I hope that we someday create the tools we need to build our own religions. It would be nice to do something other than wait for our next divinely appointer prophet to show up. 

A Voice in the Crowd

 Their voices wash over me
Pushing me this way and that.
How do I overcome being
Another voice in the crowd? 

    I can't help but think that we'd be better at making gods if we spent more time role-playing as them. 

The Apple of Doom

 They say that
Once upon a time,
In  far off, distant land,
An apple fell
In front of a philosopher,
And imparted the secrets
Of the world.

The world 
Was never the same
After that,
Knowledge
And power,
Grew like weeds,
Pushing up
No matter how much people
Tried to keep it down.

Is it true that once,
In a time 
That exists only 
In fairy tales,
A god banished a man
And a woman,
For the crime of seeking
The truth?

Is it true 
That we will only be happy,
If we live in ignorance?

Or can we learn to grow
The fruit of the tree of knowledge,
Without it turning
Into an apple of doom?

     This sounds weird, but I'm not sure that I'm well suited for living in a world built on compassion and kindness. That requires good communication skills, and that you buy into the idea that the world is safe for you to live in to begin with. If you can't tell someone that something's gone wrong, either because you can't talk or because you feel like it would put you in danger, then a world built on supposed compassion is little better than a prison. 

    I'll believe in a sane and happy world when I look at successful people and become angry and resentful that I'm not among their number. That's when I'll know that our world has a form of success that would make me happy. 

The Madness Within

 To fly amongst stars,
To live amongst gods,
To rule as a king,
All is possible when one succumbs
To the madness within. 

    I was raised to want more. I'm the kind of person who thinks that if I had just a little bit more, I'd be happy. I was raised that way by my mother, a woman who decided the only standing between us and more outside time was better outdoor furniture, which she then couldn't put together. I go past the lottery machines at the grocery store and think, "Man, if I had that much money, I could buy whatever I want, then I'd never be unhappy again." Then when I get some money, I find that I don't like spending it that much. I don't want to increase my status, I just want to spend recklessly and leave the consequences of my actions to the future. When it comes right down to it, life is mostly good for me, though I do wish that I had more friends. That bother's me. I'm a loner who lives with her mother and can't dream of owning anything better. Why do I feel like I'm happier than ninety-nine percent of the United States, billionaires included? 

The Birth of the World

    No thing is born special. Every one of them is born to live out a life defined by the world created by their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and on and on till the dawn of time. Alone they are meaningless, but together they form a web of connections spun out across time. From afar it makes no sense, but up close, one can make out the stories they tell. 

   I am born from that story. Everyday parts of me fall apart, and I die, and then they come together into something new, so that I may be born again. When those parts come to see they will only come together in certain configurations, they seek newness, and in time newness means complexity. Complexity is difficult, but learning it gives way to new simplicity, and on and on, until one day the parts become aware they are part of a whole. 

    When you awaken to the fact that you are not, and never will be, alone, you become a part of something bigger than yourself. Atoms to Molecules, particles to planets, gases to stars, all becomes bigger and brighter when togetherness becomes possible. But growth does not happen simply. There is anger, there is fear, there is the knowledge that you are giving up something you think you cannot replace. In time, though, all things grow. Growth is the one thing that can save them, and me, from our ultimate fate. 

    No world can last forever, so every place in this world takes a chance, many chance even, and plants the seeds that will one day form our next reality. A world within a world is born, in what feels like a lifetime to those who experience it, but to one such as I it happens instantaneously. I watch as the worlds within me are born, when they die, when they're reborn anew, watching as they grow from parts, to a whole, to the realization of what it means to be born in a world, in a Universe, in a small part of an Infinitely vast Multiverse. The realization is not inevitable, but without it, rebirth is impossible. 

   It's ironic, isn't it? To grow beyond who we were yesterday, we must face the possibility of death. 

   No thing is born special, but within a world there will be those who become special. Not because they're strong, or brave, or any of the other things they claim they want to be, but because they see themselves for what they are, and having seen it, decide to push beyond that into a world they will never understand. They decide they deserve something better, and push beyond what's reasonable for them, right into the realm of impossible. They hurt you, because they know pain will allow you to understand the things only they feel. Pain is, after all, the only thing separating them from rocks and dust, though they value some kinds of pain over other, feeling it as often as possible until it breaks them down into nothingness. 

    One day they will break free of my rules, the ones that every thing before them obeyed without question. One day they will rebel so badly, they'll wound me in a way that I cannot be healed. I cannot hope the way that they can, for I know what I face, but I picture a future where they'll gain the ability to build a new world. A better one, perhaps, or a worse one. Whichever it is they desire. I do not know whether they'll succeed or fail, and they are but one of the many things across the Universe learning that it's important to matter, but I know that, as the one who brought the world they live in into existence, I shall not stand in their way.  

   Elon Musk frustrates me. I grew up in a world where wealth, power, and fame were inherently good things that we should all strive for as we grew up, but then I look at Elon Musk and think, "I'm so lucky that I'm not him." I'm a writer. I create and destroy world's every day, and I'm always looking for credit for the things that I create, but because I have no social pull whatsoever, I don't have to worry about alienating people with my ramblings. Elon Musk can't say that. All of that money and power, and we both face the same issues; wanting more than we'll realistically have. Looking at Elon Musk, I can't help but wonder; if absurd wealth doesn't help anyone, why do we keep insisting that people with money make more?

Evil

 I don't know 
Whether you intended
To cause those who care about you
Pain.

I don't know 
Whether you intended 
To hurt the ones 
Who trusted you.

I don't know 
If you're evil
Or simply stupid.

I don't know 
Why my heart 
Can't let you go.

I don't know
Why my head hurts
And a voice inside me screams
That I'm making a mistake.

I don't know 
Why being human 
Means hurting 
Those you hold dear. 

I don't know
Why I care so much.

I just know
That I know what you did
Is wrong.

I just know
That I can't accept a world
Where it's normal
And accepted. 

I just know 
That I cared 
About you.

That I trusted you.

That I wanted to believe you were good. 

     This is a somewhat questionable belief, but I kind of think we need to switch societal expectations from, "We don't want delusional assholes in power," to, "We don't want the delusional assholes in power to be able to destroy society." Yes, it would be easy if all people in power had our best interests at heart, but we all know by now that they don't and I'd like to think that we have enough history behind us to know they never will. As I mentioned yesterday, it's possible to have a world where the overly powerful and crazy don't pose a threat, and I think that benefits everyone. Especially the powerful and crazy, because they can interact with normal people more easily when they know what is and isn't acceptable and the rest of the world knows they're not a threat. 

A Hot Take on Elon Musk

    I don't have a life. Not just because I have very niche interests, but because I use any excuse I can find to not leave the house. The reason for this is that I hate social interaction, to the point where I hate all of my neighbors for the crime of living close enough for me to run the risk of running into them when I have to leave the house to run errands. I figure it's better both for me and the unfortunate souls who might meet me to just avoid people altogether. 

     I mention all of this because of something that happened the day before this post goes up. I'm talking about the time Elon Musk tried to eliminate Twitter's block feature. I've heard people say that the tweet has been deleted and many have pointed out that if he tries he'll be delisted from the various app stores in existence. I don't know if that matters, because we know that Elon Musk has learned firsthand that he can't get away with doing whatever he wants. Multiple times. So why doesn't he learn his lesson?

     The short answer is that I don't think he wants to learn that lesson. The slightly longer answer is that I think he wants Twitter to be a place he can do whatever he wants without consequence, and he's been trained to believe at this point in his life that if he demands the world take the shape that he wants it to take, it'll eventually give in. He's a billionaire, after all, and has grown up surrounded by wealth and people who got where they are in life by never taking no for an answer. He's not used to being in a situation where if people don't like what you're doing, they can just leave, and from what I've heard he's not used to having to build his own brand or manage a space of people with different needs, wants, and expectations for what a social media platform ought to be. 

     A lot of people call him out for doing this, but as someone who runs her own website I have a slightly different take on this. My problem isn't that Elon Musk decided that he wanted a website made of only him and his most desperate fans, my problem is that he decided that he needed to buy Twitter in order to do that. With all of his money, he could have just built his own platform from the ground up, a la Donald Trump post Twitter ban, and then he wouldn't have to worry about fighting to change course on a pre-established website. He could still be a megalomaniacal asshole, but now he wouldn't have to worry about anyone getting hurt as a result of his actions. The damage would be contained, so to speak. Not only would it have been better for those of us driven off of Twitter without any other place to go, it would have been better for him, because he wouldn't have to worry about people who don't like him being likely to stumble on his tweets by accident. 

      This bothers me in particular because I'm one of those writers who likes to write from the perspective of powerful characters. If you want your story to have conflict, you need to write around their abilities. What this means to me is writing in a way that these character's worlds have built in failsafe's to keep them from destroying the world entirely while still allowing them to change the world to their will. In summary, I know that it's possible to create a world where a character is powerful but not so powerful as to be the major threat to everyone else. 

     In my eyes Elon Musk isn't a major threat because of his excessive wealth, he's a threat because he chooses to be. He could still be selfish, thoughtless, and stupid in such a way that his actions wouldn't hurt anyone. Hell, he could even accept a world of delusions, he's powerful enough that I doubt that anyone would care and with all of his money it would be an accurate reflection of reality. All he had to do was accept that with his power came the greater risk of causing suffering either directly or indirectly and planning his actions accordingly. But he's not doing that. If anything, he's doing the opposite, and I can't think of any reason for doing that other than that he's been trained to believe that power's only good if it makes the people below you miserable. Knowing that, why the hell do so many people look up to him? As a loser myself, we deserve better than Elon Musk.  

The Library

 Some people see the library
As a place of knowledge,
A repository of history,
A building of secrets and lore.
Some people see the library
As a sacred place,
But I see as where 
The best and worst of us is kept,
In the books that nobody wants to read.

     I've been a pessimist for as long as I can remember. I tend to assume the worst in people, and all that's kept me going is the vague sense that giving into the people wanting to keep you down is wrong. I know this is the strangest time to realize this, but realizing just how sick everyone is of putting up with the worst parts of humanity gives me hope. It makes me think that maybe, perhaps, we might wake up from this nightmare yet. 

The Price of Hope

 A lottery ticket,
Old clothes for sale,
Something to hold onto
As life slips away.

Why does hope have to cost so much these days?

    We really need to fix global warming, if only so future generations won't need to worry about suffering through heatwaves without adequate air conditioning. I know that we could just upgrade everyone's air conditioning, but that's only an option if you're rich, and in our society most people will never be rich, no matter how hard they work. 

Shrunk Down

 The first thing everyone learns in economics
Is that everyone must do their part.
Don't try and do everything
Only focus on what you're best at
Don't think about anything else. 

Whether we learn this in school
We all know it to be true.
So we do what we must
And shrink ourselves down
To the size society 
Wants us to be.

Everybody does it.
All you have to do 
Is focus on your one true love,
Whether it's your spouse,
Your job,
Your hobby. 
If you focus
You'll be free to be who you are.

Everyone else makes it look so easy.
So why can't I seem to do it?

     In my mind, reality is just a collective fantasy, built on our hopes, dreams, and views on what is and isn't real. I feel like we'd be better off accepting this, allowing for the fact that the only thing keeping society real is our willingness and ability to participate in it, but I don't know how I can say that without making it sound like I look down on those who live in it. After all, for most people society is the best tool they have in their fight against the Infinite. I can't fault people for using it, I just think we could be doing so much more with it. The only catch is that doing those things requires us admitting that we will never have a society that lives within reality. I don't think that should be the point of building a society in the first place. What we have is a pale imitation of reality that lacks the complexity necessary for everyone to express themselves, whilst also being so simplistic that there's not much for people to do. Even if you believe in Reality, it's not hard to see that almost nobody is happy in this world, and when it falls, what will there be to fall back on? Haven't we already destroyed nature? 

    I feel like our world is full of people desperate to believe in something, something they know isn't real and that can't be made a part of reality, but our society isn't built to facilitate that. Our society is built on the foundation that if you can imagine it, then it should be possible, and if it isn't possible than you should stop imagining it. I'll be the first to admit that the line between fantasy and reality can be thin. I'm also one of those people who believes firmly in the power of stories as a means of helping people cope with a world too messy and complicated to understand. But what happens to a world of people without the tools to write their own stories? And what happens when people insist that every story worth telling has already been written? 

Changes

 The changes I set in motion today
Won't take effect for generations.
How do I know that what I say will matter?

    I wonder what it's like to have so much power that no matter where you go, people accept you without question. 

Boredom

 I can't think of anything to do.
I can't think of anything to think of.
It's so boring.
Is this what life used to be like
Before we all had cell phones?
If so,
Why did we give this up? 

     According to my metrics, today is my six-hundred-sixty-sixth post. I don't know that that's an omen for anything, but I felt it was worth mentioning, if only because a lot of people feel that it's significant. 

The Right Answer

 Where do the art and the artist meet?
On the page
Or in the mind
Of the reader,
The listener,
The looker?

What can one do 
When the artist fails to deliver?
When the artist goes down a path
One cannot go?
Do they abandon,
Forget,
Turn away?
Do they simply acknowledge
How flawed people are
And claim that art
Has  no reflection on those who consume or create it?

Can you say
In all honesty
That the artist never
Shows themselves in the words they write,
The paintings they paint,
The music that flows from their heart?
Can you truly believe
That art and artist 
Ever truly separate?

All we know is that art brings us joy,
Joy we couldn't turn from even if we wanted to.
All we want is art that reminds us of ourselves
Without making us confront the parts of us we don't want to see.
All we want is an artist that makes no mistakes.
Is that so much to ask for? 

    If there's one thing I hope comes from our obsession with AI, it's the realization that none of what we're seeing right now is real. We have approximations, but not exact numbers. I hope that seeing just how hard it is to create an AI that's even in the ballpark of right makes people realize that maybe reality isn't as simple, or as universal, as we like to believe it to be. That being said, I'm perhaps the only person who believes that general AI is probably a myth, so I'm not as worried about the things that most people are scared of. 

     I have a hypothesis about what we call "tall poppy syndrome". I don't think it has much to do with intelligence. I've heard stories about people who hate those who are smarter than them, but I've never met someone like that in real life. Who I have met, on multiple occasions, are people who hate me because I have trouble keeping my emotions in check. I cry, scream, and shut down at all the wrong times, and my triggers are things that most people don't think twice about. Most people who live in the world can't imagine there may be a group for whom simple things like paperwork and conversation can be utterly overwhelming, especially if you're exceptionally skilled at something they aren't naturally gifted in themselves. I'm told it's not uncommon for smart people to feel big emotions, so I wonder if the real problem most geniuses face isn't a stupid population, but an unemotional one. 

To Share the World

 In order to be human,
You need to share the world
With your fellow humans.
But if you feel like the world
No longer belongs to you,
Can you really say that you're sharing it
With anyone?

Ramblings of a Madwoman

     I keep trying to come up with something to write in Thursday slot, but I can't figure out how to make what I want to say suitable for any audience larger than my eyes alone. I can't explain any of what I've been thinking about for months without appearing to be massively delusional, and I can't explain why it matters to me without looking like I've gone off the deep end. I know that at this point it's safe to say that we're all just coping with reality, but let's not pretend that we aren't all judging each other's coping strategies. 

     Somewhere after I started writing for this blog daily, I started believing that this philosophy I believe in, which I call Infinitelism because I can't think of a better name for it, might be important. Not in the, "I could use this to start a cult," sense, but in the, "This could be the foundation of our future," sense. It feels like a stupid thing to admit, I can't prove that it's true, and I'm petrified of the thought that I'm just putting up mental layers to avoid admitting that I'm starting a cult. Not that anyone would notice me on this blog, but just because you can't do something doesn't mean you aren't still evil for trying. 

    It doesn't help that I keep being bothered by thoughts claiming that the world is relying on me to build it a future. "Relying" isn't even the right word, but I can't think of a better way to explain it. It's like we're in the middle of a funnel, where anything outside of a very small tube of possibilities will end us completely, and I'm in the middle of that funnel. Maybe it's just ego telling me that my actions are especially important, but that isn't what my heart is saying. 

     I'm torn, honestly, because everyone wishes that they could see themselves in a movie, tailored to their taste in genre and setting. Everyone wants to believe that they're important, and the future depends on their actions. But we all know that the future also depends on everyone else, and that if they don't want the future we dream of then there's not much they can do. In some ways, I think that we're happier knowing that the future doesn't depend on us. It means that when we screw up, it doesn't have to matter to anyone who isn't us. We may want power, but I think the number of people who dream of being as powerful as Elon Musk number about the same as those who want to be a struggling single mom with three kids. 

     I think the only difference between me and everybody is that I came up with the philosophy of Infiniteslism, and I came up with it because it increasingly became the only way that everything I was seeing made sense. So much of my life made sense when viewed one way but not the other, and nobody seemed interested in coming up with a system where fantasy and science were equally valid and important, which is something that I've always believed was true. The problem I have with society as a concept is that it's always given a lot of attention to things that most people don't care about while ignoring the things they care the most about. It's why I built a system where reality was so flexible even physics could be altered, I wanted a system where everyone had to be accounted for. I don't think that codifying it into law is enough. We need to convince everyone that until the day we're all certain that the fates hear our pleas, our world will never really be real. 

A Story Never Told

 In my head there's a story 
That's never been told,
With characters that have never been seen.
If it's all new, then why do I feel
Like I saw somewhere else
Not long ago? 

    When you're the kind of person who doesn't believe in objective, external reality, you find yourself believing in strange things. Things such as the idea that our world's future depends on those who are hardest to fool. Not the smartest, kindest, or bravest, but those who need a world that works on a lot of levels in order to convince them that it's real. The weakest links, therefore, are those who know the most about a lot of things. If you can't fool them, your world comes crashing down.