Fourth day of hangs [Sun 31]

Got up way too early despite going to bed super late third day in a row, couldn't go back to bed, was in a bad sad tired mood, particularly because of somethings that was communicated last night. Also both my cellphone and laptop were out of juice so I didn't know what to do with my brain and body it was all so confusing.

Early in the morning we got a very large confusing shocking consignment of instacart grocery delivery from Wegmans.

Talked to M (Germany) for three hours on the phone on how to apply to grad programs there, what life there is like, and what my other options could be. Then talked to fam about how everything was, and they told me not to get a second masters etc. Then bothered everyone for the rest of the day about how badly I want to go to NZ but it seems they don't want me there just as badly so we're in a tough spot right now with no clear way out. It's tricky, hopefully something good and magical jumps out of nowhere. Good things have generally happened to me dear gods please don't let them stop happening.

Had a very large bowl of grits with milk, two bananas two strawberries, a handful of blackberries, lots of peanut butter, nutella and honey for breakfast. So so full my stomach was bursting. Spent the next hour or two recovering. PN said they were going out to the market etc asked if I wanted to join, I said yes. We went, i forgot my mask so I stayed in the car, the entire trip took maybe an hour and a half during which I tried communicating my poorly planned plans for the future.

Came back, had S's awesome experimental mocktails, some snacks, played poker for several hours, had dinner which S had worked really hard to make it included rice awesome Dal bhuteko alu golbheda ko achar and laukaa which we've been eating a lot, chilled for an hour or more, and then everyone else left.

S and I watched the Michael Jordan documentary, which we finally finished. S went to bed, I came here to write all of this, while talking to I over text on her future plans. Little does she know how little I know about my own plans. Anyway it's 11.35 now and it's time for bed. Goodnight world.

I'm gonna make it

I thought the posts for this week were not going to be enough for me to average four posts a day, but we've gotten there, don't worry folks, even one more once I complete today's thing. It's nice. It's not much of an accomplishment, but it's something to look at and pat myself on the back, tell myself about it when I look at the mirror when I'm feeling sad and gloomy and not trusting myself to make the right decision, remind me I was the one who half-assed my way to a self-measured version of success. It's all out there for everyone to judge, and people are often quite harsh in their judgments of some ridiculous bullshit like this, but who gives a crap, nothing matters the world was destroyed in 2012 just as the mayans predicted and we are but hollow shells of our old selves, living our lives like robots with barely a semblance of organic behavior. Maybe one day we'll realize we died a long time ago and all this grief will end. We'll get the ultimate peace. Until then life's torture, and then the bad parts begin.

It's all so stupid

Everything is stupid. The world is stupid

The sun is stupid. Stupid stupid sun
The wind is stupid, so stupid, stupid idiotic wind
Earth, obviously, stupid as well
Water too
Plants suck, they're such fools
Annimals are the worst, because they're stupid
People are stupid, really stupid, stupid, so very stupid
Viruses, okay they're like pretty smart, but in the big picture,
That they got involved with the whole thing, that they're
going after a bunch of big fat stupid losers means
they're stupid, really the stupidest of them all

I'm stupid, you are too
And this is a stupid poem, on a stupid website
On the stupid internet, which is literally the worst
Utterly absolutely piece of shit stupid
Embarrassingly so, we'll find out in the future
The concept of art is stupid, so are the critics
And so are the ones who don't get it.

Literally, I can't think of a single thing
That's not stupid.
Which reminds me, thinking is stupid
The concept of 'single' is stupid
So's the idea of 'thing'.
What a stupid word 'concept' is,
And memories are the stupidest.
It's all so crassly stupid, so mindnumbingly so,
It's so stupidly mindnumbing to be amidst of it all.

10 Things you learned from the lockdown

1. Froot Loops (TM) can be a good replacement for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Or all of them. In the same day.
2. Standards for personal hygiene are ridiculous and mostly optional.
3. ...Because to get sweaty smelly and dirty you need to move your muscles for something besides going to the kitchen and the loo.
4. McDonald sandwiches are surprisingly expensive. Well, after you consider the delivery fee, tip, service fee and a dozen other small items that add up to a third of your monthly rent.
5. You don't reallly need to leave your house for anything. Like, at all.
6. Talking to friends family and loved ones is overrated, when you have the voices in your head to talk to.
7. It's not just vampires that react strongly to right. You put that bright of a light source on anyone and of course they're gonna be shocked confused and possibly burst to flame. So unfair for the vampires.
8. The less you talk to people or listen to any news from the world, the more you're at peace. The path to enlightenment is blocking all the news from your life.
9. It's important to do things besides sleeping during the day and night because it's easy to get addicted to it and then it's just...well, you get the idea
10.  You should have lived your life when you had the chance, asked all those people out and gotten the rejections, eaten all those unhealthy food from the travel channel, talked to more women (or persons of your preferred gender(s)), even if it didn't work out, you'd have stories to entertain your imaginary friends during these times.

Agriculture innovation

Nepali agriculture has a long distance to go in way of use of technology, productivity per acre, and supply chain logistics.

With proper organization, co-ordination, planning and right sets of incentives that can be arranged without massive governmental incentives. There is still a way for small- and medium farmers to be able to be a part of that, large agriculture co-operatives, a co-operative ecosystem of manufacturers, industrialists, farmers, workers, engineers, scientists, researchers, communicators, transport technologies, investors, retail markets and restaurants to overcome the inefficiencies of small-scale farming. Massive industrialized farming such as that which exists in the U.S or Australia need not be the only way for efficient sustainable farming practices. Food preservation can be possible using traditional methodologies, and it can lead to healthier nutritional outcomes.

The lacking piece is proper co-ordination, organization, and passion. Connecting the dots is the pice no one's figured out yet. No one's figured out an easy scalable way to connect technicians to farmers, investors to farmers, owners to workers, engineers to innovators, for agriculture in Nepal. I'm working on getting that set up.

Sound sleep [Sat 30]

Got up at 6 to use the restroom despite sleeping at 3. Went back to sleep, got up at 8, and then at 9. S was up, out and about, playing video games. I wanted to catch up on sleep, he said okay I have other things to do. Got something to eat, and went back to sleep. Woke up at 2.30 in the afternoon. It was nine, maybe ten hours of sound sleep.

Got in touch with SS, who is just..., and they're not feeling good about the entire situation. Which made me feel a little unhinged because they're the literal mascot of stability and calmness for me. So something inside me snapped, was supper tired and angry and disappointed and so many emotions. It was tiring.

Went to A's place at 5.30, had a nice tall glass of iced tea. Then we made and ate paani puris. Lots of pani puris. Then we had an incredible round of Nepali-style rice and vegetables. The paneer that she made was the best I've ever had, anywhere. They were soft and chewy, not rubbery and squeaky on the teeth when you chewed them. We played a lot of poker.

I was down into -3 buy-ins, and then back to well into the positive after paying back all the buy0ins I'd borrowed fro the bank. It was a symbol of human persistence and soul and spirit. We were playing till 2.30 in the morning, went to sleep at 3am again.

I'm getting better at poker. Probably.

My future plans are more confusing than ever.

A comment on the current state of affairs

TLDR: why coming to America is still a good idea but how things have changed recently.

America may be fucked up, and shit's real bad, for immigrants and non-white folks. But it's still safer and a better place for opportunity than Europe, maybe even Australia. But the direction it's been taking is dangerous, crazy scary. While the rest of the world wants to get towards a better, kinder directions, Americans are rushing towards blowhard evil xenophobic crazy violent direction, even when they're starting from a much better place.

Yes, I can make a lot more money here. Yes, all things considered I'm probably a lot safer here in big cities as anywhere. Yes, things won't probably be really really bad for quite some time. But still. I want the dignity of a human being, of a first-class citizen. I don't want my friends to be afraid of living their lives because some fucking piece of shit my call the cops on them, or make racist attacks, or try to mow them down with a gun, or try running them over with their smalldickcomensatory vehicle. This country exists in this equilibrium because the rest of us have agreed admitted grown accustomed to the fact that we're not real people, we're the side-piece, supporting actors. We're not real people, no matter what we do, and we need to live in fear because this is not our place.

It doesn't need to be like this. There are places where it's not like this. And sure, no where's perfect, but the direction, the trajectory this country is taking is a strange one, and I'm not sure what amount of wealth and fortune is enough to justify this level of lack of dignity.

Am I mad? Yes. But I'm also sick and tired of everything that's happening. There's only so many things you can get mad at on a daily basis.

The important lies that we tell

It's important to keep telling important lies. Even if you don't believe a hundred percent in something, it is important to keep re-iterating the things you wish you believed, the values you should live by, even if you don't believe in them. Lies are an important means to signal intent and values and principles.

America was not completely honest when it talked about human rights, and press freedom and democracy and free and fair elections and gender rights and a thousand other things. And we knew they were not being truthful, they knew that too for the most part. Now that the orange clown has taken over, they don't even bother to pretend, they don't care, they don't bother to pretend. And now they've communicated they don't hold those values and principles any more. That the ball of flaming shit doesn't care about any of the values any tin-pot dictator in any shithole would believe in, or pretend to believe in. And now things are fucked up real bad.

If you intend to convey your values, keep lying about things you intend to believe in.

That is all. Sigh.

Friday hangs [Fri 29]

Got up early, no walks, easy work day, lots of experimentation with the website that I'm trying to make. Learned that media queries are how you get your site to adapt to mobile screens, not tricky math with css grids. Talked to bunch of people back in Nepal after work, ended work really late. Made egg bhurj indian style, ate with paratha, so spicy. Wrote and chilled for a tonne, NP and A came in, played poker till 1, watched tv and chilled until 2.30 ish. Went to sleep at 3.

Hiatus

I have like 8 planned posts in my drafts, but I might go on a hiatus. It doesn't feel right. I'm alright, healthy, among friends, in constant touch with family, everything's good. Something feels wrong. Might be back if things work out.

Shit's fucked up

I have a vague idea of what's happening in this country but I don't know the details. When the gang tries to talk about the news I get super stressed out and change the topic. I know things are really really really bad, in all ways. Everything bad's coming to roost all at the same time.

It's a little tiring. I'm having fun with friends but everything else is really really bad. I've been realising my issues and things and feelings and emotions don't matter, that I'm but a fly in the large picture. I disappear to nothingness.

This is not a time to make my life complex. This is however a good time to escalate things and drown the sorrow in already existing situation.

Maybe in September, when and if people renew their leases. September's a great month to have your heart break.

7 Signs you're actually a ghost

1. No white sheets for you, because people walk into you all the time since you blend in.
2. People throw small things, toy basketball, toy football, oranges, apples, fifteen points for your head, seven for the rest of your body.
3. All your mirrors are broken.
4. Cats and dogs go crazy when they see you, and no one believes you when you tell them it's because they're racist pets.
5. You think people would get pissed and disheartened when you boo them but it scares the shit outta' them for some reason.
6.  Cold dark nights in old large creaky houses turn you on, particularly if the house is next to a graveyard. Spoookie.
7. The feeling of emptiness, the persistent sense of impending doom and destruction, but for some reason you don't fear death, just disappearing and disintegrating into nothingness.

Form over function in the subcontinental psyche

There's an argument that goes as follows. The subcontinental man (and it's always a man) is the biggest lover of manuals. When he encounters an unknown circumstance he is unable to evaluate, rather than basing his judgments upon similar experiences and circumstances, he reverts back to the 'books' and bases his decisions on the wisdom on the ancients.  Sometimes that can take absurd forms.

The first point of dissent might be to note that the subcontinental man (the Indian man at least) is quite unlike the above description. He is generally resourceful, proactive, and gets things done, even if that means bending the rules or using avenues that no one else has ever considered before. The concept of 'jugaad' applies here -- he will get something done no matter what, however he can do it. This is at first look a contradiction to the above claim...unlike what we claimed, he does not reach out for the 'manual', if anything he is 'off the books'.

The claim however is that the 'manual' does not equal the rulebooks. To turn the argument around, the suggestion is that jugaad would be our character's choice on any circumstance, necessary or not, even if that meant a longer, more roundabout, and ultimately less-than-ideal approach. The claim is made about adapting to circumstances, not necessarily using an 'jugaad hammer' to nail everything in. When jugaad works, it works, when it does not, one's out of luck for it's not in the true spirit of 'adapting to circumstances', instead it's about hammering the same 'off-the-beaten-path' approach to every circumstance. The form (or the looks of) of 'adaptation' is more important, the claim is, that the actual outcome of it.

That was the context. Here's the real meat.

Where is the weight? By what form should we judge?[...]
[...]
The Vetala stories tell us of yet another thing: where to look for the case when we find ourselves in the world of the scale
[...]
More than other peoples, the Indian has a need to live according to norms. Nowhere is the concept of the 'manual' in the sense of a collection of rules, so vital as in India.
[...]
[...] The burglar breaks and enters by the rules of a 'manual for thieves' -- while working (for burglary is his work), he cites single paragraphs from his 'law book',  he follows the rules, he works by the book. We no longer possess this illicit handbook; we may doubt that it ever really existed. But a world like this, in which life's fulfillment is gauged and judged against norms, must everywhere produce cases. Indeed, a great number of the cases in circulation, and partly recognizable as such despite their closure, are of Indian origin.

The great King Bikramaditya (from our Bikram Sambat) makes the following judgment in a tale from Betaal Pachisi. The story is condensed for argument's sake, but it's worth reading in several translations and the commentary on them. I don't remember where I found the original commentary for it, though it was just yesterday.

A poor farmer has a daughter of marriageable age. Three wealthy, powerful men are interested. He can't say no to either, so they all hang around. The girl gets sick and dies of some disease. The first suitor makes a cottage over where she was burned, and lives there, to live with her last remains. The second suitor takes her bones to the Ganga and releases them there, to put her eternal soul at peace. The third suitor becomes an ascetic and roams the world. He encounters a book that can bring back people from the dead, steals it and brings it back to the poor farmers house. Using the spells in the book, he brings back the girl. Now that she's back, and we know how each of her potential husbands would have interacted with her, who should marry the woman?

That's the question King Bikram was asked by the haunted spirit. His argument was as follows.

The man who brought her back from the dead, gave her life, which is what a father does. Therefore he cannot be her husband. The man who took her bones to the Ganga and brought her eternal peace, did what a son does, therefore he cannot be her husband. The man who built a cottage on her remains and slept there all this time, slept with her throughout. That's what a husband does. Therefore he deserves to be her husband.

It is a decision difficult to reconcile with our worldview. The suitors' actions are not judged for what they are worth -- for their function -- but for what they look like if those strange actions had a correspondence in the existing social hierarchy. There's no rulebook that answers who should be husband, so our King maps the situation to a situation where the rulebooks do have a lot to say, and makes his judgment. Whether that's a fair one, not just under the microscope of modern cultural analysis, but even given the circumstances of the day and time, is a judgment left as an exercise for the reader.

Sources:

1. Simple Forms: Legend, Saga, Myth, Riddle, Saying, Case, Memorabile, Fairytale, Joke [1929]

Early weekend celebrations [Thu 28]

It's 11.50 in the evening, will finish this in five minutes because I'm sleepy and need to sleep asap to keep up my morning habits. In whatever order, here's the things that I did today, here, we, go!

Got up at 7 in the morning, snoozed my alarm only once, changed walked over to PN's despite the rain, asked him if he wanted to go to the park which he didn't. Walked back, wrote a tonne of posts, started working attended couple of meetings, did some work, wrote a lot more. I've written like maybe 5000 words over the course of the day, wish I could be proud of that but there's one more thousand word that's due for yesterday that needs to be done for this month.

For breakfast I had a banana, S's pb&b shake, lunch was potato-and-ketchup toast sandwich. Late lunch was baked pasta from last night. Finished work, still wrote a lot, planned to walk out, but the rest of the gang showed up. We (read: S) made TONNE of pakoras: paneer, potatoes and cheese, onion and cabbage, all of which we devoured within moments. Then he made rice puddings which we devoured too. Watched several episodes of the office, the guys played fifa, looked for nice cheap houses to buy around the area.

In the late evening we were unsure what to do so we played a very exciting and competitive game of poker. I lost the final hand to P, but it was a really really dangerous game, and if he'd lost it that would have been a very memorable loss. Maybe it's because we're playing often, or because there's quite a few of us, but our poker games have gotten increasingly fun and higher-stake.

After everyone left S went to sleep and I started writing the day's posts, despite already having written a fuckton because why not. Almost didn't write this but here we are, I made it! Gonna close it out and go to sleep, it was an early weekend celebration this thursday evening, what a good night. Good night myself from the future!

Not the only biker in town, bro

I haven't biked for months and months, because my bike is in Boston where I haven't lived in what seems like an eternity now. Before that it was terribly frigid and unbikably cold. The good days where I biked to work are long gone, and I'm in no mood to use bikeshares here in nova.

I was the biker bro in my group, the only one, until recently. A month ago, NG(Phil) got a nice bike for himself and he's been riding dozens of miles every day. If he keeps up the pace, in two months he'll be down to less than twenty-five cents a mile, beyond that he'll have recovered the initial investment for the bike and it'll all be pure profit for him in terms of entertainment and health-outcome values. He's going on long hours-long bikerides by the river. I'm jealous.

10 things you can do freely after this is over

1. Lick poles of all manner everywhere without being charged for terrorism and spreading mass panic. Give us our rights to lick, big goverment!
2. Hug and sneeze upon random people in the middle of the street on a sunny sunday afternoon. Because what's the worst that could happen? They'd get a mild sniffle at the very worst!
3. Ignore your teachers and professors in real life as they teach instead of ignoring them online.
4. Hate your neighbors for a plethora of 'normal' reasons, besides failing to maintain distance to you or having too much fun in their apartment.
5. Wear masks as a bank-robber without being mistaken for a liberal or a corona-victim.
6. Go to public parks everywhere and disturb the wildlife, create pollution and generally disrupt the natural ecosystem.
7. Pretend that the greatest incoming crisis is going to be hyperinflation of unknown origin that's going to destroy everything forever, and you need your seven tonne of guns to protect yourself from that.
8. Go back to hating poor and lower-middle class folks who have to do crappy customer-centric jobs, instead of pretending to care for them as 'first-responders'. Your fake-smile muscles get a rest finally!
9. Explain to anyone who'll listen to you that actually your culture's the best out of the thousands of others worldwide because due to so-and-so reason and so-and-so variable your demographic group actually performed the best, and is the most well prepared for any future crisis.
10. Be sad and gloomy for no justifiable reason.

fictional corona complaints

fic. 
 
jeez it's like you didn't even consider the implications your actions would have on other people, shyam said to himself as ben crashed into the couch.

you tell me man, ben said, isn't that like so much fcking bullshit old people shouldn't be walking out there just like that it shouldn't be my responsibility to keep them safe. At least keep away from other people order online and don't literally see anyone else how hard is that, leave the hard part for us young folks how hard is it to get that. And the whole store the entire fucking place was staring at me like I'd killed a baby goat and eaten it alive even those stupid little twerps were giving me the daggers. It's not like illegal, you know, it's still a goddamn free country to walk outside being judged, the way they looked at me it was as if i'd killed someone and fucked the body, then chopped it into little bits and fed it to like sick children or something. jeeez get a life people it's not a big deal as long as people maintain distance or whatever it's going to be fine you don't need to get all tizzied up. everyone's overreacting you know as if they're all like fucking doctors and epidemologists, this is all bullshit.

shyam mumbled something and started on his third can of the expensive craft beer of the evening.

Well the good news was I got everything i wanted, so that's good but I didn't feel good man it's like I don't even feel likee going outside of the house anymore, and if something bad happens to me or if I get depressed or cabin fevered up or some indoor diseases, it's all the the fault of those fuckers on tv and everyone else who's just freaking out. Oh wait. Or maybe maybe. That's what they want me to do hide inside the house like a mouse so they can do whatever the fuck they want without me out there. I guess I'm just gonna have to go out all the time now without masks or anything just to piss off those assholes, see how much they can glare at me. It's still a free fucking country last I checked they can't put me in the jail for not wearing some stupid face covering this is not some bumfuck saudi arabia this is America we have our freedoms we'll die to preserve them!

Another can of the beer done. Shyam was on his final can for the night. He would go to bed after the last can.

Like is our whole life supposed to stop now and are we like pause to death or pretend to be statues because that's what this is turning into a whole load of crap. It's got to be logical! I understand it's some disease and what not but tell me can you just explain to me what the game plan with those retrds is what exactly they're going to do in two months when the economy's still dead and no one's out because people are too fucking tired and afraid and even depressed to come out. It's so unfair nothing makes sense. It's not the disease that's killing people honestly it feels like it's the people that's killing other people and the disease is just like the onlooker who happened to trigger a dangerous fire but wasn't really responsible for any deaths by itself. Yeah the economy's all fucked up it shouldn't have been in this place we had to be more robust I get all of that okay what my problem is with now is the fact that us normal careful people have to suffer for mistakes of companies that were not careful. Like why did you not save for emergencies like this, you have to pay something. The government's just gonna let them go scot-free even though it's due to them everyone has to suffer. I tell you it's just some few bad-faith actors, idiots who don't know what's good for everyone and what's not that screw it up for the rest of us. Without them the world would be such a better place.

Shyam nodded, shaking his head vigorously. Time for bed man, but I agree with you a thousand percent, he said, as he went to the restroom to get ready to sleep.

Morning run and cooking [Wed 27]

Went on a morning walk at seven to P's place, collected my earbuds walked back. What a pleasant walk it was, really inspired good bit of writing. Going to do this more regularly for longer.

Breakfast was omelette and toast with lots of butter, good salted butter yummy slippery savory. Work was slow, though I impressed and even confused myself with the pace of posts I put out in the morning. Learned a tonne of new technologies (for work and otherwise) after lunch. We had a major release at work last evening, so supported the folks while writing in these pages. Perhaps I was so busy doing everything else, wrote barely fifty words in my personal journal which means today's going to be 2k words in there.

For lunch, which was at 4 because I was busy and distracted and S was really busy I made potatoes, diced and fried, with roti and dal. So good. In the evening got a little lightheaded and despite planning to write, I napped for a while.

For dinner S made pasta, which was crazy cheesy with bits of cheese stringing around everything. Apparently it wasn't a lot of cheese...just a milk-based sauce with mozzarella added at the end. There was added bell peppers too, lightly roasted, that gave it some nice texture and 'bite'.

Watched many episodes of the office, wrote a little, talked on the phone with family and friends in Nepal for a couple of hours before going to bed at 12.30.

The demonic manifesto [3?]

[...]
It should have the [exploits of] gods and Asuras as its subject matter and one of them as its well-known and exalted Hero, and it is to consist of three Acts [presenting] the three kinds of deception, the three kinds of excitement or the three kinds of love [...]

[...] and it is to include sixteen characters which may be gods, Asuras Rākṣasas, Bhūtas, Yakṣas and Nāgas, and [besides this] the play is to be [...]

 - Natyashastra, ~3000BCE, Bharat Muni

The mortal Man misunderstood. There was an error. We are not their demons, we are not their enemies. We are merely an innocent party in this vast theo-cosmogony, mere puppets to what Indra and his ilk have done.

We were the same, we were. We were given as much respect, if not more than the devas. We were were more egalitarian -- still are -- than the devas who wanted to keep their realm for themselves. When humans became pious and kind and followed the path of proper dharma, they reached swarga more often. It was not tolerable to Indra. He schemed, he planned he connived. He betrayed the humans by corrupting the. Misleading them. He told them, that what the asuras do is evil, that what the devas do is good. The humans with their limited means went with him. We tried convincing them, but we didn't get everyone on board. Eventually humanity was all corrupted. There is no cosmological conspiracy, there's only Indra and his web of lies and deceit.

What separates a dev from an asur?

Unlike what they want you to think, our facial hair is not it. We can get rid of our mustaches just as they can, and they can grow them out as they desire. It is not the color of our skins, though they may want you to think it is, which is just a reflection of their elitism. For they know humans will not check the color of the skin of their gods. If they could they would discover the devas are no darker nor any whiter than we are. We are made of the same elemental forces as they are. Let us assure you, our physical appearances do not differ, for if it were to be so, they could not trick us and steal the elixir of life from our noses, the culmination of a million years of our hard work and dedication.

It it not our approach to human morality either. We are not any more greedy or jealous or lustful than them. The lust of Indra's courtiers and his own dalliances are well-known in the realms, even among humans. They fear us not because we are evil, but because they are greedy to share power wealth and influence. Swarga was not theirs to begin with, now they want to own it for all eternity, they will use any immoral underhanded technique, during wartime or in times of peace, to protect their throne. Moral beings they certainly are not.

The true difference, the only difference, between the devas and us the asuras is that they got to Swarga faster, they spread their misinformation quicker, they captured the minds of mortals earlier. They work not from a position of equality, but they threaten they cajole and they negotiate with humans. They are not benevolent deities, they are jealous protective xenophobic parents who will reject eternal bliss for their children because they might bring in trouble. We, on the other hand, have worked with mortals here on the Earthly realm to create the pleasures of heaven right here. We have supported human progress and innovation, the attitude of questioning truth and reality, and attempting to unravel facts from illusions. We are curious, they are not. We are inquisitive, they are lazy.

We will win.

[Source 1] [Source 2]

Ludo madness

News from Nepal. Apparently South Asia is all agog over this multiplayer ludo app, all our parents and cousins are hooked. Talked to sister, my family's been playing with each other dawn to dusk apparently, dad got bored playing with rest of the fam so he was playing with other folks. Before he looked it up online, read somewhere that it's gonna steal all your information and money, to promptly delete the app.

Everyone I've talked to in Nepal talks about ludo. Is it possible it's some kind of weird hypnosis app that convinces it's actually a game but subtly modifies your behavior. Maybe aliens are involved too. It's all so bizarre. There's a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic going on and a billion and a half people are spending each of their living minute playing a stupid children's board game that is exactly a hundred percent a matter of chance. Maybe it's because people are so fatalistic it gives them comfort that no matter what, their fate is beyond their control, and the game helps them relax? Maybe it's a symptom of asymptomatic covid? It's really strange, has the whole world gone mad?

I wonder if that's better than watching z tv and aajtak all day long. On one hand you don't have to be in front of annoying loud stressful news all day long. On the other hand, you're addicted to a stupidly simple game on an app of questionable security practices. It's easy to judge.

Twenty innovative ideas for new kinds of momos

Everyone's in the invent-your-own-momo game now. Cheese momo, paneer momo, even chocolate momo, they've done it all. For the out-there entrepreneur, here's twenty more innovating ideas for momo recipes.

1. Egg toast momo, kothey
2. Til momo, steamed
3. Sakkhar momo, steamed, then used as defensive artillery when the newars come at you for culinary appropriation and rebranding
4. Momo momo. Regular kothey momo deconstructed and used as filling. Steamed.
5. Achaar momo, kothey or fried. Steamed won't work because of texture.
6. Gedagudi momo. Bean-soup momo for the cold winter days. Kothey.
7. Heavy momo. Momo filled to be heavy and dense, to be used as a weapon on short notice.
8. Tear-gas momo. For those that miss the good old daily dose of teargas in these tough times.
9. Ghiu momo. A big blob of ghiu in there, because why not. Steamed.
10. Avocado momo. Because you need to show off once a while. Fried, obviously.
11. Bhogatey sadheko momo. A new spin on two traditionally Nepali foods.
12. Development momo. Fortified with vitamins and minerals, targeted for poor and remote villages. You can't afford it with your Nepali-rupee salaries. Steamed.
13. Makaai momo. Momo with popcorn inside as a tribute to the classic rural Nepal meal/snack. Fried, because you don't want soggy popcorn.
14. Bhat-dal-tarkari momo. A fusion of the everyday and the special. Comfort food combined with hauté cuisine. Fried.
15. Lalmohan momo. It's a dessert okay. Kothey, surprisingly.
16. Mohi momo. If you're eating nineteen different kinds of momo, might drink some too.
17. Bheteko khasi momo. If there's anything that competes with momo it's khasi ko masu. So let's combine both.
18. Donor momo. You'd think this had something to do with doner kebab, but this is actually crappy momo made by people who've never had momos who just want to gift you momo. Makes you question what a momo even is.
19.  Ludo momo. Everyone's addicted, so here's a way to get more ludo in your system. Fried, maybe.
20. Carrom board momo. If there's ludo, there's gonna be carrom too. Don't ask how.

Tea Party [Tuesday 26]

Not much happened on Tuesday.

Got up pretty late, S had already started working. Ambled to the table, did a lot of 'backup work' at work, though did get quite a bit of writing done. Had good food (made fried rice, finished the incredible awesome fatty spicy dominos pizza and cheese bread). Realized that I'd left the earbuds at PN's place the night before, called them to inform that I was coming to get it. They said they're coming to A's place instead. So I went there too.

There was the four of us there, and A made her famous tea. The trick is to apparently mix non-dairy milk in equal parts with dairy and add a little water to it. That way it's got good color and textures without tasting too milky. That's besides the point though since I don't drink milk so I had iced tea. It may have been caffeinated, that would explain why I was so energetic later in the evening in my writing.

Came back, hung out with S, got dinner watched a few episodes of the new Michael Jordan documentary series on youtube and went to bed and slept at a very reasonable time. I should have done the same today but now I'm an hour late. No matter. It's bed time now.

Fiction goes here

This is a piece of fiction that I should be writing right now but haven't even though it's slightly past midnight and I still have one post to go before I cover up yesterday's posts. I'm only a day behind in scheduled posts which is pretty great because two days ago I was backed up by four days. So tomorrow morning I can get a couple of posts for today out, and in the afternoon I'll be all caught up.

What is fiction anyway? What's so great about it. If the purpose of fiction is escapism, people escape to scarier places than reality, or people escape from 'reality' without the use of fiction, so that can't be just it. What does a creator get out of the act of fiction-writing? An ability to create a universe of her own liking and inhabitants who are her own creation.  What goes in there goes through you, though not necessarily the direction you want it to go. Writers often consider themselves to be mere channeling mechanisms for the pieces that get put down into words. So fiction-writing is then a way for the writer to enjoy channeling the non-existent and non-real to merely existent and unreal. It's a sort of magical power to create something -- a lot of something -- with nothing. It's different from other works of art, movies studio art performance art, because all you need here is your brain and some form of expression...through fingers or mouths. Fiction-writing is literal magic, and it makes the magicians involved feel great.

Like a good piece of shit though, it's difficult to get it out sometimes even though it'd lead to great relief if it did. And that's what's happening right now. I know it'd be good if I wrote something that wasn't real and created characters and interactions and new worlds. I can't though. So we're stuck here with navel-gazing.

Such is our existence.

Walking out in the morning

Summary: Walked to PN's place this morning, need to do casual walking more often.

Taking walks has been one of the simple pleasures I've come to appreciate in these tough times. Long ones are fun, particularly when there's a river nearby, with greenery and cool trees and birds. Again, one of the reasons I've started missing Boston: we live three-minute walk from a river which has a pretty cool trail, so totally worth spending an hour each day. If not that I could walk to friend A's place. Or walk all around the old Boston town. With a good mask and a little care, walking out is such a good hobby. It lets you think clearly and appreciate your surroundings more. The days I don't go on walks don't feel right.

The other day I gave it some thought and realized that morning walks are actually kinda' awesome. You see people hang out get the cool fresh air and clear your head before the day even starts. A natural refreshing beginning to a day. It makes so much sense now that people enjoy going to each other's houses for the morning tea: having the destination motivates the trip, but it's the trip that's important. The destination just happens to be a great side product.

Thinking of meeting P at a park between us every morning, taking a couple of rounds there, and going to his place for some morning tea (or having him over, on alternating days). Beginning a day like that is what we'd do in Kathmandu in regular times anyway, and it's great I'm tilting towards that. Walking is even more important, particularly for someone like me because I'd otherwise use the commute time in the orange site and reddit and that's the worst use of my time possible. Usage of those sites has significantly gone down for me thank gods.

So yeah, gotta take more nice long walks and learn to think clearly!

Cooking again

I fried rice the other day, made a bunch of things last week and the week before. Cooked potatoes today, something I hadn't done in a really long time. I'm surprisingly good at cubing potatoes when given a good knife, apparently.

Cooking doesn't take too long, helps de-stress and you can eat the result of the task. Imagine if you were a...software engineer, except you could eat the output of your program. That'd be pretty sick. Cooking is exactly like that, same same.

We've run out of vegetables to cook, it's a bit tough right now. We got several bunches of leafy greens last week, had to throw them all yesterday because they'd yellowed. It was such a heartbreak. I hated leafy greens as a younger person, now they're my jam! Shows how much you can change! Only one of the few ways I've grown over the years tbqh.

Things I want to be cooking again: pressure cooker beans, green veggies, roasted veggies, flatbreads, mushroom curry, various kinds of lentils, among other items.

Nothing day, and neighborhood travels [Monday 25]

Didn't do anything particular the entire day, watched a lot of youtube wasted a lot of time, talked to a bunch of international friends, toked up a bit and lazed around all day long, in the evening walked over to PN's place. Spent an hour out in the sun at the ground next to the school, talked about buying houses. There was a group of college kids playing aggressive football right next to us, that scared us a bit because air droplets. Had chanaa ko tarkari at their place, and was convinced to get dinner there. We had spaghetti pasta from Trader Joe's and avocado sauce with real parmigiano-reggiano with pan-sauteed cherry tomatoes on top. Lots of olive oil, absolutely drenched in extra-virgin olive oil. So so good and satisfying.

Walked back to S's place, he was hungry and planning on ordering from Domino's, I suggested he get cheesy bread stuffed with feta and spinach. Half a pizza was pineapple and mushrooms.

If anyone's been keeping track of my relationship with Domino's, I was quite disappointed the last time we got anything from them. I'd give them one last chance, if they didn't make it the second time, my my love affair with the pizza place would be over. So what happened?

Oh man are we back! The cheesy bread with feta and spinach was heaven. Heaven! So fatty so salty so cheesy so umamiiee so so good! The pizza was amazing too, cheesy, and not at all extra flour-y like the pizza we got the last time. Domino's has the ability to change my mood instantly. I promised S I'd get pizzas for us everyday if he wanted...that's how much I liked it. Also missed my place in Boston because we live so close to a Domino's there. Boston's coming closer and closer, I'm making plans to be back...There's a deadline for my pilgrimage that's being set.

What I had against Domino's is over and it's back in my good books,


Watched a tonne of youtube with S, and then the Michael Jordan documentary, parts of it. After he went to bed, I spent some time getting caught up on news from Nepal which I've been obsessed with recently. Went to bed at half past twelve, possibly a little earlier.

The lost saint

fic.
 
Some years ago I tried contacting the babaji, to tell him he was right, that every one of his ridiculous predictions had come too, each absurd detail, memorable because of how strange it was, that I had dismissed right away had come true. It was a pilgrimage for a non-believer, a time to question my worldview and assumptions.

He wasn't there. No one knew where he was. The woman whose house was next to his old abode told me he died, her adult son said he hadn't, their neighbor said he had gone to India, the tea-seller understood he was offered a lot of money and sold out. There was no coherent understanding of who he was or where he came from, only that he was a man who dealt in higher dimensions and unlike folks of his kind, didn't ask for anything from anyone ever even if that meant making his existence a suffering. One young man in glasses, who they told me had recently returned from abroad, told me he knew for a fact the babji went to America and had worked for the Trump campaign -- why do you think a half-mind such as him won the election there, because of the powers abilities of our babaji, he said quite proudly.

I collected contacts to maintain the thread of connection to the story. My plan was to reach out to his followers wherever they may be, categorize their relationship, his predictions, and understand the man that he was. I promised to come back to the village, to write more on the myth and the mystery that had grown around the man.

I got busy after that. The media background in Kathmandu and elsewhere absolutely exploded. Someone like me got an offer from a new online media, a news channel, or a new paper every two months. And where I was, we were expanding quick. New reporters, new writers, so many stories to cover, so little time. The mysterious babaji disappeared from my active imagination much as he disappeared from the village he had lived for two decades. I'll do this when this project is over, I told myself every two weeks, but the projects kept on coming the work piled on and on and on.

And then this happened. You know.

Work is not that much lighter, but I have more time. No socializing with friends, or schmoozing with industry folks, biking around the town to get to the sources. That leaves a lot of free time. The other day I came across my old file as I was cleaning the room. An intriguing project that absolutely cried for my attention. What was he doing now? Was he alive? Was he safe? Was he in India or was he in Nepal? Had he foreseen this all? I had to find out. I set the gears moving.

Camping growl

And so I thinks to myself, so I does, boyoboy this is gunna be a tough one ain't it? I asks myself. And what would you know, right there and then the clouds part over weather gets pretty as a bird and I'm runnin' about like a saved man from the island with with that guy, from forrest forrest was his name run forrest run. That bloke when he got stranded in the island and they find him in the end, that's how happy I was. So there I am ready to set up my tent in this beautiful weather ahh what a weather it was best weather i seen in thirty-fourty years maybe. Nay there was a few days in between, one time when Jennine's sister got married, beautiful day that was out in the golf course too, three hundred people it must have been. And they didn't spare expenses no they didn't. I was surprised I tell ya' and I says to my brother says I, so they went all in eh, and he says to me yeah you fool it's the husband payin' for everything the bride's father that greedy bastard he ain't gettin' a dime outta' him. And then there was that ....yeah yeah where was I right and just as I'm done fixing up my tent I hears a growl, a heavy one as if someone was in pain and I thinks that's no good someone could be dyin' out there. But you see no bandaid and I was all by meself, strong but still old and alone so I says to myself no I can't go and help the yungun's from the other group surely will help the poor fellow whoever it is.

And then I looks at the sky and there they are, three fighter plans flying in a straight line, right above me goddamn head, almost shaved my hair off by god they did. Scared the heart out of me it did. And it was since then I told myself, Slalom, you are too old to do nature things all by yourself, you are still strong you are still brave but if they'll send fighter goddamn planes to take you down in the mountains it's not worth the hassle. So now on the weekends every so often I go out in me backyard put out the tent and have my own little camping hiking trip. Most beautiful ever. Good times these are eh.

Things not to do during corona times

• Don't go pecking at grains out in the open like a chicken
• Avoid contact with 'wet' market, market, or any kind of modern commerce really. Hunker in the bunker.
• Don't be a doctor, or even worse. Choose a better profession that's more physically and financially rewarding.
• Don't be poor, seriously. People may tell you it's a good idea, but it's not. Don't be poor.
• Run naked in the public parks. Don't! Yes there's a lot fewer people out there but there's never the right time for that. Besides, that's just opening up more 'pores' to soak in the virus.
• Wonder aloud at Home Depot if the virus is transmitted sexually, or through sexual fluids. Just Google like the rest of us.
• It may be tempting but don't 'invest' in antique lamps. The sellers massively overstate the probability of finding a genie. Besides, genies wouldn't be able to help with the current situation
• Don't go mowing other people's lawns, because they might want to turn them into vegetable gardens and also might shoot you dead, now that they're home 24/7.
• Don't go around kissing other people's pets. Yes you are lonely but pets can transmit the disease too, specially if you're so close to their mouths you might as well be making out. Might as well.
• Don't forget it's only your sourdough that's supposed to smell sour, not everything else in your house too.

Tiring Sunday [Sunday 24]

Despite going to bed at 3.30 in the morning got up at 9am, and ambled about. So tired, had a headache the whole day, thought my blood pressure was messed up.

V went back to DC. S and I had a good lunch. Didn't do anything for the entire day except curl up on the couch and try to catch up on the sleep. Couldn't for some reason.

In the afternoon PN were going to Home Depot and asked if I wanted to join. I did, and backed them up as they got tonnes of plants for their already quite plantiful apartment, pardon the pun. Most were masked some weren't. They are mostly self-checkout now, to reduce the contracting potential. Since we were close by, went to the Asian grocery store in the seven corners. It was much busier than the last time we went, but still pretty empty. Everyone masked, generally maintained good distance. NP bought tonne of fruits and veggies including litchi and mango.

Came back to S's place, everyone was now going to the Indian store. I had had enough, napped instead. For about an hour and a half, it was amazing, so refreshing.

They brought back subway sandwiches for dinner, a veggie sixincher for me. I like Subway, as I've said here before and goddamn that subway sandwich made me the days I went to work and got them subs once in a while. So toasty so flavorful so fatty so good. I missed Boston.

Which made me realize I'm beginning to miss Boston a little bit, my apartment, everyone, my work, the places I went to eat at, the commute even. I'll walk to Davis and back twice a day once I'm in Boston even in these times just to relive the good old times. Well I don't know good, but normal times. Also really want to go to Boston now so I can check out friend A's farm in JP. She's really excited about it and they're getting chickens, and I'm really excited about that now. Considering shortening my pilgrimage over in the east coast to go back. We'll see how it goes.

Went to bed early because I was so tired, after what was a long weekend of hangouts and going to bed super late.

Writing is a disciplined art

Lets get back to fiction writing, that's where this discussion/digression began. Fiction writing needs more discipline than I've built, I've come to realize. I was never quite there, but there's been times where it has been in the reach... back when I was in Boston, and I can still get into bouts of discipline here and there. Unfortunately for me, good fiction doesn't come four totally-unrelated half-assed pieces at a time, it's all connected, it's a web and it wants to be told as soon as possible, it won't wait for me if I want to chill and toke up over the weekend instead. The imps of writing don't care if I played poker with friends last night and cannot channel their stories through me because I'm too tired and sleepy....they'll find a different medium to express themselves.

Fiction is like a plant: it needs to be taken care of, watered, given sunlight and  nutrients, and raised well or else it dies. Even then, even when it fruits, it's not a guarantee that the fruits are good or even edible. To get there one needs to be a farmer adept with the art of raising plants: to know what a plant needs at the right time and give it constant attention. Regular pruning is important too, and so is getting rid of diseases that might infect it, once a while. It's not like a computer program that you can leave running nonstop in the background and it just works. You cannot shut it down and start it ten years later and expect it'll start right where you left it, like a video game. A story is organic like a plant, and needs organic love.

An uncared story is a pitiable orphan of a creative output -- unloved, homeless and pointless. No offense to the parentless. A story well-cared for won't make it to the greatest literary heights, but it feels happy, it nourishes its caretaker. A satisfied nourished writer is the writer who loves his creations like a farmer loves her plants.

Plants

All my friends are into plants now. PN have turned their house into a japanese zen-garden rainforest, S is starting out with a few plants on tiny pots. Folks in Boston have been doing their own plant things (I remember those home depot runs, oh) and friend A from college is starting her own urban farm with her partner. Exciting things are happening! And oh the squash we planted like three weeks ago in a pot is huge and outgrowing it, needs to be replanted and actually might bear fruits. I'm starting to miss Boston, the potential for farming is one of the driving reasons for it.

Folks have planted mostly 'pothos' and other types of 'money' plants or 'currency vegetation'. Plants that survive well in low-light and indoors, and have been traditionally considered as 'lucky'. And now they're moving into sprouting avocado seeds and germinating them, chives onion garlic greens even, chilli peppers are easy to work with even for folks with no balcony, that's what they've been upto. I've been trying to encourage people to plant more edible fruits and vegetables, the problem is they need lots of energy in the form of solar radiation to produce fruits, something not available to the apartment-dwellers.

Convincing people to buy house in the burbs so they can grow kitchen garden, and have enough space for hydroponics hasn't been successful yet but seems to be the winning strategy. People seem to be really impressed by the width of crops that can be grown successfully inside, particular ones that have high market value and can be consumed with minimal processing in-situ, if you know what I mean. That's the way to better tomatoes and lettuce -- of all dispositions -- and chilli peppers and microgreens.

Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out a good way for myself to be in a position to start farming on real land, in a sustainable manner for the foreseeable future. That's where the rest of the world seems to want to end up eventually, want to be ahead of the curve.

Blogger is sluggish af

I've got eight tabs of blogger editor opened up, because I want to remind myself that's the minimum number I need to get out to be respectable. I usually have tens of dozens of tabs running in the background with no trouble.. I do have a developer computer with high-end specs and everything. So I've not experienced sluggish browser or program in a while.

So it's surprising that blogger's causing my browser to be sluggish. Like really so slow, I click on a tab, it takes two seconds to show up. I type a character in the editing window, it's a tenth of second before the display can catch up. Often I'm a lot faster than the screen can update, it's updating a line or two at a time because it's catching up to my typing speed. What a strange turn of events. It's unclear to me what's up with all of this, but I suspect this has to do with blogger.

Wonder what's it doing in the background that makes it so slow. It's not even like I'm showing advanced cutting-edge technologies in these pages. The editor looks simple enough, and there's no 'power use' features anywhere I can see that could justify using so much of my computer resources.

It'd be great if it were doing a spelling-grammar-sanity check of everything I've written in the background, at least I'd be getting something out of the cpu cycles it's taking. Right now it's as if...it's mining bitcoin as it watches 4k HD netflix movie while playing several multiplayer games in parallel. And then some more. I don't understand this. This is annoying. As an engineer who has to deal with things like these, I'm kinda pissed. Google, you should know better. Do better.

Poker night II [Saturday 23]

So here's the deal: I'm already running behind by twelve posts because the long weekend was too fun and I got distracted. I haven't done my daily personal journaling either. So I'm going to rush through the points, because there's a lot of ground to cover. Let's do this.

Got up, groggy and confused dazed. The three of us, me S and V ate a banana each. Then we walked to Georgetown because for some meeting.

The walk as described in the previous two posts, was alright. Sunny day, way too many unmasked people, but a nice walk regardless. As S met up our contact we waited outside a clothing store in Georgetown and saw families groups of friends etc walk by. I'll go to Georgetown again it's georgeous in these times (intentional pun), wish everyone there was careful though.

Toked up a bit, and then a lot after we got back. Snacked a bunch filled myself up with leftover cakes and crackers and oh so much more.

The dinner was great we made cucumber ko achar among other things, NG who had already had dinner showed up, and had a second dinner because they couldn't resist. A was over too and we had a second pokeer night in a row. The night started with one of those word-guessing game where your teammates need to guess the most words but you can give only 1-word hints and there's like a word that ends the game if they guess it. Played three rounds of it.

I killed at the poker we played after. Absolutely killed it. My hands were good and I played alright maybe but I had more of the red chips the most expensive one, than everyone else had, combined. I was rolling in cash. Unfortunately because of my limited experience playing the game the cash ended up thinning out but I was still the richest player when we ended the game at 2.30 in the morning. P had lost four piles of money given out by the dealer, which means he would have been out of the game four times.

It was tiring, went to sleep maybe 3/3.30 in the morning. This was second night in row of activities.

Masks on the street

Eighty percent of the American population thinks wearing masks in public places to protect yourself from infectious disease that's killing millions worldwide and has a greater death toll than World War I is a good idea.

You wouldn't now that by walking the major streets of any large city here that's not near New York City. Careless hordes of folks, unmasked talking laughing walk about, carefree as if a hidden enemy was not hiding just around the corner bidding its time ready to strike and kill. Shirtless and short-shorted heros run spraying the air with their nasal droplets and sweat, uncaring, uninterested in maintaining the recommended six feet.

You can try glowering at them -- it is a moral imperative that you do -- but it's unlikely that will change anything. They will talk loudly on their phones with their exposed mouths, as if daring you to call them out. And as I discovered the other day, despite the racial disparity in the infection rates and related deaths, the folks walking outside seem to be detached from the reality on ground -- carelessness and fearlessness towards a deadly disease seems to be a uniquely American quality regardless of a person's race or creed.

All of that sucks, sucks sucks.

The good news is, reality is better. Much much better. The folks you see outside on the street are the one percent of the one percent, people who already don't care. The ones that are taking this seriously are not out and about in a potentially crowded place they're safely in the confines of their homes as they have been recommended to. The selection bias is really making it loo worse: the entire sample space is already completely tilted by folks who feel safe to go out, and the ones that are seen not wearing masks are not a random sample. You cannot see folks who are safe in their houses.

It's not as bad as it looks like, but one can always hope for better.

Walk to Georgetown

I said I would walk to Georgetown two weeks ago and didn't go. Because of various reasons, chief of which was poor weather but laziness came in close second too. In any case I told people I'd go, didn't and was made for the two weeks that followed.

So with S and V, I did go to Georgetown by feet on Saturday. The sun was warm, not tiringly so, and the timing -- just before noon -- meant not many people were out yet. There weren't too many people out walking which was great. What was not so great was that there were a lot of people without masks just walking around in DC, a region that's had one of the most concentrated number of cases and isn't showing significant. Americans are all not worried about the disease, I concluded, regardless of their creed and race.

It was a pleasant walk, I put on the Stress Relief episode on my earbuds. Noticed the motel in Rosslyn was open, though with physical distancing rules in place. Lots of runners, so many runners all without masks or any kind of protection, most without t-shirts too. Couple of sandwich shops and coffee shops open which was nice, wanted to get something to eat but we were going to get something in Georgetown and lunch could wait.

In Georgetown V and I waited in front of a clothing store where I snapped photos of unclothed mannequins and sent them to P as a proof that I walked to Georgetown. The lyft ride was surprisingly cheap -- back home in less than 10 bucks!

What if the brain is more adaptable than we imagine?

We know intelligence and consciousness are 'embodied' -- the center of our being, while contained in the brain inside the cranium, doesn't exclusively reside there. There have been individuals who have survived accidents that destroyed most of their grey mass who managed to live on for many years -- albeit with some complications. Experts who have trained for years and decades in their field take actions measurably faster than their brain's ability to respond to the incoming stimuli -- sometimes before the signals could reach the expected regions -- suggesting that while the brain may be our 'cpu' we have other 'processing units' spread throughout our nervous center.

How can we use that information creatively?

Lets take the 'distributed intelligence' to its extreme. Octopi are really smart creatures, their limbic dexterity cannot be explained by the synaptic connections in its central 'brain'. What happens with them (and generally other cephalopods) is that each limb is 'intelligent' on its own and the brain acts just as a central coordinator, a manager of sorts as different teams come up with their data, calculations, and action proposal. Depending on the quorum the entirety of the being decides the action.

Now consider this for humans. What if we could train ourselves to do significant portion of our tasks without reaching the brain? We could try to use the plasticity of the brain to our advantage and encourage it to grow greater nerve mass in places outside the 'brain region'. Could there be a point where we wouldn't need the 'brain in the cranium' at all, that we could use training and therapy (aided by external stimulation and medication) to get the brain stuff happening elsewhere. We could discourage grey matter growth in the cranium and and encourage it elsewhere.

The implication could be: brain tumors/haemorrages wouldn't be as deadly, since the 'brain' could migrate elsewhere. The loss of a 'head' or significant portion of brain could still allow a prepared individual to live a long and happy life.

Taking this ridiculous sci-fi idea even further: we know 'consciousness updates' are bs because human intelligence/consciousness is embodied within our physical form. But what if, just like encouraging nerve growth outside the head, we could encourage our 'brain matter' growth outside strictly human body using various implants.  Imagine basically changing the location of your nervous system to be outside the physical body, one cell at a time, one new memory physical task action sensation at a time. By the end of it, you'd have created a low-res and low-fidelity version of yourself that wouldn't be you exactly and dear god we hope it doesn't have your consciousness without connection to you, but the implications could be interesting.

This was also an outcome of an early-morning dream I had recently.

Poker night I [Friday 22]

Morning I don't remember, we had breakfast that I was pretty good.  Work was strangely busy -- I wasn't explicitly doing anything but needed to support folks a lot. My manager told me to be off for the long weekend early at 1PM, but things kept coming up and it went on until 5/5.30 even.

In the evening we made paneer and black eyed peans sandheko with rice. Also soup and a walnut coffee cake. S's friend V was over, and NG and A who live next door were there too. We played Poker until midnight, it was loads of fun.

Read before posting

I need to read the things I've written before I 'finalize' them. Used to do that and my writing was polished and shiny, now it's like a ball of unpolished crap. Same thing in the inside but a lot gross-looking and strange in shape.

It's not like reading takes a long time. Minor editing doesn't either. The fear was, about a year ago when I started writing seriously, that if I read everything and started editing it the inner editor might come out too strongly and make me embarrassed about my writing. Ultimately discouraging me from writing anything. Quantity over quality, I said, even if that meant explicitly compromising on quality by avoiding reading and editing what I wrote.

Now that writing has become more regular, and I've come to be more comfortable with the countenance of my motivation and content, my acceptance of what I produce is better. This may be bad, but this what I write now, and if even one minute of editing can improve it, it'll give me leveraged gains.

That's what I'm doing from hereon. No obvious grammatical and spelling errors now, possibly. Hurray!

Final note: I gave the above a read before posting, and discovered four minor errors already. Ooof wow this is effective!

Animated head

This is yet another dream of mine from yesterday morning. There were two cool dreams that I remembered enough to jot down the major points of so I could write, such a productive morning in terms of dream journaling.

As I'm writing this paragraph, two more days have passed because that's what my life is now. The memories of the original intent of the dream have become vague and unclear. Regardless, let's move on.

I had a strange dream, an 'animated head' show. Someone's head had somehow detached from their head, I was in possession of it, and using as an act for one of those fair stalls. The head was of the fierce one. Which made me wonder, ignore the white bear moment in Black Mirror. What should be the ideal punishment for committing grave crimes or orchestrating them, against humanity? Obviously the punishment should be 'humane' -- the white bear episode was wrong and inhumane because by repeating the whole thing over and over again they terrorized her forever with the save massive trauma.

My idea was to somehow distill their presence into an (alive? animated?) head and make them to very base embarrassing things for the rest of their potentially very long existence. For them to be treated as an object of derision and entertainment and be cursed to ponder their decisions over a course of a short eternity.

Corona dreams of the future

This was a dream that I had yesterday morning, a lucid dream. I jotted down the major points and didn't elaborate on them because it was Friday and we were having fun.

So the dream was about me biking cross-country in Nepal. Because of the virus, it was the only safe and allowed mode of transportation apparently. I bike all the way to Birgunj, when I get there I discover parts of by bike have been stolen and I'm riding a barely-functioning piece of machine. It's possible a tire may have been missing, which doesn't make sense even for a dream because it's unclear how I'd have been riding it. I try getting it repaired there at a local bike shop and people are laughing at me and the bike and amazed at how I kept it running despite everything. I spend a long time in the bikeshop for some reason, maybe there was a cute worker there or something why was I there why did I stay there.

This is a conversation I've had with my dad, talked about it with S too and they had the same idea to assuage my concerns. What happens if this dreams 'comes out true', because at this rate there's not going to be any reasonable public transportation in the country for the foreseeable future unless you want to risk infecting everyone at the same time. But there's still small clusters of people moving across towns and cities. With all business and trade shut down, there's currently not many money-making jobs or enterprises in Kathmandu. I wonder what happens if there's a mass exodus of people away from the cities to the towns. On one hand it seems unlikely -- Kathmandu does have access to best healthcare, education, job opportunities, entertainment and connectivity to the outside world. On the other hand, the job opportunities may disappear and all things considered people might rather live comfortably and for free at their village houses growing their own food and doing local trade and commerce rather than pay Kathmandu rents. If the exodus does happen, Kathmandu could turn into a ghost town, a has-been since it's mostly supported by rents and runs on the labor of those that chose to make it their second homes. I've talked about the implications in detail elsewhere and don't want to kill the dead horse, that's something that does concern me a lot though. S and other folks have said this opens up opportunities for innovation doing new things, trying agriculture, and provides a 'clean slate' of sorts for people to dare new things because clearly things as they are aren't sustainable.

Finally, a point about bikes. I really really hope this starts a bicycle culture in Kathmandu and the big cities, the independence from the need of fuel, the independence from crowds the freedom to go as far as you body takes you, they should be ideal. Hope the cities understand that the future needs to be bike-oriented not car or motorbike oriented. Knowing things, that's unlikely but we can keep our fingers crossed.

Walk and visit [Thursday 21]

Here's what I did yesterday:

Went to bed quite late, a little after twelve because I was reading and writing and watched tv a bit too. Going to write more on this in the coming days but I've been watching a lot of youtube and listening to quite a few podcasts since getting into the habit of listening to them at 2x - 3x the speed. 2x is pretty goddamn doable and 3x (even 3.5x) is difficult but doable as long as you have youtube's closed captioning helping on the way. It's definitely helped retention, it's easier to forward through junk and makes me feel really powerful. The only problem is that i need the self control in avoiding using the saved time to browse the orange site and crap green site, there's been some success there but more work to do.

We watched netflix during dinner and after, got in a couple of episodes of Kim's convenience. The dinner was the fried bread from the night before as chips, chickpeas, yogurt sauce onions tomatoes cilantro chat masala, it was a regular chat that upset my stomach a little. Felt like an indulgence, something we shouldn't be snacking at instead of dinner. So that was exciting.

As S made dinner we talked, I read a bunch of news worked on the website. Updated my personal website. Came back from the walk at 8-ish, it was bright outside still. Finished two podcasts episodes over a 30-min walk because of the 3x speed.

After work, chilled for a bit read a lot on the news, wasted time in crappy sites it's a pitty I can't block safari on my work laptop. Got ready to go on a walk, discovered PN were gonna come. Waited for an hour, decided they were probably not coming, masked up headed out. Got honked and trailed on the street by a car. That was PN coming to S's place. Came with them to S's place, chilled a bit caught up on the last few days since I'd left their place. Went with them when they left, ate their vitamins and snacks, talked a bunch more, and walked back to S's place.

Work was pretty hectic. Barely had time to write, do journalling. Need to find time for my other personal project. Had a really hearty and filling egg sandwich for lunch. Cleaned up, a nice hot shower after work, S's place has amazing water pressure, something I didn't now I missed.

Got up way too early, tried going back to sleep couldn't, and then did, got ready for work late, sleepy and groggy.

And that was my day!

Tomatoes, I wanna grow 'em

I want to grow hydroponic tomatoes, in buckets with a motor circulating air and water to not kill the roots, mix nutrients in the water. Ideally home-made nutrients but wouldn't mind buying the nutrients from the store once a while. Outside, no artificial lights. Full support, large space for the root to grow and trim the roots regularly. A timer device on the motor to run it every fifteen minutes. It'll be a good practice for a full-on hydroponic setup. Maintenance once a week, change the water with same regularity, trim unwanted branches and leaves control the roots check for pests and apply anti-pest controls. Do a taste-test every so often, research on preserving the taste of hydroponic vegetables, maintain the ratio of nutrients to optimize flavor over growth. It'd be fun. Someone help me!

Complaints: Nepali things

Two complaints, among many.

First, I was watching a news video about agriculture in Nepal earlier today. It was about how silk production in a certain district had significantly gone down. The reasons given were many -- lack of technical assistance, disease etcetera but the one they really focused on and the farmers seemed to feel really passionate about was this: that the government didn't have subsidies for silk farmers though it had promised to subsidize it. So they were not really farming for the silk, they were farming for the subsidies and once the subsidies dried up, they moved on to a different item to milk the subsidies from.

Second, this is from years ago, when I had this awesome laptop-share idea to provide Computer education in schools in Kathmandu. Schools didn't have enough computers for students even though they were charging the full amount: an investment in a full computer lab didn't make financial sense for them. So my idea was to collect a 'cluster' of schools, have a bunch of medium-range laptops rotate between them over a week, along with a computer teacher if they wanted one. It'd be cheaper for schools the students would get what they were paying for and whoever was renting the laptops out would be recovering the initial cost in less than a year. I needed people to work with me in Nepal so I asked folks from KCM. They were pretty excited about the entire idea until I explained to them where the money came from. The schools would pay us money, I explained to them, the money that the students are paying to use the computers would come to us and we'd provide us the service. They were confused disappointed disgusted even. Take money, they gasped! We thought this was a non-profit project where the computers would be given for free to schools or somehow someone would just shuttle around the laptops free of cost to the school. They didn't agree to work with me on that because the project involved taking money for goods and services provided.

There's a little bit of frustration yes but a whole lot of confusion about how people think the world works and what exactly they think runs the economy. It's almost as if folks expect money to come from the heavens shower them with it in the time of need and that's the end of the story. You can't generalize generally and maybe these two examples were poorly chosen to make a point but that's the experience. Maybe the millions going back after all of this will come up with a different perspective.

Indra's evils

The gods make the demons evil, not to help mankind or to preserve the cosmic balance, but simply in order that the gods themselves may remain in power. In the Buddhist tradition, Indra is said to have brought about the fall of the demons from heaven because of his own jealousy and greed; thinking, "What good to us is a kingdom which others share?” he made the demons drunk and hurled them from heaven. In this view, the fact that the demons arc demons-that there was a fall from heaven, that the gods have enemies, that there is a force of evil to combat the force of good-is attributed to the decision of the gods, a decision based not on philosophical rationalization but on pure ritual competition.

- The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology p. 175.

The world knows about Indra's treacherous ways by now. It was he who instructed the sage Narad to lie to the pious Ghora about what Dharma is and what it is not, forcing him to be lustful and lecherous for the sake of Dharma. His Queen, his source of stability and wisdom was further deluded on Indra's instructions to forsake giving proper advice on Dharma to Ghora. And what was Ghora's crime? To impinge upon the infinite power and wealth Indra was amassing to threaten his position in the swara, to questions his actions and words. It was not the mortals Indra protected, he has been interested in protecting his power since eternity.

And let us not forget the great and powerful mortal king Raji who offered assistance during battle to whichever side would offer him the crown of their realm. We refused, for our own king Prahlad ruled over us and we would be unable to overrule him. Indra in his intense desire to defeat us offered the Crown of Swarga to the great King with and intention to not fulfill the terms of the agreement. When that battle was ultimately lost by us thanks to the might of the great King, they corrupted the loyal and pious sons of the great King to undo the terms of the agreement. Indra does not play fair, he is a trickster he is often not on the side of dharma and he cares for nothing and no-one but himself only himself as the King of swarga. He cannot be relied upon, there is no fundamental moral basis behind his power. He is not a great man, just a clever manipulating power-hungry trickster.

I implore you to give these thoughts some consideration. We are not going to war against good or piety, we are not disorder fighting against order. Our realms have been more just our people have been happier and prospered better. There is no divine fate, everything we've been told about Indra's ultimate victory and our ultimate demise is propaganda spread by his cronies to keep our morals low. And they have succeeded, for all these millennia as we hid in the dark while our people still prospered. We have come to a place thanks to our hard work and exploration of the world around us, to be able to challenge the power of swarga, of Indra and his goons.

We must resist. We must fight. We must unite.

Overworked, and nap [Wednesday 20]

It's 11.55 am the next day, and here's what happened during Wednesday the 20th in reverse chronological order, here. we.go.

I went to sleep at a little after one because had trouble sleeping and also was distracted by sveltejs ideas which made me keep checking google for javascript reference. Before that I worked on a post, read a bunch of things mostly news from Nepal. It's just a guess, I don't remember what I was doing all that time. Oh yeah I was researching yakshas and khyaaks it was cool, that's where the demonic post came from.

Watched tv for like 20 minutes with S after dinner. The dinner was fried bread and chickpeas aka chola bhature as the indians call 'em, Punjab style apparently. It was pretty good. Talked for an hour while S cooked and I cleaned after. Ate it while watching John Oliver standup who I confused for Jamie Oliver. Apparently that happens a lot. Scottish Independence from five years ago was on topic.

I napped for like two hours, slept to the sounds of the office. Didn't go out on a walk because I was tired and sleepy, the weather was awful outside.

Work was tiring and hectic. Suspected the headache was due to the lack of sleep. Spoiler: it was.

Got up morning, way too late because I'd slept late the night before, and got up too early to use the restroom and couldn't go back to sleep easily. So I listened to Office Ladies podcast and then went back to sleep.

Oh and I did 20 pushups throughout the day. And got a tonne of body stats from S's fancypants weighing machine.

Overall not a bad day. Need to go out on walks more, that was the realization. And sleep better.

Little things

Bits of paper
Paperclip
A small bit of toilet paper that didn't get torn of properly. Different from 'bits of paper' because it's unintentional
small bits of lint inside trouser pockets
some threads you find lying around randomly
balls of fur, and dustbunny (small)
baby mice
baby humans
quail eggs
ice-cream cups in places that are not the U.S
microscopic beings, though they're probably 'tiny' not 'little'
small cute things that you might want to call 'lil'
rappers who choose the moniker
the amount of salt you need to put in certain desserts
how confused you are, during a work conversation or meeting

The demonic manifesto

We are not radically evil. We are no different from them. If anything they lust more than we do their crave for flesh and food is greater than ours. We started from the save place, a search for immortality, and there is no difference between morality between us. Why then are they afforded greatness while we are banished in the deep caverns of filth hate and disgust. Why must we suffer as they enjoy the gains of what was our hard work too?

It is said in all the realms that we are born with the knowledge of our deaths, that our deaths are destined at the time of our dead, related to our actions how our ambition and hunger for power eventually undoes us every time. We are okay with that. What we must ask is, why don't the rules apply to them? Why are they the creators' favourite children as we are cast away, having to create our own worlds. Why must we defend ourselves while they are protected? What makes them them, and us us that gives them the access to those privileges we are not privy to?

What is evil?

Is it defined as anything we do, automatically, without the understanding of moral consequences? Because that is what has been spread around in the realms. Can we do anything that is not automatically evil? Can they do unforgivably evil deeds, that even the loving all-forgiving quarternity cannot unsee? If we can, why can they not?

If we are not fundamentally evil and there is an underlying system of dharma, as they so proudly and loudly profess to all the humans, can we be not evil by changing our actions? Can we be not evil while being their philosophical stances, or is opposing them by definition evil. Why must our actions be judged at such higher standards than theirs. Why is our default behavior considered to be evil, and theirs not, while the motivations behind those actions are so similar!

Is rebellion an act that is fundamentally evil?

Why must we suffer through existence while the Deutas enjoy?

Tales from Trekking Trails [what a great name eh?]

People start with cool ideas and actual content, I start with a cool title and work backwards. The book would be called Tales from Trekking Trails, it would be cool stories from trekking trips. Kind clean earnest. It'll have love stories, stories of dedication and loyalty and friendship, and horror stories, bizarre happenings. Spooky things. Something to unhinge you a little.

Here's the storyline I thought of before I thought of the title. It came to me this evening, may have been in my dreams don't remember sleep cycle's all fucked up. This is about the story, not me, let's get there.

A small group of trekkers is climbing a tall mountain. They encounter an accident, recover from it and keep climbing. The villages and people they encounter get stranger and stranger. Paler folks, creepy kids strangely pensive old folks. Their climb gets quite difficult and seemingly never ends. They make it to above the cloud like and the peak is still quite far off. After many struggles, suffering through too much pain, they make it to what they think is the top.

And then the reveal. They're dead. They were dead right after their 'accident', they didn't make it through. All the other trekkers they met all the children the villagers they're all dead people. They ponder upon the meaning of life and death, come to the realization if this is what death is it's not too bad. Creepy menacing laugh from the skies ensues.

For the adventure-loving folks the meaning of life derives from the struggles. The story turns that approach to life around and asks what if you can face the same struggles beyond living. What then is the difference between living and dying and does it even matter?

Etcetera. Sunne laai sunkoo mala bhanne lai foolko maala yo katha baikuunthaai jaala bhanne belaa maa turunta aijaala

Winds! Winds! [Tuesday 19]

This is 4PM of the next day because slept late, got up way too early, tried going back to sleep, got up too late, so tired and busy at work and my head still hurts idk what's up with it. An ongoing theory of mine is it could be due to lack of oxygen due to staying indoors for too long, or maybe due to too much screentime, or maybe I'm stressed though that seems unlikely, lack of proper sleep is a variable too, and potentially dehydrated is another contender on why I don't feel okay but that's out. Because the other issues, lack of sleep particularly, are caused by drinking too much water. So there's them complaints.

Got up yesterday, ate...something...was it eggs? I remember bread, homemade bread that S made it was so good I'm jealous though his 'type' is a wonder-bread copy, which I'm not that into for a homemade bread but still good bread. Funny thing, he prefers store-bread to homemade bread of his, which was good too. Anyway, I ate that. Forgot to take the pic because I was too busy.

Had lunch which was...rice and veggies, you know standard eat eat eat, good cook obviously so no complaints there.

Work was the usual. Headached. I'm wasting too much of my time on websites I absolutely despise which is the orange site and most of reddit. Like I don't need to be told how bad things are now things are on a pretty clear and open path to fascistic dictatorship and it's all stoppable but it won't be etcetera. I've complained about the possibility for six/seven years now it's too tiring to tell people 'i told you so' though every day I get strong urges to text people with quoted old messages several times. Gotta stop it.

In the evening I went on a walk, so windy outside but whatever I needed the walk the head woulda' burst else. Saw huge fallen branches besides that the walk was pretty chill. Came back wrote a bunch, play-ssisted Age of Empires II game with S, had a great dinner (katti rolls with chowmein leftovers from the night before). Watched the office, read a bunch, wrote a little, stayed up way too late because had to make myself write. I need to get my writing schedule in order this is messing with my sleep cycle now. Did 15 pushups.

And then...to bed it was!

Rowina river, disappointed

Rowina wasn't upset no no no, she didn't understand why everyone thought she was upset, that was ridiculous. She was the mistress of all her emotions in complete control she never had an outburst like so many other people including him oh dear his outbursts were a lore inside the school now. She was patient and if she needed to take revenge upon anyone not that she was the kind of person who'd be into that, she'd wait for a long time to plan it out and execute with a cool head. She wasn't hotheaded she was difficult to annoy and she certainly didn't get ahem triggered like so many of them young kids. She was a mature woman capable of making decisions with full consideration of the long term impacts. So it was annoying when there were rumors going around that she was because of something that had happened in the field. Yeah her crush had kissed someone she didn't had high opinions of but Cho was alright really she was a sweet girl and smart too how else would she have made into the house otherwise and it was her friends that were weird. Though a person is judged by the company they keep and judging by the company Cho kept it was as if she didn't deserve to be in hogwarts at all. No, no, no! That was just her jealousy speaking she needed to control herself not let the snake inside her rise the fang of anger. Calm contained and quiet. Cool. That's what she was. There was no need of revenge there was no need of pettiness, it's fine. This is stupid, she's just a teenager jealous that her crush has feelings for someone else it's no big deal. She can find other guys, maybe not as sweet or nice, but more interesting probably. Better conversations most definitely. A good conversationalist Harry certainly was not and she certainly needed her partner to keep up with her.

The Gryffindor men were more her type that was the problem she didn't care for how smart or cool or accomplished a person was it seemed she was attracted by how stupid foolhardy and naive they were in their approach to danger. Bravery is bravery only when one considers fully the implications of the worse possible outcome...Rowina wouldn't admit it to anyone aloud inside Hogwarts but the fact was most of the Gryffindor lot were thick as birds they were, they jumped into whatever crazy adventures they could get without realizing the dangers they were putting themselves into. It was only because the staff at hogwarts was so capable, relatively speaking anyway, that they made out in one piece most times. The Weasley twins were alright eh, one of them she didn't care which one had tried talking to her and they'd hit it off but there was a gap they were too old. And they didn't act like their age. It wasn't that they were innocent or anything like Harry was they were immature. They refused to grow up, which wasn't a problem really no not at all it just wasn't her type. Why did he oh why harry Cho is so boring you deserved so better I'm so disappointed. Rowina took a deep long breath. Pause. It's going to be okay. No one is at fault here. He likes who he likes, Cho is a nice sweet person and she gets what she wants and she, Rowina will find someone else. Life doesn't always work the way you want it to and that's perfectly fine. She'd have been fine though, just fine fine fine if he'd just ended up with someone else, even Hermione or Ron's sweet sister. Hermione was smart, seriously brainy that was the sort that Harry would enjoy conversing with and learn from and Ginny just made you so happy with her brightness and optimism and the way she stood for what she thought was right. But no he went for Cho. Which was fine. So so so fine.

Rowina wasn't upset no no not at all, and she didn't understand why everyone thought otherwise. They just needed to chill chug a lot of butterbeer lock themselves up in a deep dark dungeon and go to hell.

To see all that has been

Come now for all shall see the tidings the seasons have brought, lush and green or dry and fallow we shall see.
For we well gone as the rains fell and sun shone, all those gone hidden and safe come now for it's bright
And see the tidings the seasons have brought.

The flowers that blossomed the fruits that bloomed
The birds and the bees over the fields wherein they swooned
Ah what has become of our sheep goat and cow
It's over we can go out, it's time to celebrate and make merry now

The dark clouds of death and destruction have parted far and wide
And the rain falls sweet and cool on the ground and on our skin
The sun potent and warm bringing joy killing them those made us hide
Inside our rooms and stalls and cottages huddled with the kin

Smell the flowers now revel in the green
For has it not been so long since this so has been
We are free we are free, free at last to be our of our home
To see where the rains fell and the sun shone

Storrrm

It's windy here, so very windy. Came back from a walk around the neighborhood, saw branches fallen down big fat branches a couple of places. No property damage, yet that we know of but there's bound to be a few.

It's strange. In Nepal weather is often hyper-localized...you can get a torrential downpour in one neighborhood while the next town over is dry as a desert. The hills mountains forests general topography must influence that. Here in the East Coast if it's rainy in Northern Virginia you can be pretty confident it's the same up as far as Boston.

Bring that up because we were talking about how windy it was outside before I went for my walk -- which I did when the winds had lulled, they're back to their  ferocity as I write this at exactly 7 in the evening -- and N (Phila) who was on the xbox with S said that it was the same there, that he cancelled his daily bike ride because of that. It's two and half hours of driving again and the winds are the same there.

Wild.

Mon-daze [Monday 18]

Tired the whole day I think don't remember. Breakfast was great I remember with potatoes bread salsa leftovers. Lots of wasting my time on the orange side and others. Lots of youtubing.

In the evening, sevenish left NP's place for P's place, arrived two minutes later, settled down, put my luggage in order talked to S, wrote a bunch of stuff watched standup on tv made my bed wrote a whole bunch more and went to bed.

It'd be cool to have done new and exciting things but this day was not one of those days. The headache is still not gone entirely my theory is that it could be either the lack of proper sleep or dehydration. Most certainly is not the vitamins because have had enough of them.

Pushing through

The last many days have been particularly tough for me to write because I don't feel like it at all, I'd rather do something else, anything, rather than write. And come up with extreme reasons to not write. In my personal journal today I wrote like 700 words about how I didn't feel like writing at all today how I wouldn't write how it was a stupid idea it's pointless and how it wasn't going to go anywhere I'm just wasting my time etcetera. Like that, the previous sentence but for seven hundred words. And I turned it into more than a thousand words with a bunch of writing about other stuff.

And here I am, though I may be out of ideas I'm not out of energy as long as there's energy and a will and burning passion desire fire to keep writing and writing no matter what happens or what comes off my fingers it's going to be fine. It's just taking the next one step that matters don't need to see the entire track just take one step a small one and keep repeating it over and over until I get somewhere. Well besides the step-taking maybe I should teach myself proper form of step-taking too, but form comes after practice, so got to improve the discipline first.

With this only today's day-end journaling will remain and then I'm all caught up.

Speed

My podcast app, google podcasts goes upto 3x regular speed. Haven't gone that far yet but regularly listen to 2x, and it's starting to get too slow for me sometimes I'll do 2.2x...2.4x is the quickest I can go without losing the thread between sentences but who knows they wouldn't put it there for no reason would they?

2x is the fastest youtube will go, I've been listening to pretty much everything with very few exceptions at that speed. You get what you need, you don't care about the art and craft and the sounds, you're just after the information. Comedy is different yes, but not that much I regularly listen to no such thing as a fish , how did this get made, spilled milk, all at 2x to no discernible detriment.

The opposite really. I must have written about this before, probably when I was in Boston before going to Nepal. I've noticed I can pay greater attention to the content if the podcast's played faster. My theory is that the faster it's played the more my brain needs to pay attention and can't just 'background noise' it, and so the greater understanding and retention I get.

Interesting right? It's worth a try! At 2x you can listen to twice as many podcasts for the same time, probably even more if you 'eliminate silence' from the tracks, an option most modern podcast apps offer.