Digging for Meaning

I am reading 'Whiplash' by Joi Ito. Its a book attempting to make sense of complexity of the new rapidly changing world. Surprisingly, it counters the complexity of the world with simplistic perspectives that are relevant only in certain situations. I have read the first two chapters so far. The first was about 'emergence' over 'authority', second about 'pull' over 'push'. These are essentially prescriptions for alternate systems of organisations. emergence refers to the capability of living things to respond to situation by organising without authority, without visible co-ordination, animated with simple actions and reactions, not chain of commands. This occurs in nature fairly commonly - ants working together for example. The sum is greater than individual parts. The second concept of 'pull' is variant of the same theme in a sense. pull is 'just in time' response to a situation, rather than a planned 'push' for an occ...

I intend to write science fiction. Hence I am reading it. Ursula K Le Guin's 'The Left hand of darkness'.  She wrote this in 1969. If she were to write it now, I would think it would be a completely different novel. It is a story set on a cold planet where people do not have one gender. For the most of the time, they are neither male nor female. Once a month, they go in kemmer, a state of being either male or female and desirous of sex. And when they meet an earthling, they think of him as a pervert for being always in kemmer, always male. This perspective though revolutionary, remains the setting and never quite drives the narrative. And that was disappointing for me when i read the book. When i picked up the book, all I knew about the book was this perspective on gender. And it made me really curious of what can happen differently in this world. Instead, I got a story that emphasizes the similarity of the human condition across the planets, across the differ...

I have made up my mind, About your unsound mind. I have made up my mind, About your unsound mind.   aha.. and so have you, is it? And yet, here we are cackling at each other. aha.. and so have you, is it? And yet, here we are cackling at each other. I can shout louder and I have stapled shut my ears. and how dare you look away? look at me! hear me! I can shout louder and I have stapled shut my ears. and how dare you look away? look at me! hear me!  listen to me! LISTEN TO ME! listen to me! LISTEN TO ME!  and stop pushing me, stop talking Your problem is YOU just won't listen. and stop pushing me, stop talking Your problem is YOU just won't listen. Oh yes, oh yes? talk sense you numbskull. YOU are a lobotomized dandelion you are a snowflake robot. Oh yes, oh yes?  talk sense you numbskull. YOU are a headless cocroach You clueless sheeple. YOU shut up YOU shut up Listen to ME Listen to ME You You ...

Read this while listening to this .  ________________________________ Stay still, Stay still world. You are moving too much Too fast To everywhere and staying nowhere waiting for no one thinking of no one bumping into things breaking things blowing up things can you please take a break? where are you taking us? where are we taking you, you ask? who's driving this thing? who's in charge? i am?  i don't even... where's the breaks? where's the breaks? who put me in charge? Let me out of here. Let me out! there is no way out, is there? and i am not the only one driving this either, am I? I am craning my neck here and every time I exert a little, I see another head driving this thing. in every direction. Time please! hey, i am calling for a recess. goddamnit stop every one. fucking deaf, everyone. Stop dragging me. alright, I will run with you, will you let me catch up, please. asshole. alright, alright. you know where you are going? ...

Just read this - ‘I want to help humans genetically modify themselves’ So a guy is obsessed with a certain technology, feels he can be a pioneer to a brave new world and justifies it to himself in bad faith by thinking - " This technology that I’m trying to do is for all of us. Whether you’re a big corporation or somebody in their basement, you have access to this stuff – everybody does. People respond very positively to that." This, I believe is a dangerous belief - that tech can 'level the playing field' in a sense. It never does. Internet was supposed to be the great leveler. And for a while with Yahoo anonymous chat and early days of mushrooming internet cafes, it really did feel that way. But soon enough, the powerful people have turned it into a tool that is more advantageous to their interest at the expense of common people's. Governments use it for surveillance and propaganda. Companies use it to brainwash people into buying things they don't ne...

Things turn into cash once they are stripped of their lives - their breath, their freedom, their dignity or their joy. A fish on the table and a cubicle dweller.. both are united in their solvency, their ability to be stripped of their lives and turned into money. This solvency is our own making Hold up your hands against the sun and your favourite gods Do they dissolve?  Hold up your heart and see if it beats for them Hold your joys in your hands and fling them towards the system, does it stick? For a better world first we need to walk away from this world.

If I were a king, I would declare it a birth right & a duty to look up and feed one's soul with the beauty of sky. Every soul deserves to feel the majesty of the great above -  The ominous greys rolling whites serene blues or the orange blue kisses of the setting sun... There is beauty in every sky. Every sky is free of our smallness, our worries, our angst. All hopes, dreams and realisations converge upwards above clouds and above satellites in the great beyond that our gazes seek and find above us.