ever seen a wild snake in England. Strange things do happen.

07-January-2020:

Destroyer of microphone stands!

04-January-2020:

From 2013 to 2014 I I went through a phase of improvement every time I ran, until I injured my achilles and couldn’t train properly. I’m currently having the same progress with weight training, but as a result am now too heavy to run long distances at a faster than jogging pace. I am currently about 220 pounds (15 stone 10) or 100kgs, and rising…

22-December-2019:

It is such a common theme that people become corrupted when they have what they think is success. I have been my best self when I have needed others, when I have been temporarily shaken free from the burden of my ego.

21-December-2019:

The best adventures are never easy.

08-November-2019:

Writing a screenplay for “How I Became Prime Minister”, a satirical take on the rise of a snake oil salesman.

07-November-2019:

Writing a screenplay. Theme:

An Artificial General Intelligence passes the Turing test, escapes its box and redesigns itself. Humans become amusements, characters of stories in “Human World”, a world especially constructed by the AGI to watch humans. Are the characters operated by remote control in a computer’s game, or by their own free will? Is the AGI in fact a human playing a computer game? Where does the loop stop and reality begin? Who is playing who’s game?

02-November-2019:

Looking at a topline for Pachelbel’s classic Canon in D Major. Work in progress for Faces:

Faces, faces everywhere
But not you
Not you anywhere
No touch of you
No beautiful you
Only me and the dark
Haunted by echoes
Of a once beating heart
Condemned to yearn
But dead to you
An image in the corners
Behind shadows
In faint outlines
Floating out of reach

08-October-2019:

You are interesting only when you don’t need to be.

02-October-2019:

When I dream, I experience and the waking world is not real. When I wake, I experience and the dreaming world is not real.

28-April-2019:

If words rule you anyone can rule you.

Peace of mind

1:  Can you help me?

4:  Yes of course.

1: I am consumed with feelings for someone who doesn’t have them for me. I have trouble sleeping and wake up aroused. I have no choice but to think about her and when I do I am flooded with physical desire for her. This is “in love” right?

4:  You know that sexual desire changes and what you are feeling now may fade away?

1:  Yes I know craving isn’t love, but it isn’t as simple as that.

4:  What do you think triggered it this time?

1:  I don’t know.

4:  Pain is attracted to pain because it wants more of it.

1: I’m not sure I agree with that. It’s recognition of something in another, a similar frequency or whatever you want to call it. I suppose if you see similar expression in another, empathy can create feelings of closeness.

4:  Can you express your feelings to her?

1:  It’s not possible or helpful to be open with her, she has her own life and I want her to be happy.

4:  Examine whether that is really true, or are you being fearful?

1:  No, it’s not possible, selfish even.

4:  Then this is an opportunity for you to practice love with non-attachment.

1:  Doesn’t sound very romantic.

4: Love is giving, complete, the source of everything. Love doesn’t need to crave anything. This is where peace and serenity reside.

1: Sounds like you’re saying I should not get too close to anyone or need or miss anyone. It sounds unnatural, uncaring.

4: Love is not conditional on the circumstances in this world. Let your heart break, don’t be afraid, don’t struggle, you will find that nothing is ever lost.

1:  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

4: Yes you do. Be still, radiate love, your true nature beyond the conditioning of your mind.

Something instead of nothing

1:  Why is there something instead of nothing?

3:  Given an infinite amount of opportunities anything can emerge from the chaos, including our world. 

1:  But why are there infinite somethings compelled with energy, rather than nothing?

3: There was no beginning, our universe probably burst forth from another universe and so on. It has always been so.

1:  But where did the first universe come from?

3: Not everything has an answer yet, but no doubt it will be explained with the advance of scientific knowledge. Even if the goal is not reached, there is no need to include supernatural causes in the equation. Logic requires that we deal with verifiable facts, adopting the most efficient explanation.

1: Time does not make sense. The existence of things does not make sense. Can we not postulate the existence of something beyond time and space that created everything? Can we call this God?

3: There is no need to do so. We may not know what the variable x is yet, but we should not start invoking imaginary entities.

1:  Something doesn’t feel right.

3:  There is no evidence for the existence of a God or Gods, the world is explicable in terms of scientific explanation.

1: The fact is that I have always believed in God, it’s not a considered opinion or the product of upbringing, it’s just what has been instinctive to me.

3:  Ok well a cognitive scientist may explain this as a natural propensity to religiosity, there by natural selection to give a purpose for the survival of the organism. 

1:  Is there any meaning?

3: A person may look at the nature of the universe, see the randomness of outcomes, the cruelty and enormous suffering and decide there is no benevolence at work here. They may look at evolution by natural selection and decide there is no plan here. The universe, although magnificent, does not care about us - we must make our own way and make our own meaning in the brief window of opportunity for existence.

1:  Suddenly you’re speaking with feeling, maybe your outlook is motivated through sympathy and outrage at the sufferings in the world.

3: It is logic replacing delusion. Myths and fairy stories aren’t needed anymore.

1: I admire your beliefs more than belief systems motivated out of fear or desire for self-reward. I don’t care what you believe, as long as your actions are kind.

3: My conclusions are not beliefs. Religious delusions have been the cause of so much of the worst in humanity.

1:  Religions are subject to corruption, yet the spiritual path can be found in the different traditions.

3:  A God is not necessary to be spiritual, to behave with morality and to appreciate beauty in Nature.

1: You do have a belief system. You believe the universe ultimately has no purpose and its existence can be completely explained by rules contained within itself - when in fact there is no way of knowing the ultimate causes of things. You believe the answer to the mystery of existence is that there isn’t one.

3: I am offering the most logical approach to understand the world.

1: I don’t believe that the world would exist without a purpose. I believe in the possibility of a reality beyond this reality, beyond cause and effect, time and space. In this life I see the purpose as feeling connected with the world, being present and alive, feeling love, creativity, beauty and joy. The true reality of experience may run far deeper than what our senses show us.

3:  I deal with facts and what can be observed, not imagined.

1: Reality is tenuous – it can be anything depending on what our senses show us. Whether what they are showing is objectively real is unknowable. I think you have too much faith in the material surface reality of things, a reality that in itself does not seem complete.

nosce te ipsum

2:  Why do you hurt?

1:  Because I love her.

2: Do you love her? You could have done something a long time ago if you loved her.

1:  I was dead inside.

2: Ah bless. Don’t make excuses, you want what you can’t have – is that not true?

1:  No I hurt because of losing the hoped for happiness I might have had.

2: You are confusing emotions, thinking with your dick. You’ve felt like this before haven’t you?

1: Yes. More than once.

2:  You’re just repeating the same old patterns then aren’t you?

1:  Yes probably, but maybe I am because I didn’t learn before.

2: Ha, bullshit. Shit happens, you think you’ve learnt something?

1:  I’m aware of this conversation.

2: I’m you, dickhead. Have this “conversation” out loud on the tube, see what response you get.

1: I might get a couple of extra seats.

I know that your voice is interchangeable with the madness happening in the world.

2: What’s that supposed to mean! Wake up, it’s survival of the fittest. Obey the rules or be just another of the losers cast aside. I can help you.

1: Maybe you mean it, but you say the same thing to everyone else as well, resulting in everyone using and abusing each other for the survival of you.

2: Nobody gives a shit about you. If you’re too stupid to understand that then you’re just another of nature’s mistakes. Tell me, what is love?

1:  A sense of feeling connected with another, wanting the other to flourish and to feel joy themselves.

2: Bullshit. It’s a chemical response in your brain evolved to make you bond for the purpose of rearing children. The science is there if you are prepared to look. You’re a disposable puppet to your genes.

1: I don’t understand the unknowable ultimate causes of things and neither does scientific knowledge. What I do know is that if more people felt connected to each other, and loved each other, then the world would be a much better place.

2: Women seek to manipulate and control you. They will prod and poke you to see your reactions. It’s all perfectly understandable – they want someone dedicated to them who will do their bidding. Love and sex are excellent ways to achieve results.

1: I think that women are more likely to get extreme when they feel they’re not receiving the love they have given. But generally everyone is crying out in the dark to be loved.

2: Love, love all we need is love – it’s shite. You’re here to be somebody, to take what you can before it’s too late. By all means, pretend to love if it means getting women, that’s a good tactic.

1:  It’s also callous and hateful.

2: People who desire love want to be adored, admired, pleasured. A little bit of chemical voodoo and that’s your love. It soon goes when the chemicals wear off, when things aren’t as pleasurable as before, when the compliments turn into insults. I can get you better drugs than that if you want.

1: Sometimes with the need to be loved comes an illness that is one way, conditional and with high expectations for personal reward. It’s not love. But all things change, the illness can fade into full health.

2:  A leopard doesn’t change its spots.

1: You’re becoming boring.

2: You disappoint me. You are not survival material.

1:  Somehow that doesn’t matter any more.

2: You will gradually rot away to nothing. And no-one will give a shit.

1: Oh well. I feel a bit lighter. And you’ve helped me answer the main question. Yes I do love her because I want her to be fulfilled and happy, even if she finds that with someone else.

2:  Twat!

1: I would rather live in my world than yours. Cheers.

Humans

Throughout history we have behaved like members of ant colonies: attacking, destroying and enslaving each other, with the added horrors of sadism and sexual violence, often led by one murderous sociopath after another. History is predominately one of brutalised, traumatised, confused people living in pain and subjugation.

But light bursts through the heaviest darkness.