I reckon if you plotted (over a century or two) the relationship between average family size (no of kids) versus the rise of mental illness (depression and anxiety) you’d find a pretty good correlation. My view is that with less kids, we become more focused on their individual well-being, hence they are are at the centre of their own universes, then they get more disappointed with reality as they get older as it becomes obvious that they are not really at the centre of anyone else’s universe (outside of their parents).

A dodgy old school politician feeding off pre-enlightenment retards.

Their view is always the knee jerk impulsive one, with no interest in deeper exploration of any matter.

And they never learn. They prefer to live in a poverty of the mind and spirit.

What to do? Nowt, there’s no getting through. Even if you could the effort, would not be worth it.

Pigs.

My dad had gotten bitten by the progressive bug; he really thinks there is dire poverty in Australia in 2019.

I challenged him to compare the poverty to that of 1933. He said “no contest”.

So he’s not completely blind.What we actually have is a poverty of mind. Let me explain…The calls for fixing poverty are driven by the envy of those with so much.And many of those with so little will gamble, smartphone, and porn themselves before they’ll eat.

Some of those with very little prefer it that way. Very few are starving without recourse.Those worried about poverty as an issue at not those suffering. That’s a different crowd altogether.Of mind…

When automation makes us all redundant one option is that the govt grants us all a minimum wage.

A better option is that companies pay us not to work. And their tax rates and constructs makes them do so.Oh I love that.

It’s become apparent to me that work is just like social media, addictive with little endorphin hits ongoing.

No wonder people take it so seriously. And also why it’s so hard to quit.

Ethics are other people’s morals.

Morals are your parents’.

An honest school motto”prope est satis satis“.

Metonymy (/mɛˈtɒnəmi/) is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.

Literally I meant figuratively you metaphorically depleted so and so.

I’m doing ok in this relationship. Better than ever before. And truthfully, Nic is like a synthetic construct that I dreamed up. So it’s as good as it gets for me. I hope sincerely that it’s good for her as well. She says it is. Deep down however I can’t help feeling that I’m not that good at this. Actually I’m not that good at being a social animal in the human sense, period. Character mixed with too much learning had pushed me into a cynical corner from where I can barely tolerate the society that I depend upon for my continued survival. I have some residual caring, but these are depleting as quickly as my wealth.Where it ends I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll die before my system revolts against the addiction of living amongst the fools. It’s a shame it’s come to this. But the subject matter simply doesn’t bear as much deconstruction that I’ve given it. Oddly though, I can retain my humor despite it all. That’s a blessing that I don’t deserve and didn’t work for. I’m just one act of God away from complete destitution and the thought of that scares me not one whit. Here’s hoping my incredible luck holds up for Viv and Lola’s sake!

This is how many seconds it would take one monkey to randomly reproduce all the known works of Shakespeare.

3.62e+9712034

Last night I had a very vivid dream. It was all about the root cause of my falling out with my now former CTO.

At the core of the issues, I found that the problem was intellectual rivalry.

Which means that pride remains my problem.

Or is it?

Whence comes the desire to both do well, and to have others see that?

Projects, these are evil. Be they work or home. Like TV, they are the opiates for the people. Things to keep us motivated, else we start longing for an early and unproductive death.

It’s hard being human. David Hockney said;

“We grow small by trying to be great” .

He should have added “and failing”. That’s an important proviso.

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”

Especially if he is boxed in and has no choice. Even if he prefers otherwise.

When in doubt, sad or unhappy, consume.

Back to the pseudo-cleft sentence with wh-clauses, geez they annoy me.

It has become a torrent of addictive shit writing.

Every single title of just about every article written starts with a Why, or a How, or similar, and not a question mark in sight.

Correct – the author is the arbiter of truth and you the reader is about to be lectured.

Their thinking; if you are led like a lamb to the slaughter then you are more likely to have your tiny pea brain converted to the glorious truth as espoused.

“Why the pseudo-cleft sentence should be banned”

There’s a key difference between Nicola and Joanne.

Joanne was loyal to a fault, and mad as a hatter. Nicola’s love and devotion has a great big (sane) asterix against it that she doesn’t even know exists. Basically my role here is subject to my ongoing good humour and good behaviour.

Any prolonged period of depression or poor humour on my part and she’s out. For sure.

It’s probably better this way than the other. Mainly because the other comes with all sorts of other issues that aren’t worth the pain. Also the asterix keeps me on my toes; I don’t like that but it’s probably for the better.

The odd part of this arrangement is that she doesn’t have to live with an asterix on my part, so it’s one sided.

This only works because of her basic good humour and disposition. On the other hand I struggle with the same at times. So it works. Although I do find it tiring because in essence I can never relax.

And she lets me know too. She keeps reminding me that I’m provisional. This is the very last time I’m exposing myself like this.

When in doubt, get even. It’s not good karma necessarily, but it may be that the fuckwits will learn more this way and eventually thank you. Or not.

Back to forecasting; most business disagreements centre around variance in future prognostications between the warring parties.

Rarely after the war is over do the players review what actually happened as compared to their forecasts, so adjusting their faith in their crystal balls.

They prefer to keep throwing their balls at each other.

When it became clear to Pierre that I’m not in for either the money or the glory, he got very confused. What else is there after all?

Very sophisticated. Drink this beer and there, by the grace of God, go you.

It’s a subject that I could never tire of.

I’m not sure why.

But there’s a lot to learn in this.

Best night ever…

What have I learned?

Well, coalitions of love are worth their weight in gold.

Until they’re not.

“Hastings is struggling to keep up with demand. He says ostriches aren’t the smartest animals and rearing them requires hands-on work that keeps him busy from dawn to dusk.”

When told that Phil wasn’t sure that [insert female name] was ‘the one’, Noel noted that ‘he’d know’.

With reference to the rock lobster, Genevieve asks me why the black man has a six pack.

The internet has no idea.

I’ve done it twice at least, maybe thrice. And to be honest, I’m not sure about the third one which itself a condemnation.

Undermining and general cuntyness to my bosses, that is.

Noel, Malcolm and maybe Bill. I’m not sure about Bill. Years and jobs apart, the other two are Thomsons by some odd coincidence; something that I just noticed years after the facts.

All Kate’s are cunts, and their families. But I digress.

Are all coincidences odd? Is that a tautology. Is a normal coincidence a oxymoron? Is the antonym of tautology oxymoron? Should there be a comma in that last sentence? But I digress even further.

So Thorsten is just behaving like I have done previously. Unwitting, unknowing and without (much) premeditated malice, but with malice nonetheless. Fully indemnified by his quasi rationale belief in my hypocrisy and his own delusional lack of the same.

It matters not how I react to him. What matters is that I don’t react as did my former lieges. They were destructive in their revenge and generated the karma they deserved. And thus there was no generational growth. Our duty is not to ourselves but to the next generations in all their types.

We must not pass on the bad. We must recognise it in ourselves and at the very least figure out how not pass it on, even if we ourselves are fully inflicted.

Generosity of spirit, that is the key. Even if the recipient doesn’t deserve it in any universe.

I must endeavour not to do the obvious and not be myself.

This is very comforting.

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

No pity mate. You mistook yourself as you’ve admitted. Now we have the pleasure of seeing you punished for your vanity and greed, and general cuntiness. We think they call it karma.

However in saying that we generate our own karma. Our lack of compassion and forgiveness marks us as cunty hypocrites. The very thing that gave you fuel in the first place.

I don’t love every concept in this blog. But there’s very few that I’d go to the mat for. However together they guide me usefully towards my non-purpose.

Would I turn them over to an editor in the context of mining them for a book? Probably not unless I’ve completely failed in my task, either dead or alive.

So God had seven days, eh? Well a whole day was spent puzzling over the vagina.

In the end, the vagina turned out be a bit of a Heath Robinson. In Bauhaus terms, a triumph of function over form.

And it’s got a lot of function at that, when you think about it properly.

When a spouse complains “that you’re never around” or “you travel half the time”, what does it mean?

Firstly, that you travel at least a day a fortnight. Second, that you don’t feel the need to apologise for this. Third, you probably look forward to the time not being nagged at. Fourth, you’re hitched to a mad person that you should leave immediately.

After all, what’s the point of complaining that someone is never around if you then go and be a cunt to them when they are around? Therein lies the tip of the madness iceberg.

I think the reason that Nic and I have such a good relationship is that we have a remarkable overlap of values.

And they just happen to be a very accepting set of values as well.

Plus she’s gorgeous.

The age old question; you say I’m a narcissist, I say you’re fucking mad.

The difference is rooted in values.

With one set of values certain behaviors can only be explained by narcissism.

With another set of values, you’re a fucking judgey moron.

I strongly prefer my values.

When someone says “the only concern I have is….”; what they really mean is ” I hate the whole thing”.

[scene] Qantas lounge Melbourne. 5am. Everyone looks weirdly funky, odd. It’s like they’re trying really hard to both fit in and stand out at the same time but because of their madness, which they are wearing on their sleeves, they’re doing a really shit job at it. The result; twilight zone.

Or it’s just me. Maybe the observer had the problem.

Occam’s Razor would suggest the latter.

My dad said he was simply letting Vivian destroy the kitchen at will “until he gets bored with it”.

Further he had a name for this; “saturation training”.

Well fuck me, who knew my dad has his own hidden school of philosophy going on?

Interesting idea for trade tariff negotiations, sans any negotiators.

Just make a broad announcement that import tariffs are zero for all reciprocating sources of categories of goods, from anywhere.

Or, just make a broad announcement that import tariffs are matched for all reciprocating sources of categories of goods, from anywhere.

Then the reciprocating country could just pick whatever tariff level it wanted, and it would be matched.

Devilishly simple. And it puts the negotiators and economists out of a job.

I guess people that are over a hundred are likely to die tomorrow?

Worse mall ever…

A number of quasi-homophones that no one has previously connected:

Cargo cults: used in anthropology

Isomorphic mimicry: used in economics

Spiritual bypassing: used in psychology
Postdictive criterion validity: in psychometrics

All based on the quaint idea that if you copy the habits of others, there by the grace of God you will follow.

Cryptocurrency: a transfer of wealth from the stupid to the cunts.

An interesting bet each way, in order to achieve nowt.

Try this out: I acknowledge the owners of the 7 eleven that I just robbed as the former custodians of the money now in my hands. Thanks guys!

Entitled, “Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons” here is a 13 line summary of the 50 page diatribe.

1. Be together for the right reasons
2. Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance
3. The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect
4. Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts
5. A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals
6. Give each other space
7. You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways; embrace it
8. Get good at fighting
9. Get good at forgiving
10. The little things add up to big things
11. Sex matters… a LOT
12. Be practical, and create relationship rules
13. Learn to ride the waves
But why share such bullshit? It’s not as though people can change themselves. There’s no “faking it till you make it” in relationships; they expose you for who you really are. 13 pointless points.

The only point that mattered in this article is that healthy people make healthy relationships. The rest follows from that. If you’re both healthy you don’t need rules. You know how to treat people and how to regulate your emotions. If one or both partners are fucked in the head then no rules in the world are gonna help.

For what it’s worth, the suspension of disbelief, temporary or permanent, is best engendered in the company of other fools. The more the merrier; for the devil that is, the foolor, not the foolee.

Footnote. It’s easier to brainwash the masses when they are being entertained in the company of their brethren.

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A homophone may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of “rise”), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. The term “homophone” may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, such as phrases, letters, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter, or group of letters. Any unit with this property is said to be “homophonous”.

See you next Tuesday. CUNT. The C and U are homophonic. Who knew eh?

The top 1% have, what, 90% of the world’s wealth?

This means that as an Australian living in this privileged enclave, there’s a good chance that you’ll be wealthy. One in a hundred, in fact.

That’s pretty good odds compared to most gambles.

But if doesn’t feel like that, does it?

The odds of climbing from the 99% into the 1% bracket are in fact one in a zillion. This is because the wealthy do what they can to barracade the ramparts of their caste, on the basis that your loss is my gain.

affidavit
/ˌafɪˈdeɪvɪt/
noun
“a written statement confirmed by oath or affirmation, for use as evidence in court.”

After reading through the aforementioned delusional claims, my oath, one thought comes through clearly.

My current wife has great values. She would never use personal need or upset as an excuse to justify cunty behaviour. She has a conscience and she is responsible for it.

The contrast between the women couldn’t be starker. It’s possibly worth the cost just to be reminded of this.

Boiled down to the core, one has good values only in a reciprocity sense and the other has them in an absolute sense. The former has a great facade but only whilst she wants something from you. Once you’re no good to her, dog meat.

The greater fool was I. But I fixed it in the end, your honour.

What would you do for money? Slander and lie. If not, its probably because you have the luxury not to. How about twisting the truth up in your head so much so that you’re effectively fucked forever? That’s akin to doing a deal with the devil; selling your soul for the benefit of your earthly body.

My ex wife and her lawyer want everything on the basis that I did cunty things. Au contraire; she mind fucked me for two decades. For a more solid description of what happened others can tell that story. I’m not going to dwell on the past, nor counter. That’s not my style.

1. The better the odds, the greater the gap between the feasible and probable return to the investor. This gap must be able to be described mathematically.
2. No one seems to have systematically applied the idea of a motza on investments that usually have a positive return. Imagine, you invest in a Superfund and there is a feasible chance that you could be a multi billionaire. The reason this doesn’t exist is because the fund managers don’t need the motza to attract investors and they wouldn’t share their management fee under any scenario.
3. But what about a mixed investment fund that mixes both positive and negative yield investment classes, and includes a motza to attract the punters?

New word for the day…

Neurosexistentialism

Meaning? Who knows. I just like the sound of it.

We in Australia in this new millennium are practiced in the art of artisan logic.

“a wanker in a vaguely skilled trade, especially one that involves making things up using data gleaned from social media, especially something deemed trendy amongst the millennials.”

Total bullshit, in other words.

The problem is simple. There are nearly infinite future possibilities but in retrospect only one was/is right. The odds are horrendous.

But success is only measured relative to all the other poor fuckers trying to predict the future. So you’ve got a fairly good chance of getting more than your fair share of the proceeds.

Success requires luck and a good grasp of morphic filters; that is, applying past trends to the future and getting lucky on timing.

All that gumph on behavioral economics, all it does is help you avoid dumb ideas underpinned by popular bullshit.

It’s that simple.

A crash is coming. Economically speaking.

Sure it is. But when? Anyone can predict the future but they’re all wrong, or just lucky.

Of course a crash is coming. History is full of them and there’s no cogent plan in place to avoid them because that would cost time and money and concentration, which no one has time for. And the opposition are there making sure it doesn’t happen.

Truth is, greed is a great driving force that can’t be stopped. Except by itself.

I’m starting to sound like a classical economist.

But I can’t ignore the fact that there is a force of social cohesiveness that counters greed. But I would note that it only flourishes in an environment where resources are considered infinite. Which they aren’t.

So….

We need sun for our bodies to work properly.

Avoiding the sun is more risky than smoking, according to the data.

And that’s before you factor in the toxicity of the chemicals in sunblock.

Go figure, as usual. La de da.

Surely, madness is subjective. My objectivity is your madness, for example. To wit, this blog.

I’ve heard that one purpose of declaring the idiot as mad is to protect them, or others, from their unbridled subjectivity.

Taking not this nugget as fool’s, the bar for madness itself must limbo up and down relative to the number of spectators in harm’s way.

At one end, the idiot only risks their own flesh; set the bar high I say. At the other extreme we have Trump, potentially discriminating against 7 billion odd; in such cases, act without evidence and with extreme prejudice.

What a heading, perfect for this 21st century! The diverse crimes of mankind are about to catch up with all of us, whether or not we have been the beneficiaries of these vices. It ain’t fair, it just is.

It’s time to murder a rainy day in the pub, if only one would come along.

On the subject of poo implants:’The researchers conclude there is no “one stool fits all” approach’No shit, Sherlock…

In the UK the Queen is immune to prosecution.

The Queen is also exempt from giving evidence in a witness box.

How does that make sense, even as a bad example?

Nic says day dreams are how we learn from life’s lessons. She could be right.

Two night ago, Nic described how she met this ball of negative energy dude at a party once, and that he was the only person ever that had fully managed to deflate her joy bunny personality.

Then last night in my dreams I was unfortunately reliving my past lives, with Joanne featuring heavily. It was bloody painful having to go back through this particular ball of negative energy.

Circular, painful, tedious and hostile. I woke up in a sweat.

But immediately I understood the message. My big mistake then was putting up with this shit. I should have walked, very early on. By hanging around I was being a complete victim.

It started with Margery, then Heidi, then Joanne and finally Kate.

The purpose of the dream was to tell Lola. My brain is telling me that she might get the same curse. Fear mixed with sympathy that ends up crucifying the possessor by proxy.

The fucked up individuals, they find you, then they suck the blood out of you. If you can escape with your life, you’re lucky.

“After becoming aware that the vision was being shared on social media, Kurtley contacted me last night to apologise for the negative attention the video had attracted and expressed regret at putting himself in a compromising position at that time.”

Seriously, that’s it?

Rugby Australia don’t have a plot to lose.

Everyone wants to tell you about something they love, something they hope you might like, and it’s impossible to fault that impulse. Yes it is! Shut up with your advocacy. Be alone in your desires and tastes. If you truly love it, it’s best savoured alone. That’s the ultimate test; whether you’re seeking approval or just enjoying the thing.

Getup has decided to target Peter Dutton in the upcoming elections because he’s a cunt.

That’s hard to argue with.

However I think this precedent will enable the further polarisation of politics. It’ll drive people like Dutton to the extremes of their positions, simply as a survival tactic.

Getup’s intention is to get rid of Dutton. In the meantime they’ll ensure we see the worst he can do. And who knows they may fail and we will be stuck with the cunt in total cunt mode.

It’s easy for me to be Blase about dying. Unlike the poor folk in mediaeval times I’m not faced with the daily threat of premature extinction Under such circumstances, who knows, I might even clutch at the religious straw like all the other fearful fuckers.

But as it is, I don’t care much. It’s a certainty that I keep pushing away into the distant future, over the hill and out of sight and mind. Effectively, at any moment, I’m timeless and I’ll never die.

As a first order approximation it’s worked so far. And as I’ve noted elsewhere I’m shit at forecasting the future. There’s a 100% certainty that I’ll die. There’s a 1 in a zillion chance that I’d get the day, month or even year right.

Mathematically it’s not worth worrying about. 100 X 0 is still zero.

Ta la de da.

Let’s say it’s easy to be cynical for some. That’s a critique that I have received more than once in my life.

However I’ve never heard someone say to me that’s it’s hard to be optimistic. Same, same.

Oddly I am quite optimistic; it’s the hallmark of an innovator, noting that the future can always be better than the past.

I would just like to say that this highlights the dissonance of the conservative, hating what they aren’t and also what threatens their weedy existence.

Nuff said.

Don’t try and improve on something that works just fine. This despite 300 years of indoctrination that all things can and should be improved upon. They can, but the chances that your current effort will be an improvement is running up against the law of diminishing returns. This is simply a result of those 300 years of avid tinkering by billions of zealots.

What you will find is that you will get change but not an improvement; change is like a drug – you get a hit that lasts a short while until you need another hit.

Wean yourself off change and improvement, I say. To do so, you need to be the change that you want to see, or you must fake it until you make it. It’s like a diet – you simply abstain until it becomes second nature.

PS I’m an idiot. How could I be sold the idea that a 100 year old bike seat design is the best? Never trust old codgers and their dodgy opinions, based on nostalgia and creeping irrelevance. Irony alert!

After a lot of reading here’s what I know about weight loss and control.

One, avoid refined carbohydrates because they are super rich in calories.

Two, avoid refined carbohydrates because they escalate the insulin response, which triggers fat storage. Especially fructose.

Three, where possible choose protein over fat over carbs (in that order).

Four, fast where possible. Skip lunch, Skip breakfast. Skip something. Fasting improves the insulin response. For the pancreas imagine that a change is as good as a holiday.

Five, exercise regularly and change it up too. This improves the insulin response and also chews up a few calories and builds muscles, which uses more calories than fat does.

That’s it. No mysteries. Just discipline and getting used to the regime.

I think we humans are born with key values hardwired in.

Central to our value system is how we treat and perceive other humans.

At one end, the classic conservative just wants slaves.

At the other end, social creatures really care about the feelings of others.

In kids you can tell where they’re at on the spectrum by their grasp of reciprocation. It’s inherent; they either want something for nothing, or they understand they have to give to get.

Trust, fear, love, optimism; they’re all wrapped up in this preset position. There probably needs to be a supra definition of all these attributes from which they all spring.

Currently I’m leaning towards thinking that this is all wrapped up in one’s perception of time, the here and now versus the there and then. Living too much in the here and now stunts the young mind in it’s development of the understanding on consequences in the future.

And yet your doesn’t feel quite right. I’ll keep pondering.

Query whether it’s at all possible to reset a kid’s set point? I doubt it unless it’s at great cost.

There’s nothing oppressed about the noble, and there’s nothing noble about the oppressed.

Back in the old days all sorts of things were made illegal; prostitution, SP bookies, gambling in general, drugs of all sorts, even grog after 6pm, etc.

Of course making something illegal doesn’t suppress demand or supply, it just stops the collection of tax.

The shareholders that benefit are different too; cops, politicians, judges and crooks instead of super funds and their limited partners, and the managers of the oligarchical corporations that tend to dominate each sector.

I can’t say which is the better situation in fact. The former is hypocritical and dangerous, but generally more fun too. The latter is less dangerous all round but somewhat neutered and far more hypocritical.

No Ben, a protein diet is a proxy for eating less processed (read “industrialised cheap-arsed”) food. It’s a useful shortcut that pretty much works.

Spengler was right; we’re in our historical decline and right on target.

No amount of weird left-field exhortation by druids is going to change that mate.

Nobody cares enough. On a sinking ship it’s all hands for themselves.

Behind the daily facade of demented desire, people know that it’s all bullshit. They’re just way too chickenshit to admit that to themselves.

It’s a religion, meaning that they all believe the bullshit solely because everyone else does.

In real life and in history there is no moment when the emporer has no clothes.

The emporer is always clothed. Before, during and after progress.

I’m pretty sure this doesn’t actually mean what it says.

The past is the best predictor of the future. Unless it’s not, of course. In which case it still is.

There’s an exception to that last rule; the chick that got away. Can I even say that?

It’s much easier to forget things that you didn’t do.

And yet another feature of religions that is worth noting…

All of them claim to know the future, as if it’s all mapped out.

This stands true for both the old school God religions and for the modern civil religions.

I say, if you’re that good at predicting the future then go buy some stocks.

It must be that people need to believe that the future already exists, or that time does not. Analogous to a fear of death, me thinks.

Odd that the English language does not seem to have a word for the “desire to make others envious of one”. It’s ubiquitous, whatever it is; seems to drive the whole social media thing.

Actually, the possible motives for sharing are genuine sharing of information, and the seeking of admiration, envy or jealousy.

I checked in on Lola and she admitted the latter two.

Kant’s chant; “dare to question” is the ‘call to arms’ of the enlightenment.

Things were so dire in 1750 that this was a fair call. Any complaint was more than 99% likely to be justified.

But things are so good now that the ingrained habit of dissing the status quo has become a psychological disturbance.

What is there to complain about apart from Woody Allen, Donald, sugar, apps that don’t work properly etc?

Dissonance, that’s what the children of the enlightenment have as their legacy.

The dissonance between the need to complain and the desire to complain.

Rightly so, the younger children of the revolution are turning their backs on Kant. Accepting of any old bullshit, they’re drifting through life only vaguely purturbed by facts and fiction.

I’ve just got an article viewer called pocket. It collects ‘quality’ articles for you to read.

The vast majority are American sourced.

The defining quality of all things American is insecurity. And this fact shines through in the titles of all these articles. Endlessly.

How not to start an article’s title with a how

By Cat Stevens

Miles from nowhere
I guess I’ll take my time
Oh yeah, to reach there
Look up at the mountain
I have to climb
Oh yeah, to reach there.
Lord my body has been a good friend
But I won’t need it when I reach the end
Miles from nowhere
I guess I’ll take my time
Oh yeah, to reach there
I creep through the valleys
And I grope through the woods
‘Cause I know when I find it my honey
It’s gonna make me feel good, yes
I love everything
So don’t it make you feel sad
‘Cause I’ll drink to you, my baby
I’ll think to that, I’ll think to that.
Miles from nowhere
Not a soul in sight
Oh yeah, but it’s alright
I have my freedom
I can make my own rules
Oh yes, the ones that I choose
Lord my body has been a good friend
But I won’t need it when I reach the end
I love everything
So don’t it make you feel sad
‘Cause I’ll drink to you, my baby
I’ll think to that, I’ll think to that.
Oh yeah
Miles from nowhere
Guess I’ll take my time
Oh yeah, to reach there.

It’s a metaphor for a life well lived. And a good one.

Last night the 19 year old daughter of an old friend berated me about the evils of eating meat.

I doubled down, and started rabbiting on about the evils of wheat, or was that the weevils of eat?

She started looking for the exit pretty soon. Let’s hope she reflects on the incident.

My view – the current uptake of utes by Australian men is a result of their guilt at earning so much money by doing nothing. These are the professionals, mind you. The ute represents real work with muscles. The give-away, though, is that they only started buying utes once the manufacturers added dual cabs. Dual cabs means they are a car with the appearance of a ute. Its all for show. Witness the Mercedes version below – QED.

Right at the moment I’m not happy.

It’s a combination of things…

Pressure from work

Pressure from home re divorce

Overcommitted to work

Not enough downtime by myself

But is that it? I can’t help feeling that I took a left hand turn some time back when I should have turned right.

By way of example, the mad man next to me, he’s talking crazily to himself and no one. Why I wonder do mad people carry a vestigal sense of social interaction, albeit all gone wrong? True madness would not even recognize other people.

It occurs to me that concepts of memory will apply usefully to the future as well.

For example, distinguishing between episodic and semantic predictions may help frame the odds.

Mooy, massively overrated.

I watched the socceroos play Korea.

He and rest were so static off the ball.

Fucking painful to watch.

How hard is it? Make a run and create opportunities.

Geez.

A great example of CEO hubris. And the natives are restless, fuck them.

Truth is, people need to be involved in key decisions. Otherwise they get restless and stretch their limited power to the limits. Thus the end begins.

Note to self; give them enough rope… and then fuck them properly with their own petard.

So this is what crazy looks like.

Ex wife – A 4 hot (allowing for age and kids), 8 crazy. Well into the no go zone.

Good on you Karl for getting out.

Trouble is he’s landed in the date/haidresser zone. 7 hot, 7 crazy. He’ll learn, very slowly.

When a man leaves a crazy, he’ll be labeled a narcissist.

Just recording it for prosperity.

Who calls an insecure man a narcissist? A severely damaged woman, that’s who.

The big question is how they got so damaged? My guess; unloved as children and deep unachievable parental expectations, combined.

To be honest, I’m very disappointed that Nicola didn’t trust me enough to manage my divorce in a way that suited me.

There’s so many variables that’s it’s too hard to gather them all up and make a sensible argument.

I appreciate being pushed, up to a point. But after a point the effort actually hurt me. I have to deal with the interior of my head, no else does.

I guess she just wants me to be open and discuss things, and then I might learn something new, as has happened in the past.

But on this issue my very self is on the line. I know this because of the frightening dreams. I can’t be content and simultaneously hurt others, even at the risk of being used from beyond the grave.

It’s about me, not them. My wiring is thus limiting. I’ve done what I can to re-program it. I’m not sure how much further I can get without destroying my soul.

Besides, the only feasible argument for intervention is that I’ll be happier if she is. All else is fraught. But that’s a shit argument.

Ok, so the housing market goes boom. Who benefits?

When it’s all bust and gone, a bunch of gamblers and fools have financed a transfer of wealth to a smaller segment of society; those that sold, those that invested in the transactional institutions involved in real estate, and those that have perfect foresight and timing (i.e. flukesters).

More neoliberal rubbish enabled by Capital’s control of politics and the regulatory regimes.

Well I guess it just proves that the losers are in fact fools.

According to Harari we humans were domesticated by wheat around 10,000 years ago. And thus started our multi millennia of misery.

Well guess what? I’m off it, and all other carbs.

Apart from the health benefits, there’s a mental angle. It’s like being freed from slavery.

Why don’t I push you to do better at school?

Firstly, it wouldn’t work. You’d just get pissed off with me and our relationship would suffer. My choice is this; Lola doing so-so at school, or Lola doing so-so at school and also being pissed off with her dad.

Secondly, I think the school system sucks and if I was you I’d skip it. And I don’t want to be a hypocrite. Why “sucks”? Well, they don’t ask you want you want to learn, or how you want to learn it, and they assume parents will be on their kids’ back at all times. Basically, our schooling system is designed to push you into the wage/slave funnel, from where you will earn the means to consume well beyond your needs but also where contentment & enlightenment is virtually impossible.

As an aside, you’re like me; you learn better by ‘doing’ than regurgitating data. That is, you need a purpose and then you learn well. Schools rarely offer this opportunity.

Thirdly, what’s the outcome? Well you do well and you end up using your marks to become a doctor, lawyer or similar and become one of those wage slaves that want to commit suicide at 40. Most people want the “best” for their child because it reflects “well” on them, that is, they want the best for themselves. And “best” just means earns the maximum amount of money and status; it’s so stupid. If you want to have 4 kids and live poor and happily in a country cottage; that is all good by me.

Fourth, I think the days of wage security are coming to an end. Robotics, Automation and AI will make most if not all professions obsolete pretty soon. So it’s time wasted, perfecting the art of schooling because just as you are graduating you will find the demand for professionals is on the wane. In our capitalist economic system, once things are past “peak demand” the reward/price drops as the derivative of the demand. An odd outcome based on the discounted forecasting of future demand – NPV if you like. So the rosy future for professionals is very short-lived from where we are today.

Fifth, I want you to find your own way in life and not be guided/forced down some path that isn’t you, and ends up making you unhappy. You are super smart and already wise, so you have the means to find your own way in life. You don’t have to join the dots that everyone else does. If I can grant you this mantra only as a parent then I will see my job as well done. But already you are wise beyond your years, so I think we are on the right path.

Sixth, I’m going to be there to help you out once you find your path. What you need then, and what I am good at working with, is enthusiasm. You don’t seem to have this for school. But you will have it for something else, I am sure. At some time in the future we will work together to make your desires come true. Note; not your ‘dreams’ – dreams are generally too weird for everyday living.

I have noticed that almost everyone I talk to thinks that I should push/encourage/tutor you through school. From my mum, Roscoe, random strangers, you name it. The depth and breadth of the type of people with this view is startling. They are all drinking the same Kool Aid and none of them seems to have stopped to consider their position rationally. Even those that are in a position to do so. This smacks of a religion to me; that is, a whole bunch of people that believe in some bullshit because everyone else does. I hope that, if nothing else, I have taught you to see through religions.

Besides you are not doing that badly at school. With a minimum of effort you seem to be passing everything and staying below the radar. That seems pretty smart to me. If you fall off the charts in the next year or so we can discuss what you want to do at that stage. That is, get some professional help and stay in the dumb race, or drop out and take another direction in life.

When I think about it further, all that has really happened is that people have got the words “fair” and “equal” all mixed up.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m shit at predicting the future and so is everyone else.

Hence I’m practicing the doubting of my own prognostications. And everyone else’s.

Oddly I’m better at negative predictions because they’re more likely to occur.

That’s the optimist’s curse.