Long epilogue

 

We all see our lives as stories, it seems to me, and I am convinced that psychologists and sociologists and historians and so on would find it useful to acknowledge that. If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended, and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

And all the bla bla bla bullshit bullshit bullshit about the difference between existing and living.

It seems to me at time that this epilogue is getting a little long, longer and longer and the prospects are not really rosy.

Can't read, can't learn new games, constantly fighting anhedonia : one of my favourite obscure word.

Now as silly as it sounds I lost my mojo again on all games D2 is getting a little too much Last Epoch is gone, Grim Dawn is long gone and might never be back: I didn't even download it on new computer (April 1st,2021) Last Epoch might have lost me and right now the only "salvation" is in the fact that there is a new season on D3 coming somewhere in mid-December and like Pavlov's dog I'll be there salivating as I have been for the past 24 seasons, roughly 6 years BUT IN THE MEANWHILE I AM IN LIMBO.

Anyway my first world problem at the mo just one in nearly 8 billion other peeps with probs.

I might get a new wave in D2 later on Who knows about the mysterious laws of mojos?

But one thing is steady though and disheartening it is the fact that this memory is fading. At a normal or abnormal speed who is to tell?

Most nights I can't remember what we are going to watch as I don't remember what we watch last night and even better I can rewatch a show over and over cuz I don't remember fuck all of my first viewing and sometimes it was quite recent like a month or two not a year or ten.

And that leaves me in a state of Charlie Gordon despair.

Good ole Charlie he is always a staple of my story.

Referring of course to my favourite book: Flowers for Algernon

I don't even want to try to extrapolate where all this is going to lead now.

We all know where entropy is leading us all: to the Great Equaliser! Where all worries all sickness all pain will be gone.

to finish with Vonnegut again EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT

Ex Nihilo

 

Ex Nihilo back to Nihilo

One big word today that somewhat irritates me is 

CREATOR

A big word on YouTube and the Internet way overused.

I mean if you look at the average content on YouTube these "Creators" are nothing short of Clickbait Con Artists some sort of modern P.T. Barnum seeking their new suckers or attracting their old ones.

Most Streamers come to mind here and this doctor Grande sticking his nose in just about any subject he thinks will bring him a few clicks.

It's a sad world really to rely on money making schemes like being an "influencer" FFS.  

Some streamers and YouTubers really INFLUENCE the economy or the economy of their game anyway. This Matt guy just has to post a new build for this new weapon or armor to go sky high in prices and way out of reach for the hoi polloi some sort of gaming gentrification.

I mean it must be so hard to come up with new bullshit time after time. I mean the money is good but talk about boring more boring than your regular boring grinding in a game anyway.

When I am not gaming (bipolar cycle in motion here) I usually hover over like 3 sites and most and usually depressing ones as social media are meant to be I think.

Facebook, YouTube, and 9GAG.

I mean I am not a Twitter at all nor an Instagrammer. Not my style prolly not my generation.

YouTube especially lately is a source of despair and depression especially those streamers selling their fantasy or straight out lying 

Where to find this 1 in 49,000 thousands chance item!

REALLY? Easy peasy fucking math! 

Do the run 49, 000 times and maybe just MAYBE you will get it and that is not going too deep in statistical chances with my luck make that 98,000 times and then some.

Besides all the other stuff they have to come up with.
Thoughty2 is another example of try hard hit and miss one too.

This makes me really wish I could read but that is pretty well that:

wishful thinking.

Hell I can't even get into a new video game these days.

I thought Grim Dawn was my last one and then came Last Epoch and I try to go back to it lately and it's like I never played it at all.

Hell I keep making the same mistakes over in over in games I have been playing for like 20 years.

Something in me wishes I could just lie down and read all of Dostoyevsky in just one sit but that won't happen.

Hell game that look quite interesting like Factorio of Stardew Valley drain all energy out of me just watching the first video.

This OLD DOG is really really done with NEW TRICKS methinks.

So wherewithal shall an old man find his way to paraphrase the old psalm? :)

Which brings me back to the good ole book again somehow lol 

well that is another thing I have known for many many years

o well t'will do for now

I hate sites that don't let you paste photos :P

 

NOT EVEN DEATH CAN SAVE YOU FROM ME!

 

more of my worthless thoughts 

I spent most of my time since Sept 23rd playing Diablo 2 Resurrected
aka D2R.

(you can tell this blog has been dead for 2 months now) 

As an ageing mostly solo player I find it somewhat frustrating.

For one thing the game is definitely geared towards multiplayer
and towards a multiplayer style I object to.

For one thing I am too old, too tired, too slow to keep up with any crowd. 

All these top builds this so called S Tier is geared towards Single Element players who are utterly useless in the real game where one does not come across Bers galore everyday and where one depends on others for killing the stuff that he can't. 

Personally I called this LEECHING. It reminds me highly of all these zbuilds in D3 unable to kill anything by themselves but begging for games for XP doing nothing. 

You can replace the words  "anything" and "nothing" by "fuck all" if you wish.

The sorceress seems to be a highly favourite
and maybe it's only me
and I AM JUST TOO FUCKING OLD
but it doesn't work for me.

My AngeleQuiGele doesn't Gele/Freeze anything anymore since she had been respecced 3 times and is now a useless Fire/Lightning trying to max on this Eschuta I found.
She is stuck at hell ancients for now and can't pass that hurdle and can't be helped for now. 

I did manage to get her there and my Javazon only by clearing all the immunes with my Necro who is my best so far and doing well but slow at lvl 89.

I feel like I should buy another version of the game and get my old computer out for two reasons:

One: I am a HORRIBLE HOARDER and I got my maximum 20 characters now loaded with crap.

Two: I could play a 2 players game all by myself in other words:

Play with myself. ;) 

Not sure if that would work but it would be worth a try to sit my sorc in a corner and let my necro clear the ancient and most of the stuff.

Now for good news I think I got
my very first ever Obedience Cryptic Axe
and MY FIRST EVER HOTO (Heart of The Oak)
with my only Vex and a Pul I had to make out of 3 Lems
 and now I am out of Lems and Puls and I need a Pul for something I forgot???
the Sorceress Armor maybe? Or to upgrade my useless Javelins on my Javazon.

I don't see the day in this life time where I will ever get myself an Enigma
or an Infinity since I can't find a single Ber let alone three.

I  have been doing hell cows until the cows come home and I hardly get anything from that except maybe one white cryptic axe.

Anyway as I was saying earlier 

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I got a unique ring from NM Meph with 300+ % MF (Magic Finding) and you'd think it could be an SOJ but you'd be wrong just one more bloody useless Manald, not even a decent Nagelring.

Still awaiting my elusive Shako and Paladin Zakarum Shield and so many other things.

O well as I was telling my shrink these big companies hire the best of the best shrinks to keep y0u hooked in pain like good psychotic drug dealers. 

You get shite for days and days and are ready to quit and bada bing bada boom a half decent item to get you back in the cycle of hell.

Anyway it keeps me busy for now. I tried to go back to Last Epoch which I had played extensively the previous month and it's like I had never played the game before, I couldn't remember fuck all.

So here it goes Darkness and Oblivion and Merciless Universe! :P

NOT EVEN DEATH CAN SAVE YOU FROM ME! 

Diablo's famous last words.

Speaking of I just heard that Heath Ledger's last words were almost my fav last words joke paraphrased:

Famous last words: Trust me I know what I am doing

he said "Katie, Katie, I'll be fine."  I know what I am doing.

P.S. Last frustration is doing the same mistake over and over and over AGAIN,

i.e. I often try to get a waypoint before tea etc and sometimes I miss a few waypoints and go through 2 or 3 zones without one and 

YOU WOULD THINK
I would be SMART enough to throw a portal JUST IN CASE eh?
Well you'd be WRONG! :)

I die and I have to go back through these 2 or 3 zones NAKED while I could barely do it all dressed up and then I feel like banging my head against a brick wall absolutely disgusted by my own stupidity~ :)

3 R Words

And No they are not 

Reading

'Riting and 

'Rithmetic :) 

Words of today are:

Routine Resolve and Resilience

From Safety Bay Primary School site where I worked once:

These values support our school’s vision, goals and beliefs:

Respect;

Responsibility;

Resilience;

Reflection and

Relationships

Of all the R words the one that bothered me the most was

RESILIENCE

I am pretty sure my mother has finely ground, burnt, and eradicated any kind of resilience
there was in me.

When you live in a dream, hoping to be somewhere else when almost every minute is spent in fear of the next beating and berating you lose hope a little.

Anyway this week, this month rather we discovered 3 R words we didn't know we had:
Resilience, Resolve, and Routine.

So strangely enough things are going to plan and I am no more subject to "the wind" apparently.

I was telling Nabila about my plan to complete my goal for the next 3 weeks ( I see her every three weeks) last report was 10 days of walking and meditation and 10 days of gaming and I told her the next report should be 10 days of gaming and 10 days of walking and meditation and so far so good give a day or two.

Saturday July 24th to Thursday August 12th, 2021  

20 days

Nabila: Wed Aug 4th & Wed August 25

I am slightly surprised and puzzled at my new resolve but I like it.

Last night I slept 9 hours for the first time in 3 weeks.

My previous nights while gaming were more like 6 to 8 hours of sleep.

So here it is for now let's see how the story goes by Wed August 25th today being Friday August 13th.

If the legs hold up I should be good.

Made the mistake of wearing support socks today and almost didn't make it home. Both of my calves were killing me.

As any mother knows :) There is a fine line 

between supporting and smothering .

As soon as the socks came off I was ok though even though I had to take 'em off midway to here.

A little more on the past 20 days:

I usually spend about a week when a new season of Diablo 3 comes along.

I do all the journey chapters get the pet/prize/wings whatever it is and get bored.

This season there was 2 quests:

one is to get the pet of course 

and the other one was to gather all the ethereals in order to get all the transmogs.

Transmogrifications are different looks one can give to armour and weapons etc

Cosmetics they are called.

So I did all that and more

The past 2 seasons I had a goal to reach Paragon 3000 

(I am a bit OCD about round numbers lol)

but got tired of the grinding and gave up.

This season however I kept going until I got there.

And the word Resilience comes in where there was a moment 

when I did a stupid mistake and ruined something very valuable that took me a long time to get

Usually when this happens I am so disheartened by my stupidity that I quit

But not this time :) : Bit the Bullet, fixed it as best as I could and kept going.

(For the Diablo knowledgeable out there I salvaged a pair of Ancient Gloves part of a necessary set augmented at 105: a pretty retarded move by any standard.)

So resilience and resolve won and as PREDICTED I am off the race and back on the walk. 

So here it is let's see again how the story goes in 10 days.

My boring story or June /July 2021

 Thursday June 3rd Nabila and the famous mindfuck :P

As I was discussing things with my psychologist Nabila I mentioned I used to meditate before and kind of stopped and she said well won't you start again? And I said well you know me and the big D word we're not really good friends: D being Discipline.

And she said (knowing me a little) Why don't you think of it as ROUTINE then instead of DISCIPLINE.

You LIKE routine. And there we went from there.

Started Meditation on Friday June 4th and I barely missed a day ever since, 

(maybe one but I am not sure). 

If I don't start at my set time 4PM I do it before or after it doesn't matter but I get it done before tea time (6:30PM here)

And to this I gradually added Walking Meditation following instructions from my fav monk: Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu a "kid" from Ontario, my son's age.

Walking meditation went well for a few days just walking around the park at the end of the driveway and then just became walking.

Fast forward to around June 18th and I saw a video of a black guy telling a story and saying that day that he looked black more than ever with his do-rag and this timbs. Googling both I said Hey I GOT TIMBS:) Those walking boots I bought in England barely used.

 

So I started wearing those instead of my faithful New Balance 857 who had taken me for a gazillion steps in Montreal in 2018 and Arles in 2017.

Then I started noticing an infection on my left big toe which kept getting worse and worse and me being the space cadet that I am never put two and two together  but started taking antibiotics instead. Then this infection really flared up after my 5000 steps on July 3rd.

Things got worse and weather didn't help so my walking really diminished after that until I went to see my GP on Thursday and then an emergency meeting with my podiatrist on Friday  July 16th who just pulled the dead nail right out took one look at my boots and said here is your problem your left boot is too small. 

So now pain and infection free and one nail short I resumed my walking yesterday in that pouring rain just to go buy shoes.

So here I am back at the grind and trying to reestablish my walking and meditation routine.

Wednesday July 21st now and looking forward to my new routine.

Eventually it will add up to weight loss somewhere sometime :) but still in the meantime a better way to spend my time.

Next goal is to walk to the Indian Ocean It shouldn't be too difficult even if I HAVE to call for a ride back after.

857 to 624 

Now on the shoes well I have been an exclusive New Balance guy for donkeys years trying to always go up a number or two having been told but not verified that the higher the number the better shoe.

But this time I had to make an exception. As much as I LOVED my 857 and they have been very good to me for a million miles and many many years and I really wanted to repeat the experience but the $200 tag price was just a little more than I was ready to pay. 

So after much shopping and 4000 + steps I decided to opt for a pair of 624 for $70 which will have to do for now. 

They had a good run today at 7000 steps and I am looking forward to crank up the mileage on those in the near future. Usually my shoes only get a beating when I travel (i.e. Montreal and Arles) but now they will get their money's worth locally.

Meditashun Progris Riport

 I am a grammar Nazi except when it comes to Charlie Gordon and Flowers for Algernon! :) 

Well it's been almost 6 weeks now so I thought I'd lay down my thoughts about my "progris".

It all started on Thursday June 3rd when I was at Nabila's, my psychologist.  I did mention that I did some meditation in the past and she suggested I tried again to which I answer yeah but no but yeah but I am not very good at the D word: DISCIPLINE.

So the clever one answered, knowing me a little, why don't you think of it as a ROUTINE instead,
you LIKE routine. 

I swear the devil is a woman lol.

So here I am starting on
Friday June 4th and now
Saturday July 10th and I hardly missed a day IIRC,
maybe ONE but I forgot.

Oh yeah the deal with said psychologist was once a week.

It has been and still is a compelling provocative experience. 

(I had to hit the Thesaurus for a few synonyms for interesting lol)

Now one could really get completely lost researching the subject.

Wow there is a gazillion gurus out there and all of them better than the others. I was trying to find the middle way in the middle way.

Not too keen on the strong Buddhist approach as it irks my sceptical humanist atheist nature.
So I tried different approach especially one monk who I thought was a bit more balanced even though as much as I respect him I would not live his life for sure. 
Also Jon Kabat-Zinn is usually a safe bet as well and for some odd reason
I tend to stay away from Sam Harris, some sort of irrational dislike somehow and prolly not antisemitism lol as JKZ is alright in my book.

Speaking of I was pleased to hear my fav monk that they had been MANY holocausts.

So now what? I would like to think that it has already produced some benefits I think even though I suck at introspection but one example springs to  mind dealing with greed and aversion and likes and dislikes and what not. 

I was sitting in the car really annoyed by a really dirty windscreen and it always creates some tension when I ask for it to be cleaned so instead I put that under my dislikes and decided to observe my reaction instead of reacting to it.

between the two poles of expression and suppression

lies a third option - mere observation.

Otherwise I don't know life goes on I had added some walking meditations to this and then just some plain walking but I have been held down lately by an infected big toe and some lousy stormy weather. 

I DID do my 4 PM meditation though today my usual 30 mins even though I have had 40 and 45 mins too lately.

Still looking for the middle way in the middle way though :P

Oh yeah as I observe my thoughts and my mind my place of predilection seems to be the near future LOL

My mind always wander to what I will do right after my meditation and
I call my meditation a success when I don't react to all these urges LOL

I have been quite proud of myself too last few days for NOT looking at my timer or at the time another daily obsessi0n of mine to know what time it is and how long til this or that.

I just wait for my bell more or less patiently.

So here it is my last 40 days which I noticed also seem to keep me away from my blog???  

Correlation is NOT Causation or so they say.

"REALITY"

AN UNDERSTANDING OF REALITY
AN UNDERSTANDING OF REALITY
AN UNDERSTANDING OF REALITY

I will have to paraphrase Pontius Pilate here:

WHAT IS REALITY?

Why do I sense a little bit of conceit and self-righteousness in this expression?

Reality!

Truth!

Wisdom!

Call it what you will but it is all a very SUBJECTIVE concept 

if it exists at all.

Buddha's "reality" and Jesus's "Truth" are 2 different things
and everyone's understanding of either is altogether a different and unique thing
for each individual: 

billions and billions or "realities" and "truths"

People boasting of truth and wisdom and an understanding of reality should probably be avoided like the pest.

You shall know the truth and HERE COMES TROUBLE.

Unfortunately my fav monk does not allow commentary on his YouTube channel lol.

Mind you I do admire the "young" man.  

Exactly my son's age, born in Canada in  May 79 and with a history one could qualify as different I guess and certainly COMMITTED for sure:  

A determination rare in these days.

But STILL I cringe at concepts like Karma and Reincarnation and accepting those ancient myths a "REALITY". 

I am also in my iconoclast habit inclined to doubt and question everything and especially when big names try to promote it.

I have said previously that it annoys me to no end that some many so-called sceptics, rationalists, and atheists seem so inclined to separate Buddhism from all the other thousands of myths out there.

How many times must I say it?

A MYTH IS A MYTH IS A MYTH.

Sure I don't mind trying a bit of meditation for peace of mind
but I will not take the robe, beg for my food
and least of all having people BOW DOWN to me. 

That is outrageous in my book.

And we haven't talked about sex, drugs and rock and roll and coffee YET. :P

Anyway my knee jerk reaction again to my fav monk on the block so far.

FIIK

 'Less restrictive future lockdowns' rely on more people getting vaccinated for COVID-19, experts say.

Of course MY COGNITIVE BIAS AGREES WITH THAT :)

Other things my COGNITIVE BIASES think:

Vaccines are good.

There is no god. The is no devil.

There is no heaven, no hell, no karma, no reincarnation,
and many other current myths
created only for greed and control by people with no power at all.

I am beginning to think that hell there is not even "TRUTH" 

and that us complex apes have just rendered thinking and consciousness FUBAR.

No one is right, no one is wrong 

or even better ALL are wrong 

including yours truly which does not reverse the previous statements.

Looking at the misery and complexity of the world and its now exponential growth it is clear to me that life is just a

Merciless Random Number Generation (RNG)

and it is futile to seek a meaning into it all.

IT IS WHAT IT IS 

as my wise dying daughter used to say.

It is getting quite clear that with nearly 8 billion people on earth soon the demand for new souls for reincarnation
and the very basic maths of reincarnation itself don't compute.

Anyway it is just ONE form of delusional mythical thinking 

among a plethora of myth after myth after myth in history: 

each local group having its own insular favourite myth to cling to with a vengeance,

 ready to kill anyone else who is not the CHOSEN.

Add to this today on top of the gazillion myths all over the world the exponential growth of conspiracy myths growing pandemically.

Dunning Kruger Syndrome being also an epidemic exponential growth of certainty among the ignorant coupled with arrogance and there you go: TNT / Dynamite / C4 or some other explosive mix.

So wherewithal shall an old man find his way?

My usual answer to all is:

FUCKED IF I KNOW  

Let's start a new acronym now  FIIK 

not new apparently

Office Girl : Oi, there you are. So what does this F.I.I.K you keep putting in the delivery time column actually stand for?

Truck Driver: Fucked if I know.

Office Girl: No need to be rude about it ya prick.

Qualms with Buddhism

 

venerable?  prostration?

Colossians Chapter 2

why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;

22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body: not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.  KJ

21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. NIV

I should refrain from attachment to my cat / rabbit / pet so I don't suffer when my cat / rabbit / pet  shows its impermanence and carks it?????

Eat and Drink and Be Merry?  Buddhists: Fuck Forbid!

It has a STENCH to it that I cannot identify. 

Yet it attracts the greatest minds and some scientists: 

Sam Harris, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Marsha Linehan etc.

Speaking of Harris and Kabat-Zinn 

There is a high form of idolatry attached to it which should be stinking to atheists or any rationalist and even Christians and Muslims: all these images of Gurus and Buddhas everywhere and all this prostration and offerings etc

It sure IS a GOOD SHOW of wisdom and what not and I have been attracted to it for a long long time beginning with my worshipping of Lobsang Rampa in my teens:
a well known scam artist and fraud
but hell Astral Projection sounded like pure heaven and a pure haven for this battered kid who was looking for an escape from a cruel reality.

But I do have to admire the commitment of some though. 

This amazing Canadian monk is fascinating to watch: his determination and his zeal are unreal. Monk in early 20's, learning Pali and what not.  I have always admired one who studies languages in order to understand as so many things are lost in translation.

I think I might have said earlier that I admire people who study ancient languages like

Dr. Miles Smith was a student of classic authors from his youth, was well acquainted with the Rabbinical learning, and well versed in Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic. He was often called a "walking library." Born about 1568, died 1624.

John Boyse, or Bois, at six years of age could write Hebrew elegantly. He was for twelve years chief lecturer in Greek at St. John's College, Cambridge. Bishop Andrewes, of Ely, made him a prebend in his church in 1615. He was one of the most laborious of all the revisers. Born 1560, died 1643.

Rowan Williams speaks or reads eleven languages: English, Welsh, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Biblical Hebrew, Syriac, Latin, and both Ancient (koine) and Modern Greek.[25][26] He learnt Russian in order to be able to read the works of Dostoevsky in the original.[27] He has since described his spoken German as a "disaster area" and said that he is "a very clumsy reader and writer of Russian"

But still sure the Laplace's Demon in me wished he knew
ALL the languages and had read
ALL the classics and
ALL the so-called sacred texts

but to what purpose I know not.  

Even Buddha himself would say that wisdom and "reality" are not in reading or 'knowing" but in DOING.

I am glad I have watched  the report of Solange / Ina in French on her visit to the VIPASSANA  Centre, we have one near here also and I was always curious but obviously it will never happen me getting old and all.

Anyway Debussy is not helping much to clear my mind in order to better explain my love / hate relationship with Buddhism.  

I have expressed before that A MYTH IS A MYTH IS A MYTH and Buddha after all is just that: another myth.

Sure I liked my moderate meditation week this week
but as Solange said so well all these things that depend on will are bound to fail in time.

The idea of overcoming pain with practice is also interesting
but then again nothing a good dose of oxycodone wouldn't do  

so the Middle way may not be reality / dhamma after all.

One thing also that bugs me a lot is that it is almost impossible to learn about Buddhism in your own language.

They all use these mystical phoney words and air and one has to totally learn another language before one begins to understand.

So all this talk to myself now I wish I had a bouncing wall somewhere to trigger some more thinking in this tired head.

So this is it then and there it is, it is what it is :P

Wherever you go there you are.

P.S. this Linehan guru looks quite fishy to me according to her Wiki profile. 

But the science world is chock full of these big egos and super professors flying high on pride and respect but low on facts and reality.

Voila for now

Places I have been

Montreal 

Quebec

Vancouver

everywhere in between

Winnipeg

Roseau Minnesota where I played a round of golf 91 IIRC

Not bad for a 9 holes. 😂

North Dakota where they had chickens in a barn so long you couldn't see the end and the first human to touch the eggs was the buyer at the grocery store,
chickens packed 4, 5 stories high with eggs going down a small elevator between Styrofoam pads

San Francisco CA  Mountain View Santa Clara Santa Cruz

Chattanooga TN

Evanston IL where my son spent 7 days in ICU basically the 2nd week of his life

Paris twice

North of England , Lake District, Morecambe etc bis

South of France Arles, Avignon, etc Nice, Marseille

Perth WA Australia 

Yanchup north to Augusta south 

where the 2 oceans meet: Southern and Indian 

and I have been to Warwick too :)

me taking the train back home to Rockingham from Perth or so I think ...hopped on the train with sunglasses on cap deep down earphones on and not watching not hearing anything until I looked up and expecting something like Warnbro I saw WARWICK.
WARWICK???
WHERE THE FUCK IS WARWICK?
I had taken the train in the wrong direction, north instead of south,

Kuala Lumpur Tokyo Frankfurt mostly airports with Frankfurt being a mad dash as our plane was an hour late and we had 1h20 mins between flights made it just as they closed the door never had time to buy a giant pretzel.

Melbourne Sydney 

New Caledonia too: a quick bottle of Gaillac at the grocery store on a quick stop over on a cruise.

I had to smuggle that bottle back on the ship :)

and many more I forgot now  I am sure Google Map could tell you much more since it doesn't forget mind you many of these were before smart phones and the internet

non skip albums

First one to come to mind is

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band

This album was so revolutionary and claims to be

the first album meant to be listened to

as opposed to danced to.

Those were the beginning of heavier drug use and one

did not feel much about wiggling around on weed or LSD

so while we're on the Beatles subject 

Abbey Road  and

Let It Be

would prolly be 2 non-skip albums as well

I remember in our foolish youth how we formed clans in high school

the "cool" kids upping their noses at those who liked the "commercial" side of Abbey Road as opposed to the enlightened one who much prefer the B side ( the white half apple).

If I had to name a few more album of this era

Wing's Wild World was pretty good

and Babe Ruth's debut album also.

Come to mind now 

Tea for the Tillerman should be on that list for sure 

much more than any other Cat Stevens album.

Carole King's Tapestry also and CCR's Cosmo's Factory as 

I mentioned previously in a FB post

Amos Lee's debut album comes to mind also

Some albums ALMOST make it to this list

Tom Waits and Alanis Morrissette come to mind here with

a habit of ruining the start with Track 1 and "redeeming" themselves with the rest of the album. I would have to dig and Google here to pinpoint which album.

Alanis's 2nd album and I seem to recall not being a fan of Tom Waits' Big in Japan

OF COURSE one CANNOT NOT mention : 

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

even though I would be reluctant to add more Pink Floyd album to this list maybe Division Bell of all choices strangely enough.

Correction here maybe with Pink Floyd's Meddle which is quite enjoyable especially the side B with the classic Echoes and who doesn't love Seamus? :P

Contrary to popular opinion I don't consider AC/CDC's Back to Black to be part of the non skip. 

I am not an unconditional fan of Alice Cooper or Deep Purple or even Led Zeppelin 

George Michael's Faith should also have a special mention here

oh and I forgot two of the best albums ever:

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

AND

Supertramp - Crime of the Century

Voila for now 

All that my old brain can bring back to life for the mo,

Ciao for now

Ecce Homo

 

Words, Words, and more Words.

I was just listening to a short Jordan Peterson videos and he kept using two words that made me cringe every time:

TRUTH and REDEMPTION.

Words that have been massacred over the millennium beyond errrr

REDEMPTION 😂

So many religious words used in today's vernacular.

Words devoid of meaning by the very fact that everyone has a different definition of their meaning.

The good old proverb:

He who has a watch knows what time it is

He who has two watches knows nothing at all.

7 billion gods out there, 

7 billion devils, 

7 billion hells,

7 billion devils,

7 billion truths and 

7 quadrillion lies if not more.

In the days of COVID the word truth is becoming more and more sickening.

All I wanted to say to JP is the older I am getting the more I stand with the fictitious story of Pontius Pilate:

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Same with redemption and such other words: atonement, sin etc.

Words all created to CONTROL others in what I would call an evil manner: another word used and misused: evil.

The idea behind redeem in French is to buy back, RACHETER, to pay some sort of ransom established by some vengeful holy god and administered of course by god's accountants aka priests and imams and what not. The only voice this non existent god has.  Religious leaders waving a huge big stick made out of air. (after all the words soul and spirit mean nothing but that: AIR)

WHAT IS TRUTH INDEED?

WHAT IS TRUTH?

I could go back to my old ramblings of course saying again that in the original New Testament Greek TRUTH is NOT a WORD.

It is a negation.  

And yes if there was less, much  less, concealment and hiding and devious deception it would be a better world I guess or would we just kill each other faster now?

But in my not so humble opinion JP being a great great mind don't get me wrong is as far as the truth as possible because again in my not so humble opinion the truth begins with the simple acceptance that obviously 

THERE IS NO GOD.  

I would consider Stephen Fry in this case closer to the truth than Jordan Peterson even though bottom like is prolly that we are all each of us FULL OF SHIT.

But when you start mixing and confusing your truth with myth you get a very muddy, unhealthy mixture.

If I wasn't so deflated this week I'd go on also on redemption and all these songs and stories when the male ( and it is always the male) says I'll make it up to you, i.e. I'll redeem myself

Cynical translation: 

I fucked up, I really fucked but I want to get laid again.

The scars of lies and deception are usually very hard to completely erase.

The religious language is too invasive to cover properly.

Hell the Americans even call their war instruments: HELLFIRE.

Talk about self-righteousness when they are used to blow babies arms and bodies up to smithereens. 

so to use the same old semantics again

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? 

or even FIND his FUCKING  way?

By taking heed to whose words???? 

Please try to name a real EXISTING person.

As a matter of fact of course there is NO SUCH person the truth if there was one is scattered in a quadrillion pieces a little piece here and there in each one of us but usually as I said often buried under a ton of shit like a pearl in a fuckton of manure.  By the time you get to it you stink to high heaven. (more religious language)

So go on Pontius and keep asking

WHAT IS TRUTH?

more of the same

 

it took us 1000 years to make it to 275 millions

the next millennium brought us to 6 billion

when I was born there was 2.8 billion people on earth

now the last 20 years have brought us really close to 8 billion

Numbers all too big for us to handle.

I just past the 2 billion seconds and it would take 4 times that roughly 260 years to count all the people on earth now (at one per second) , 

thing is by the time we would be done most of them would be gone and we'd probably need another 100 years to count the next 3 billion.

Now that is JUST counting them at 1 a second. 

Deciphering all their delusions and lies they've been told and mythologies would need Laplace's Demon to compute it all out.

so basically we just are an exponential entropic ginormous MESS. :)

I have often express the foolish desire to know it all, to understand it all but all I understand is that our puny simian brain will never be able to comprehend it all or just even to comprehend a microscopic part of it.

Who am I? Where am I? What's the Purpose of Life?

A question I ask myself more or less jokingly quite often as in a way to

DEFINE myself.

I have an affinity for many songs who ask the same questions especially the "who am I" part.

Supertramp's Logical Song comes to mind.

I know it sounds absurd

Please tell me who I am

Ani DiFranco's Untouchable Face

and who am i

i bet you can't even tell me that much

And one I used to sing in the mirror many many moons ago

Harmonium En Pleine Face

Où es-tu ? J'en peux plus

Je ne t'entends plus, où es-tu ?

Where are you? I can't take it anymore

I can't hear you anymore, where are you?

Thing is as I am getting older I am getting to "KNOW" it is a stupid question.

There is no logical or real answer to that question since to quote Heraclitus

 So "who I am " keeps changing every second and by the time I would finish to answer my answer would be obsolete already.

Woke is a Joke indeed

 

Don't waste your time arguing with people who believe in their own lies

~ Paulo Coelho 

A man who was pretty good at writing lies and fiction and who appealed to so many potheads out there.

The biggest problem with this quote is that it is USED by people
who DO believe their own lies.  

The mind is such a complicated twisted thing.

Reminds me of the old verse:

 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

The whole world and especially from my POV the whole province of Quebec seems to be under a curse of delusion and utter stupidity. 
or maybe it is just my FAMILY 😄😄😄
A bunch of uneducated know-it-all lumberjacks (or BS to use the colloquial)
who believe anything:  

The Dunning Kruger effect at work in a perfect example.

I do understand that fear does a number on a mind but it is just getting ridiculous.

I have come to notice and stay away from any site that has the word TRUTH in it
because truth is the last thing you will find in such a site.

Everyone is so proud and arrogant, the more ignorant the more proud and arrogant in fact that Dunning Kruger again.  

So fucking full of themselves for being so fucking "WOKE" and "LIT" and superior to all the world and SCIENCE out there.

Why am I not in this group?

I am not that intelligent anymore

(I remember calling myself a minor intellectual years ago LOL )

I had a good laugh this week when I read that Georges Santayana’s father Ruiz de Santayana was a colonial civil servant, painter, and minor intellectual.

I want that one too on my epitaph now:

Poet, Philosopher, Failure and Minor Intellectual! 

and certainly not educated but I try to keep an open mind on NUMBERS and SCIENCE .

I don't believe the world is trying to get me and that I am the only fucking Messiah on this planet.

My Messiah days are long gone and far behind me.

Anyway having said all that I will get my vaccine this week and try to survive all this.

It has me wondering how the graph comparison would go between COVID spreading and Illiteracy.

It is more a Stupidity Pandemic really than a virus one. 

Stupidity made it much much worse in any case.

NUMBERS

this whole world maybe just a Lie Inception 

A Lie within a Lie within a Lie

It is getting clearer and clearer to me that our brains are not wired to know the difference quite the contrary in fact. 

Late night thoughts

 always the same though

Life is just a big RNG game

The Random Number Generation just for you to be born is ginormous.

The Random Number Generation for you to stay alive every second is ginormous.

Everything is RNG.

There is no god, no devil, no heaven, no hell.

When you die you are forgotten in no time 

(do you know anything about the daily life of your great grandparents? ) 

When you die your atoms are scattered on this planet until it explodes 

and it will explode 

and then your atoms will be scattered in the galaxy somewhere.

Death is the Win of Chaos over Order and Chaos always always win.

The law of entropy is inexorable.

Inexorable: CANNOT BE PRAYED OUT OF

Therefore the Dédé Fortin Mantra comes handy at times, cuz in the end

Y'a pas de coupable Y a pas de Honte

There is no guilty one, there is no shame.

Band Synergies

I have been listening to a lot of Supertramp lately, one of the best band ever IMHO.

I fell on the writing credits of the band and I thought it was amusing.

For one thing many bands seem to be a 2 males leading out of 4 or 5.

Some seem to have a bad cop / good cop mix to them.

Beatles

Good cop: McCartney

Bad cop: Lennon ... father issues mother issues

Pink Floyd

Good cop: Gilmour

Bad cop: Waters same again father and mother issues

Supertramp

Good cop: Hodgson

Bad cop: Davies?
Well I could be wrong but it seems to me that he married a control freak and Hodgson might have had issues about that or he simply needed to leave the fast life as he said

While I am on the Supertramp subject the writing credits are somewhat ANAL for lack of an another word, almost tense.

Most albums have an EXACT division of writing taking turns

here is an example

No. Title     Lead vocals     Length

1. "School"     Hodgson 5:35

2. "Bloody Well Right" Davies 4:32

3. "Hide in Your Shell" Hodgson 6:49

4. "Asylum" Davies 6:45

Side two

No. Title         Lead vocals Length

5. "Dreamer"         Hodgson 3:31

6. "Rudy"         Davies 7:17

7. "If Everyone Was Listening" Hodgson 4:04

8. "Crime of the Century" Davies 5:36

Anymore anal than that and they would have divided the time straight in two to a second close

Same thing with Breakfast in America: 10 songs - 5 songs each

Even in the Quietest Moment has a little edge for Hodgson leading the score 4 to 3 but still presented alternately.

There you go Rolling Stones magazine can sign me in now as a rock critique on their writing staff 

Personally I am a Mc Cartney / Gilmour / Hodgson fan for some odd reason??? 

Not a fan of bad cops I s'pose.

Waiting for the end of the epilogue

 Dear Neglected Blog,

since most of the time I am only "talking" to "you".

A quadrillion things to say

A quadrillion things unsaid

A quadrillion things not worth saying

and not worth remembering.

It has been suggested lately that I had a really "interesting" life

(interesting is such an interesting word )

Well a fulfilled one and an adventurous one one might say.

Which reminds me of one of the many tests I passed in high school just before I dropped out.  This test was on interests and aptitudes in order for one to orient himself and discover himself I suppose... a work still in progress as U2 would say I still haven't found what I am looking for but it is interesting (here is that boring word again) that in 1969/1970 at the tender age of 14 I STILL remember that of all the interests I had ADVENTURE was the strongest one.

There was a chart with all sorts of interests and IIRC Maths and Science were fairly high maybe language also, the further to the right the star * was on this graph the more inclined you were and the star * for adventure was like kind of half  a star * because it was off the frame and almost off the page altogether on the far far right.

Well adventures I have had I might say thanks to many manic cycles in my sphere.

Some of them I described already here and here

It also has been suggested that I should write a biography

In reality the only biography we will ever have if is someone is patient enough to edit and organise my few biographical blogs.

While we were talking about writing anyone (if anyone ever has) who has read my blogs would know that I have an "interest" in writing a utopia/dystopia but the bar is mighty high on this one with giants such as Huxley and Orwell before me.

But again this will ending up biting me in the ass as they say reminding me of Kerouac's Eternal Words:

'My fault, my failure,

is not in the passions I have,

but in my lack of control of them. 

~ Jack Kerouac 

 

CONTROL as I have always said
along with Dr. Claire Lewicki
IS AN ILLUSION after all,
whatever they teach in the lessons on the Locus of control in psychology class: a concept just as old as me apparently.

let me repeat that 

                        CONTROL IS AN ILLUSION

Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what's gonna happen next: not on a freeway, not in an airplane, not inside our own bodies and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs.

 ~ Dr. Claire Lewicki

So here it is little energy I had is now spent.

Been playing my game mindlessly last couple of days and losing interest

(losing my mojo as I call it, a recurring happening like everything I do ... this too shall pass, some funny theory about the wind, the wind being this element that is not to be controlled)

and thinking 

I should go have a lie down and reconsider my life really LOL

or reconsider my epilogue anyway or as Sue sez my monologue

Over an out old tired curmudgeon waiting for the end of the epilogue.

Here we go again...

Triggered, outraged by some minor fact of modern semantics and it sends me thinking again.

What a bad nasty habit I have.

SMH over the pitiful state of this whole world
I can't help but wonder what would make it better,  

what would make it "PERFECT".

As I wrote many times we are utterly FUBAR engineering. 
We are but good for the scrapyard or the crematorium.

Despite all of our gods and heroes and saviours
we have never ever come close to an acceptable society.

To reluctantly quote an outdated book:

"all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god, 

god or Laplace's demon or a million other myths out there.

What kind of god would let this jungle continue for millions of years anyway?

Mysterious ways indeed or just one of our many defaulted coping mechanisms?

It is hard nah nearly impossible if not totally impossibur to even imagine a perfect world as we are so utterly limited and not engineered to do so.  To dream about it perhaps but to do it or come close to an acceptable solution? NOT in a trillion years.

What would that world even include?

Well certainly NO WARS it seems so obvious and also no poverty.

I was going to say no stupidity but here we are back at Harrison Bergeron again. The problem is way way beyond human intelligence as the best of the best have proven again and again to be utterly useless.

Vonnegut who was riling against intelligence in Harrison Bergeron's dystopia seems to underestimate the power of a moronic mob.

So-called intelligence here is useless as well as it seems to only skewered the deal. Many "intelligent" men have committed atrocities after atrocities.

I know I keep repeating myself over and over and it is not by raising the subject over and over that any of us will find a solution
but maybe just maybe 

a universal AWARENESS 

of our shortcomings would be a good first step in the right direction?

I would like to think that Huxley had a glimpse of it despite the controversy.
There will always be controversy.

People all point at China and their handling of information while the west gladly does the same thing and no one raises an eyebrow.

It reminds me of that meme.

Criticising the handling of religion while other countries are overwhelmed by it and their hands tied in political correctness Gordian knots. (France comes to mind here)

Try managin 1 billion people and tell me how well you would do?

Look at how we manage 300 million here?

Who is to say that China's Empire would be much worse than the American Empire or Fuck Forbid the British Epire and all their atrocities quickly forgotter and swept under the carpet.

White people do not have a white record.

So back to my Utopia? Like Axl Rose I ask: 

Where do we go now?

No war, No poverty. EQUALITY 

(which according to Peterson might be impossible, parietal distribution and what not)

and absolutely a UNIVERSAL FREE HEALTH  access for everyone.

It would seem to me also so primordial that religion would have no place at all in this "New World Order" as it has brought nothing but poison from powerless people usurpating a power that does not exist to control the masses.

So right here we have huge disagreement and the perfect image of the IMPOSSIBLE DREAM.

I really ought to reread BRAVE NEW  WORLD again.

Again I am back at a world of Eloi  without the Morlocks.

Why is it an absolute necessity that we MUST have Morlocks all the fucking time? 

I will never know.

Eloi were a bit like Harrison Bergeron's world without the government. 

As always GOVERNMENT is always part of the problem and

ANARCHY is not a solution either.

How would one separate the wealth equally and wisely?

Mind you in this "perfect world" the world of entertainment would suffer tremendously. HAPPY PEOPLE have no history and it is hard to write a show without a fucked up loser bent on self destruction apparently.  

A show where everyone keeps it in his pants or better has no qualms about pants sharing lol (again France comes into mind here)

The earth is big enough for all of us but our minds are so so tiny and petty that the earth might have to do without us soon.

And so be it I guess. Darwin's Natural Selection at its best.

What would your Utopia include now?