Around this time last year, I posted on FB "I wouldn't be surprised if this was all a simulation, but I *would* be disappointed."
The reason this is significant is because two days ago, I had a thought that I'm not sure if this is a simulation. Or if it is a simulation, it would stand to reason that if a civilization existed that could plan OUR civilization, it would have to be super advanced.
Then I got to thinking, what if this was a creation? The 'Big Bang' was a lie and we had an intelligent designer. Where would that intelligent designer come from? Can an intelligent designer make themselves from nothing? Where does this all start?!?!
Common philosophical bullshit.
Then I came across the simulation post I made last year. I didn't add anything to it. No one commented on it. A few people liked it. It was a kind of nothing comment.
But systems (which a simulation would be on) are cyclical. Years are cyclical... more than that, every four years we have a cyclical reset. Months. Weeks. Days. Hours. Minutes. All cyclical. Robotic, you might say.
Last year, the day before the simulation comment, I asked my friends list to send me their current favorite song. Many did. I never got around to listening to any of them.
This year, I did the same thing on purpose because of last year's post, and I haven't listened to any of them either. The difference is, this year I'm a little less burned out and I hope to get to both lists and maybe make it a yearly tradition that no one clocks except me.
But it's still cyclical, whether intentional or not.
A year ago, I was in America sorting out and messing up the last bits of life I had there. Now I'm in China, still sorting out and trying to un-mess-up the last bits of life I had in Ohio.
I don't know if this is a simulation, but I sometimes feel the cyclical nature of my depression creeping up and into my life. It'll swirl around then flush out pretty regularly. It comes when I feel most boring and then I have to change something to make it go away. But what is there to change. I could shave my face and head, but that's only ever temporary. I don't want to change where I'm living because I like China. Even though there are parts of China I don't like, for the most part, this is a good place.
I don't feel at home here, but I didn't feel at home in America either and America has it's share of problems that four years of Donald Trump exacerbated and I don't know that four years of Joe Biden will fix.
I haven't felt at home anywhere, but I think it has nothing to do with the area, and more with the area of my heart... as cliche and stupid as that sounds.
I'll refer to places as home, but it's in name only. To make things simple. Not even to obscure the truth, just to make people not ask any questions. A friend recently referred to the internet as the only place they could be themselves 100% (or close). I don't even know if I have that on the internet anymore. I don't know if there's any place I can be totally 100% myself. It isn't even like I'm hiding a secret racism that I can't let anyone know. It's more like, if I started revealing parts of myself, someone would get hurt.
20s-Azriel would say, "fuck it, if they can't handle you, they don't deserve to" but 20s-Azriel doesn't know the kind of shit 30s-Azriel has gotten up to. I'm not even a shred of the principled person I was back then. I feel fake sometimes. Like the mask on my face to keep my germs in is the least I can do to not infect others.
I feel the worst for my students because I portray myself squarely in "poet mode" where I can do no wrong, or if I do wrong, I'm doing in as part of a performance. I'm afraid my weakness or cowardice will leak into them even while I'm trying to push them to be better than me. I'm so in awe of my students. They are pushing themselves to learn to speak the hardest Human language ever and they are doing so well even if they think they aren't.
They give me hope and I'm glad to watch them on their way, but that still doesn't make this home. I still don't feel any less than alien.
In the Matrix, Agent Smith said the first Matrix was a paradise, a place where everyone could be happy. He said that Matrix was a disaster. The Human mind couldn't comprehend programming where there were no problems.
Programming...
That's an interesting concept.
I think I've mentioned this before... but I don't believe in an abundance of free will.
I think people don't have control over their actions, but it's not due to "god" controlling them. I think it's programming.
Evolution has dictated we survive by performing a particular set of actions to continue our species.
The four Fs as they are called: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing and Reproduction (*wink*).
That's what keeps us going. That is our initial programming.
If we break any of those programs we die as a species, some faster than others.
That's where we get our free will. If we go against our programming.
If we decide not reproduce, the species dies out, but it's our own choice (unless someone takes the choice away from us, in that case it's still an exercise of free will, just someone else's free will and you still lose yours).
You exercise free will when you choose not to do the things you are programmed to do. So if you are programmed to eat and you decide not to, you exercise free will. If you are programmed to fight to defend yourself, but you do not, you are exercising free will. If you are programmed to run away when you are in danger and you do not, you are exercising free will.
Even if the exercising of that free will is in order to save someone else, it is putting someone else ahead of yourself and that is against natural law and therefore exercising free will.
This isn't a complete theory and I reserve my right to change my mind.
Also, this blog has become a clusterfuck of ideas. Just like the simulation which we may or may not be in.
I'll stop here.
I start a new schedule when I wake up. I have a goal to finish Novel 5 by the end of the summer.
Wish me luck!
The reason this is significant is because two days ago, I had a thought that I'm not sure if this is a simulation. Or if it is a simulation, it would stand to reason that if a civilization existed that could plan OUR civilization, it would have to be super advanced.
Then I got to thinking, what if this was a creation? The 'Big Bang' was a lie and we had an intelligent designer. Where would that intelligent designer come from? Can an intelligent designer make themselves from nothing? Where does this all start?!?!
Common philosophical bullshit.
Then I came across the simulation post I made last year. I didn't add anything to it. No one commented on it. A few people liked it. It was a kind of nothing comment.
But systems (which a simulation would be on) are cyclical. Years are cyclical... more than that, every four years we have a cyclical reset. Months. Weeks. Days. Hours. Minutes. All cyclical. Robotic, you might say.
Last year, the day before the simulation comment, I asked my friends list to send me their current favorite song. Many did. I never got around to listening to any of them.
This year, I did the same thing on purpose because of last year's post, and I haven't listened to any of them either. The difference is, this year I'm a little less burned out and I hope to get to both lists and maybe make it a yearly tradition that no one clocks except me.
But it's still cyclical, whether intentional or not.
A year ago, I was in America sorting out and messing up the last bits of life I had there. Now I'm in China, still sorting out and trying to un-mess-up the last bits of life I had in Ohio.
I don't know if this is a simulation, but I sometimes feel the cyclical nature of my depression creeping up and into my life. It'll swirl around then flush out pretty regularly. It comes when I feel most boring and then I have to change something to make it go away. But what is there to change. I could shave my face and head, but that's only ever temporary. I don't want to change where I'm living because I like China. Even though there are parts of China I don't like, for the most part, this is a good place.
I don't feel at home here, but I didn't feel at home in America either and America has it's share of problems that four years of Donald Trump exacerbated and I don't know that four years of Joe Biden will fix.
I haven't felt at home anywhere, but I think it has nothing to do with the area, and more with the area of my heart... as cliche and stupid as that sounds.
I'll refer to places as home, but it's in name only. To make things simple. Not even to obscure the truth, just to make people not ask any questions. A friend recently referred to the internet as the only place they could be themselves 100% (or close). I don't even know if I have that on the internet anymore. I don't know if there's any place I can be totally 100% myself. It isn't even like I'm hiding a secret racism that I can't let anyone know. It's more like, if I started revealing parts of myself, someone would get hurt.
20s-Azriel would say, "fuck it, if they can't handle you, they don't deserve to" but 20s-Azriel doesn't know the kind of shit 30s-Azriel has gotten up to. I'm not even a shred of the principled person I was back then. I feel fake sometimes. Like the mask on my face to keep my germs in is the least I can do to not infect others.
I feel the worst for my students because I portray myself squarely in "poet mode" where I can do no wrong, or if I do wrong, I'm doing in as part of a performance. I'm afraid my weakness or cowardice will leak into them even while I'm trying to push them to be better than me. I'm so in awe of my students. They are pushing themselves to learn to speak the hardest Human language ever and they are doing so well even if they think they aren't.
They give me hope and I'm glad to watch them on their way, but that still doesn't make this home. I still don't feel any less than alien.
In the Matrix, Agent Smith said the first Matrix was a paradise, a place where everyone could be happy. He said that Matrix was a disaster. The Human mind couldn't comprehend programming where there were no problems.
Programming...
That's an interesting concept.
I think I've mentioned this before... but I don't believe in an abundance of free will.
I think people don't have control over their actions, but it's not due to "god" controlling them. I think it's programming.
Evolution has dictated we survive by performing a particular set of actions to continue our species.
The four Fs as they are called: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing and Reproduction (*wink*).
That's what keeps us going. That is our initial programming.
If we break any of those programs we die as a species, some faster than others.
That's where we get our free will. If we go against our programming.
If we decide not reproduce, the species dies out, but it's our own choice (unless someone takes the choice away from us, in that case it's still an exercise of free will, just someone else's free will and you still lose yours).
You exercise free will when you choose not to do the things you are programmed to do. So if you are programmed to eat and you decide not to, you exercise free will. If you are programmed to fight to defend yourself, but you do not, you are exercising free will. If you are programmed to run away when you are in danger and you do not, you are exercising free will.
Even if the exercising of that free will is in order to save someone else, it is putting someone else ahead of yourself and that is against natural law and therefore exercising free will.
This isn't a complete theory and I reserve my right to change my mind.
Also, this blog has become a clusterfuck of ideas. Just like the simulation which we may or may not be in.
I'll stop here.
I start a new schedule when I wake up. I have a goal to finish Novel 5 by the end of the summer.
Wish me luck!
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