in-the-clouds-blog

[in-the-clouds-blog]

The Cube

This is an old school project I kind of enjoyed lol lmk what you think !!! ^v^

Honking, all that could be heard for what seemed to be a mile. On a normally small town dirt highway road- a traffic jam like this was unheard of, bringing the town's citizens out of their homes. No one knew on the stuck conveyor belt of cars what was happening, except for the leaders of the line. This was an ultimate test of patience for the 20 some cars backed up, traffic may take 30 minutes to an hour but this felt never ending.

  Two hours passed, the sun having set, all the cars now empty. A crowd had formed around the cause of the jam. A black cube appeared to have fallen in the middle of the street. It was made of a material resembling the sheen of metal but slightly transparent and seemed almost alive as it appeared to slightly breathe. People were wary not wanting to get too close to the box. The sound of murmuring of the confused people quickly being interrupted as they’re scattered by a loud ring. The group backed up from the unknown object, crouched with hands on their ears.

An aura slowly emerged from the center of the box forming a colorful halo. The color confused the people as their eyes could only see the blue hues, the rest of its colors seemed to be out of their visible light spectrum but still recognized as light. A young boy seemed  drawn to it, its worried mom yelled  to get back but too scared to grab it. The boy entered its mysterious aura, and instantly a scream of agony, too deep to belong to the child, left its mouth. His bones made a visceral cracking sound as the child sprouted to a teenager's height before quickly stopping. The crowd was speechless, anxiously frozen, staring at the now teenager. Shortly after his body continued to contort. Wrinkles were seen starting to form, the man just stuck in place as he saw his hands grow hair, turn gray, then shrivel up like a rotten apple. His skin contracted to his bones as they saw a shadow come out of him dissolving into the mysterious aura. The now shriveled skeleton fell to the ground, his mom staring with wide open pearly eyes was unable to make a single noise.

The group didn't dare approach the square, many of them having left, leaving the skeptics and the interested. The people left talked and questioned the object, attempting to rationalize it. They spoke of aliens, scientific relations such as dehydration, and things like how space can make you age faster. Ultimately, coming to the conclusion that they were probably threatened by another life force.

The night passed, the square sat alone in the center of the road, having been closed off by local officials. The sun rose reflecting that unknown color into the air around it. The sunrise brings a new group of observers, not able to get close after the report of what had happened. The people continued to talk, new theories about galactic federations, “scientific explanations” and people speaking of its origins. Again being interrupted by its loud ring. The group was spread with their attention brought swiftly back to the object. The cubes breathing intensifies as it slowly moves, seeming to start to float. The arid dirt and debris starts to return to its original location. 10 minutes pass, the cube is 10 feet in the air and the ground appears untouched. Its aura seems to expand from the sun's warm energy, the large bright, bluish shadow of the cube reaching what seems to be 20 feet wide. This backed the group up as it ascended, and that was the last that was seen of the cube.

Months have passed since its arrival, now it’s just another legend. Conspiracy theory and scientific talk shows still continue to try to explain it. Its arrival, just as mysterious as its departure, shook the world, with people still trying to make sense of the event and what it means for them.

[in-the-clouds-blog]

The Nature of Time

Time. Everyone knows the famous phrase, “Time is relative...” by Albert Einstein. But do we truly believe that, let alone even fully understand what that means? Well for the most part no, that has become a household term specifically when someone wants you to do something and you haven't done it and want a snarky response. This can't be what Einstein meant though and it isn't, the metamorphosis of the phrase shows a part of human nature as we often replace the difficult to understand with things that can be understood easily and even evoke positive emotions such as humor.  But what did Einstein mean when he said time was relative? Well simply hearing the rest of the phrase provides that answer, stating, “...it's only worth depends upon what we do as it is passing.”. So this really means time is relative because everyone on the planet is doing things at the same time. Some of these things have more value, making the time seem more valuable and therefore faster or slower depending on what is being experienced. And this is something I do agree with but it is not why I say time is relative. 

For this to make sense we need to understand how vastly different the human experience is and then I will get more cosmic. Einstein's theory of relativity covers the first part of understanding mine. He states that because of how different the human experience is we can't ever experience time the same as one other person. Digging a little deeper into this we need to think about the clock. The clock being a human invention, bringing a sort of order and structure to live harmoniously with earth's natural patterns. But the structuring of society around the clock doesn't exist outside of humans. Sure other animals have internal clocks, that is a result of biology and the day and night cycle. But the only species, on earth, to be at the level of advancement is humans and we rely on the clock heavily. However, the clock isn't necessary for consciousness to exist and even thrive. If we think on a larger scale, you were to take that consciousness to even another planet in our universe, the clock we've doesn't matter anymore.

And this is where this theory becomes more cosmic. For one to believe it you have to believe in life after death and consciousness outside of the body. And this is a very out there concept for many people but has in many aspects  been proven by science already.  There are millions of reports of out of body experiences which is where a human will experience life with their consciousness pulled away from their body. This alone proves that there is more to life than your body's senses. However, digging even deeper we can quickly look to the world of near death experiences. This is where a person is presumed dead, their body can't scientifically support their brain's survival. However the person experiencing it eventually comes back to their body with an experience of how they left that body, they talked to something or someone, they experienced lovely senses beyond the classic scientific seven, all while they are assumed to be dead by doctors and other people on earth. This phenomena further supports the idea that you can not only experience life outside of your body but even possibly when your body can't tie that experience down to this planet.

Now how does this all connect? Well my theory states that time is not real. The passing of time very much is, but can be better described as just change. Humans are forced to think of time because of the world they have created but also because of the changes they will experience in that lifetime. However you can benefit from attempting to think outside of all of that, outside of the 24 hour day, outside of the 365 day year and even outside of the whole concept. Because when you look at the larger picture, that sense of time seems utterly irrelevant to worry about.

[in-the-clouds-blog]

#2023Vibe

[in-the-clouds-blog]

My Critic of Capitalism In America

This paper will be a criticism of the current social and economic state of America. This is my home country and as it is I feel I have the authority to note where I feel we messed up, because there were a lot of places. Americans are currently at the epitome of living under capitalism and I strongly believe this has been the source of a mass depression of the citizens. To start to note where we saw these mistakes we have to go back to the European colonization of the Americas. Prior to this the land was filled with happy humans living in nature with strong communities. However, capitalism came on boats. This is where I will show the only potential of capitalism. Humans will always assign value to our surrounding objects because we see our time as valuable. This isn’t in a capital sense but rather the fact that humans understand the nature of equality. A popular example of this is karma and dharma or heaven and hell, this idea that every action in your life has value and it is your purpose to end that life with the most positive value. This idea of give and take is seen on a smaller scale as with many things in this universe. So if I spend time building a chair for someone it makes sense that  they exchange that good for something that took some of that person’s energy too. This however is where that potential ends. Capitalism is a part of life but it should in no way be the basis of it. 

Going back to the colonization of America, we see this law of equality transform into modern capitalism in the form of rapid industrialization. In Europe years prior to the exploration of the seas, we were seeing this pattern emerging as well. However we lose the community we see on smaller scale trade and we see countries putting capital value on the items of their land. This is where the nature of imperialism comes in as capitalism will often breed greed. So it is not surprising that America faced the same fate as many countries before it. This is where you are faced with the philosophical debate of, was this human's fate? Is there any way we could have been happy with living for community and spreading love and not forever expanding? And would communism have ever even worked!? We can tackle these large questions one at a time, starting with, is greed human nature? And as with many of these complex questions the answer can only be, yes and no. The levels of greed and individuality we see today is not natural, but it is our fault. So was this our fate? Evidently. Naturally, you then have to ask why was this our fate? This is an almost impossible question to answer other than saying it just was, but I think it also has to show there is some level of greed in human nature. And to put simply capitalism amplified this and will continue to. It makes sense why we chose capitalism to move forward with because many people do think in a material sense because it saves us from hard questions. We see the value in every aspect of life so it makes sense that after time it will land us where we are. But what could have stopped this and can anything stop this? Well I believe the answer lies within communism. Before going further it’s important to state that many people say communism won’t work and it never has and to that I agree with an intense amount of nuance being missed in that statement. People often leave it at that without asking why it never worked. And to that I believe the answer lies within capitalism. So to make this make sense think of this, do you consider yourself a happy person? Probably yes! But why? If any of those reasons are material, you can see why people would be unhappy with the idea of losing this happiness. And this is the problem with capitalism, it catches a part of your brain that will be satisfied with endless marketing of goods because they bring some level of happiness. But in order to sustain the level of consumption people need to be exploited, and in that act someone gets unfairly more wealthy and in turn more secure in their life. People are happy though, they just have to not think too much. But if this is the case are you really happy or are you merely getting by. In any case this is why communism hasn’t been successful, humans (for the most part) need to be accustomed to a life of sharing and self sufficiency in order to be okay with the concept. But this as a concept makes more sense to reach true happiness. There aren’t distractions that supply you with enough happiness to base your life around. But as I stated this change threatens a lot of peoples ideas of value in life and threatens their ideas of happiness as a concept. We can look at Camus’ philosophy of absurdism to help us explain this. We know the universe is fundamentally devoid of meaning if we think of it in a material sense (which we often do) so we look for things in it that provide happiness. With capitalism, material objects did this but in my opinion not in the healthiest way. But that is my opinion as communism tackles this same problem by providing happiness in community. 

So, is there a solution to this predicament we are in? Unfortunately I don’t believe we can, on a large scale, phase out capitalism and successfully implement communism. We are just too far gone. That being said, we can create communities that are communist and now IS the best time to sit back and see the slow downfall of human society. So, how can we create a society that is not fueled by capital and material desires but the desire to spread love and peace? Well unfortunately you need to find people who share the same passion for escaping the confines of capitalism. This however brings up a unique difficulty because almost everyone is unhappy in capitalism they just don’t think too much about it. And even if they do the conclusion that’s often made is, “I don’t have control over this so I should just accept it.”. So realistically getting a message to all citizens of the US to awaken them to revolutionize is fundamentally illogical. But it is also not impossible as there are more of us than there are of them (by a lot) it is just easy to keep us separated. But at the end of the day, republican, democrat, liberal, conservative, as long as you are in the 99% you are on the same team against the oppressive 1%. But once you find your group of people willing to escape you need somewhere to escape to. And as far as capitalism has stretched its arms, there is still earth that is just earth. This is where you choose to go.

There are varying types of escapes though. Escaping capitalism does not mean escaping society and the people in it, it means escaping the confines of this oppressive system that is conflicting with your life’s meaning. So you can choose to be away from everywhere developed or you can find a town that has had people in it so you have access to resources. Because again, once you escape from capitalism you don’t have to no longer interact with people operating under capitalism because that defeats one of the important aspects of life which is to build strong communities. Implementing communism into a new community is relatively easy. It is important to make this distinction early too but public ownership does not mean you lose the ability to own your stuff. This is where communist may differ from each other because the idea is that if everything meaning absolutely everything is shared, greed cannot manifest. But I believe everyone is entitled to their own stuff as that is how you can express yourself, through the things you curate and surround yourself with. You can live in your own house and still share resources like food and other necessities. Now that this is cleared up it is also important to clear up the concept of an economy. The word economy doesn’t refer to the exchange of goods for money but the exchange of goods for goods and how that influences the greater society. So you can’t ever really get rid of the economy unless people agree they are okay with providing their services just for the point of doing. In my eyes the economy cannot be the backbone of a community. You shouldn’t be able to have a strong economy or a poor economy because it should be a constant stable in the form of a marketplace. You cannot implement a currency though because this is what will naturally be distorted and cause inequality. If the economy is based on a basis of trading, people can have more stuff than others but that's because they either spent the time to make it or make things to trade for goods. This is not only the idea of a free market but a fair one which, under capitalism, can’t exist. This idea isn’t exactly communist as communism was an attempt to provide the people with less with the ability to make more because they need it more. However, with a community starting from scratch this natural competition is truly fair so you can get away with the capitalist idea of economic competition. In this sense it isn’t competition because there are no stakes. You don’t have to win to survive and live a happy life. But you produce more and trade more because you want to have a more enjoyable life, not because you need to survive because this need will always be taken care of. 

So how does our new community come to a decision? Well this is where one of the oldest forms of government comes into play. Direct democracy was decided upon in all sorts of ancient society because it makes sense, it’s that simple. In modern America we see an indirect form of democracy where you have to hope a representative will care about what you do. But because of white supremacy and the nature of how capitalism formed our society this is rarely the case. In a direct democracy you hold something of a council and this provides a ground for discourse and solutions. And the thing with a small scale community is everyone can be heard so before you decide on a voting system, when it comes to civil disagreements you can try to reason and come to a moral compromise. And the beautiful thing with community is that you meet many like minded people meaning there isn’t a moral wall separating the  citizens. What I mean by this is that everyone is born with a different moral compass. This is a main disconnect and problem with capitalism because it provides people with a reason to be immoral. What’s right and wrong is agreed upon (for the most part) because it will directly affect the people. This is why a direct democracy is the best way to keep a community healthy.

All in all, the philosophical take is to never settle and not in an expansive view. But in the sense that life, relating back to Camus, is fundamentally absurd so no matter how far fetched your dreams are you must stay acting on them. Life is really what you make of it. In a practical sense this is a call to look into things more because there is no limit to how deep things can go. Whatever parts of your life are dissatisfactory have a complex explanation and for many of us in this day and age capitalism is the source of at least one of them.

[in-the-clouds-blog]

Psychoanalysis of Homelander of The Boys

 Homelanders character in TV Show adaptation of comic series The Boys represents multiple things. One main one being the state of America but I am interested in talking about his character’s psychology. He represents the antagonist and it isn’t until season 3 where he is officially humanized. I will talk about how his psychopathy, narcissism, kinks and sexual identity has been shaped in an attempt to make this character more understood. There is no psychopath or sociopath diagnosis in the DSM-V that is because we have yet to answer if they are formed or born. These two traits fall under the disorder of ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder), but Homelander isn’t antisocial? That’s not exactly what it means, the main characteristics of this disorder are lack of empathy/ regard for safety for self and others, and tendency to lie because of this. It is not exactly known why psychos exist but studies have shown them having generally less activity in areas in the brain in charge of risk assessment and understanding empathy. It is this psychological difference that is believed to send people with psychopathic traits into the path of psychopathy. This is where the persons childhood matters. 

Homelander grew up in a lab. Without parents to teach you positive morals and help a child with neurological differences understanding right and wrong and their actions impacts on others how will they learn? From experience. They will test their skills of manipulation and lying to get what they want and in the case of a superhero you can push this far. Not only is he not positively reinforced but in fact the opposite, he has tons asked of him which results in him taking matters into his own hands and doing whatever he can/needs to get it done.

A persons kinks can be formed in this same way. You can understand it as whatever a person is missing in their life they will make up for sexually. He never felt the warm loving energy of a mother so it is taken to the extreme in his love life to experience that lack of energy. S&M is the same, he feels superior, so he wants to challenge this in his sexual life. He wants to openly feel more powerful but also weaker than his partner because he can’t ever feel weak or even more importantly safely weak.

His sexual identity is different. This is something that if pent up and not addressed directly by a person it can fester into negativity. This isn’t directly seen but more indirectly. Homelander is a conservative figure in The Boys but doesn’t actually express conservative views that you’d expect. When he finds out Stormfront is a Nazi he doesn’t care because she sees and speaks about him as a god which he needs to hear. He doesn’t care for ideas of racism, he doesn’t care for ideas of sexuality, he cares for himself. So whether or not he is bisexual (which has been confirmed) doesn’t matter, it’s not an internal struggle coming to terms because he thinks it’s wrong. It is coming to terms with the fact that he can’t live his life for the American people because that turned him into a monster. This is in no way to empathize but rather to understand and see how self realization can lead to character/self development. 

[in-the-clouds-blog]

Psychoanalysis of Characters of New Girl

New Girl is a comedy sitcom airing on FOX from 2011-2018. It features 4 friends who live together in California in their loft apartment. It is very important to know that this is obviously not an official diagnosis, as I am not a professional and these are fake characters so they can't really be diagnosed. That being said,  I am going to be going into the psyche of each character and explain who they are and why. 

Mental disorders like ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) share a few common traits, and between such stark and contrasting characters it can be interesting to see how these manifest in the characters. As of right now, main character Jessica Day (Zooey Deschanel has ADHD and this shows in Jess’s character) is confirmed to have ADHD, Schmidt is confirmed to have OCD and anxiety (Max Greenfield also suffering from OCD tendencies similar to Schmidt), Nicholas Miller has not been confirmed in having any mental disabilities and shows some  similar traits of ASD, Depression, and anxiety, and Winston Bishop has been confirmed to get panic attacks and shows signs of low self esteem (so does Schmidt, and Nick) and anxiety as a result in this. So now let's get into some of the characters starting with Scmidt.

Of all the characters Schmidt is the only one who is talked about in the show about having a disorder. As mentioned in S3 E21 Big News Schmidt owns an anxiety medication that Nick takes and as mentioned in S5 E6 Reagan. Reagan, a character with a medical background, makes an observation about how the house is kept so neat and looks like where a person with OCD may live, and while this is a silly remark it holds true as will be shown. OCD is defined as excessive thoughts that lead to compulsive behaviors, and can manifest itself in 4 main ways. The first is intrusive thoughts and ruminations, this is when a person will suffer from constant intrusive thoughts as well as deep thinking about thoughts- even if unwanted. These can often be violent, the thought of hurting yourself or another person, engaging in sexual acts, religious obsessions/ fear of ‘sinning’, and analyzing one’s relationship/s. An intrusive thought is not all that people with OCD ruminate as they can often go over and over in their head about many, almost always unproductive things. For example, remembering one thing you said “wrong” (rather not to their personal standard) in a conversation, and thinking for a sustained time how that was the “wrong” thing to say, and what you should/could've said. It is interesting because it leads you to ask if Schmidt’s intense sexual desires stem from his intrusive thoughts. He often goes into how dark his sexual desires can be and shows off himself as experienced. This leads people to misunderstand him, and some as hypersexual and gross but may not realise how he may not have asked to be like this. This also can come from his low self esteem due to body image issues and bullying he has faced. These intrusive thoughts often lead to a compulsion, the C of OCD, to make the person prevent that thing from happening or at least feel secure in their mind.

These ideas can be seen in S3 E16 Sister when Schmidt is at a Bar Mitzvah and goes on multiple tangents that seem to go nowhere. Tangents and ruminations are different but it is a good visualization of how one's mind with OCD may think as they follow unproductive obsessively linked thought patterns. The second type of OCD shows itself in the form of checking, this is where a person with OCD, led with doubt, has to check on something in a repetitive manner to calm an obsession in their head. When thinking of OCD the idea of checking all your doors multiple times to make sure they are locked comes to mind, and while true it can be as simple as checking a fact on your phone to stop thinking about if you remembered it right. Schmidt does not express this too much, but a pretty good example is when in S3 E21 Schmidt is locked out of a room when a friend wants to talk to Cece and Schmidt gets a possible intrusive thought/is impatient and leads him to knock on the door many many many times. Now this is not an amazing instance of checking because it was not fueled by an intrusive thought most likely, rather a rational feeling of impatience and upset about things being done his way not happening (trait of OCPD). A better example of checking would be Schmidt being worried about the well-being of him and his love interest, Cece, so in turn he will make sure to constantly check to see if all the doors on their new house are locked. These are only a couple of examples and there are many more subtle ones you just have to look around (I can include them somewhere if anyone would like). A more subtle cue of this would be when Schmidt is talking about an Email he is writing and he uses the term, “strongly worded” and shows the way he pays attention to his words he uses and is probably rereading and checking the email multiple times. He also checks his suit cuffs obsessively and repeatedly in S4 E12 Shark because someone told him they are uneven and he can not stop thinking about it and has a verbal freak out as a response. The third way OCD displays itself is contamination as well as ‘mental contamination’, and there is a difference between mental and non contamination. The contamination part is a fear that derives from an aversion to germs touching you from a person or object, that can cause one to feel extremely uncomfortable with the contact of germs. This is one of the main types of OCD people think about. Schmidt very clearly has a fear of contamination as is seen many times in the show, he very often does his best efforts to avoid places he finds ridden with germs as well as obsessively cleaning his house and space and even innocuous places like the back of their dumpster all in efforts to keep these germs away. These ideas can come from lots of different parts of a person's life and psyche and it is explained somewhat that Schmidt was always told to keep things clean by his mother at an impressionable age, as well OCD running through his family. Overall Schmidt as well as Max Greenfeild both have OCD it seems to me and these main categories seem to be the most aligning parts to look for in Schmidt. 

Now, switching to his best friend.

Nick Miller is known all through the show as a ‘lazy drunk’ and is often the butt of the joke but there are many signs that lead me to believe he aligns somewhat with an undiagnosed lower functioning autistic adult. ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) shows itself very differently in each person as it is obviously a spectrum, but at root is a disorder about sensory processing and can lead Autistic people to feel very over/under stimulated and having to let go of that energy (stimming) or just not need/feeling it at all. As observed by me Nick Miller is often seen to not understand jokes as well as tasting food for texture and not taste as well as having extreme facial expressions, saying seemingly rude things to NT people, and more and all of these are symptoms in line with sensory processing issues with those with Autism. Nick Miller not understanding jokes is a classic running gag in the show but is very common among members of the autistic community. The ability to read a person's tone and to understand the cues of a funny situation are a sensory problem as this is what allows people to understand all of the meanings of certain faces. Autism doesn't have categories like OCD but is marked in supports needed (requiring support, requiring substantial support, requiring very substantial support), the problem with this is obviously many people will go through their lives undiagnosed so they are forced to live without many options for support. As well as the support system being designed by neurotypical people with a very small view of what Autism actually is so POC, woman and non-binary people, and “higher functioning” people often get left out because they don’t fit the idea of autism that the media portrays.

[in-the-clouds-blog]

Welcome to my blog lol, I'm gonna post some writing I've already done hope you enjoy while I work on more <3