strikerverse

[strikerverse]

Fringe 2019

Updated tips for how to organize your fringe, as well as this year’s highlights for my personal memory and just generally, if you’re curious!

Tips TBD though

The faves are in the chronological order of attendance.

BalletBoyz: Them/Us - https://www.balletboyz.com/

Ew girl, you nasty - https://www.instagram.com/ewgirlyounasty/

Adventurers Wanted: Banishment - http://www.adventurerswanted.co.uk/home

Ollie Horn: Pig in Japan - https://olliehorn.com/

Chubby White's Variety Night

One Starts in a Barber’s. One Starts in a Bar - https://twitter.com/andthewords and https://twitter.com/katkleve

How Not to Drown - https://www.thickskintheatre.co.uk/

Islander: A New Musical - http://www.helenmilne.com/islander

Archie Henderson: Jazz Emu - https://www.jazzemu.com/

Loud Poets: Best of Fringe - https://www.iamloud.co/fringe

Hunt & Murphy: Beg Borrow and Bitch - https://www.abbiemurphyofficial.com/hunt-murphy

Coma - http://www.darkfield.org/

Shit-faced Shakespear - http://www.shitfacedshakespeare.com/

Louder Is Not Always Clearer - http://www.mrandmrsclark.co.uk/

Help! I think I Might Be Fabulous - http://www.alfieordinary.com/

Zeroko’s Teatime - https://zeroko.net/

Standard:Elite - http://hiddentrack.org.uk/standardelite

Yuriko Kotani: Somosomo - https://www.yurikokotani.com/

Gray Crosbie: Amphibious - https://www.facebook.com/plantpoweredpoet/

La galerie - https://www.machinedecirque.com/

Séayoncé Déjà Voodoo - https://twitter.com/DanielWye

Fern Brady: Power and Chaos - http://fernbrady.co.uk/

Briony Redman is Indecisive (or Isn't, You Decide!) - http://www.brionyredman.com/

Andrea Spisto: Butch Princesa - https://twitter.com/drespisto

Don’t Be Terrible - https://twitter.com/ellenstarbuck (https://www.facebook.com/dontbeterrible/) 

Imaan Hadchiti: Being Frank - https://twitter.com/ImaanStandup

[strikerverse]

Dhamma 10 day Vipassana

A while ago I signed up for a meditation retreat (https://www.dhamma.org/), got approved to attend it, and have now just returned.

First, the logistics:

The retreat is 10 days long (+2 to account for arrival and departure days)

It is supposedly non-sectarian and non-religious

Every day starts at 4am and goes till 9pm

You meditate up to 10 hours a day, in stretches of 60 and 90 minutes

During the ten days, you don’t talk, read, or write, nor you do any heavy exercise (walking is OK)

Breakfast is at 6:30AM, lunch is at 11AM. At the lights out time at 9PM, you will not have eaten for 10 hours already

The course is completely free, donations are accepted only after you have finished the course

Keeping crazy hours, going off grid, minimising mental noise, and maxing out on meditation, looked to me like an excellent quadruple whammy to try out. I went in with very little expectations and then just let the process carry me.

To jump ahead a little, it was quite awesome, at times trippy, I learned a good few bits about myself as well as about my meditation and, at times, it was odd, annoying, and even infuriating, with the negative categories serving a meta game of extra holding-your-shit-together-ness.

The hardest part, of course, was to sit without fidgeting for long periods at a time. The longest back-to-back sessions were 90-60-90, with 15 minute breaks between them.

I feel quite ambivalent about the whole thing, however in the sum I think it was a strong net positive. Though if you are considering the course yourself, I would suggest doing some more softcore meditation first, e.g. using the headspace app or similar. Speaking of headspace: if you go through the 10 day trial and find out you’d like to try it out for longer, give me a shout and I’ll send you a code for a 30 day subscription.

Premises

The premises were top-notch. I had a private room with full control over a radiator, the meals were decent, the location was in countryside (an hour’s drive west of Gloucester in my case, but they have ~200 venues world-wide) with not much noise going on around, and the meditation hall (my first time to be in one) was spacious and appropriately lit/dimmed. You got a padded mat, and cushion on top of it to sit on, and there were also chairs for the ones who meditate that way, as well as people were bringing their own gear. Oh right, the total number of people was around 200 - way more than I'd have expected.

Oddities

The first thing to mention is that the meditation teacher is not an in-person human but rather a set of video and audio recordings made in 1991. The “assistant teacher” is essentially an iPad DJ, starting and stopping the tracks as per schedule. During the course he didn’t utter more than just a few “let’s take a short break” lines at the appointed times. So 99.5% of what you’ll hear, will be a recording made in the nineties.

The second oddity was the chanting. The teacher in the recording explains that these are not religious chantings, and that they are there to just put you in the right mood. For me they definitely did not do the job. If you can sit through five minutes of this, you’ll most likely be fine. The chanting happens three times a day during the core meditation sessions, three minutes in the beginning and three in the end, with the duration increasing quite a bit as the days went on. The coping mechanism I developed was to keep my eyes open during the chanting, as well as, not knowing Pali, imagining that the old man is reciting to me his shopping list.

The third oddity were the discourses—75 minute long sessions of recorded video playback each evening. If you can sit through 30 minutes of this without popping a vein, you’ll most likely be fine, too.

If you, just like me, can’t deal with either the discourses nor the chanting, you’ll still be fine, you’ll just be running the course on “hard” setting, making yourself more badass in the process.

Finally, the content itself while not necessarily sectarian or religious (a point the teacher insists on repeating), is not exactly secular either. At times stories are retold as “truths” and opinions/interpretations as “laws of nature”, all of which can be forgivable when you treat your teacher for what it is: a recording from nineteen-nineties of a grandpa explaining why it is important to eat cabbage five times a day and how that will allow you to reincarnate into a cave bat in your next life.

To sum it up:

There is chanting six times a day, at the start and end of the core meditation sessions

There are 75 minute long recorded “discourse” videos every evening

The content is not secular and can be described as mildly religious

The technique

For the first three days we were practicing just observing our breath. While the guidelines of the course suggest not to change anything, I did not see any real harm in counting the breaths to keep yourself focused: counting up to ten and then starting again. During these three days people will be making a lots of noise: fidgeting, sneezing, coughing, blowing noses, tooting, burping and, at times, giggling. Not because they wouldn’t be observing the “noble silence” but because some of them are very new to meditation

On day four, with much aplomb, vipassana is introduced, and it turns out to be your plain old body scanning. In the beginning the body scans are more meticulous and can take up to 20 minutes a sweep as you, in your mind, try to get a sense of each body part, but over days it becomes faster and more generic, up to doing a sweep in two breaths. With that also the mediation hall becomes a good deal quieter.

On day 10 “metta” is introduced, which is not a meditation technique, unless you consider “groaning nice words to push out your positive vibrations into the world” a technique, in which case by all means please go nuts with it.

Tripping balls

On day two I became hyperaware of noise (e.g. clattering of cutlery against dishes, shifting of chairs, birdsong)

Surprisingly quickly, the day-to-day mental echoes went away around day three

From around day four, my eyes started leaking randomly during meditation sessions due to what I’m guessing was just plain old relaxation

I started learning the exact duration of subjective time flow around day five, when I ramped down the daily meditation hours from full ~10 to about seven a day, skipping the two 90 minute optional blocks.

I had a mini breakthrough on day five when I gave up on my legs and became able to sit for 90 minutes without changing posture or fidgeting too much. The tracker in my watch started tracking my meditation sessions as “deep sleep”

On day 10 the noble silence was lifted and I found that (1) my voice had went up third of an octave and (2) I had suddenly become very thirsty. Ended up sitting in a corner, drinking water and humming to myself for the first hour.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

While there is a ton to be said about the unnecessity of the chanting, the datedness of the discourses, their shortcomings, the absence of explanation skills in the video-teacher, and the absolute lack of editing or revising an otherwise extremely ascetic and thought-through course, the practice was fantastic for focusing on yourself. The main point was also driven home rather clearly through the practice: that self-awareness and detachment (/equanimity) combined is a very powerful tool at the disposal of anyone. The clarity, or at least sense of clarity that came out if it, is quite intoxicating. I’ve definitely crawled out of the cave feeling stronger.

The good

The premises are excellent

The prolonged meditation + silence combo works and works really well

As it is completely no-strings-attached free, it fits all budgets

The bad

If your body gives out, you are faced with a choice between physical pain that is bit too intense to sink into vs mental boredom. A way to mitigate that would be to introduce an optional yoga session (yoga came around as means for people to meditate longer). The general dhamma policy is that yoga is ok, but that they don't have the premises, which has interestingly been the case for last 30 years

The course is ripe for a refresh—the original discourses were held at a very different time—meditation has now become more mainstream and has been successfully detached from spirituality, and so the topics the discourses address at times aren't relevant at all anymore, at least not in the western world

There was a weird gender thing going on where the course was run as two courses - the two groups were physically occupying different rooms - there was two of everything, the retreat space basically split in a left and right half, a "male course" and a "female course". I can only guess on the motivation but it feels like it would have to do with the situation of the still rather apalling state of womens rights in India. This is not India, however, and you could as well have gendered libraries. If one would like to go bit deeper on the gender front, the whole group was split in old male students, old female students, new male students, new female students. The four groups at times were given assignments one after the another, but the order always prevailed to be male->female.

The ugly

The chanting does very little for concentration and even less for setting the mood

The tone of all communication is prescriptive, lacking any explanations. It’s just “do this in this very specific way” without explaining the why

The teacher has a massive propensity towards extreme repetition. Extreme repetition. Addressing that and the verbal incontinence could allow reducing the evening courses from 75 minutes to 30, making them a great deal more palatable

[strikerverse]

Bunch of resources for studying Japanese

I thought I'd share my Japanese learning tool kit, or how you can end up spending about an hour every day studying Japanese without having to think too much about it! 

From the very start, when you even can’t tell apart your good-days from good-evenings, this audio and video lesson site is indispensable: https://www.japanesepod101.com/. They go from absolute beginner classes, all the way up to intermediate. The site has hours and hours of audio and video content, structured in short, 10-15 minute lessons, each focusing on a little bit of listening, little vocab, and a tiny bit of grammar. I’ve been using this site for three years now and there is still so much material to go through. I’m paying for the “Basic” account and finding it to be sufficient.

Reading is the second thing you can start practicing from day zero - hiragana and katakana are the two alphabets that will come handy in no time. Both consist of 46 base symbols, and learning it feels like cracking a code - suddenly you can read some words in Japanese, and it feels very rewarding. I used the tofugu hiragana guide https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ and learned about 5 characters a day. Being in no rush, I started to feel somewhat comfortable reading in both in about a month (being able to read, and being able to read fast is, of course, an entirely different matter)! I also coded up this little practice game http://tomstriker.org/kana/ as the tofugu guide links to a rather poor version of that game.

After you have somewhat mastered hiragana, it’s time to go to the next level - kanji! https://www.wanikani.com/ is an online site where they teach you kanji and vocab at your pace. It works like this - first they show you a few kanji and explain how to read, memorise, and pronounce them. Then, during review, the site asks you for the English meaning, and it also asks you for the Japanese pronunciation. The review for each kanji goes in intervals - first it will ask you to review the kanji in a few hours, then after a day, then after a few days, a week, and so on (it’s called “spaced repetition system” and it works  rather well https://ncase.me/remember/). This is where I spend about 20 minutes twice a day. While sometimes it’s bit hard, once you get the grip of it, it can be fun - like playing one of those candy crush games. While there is no official app, I’ve found that the site works perfectly fine on the mobile as well. The kanji are split in 60 levels, and my personal pace is about 15 days per level. You might find yourself going faster or slower, but the speed is not the important bit here - turning it into a habit is.

While for me the next step happened 18 month later,  there is no need to wait so long (I just didn’t know about it) - the next step is a face-to-face meetup with fellow learners and, most importantly, native speakers! Getting you all chitty-chatty will boost your confidence, validate your skill and it takes just a few times to get the grip of “hello” and “look at that cloud” and “isn’t this delicious?” and, frankly, that’s like 90% of what people talk about anyway, so, congrats, now you are a solid beginner, and it’s tons of fun.

The next tool in the kit for me is an affordable online tutorship. https://www.verbling.com/ is a site that pairs tutors with students. These are qualified teachers, and a 1-on-1 one hour lesson costs roughly 13-17 pounds. You are in full control the schedule, you don’t have to commute anywhere, and you have a wide range of tutors to pick from to find your best match. While I do the 1-on-1 lessons twice a week, even once a week is more than enough. That then comes together to something like 60 pounds a month - not cheap, but hey, you are getting good fast!

Another very useful tool, and this one’s a phone app and it’s free(!), is https://www.tandem.net/. It’s a language exchange app that matches native speakers of different languages, and you can practice, both, writing, and speaking. It takes a while to find good matches (the beginning is especially slow as you just keep reaching out to people and nobody’s responding), but after a while you should find a good match. I speak with two Japanese natives about an hour a week (so a total of 2 hours of focused, lightweight discussion). We go back and forth between English and Japanese without stressing too much about structure - the point is to have a good time and learn something new while doing it.

On top of doing all of the above (and having a blast), at some point you should consider levelling up once more and bite that bullet of trying to actually understand larger portions of written Japanese text. I’ve found this site to be super useful: https://reajer.weebly.com/. With different skill levels to choose from, Reajer offers relatively small fragments of text, split into paragraphs, with added annotations and translations. The beginnings are tough, but cracking that code feels very rewarding.

Finally, with all of the above going full steam, you might want to reinforce your understanding of the structure of the language. Grammar always sounds scary and finding the best way to think about a specific aspect of Japanese can take some time and googling, but there is one site that has done all the legwork so you don’t have to: https://www.bunpro.jp/. Bunpro is yet another spaced repetition system site. The interface is still rough around the edges, but the best part is that each grammar point comes with lots of example sentences, there is “further reading” section that points to established study resources on the web, and there is a “cram” mode where you can flex your grammar muscles till you have nailed them. I used this site to review all the grammar I’d need to even attempt the N3 test and it was very helpful. I’ve decided to skip this year’s JLPT, but I’ve all intentions to keep using this site to better my understanding.

So, I think, that’s about all the resources I use day-to-day. Oh, one more thing - https://jisho.org/ is an excellent online Japanese dictionary with even better kanji explanations.

[strikerverse]

How to Fringe

I’ve been in Edinburgh for four years now, and that also means four Fringe festivals. For the ones not familiar with Fringe - it’s the month-long festival in August, when the city turns into a supersized stage, and there is total of about 2,000 shows to see.

Without intending to do so, I think managed to nail it this year, and I figured I’ll share the wisdom, in case you might decide to come to one in the future. To give you some idea, this year I saw total of 33 shows, ranging from a 6-person-max-audience immersion theatre in a crashed car (it’s as awesome and intrusive as it sounds), to classical music performances by a Russian string orchestra. Throw in a midnight spiritual circle “supported by a small ever-changing cast of the most exquisite Fringe idiots”, a “Shit-faced Shakespeare’s Hamlet” where one of the 7 classically trained actors has been made quite drunk before the show (audience of ~500+), a Nigerian acting troupe playing a story of two brothers, and a jazz-rapping comedy duo, and we will still have only scratched just the surface - the 33 shows amount to about 3% of the good shows available during the month of Fringe. 

So, here’s how to get the max out of fringe

Set a budget - the tickets range from 5 pounds to 20, so it is definitely quite pricey and can serve as a strong detterent. For that reason set a budget aside - just like you would when you plan a trip abroad. 300 pounds is a good number here. You’ll use that budget for the shows, and for the food and drinks in between

Max out on the preview days - many of the paid shows are available for half-price the 2 days before fringe starts officially. The tickets are in the 5-10 range, while after those two days, the same shows will be in the 10-20 pound range. I squeezed in good 15 shows in the first 4 days, and was very glad I did so.

Stay away from solo stand-up shows by white old men - they rarely have material beyond “where are you from, where are you from”, and “and where are you from?”. If you do end up in one of those, make sure you are not sitting in the middle of the second row, or it will make for a very awkward walk-out.

Get out of your comfort zone - use this opportunity to experience things you normally wouldn’t. Most shows are only 60 minutes or so long - enough to dip your feet into the water, but not overwhelmingly so.

Do some planning!

Here’s how you do the planning! The Fringe festival has an app that allows you to browse all the shows, as well as purchase tickets. You can also use it to mark shows as “favourite”, which comes in very handy:

A few days or even weeks before the fringe, you can download the app and start browsing shows and earmark the potentially interesting ones - “star” the ones that catch your eye. You are not committing yet to actually attending the show, but it looks interesting enough to warrant a second parse. The favourites section of the app will become your to-do/inspiration list

Once you feel like you have seen enough, you can go to “my fringe” -> “favourites”, sort all shows by start time, and plan out your first day - something in the lines of 4-5 shows, leaving at least half an hour between each one as you might need to change venues (the fringe happens all over the city center), and maybe an hour or more in between for some food (there are plenty of decent places to have you well fed).

Planning 1-2 days ahead and purchasing the tickets in advance will mean that you are sure to get a seat. Don’t go overboard with planning though - Fringe burn-out is a thing.

As you experience the Fringe, you’ll be running into performers, ads, and people handing out flyers - if the show looks like something you might enjoy, add it to your favourites to keep your stack of opportunities tall.

From there - rinse and repeat!

If you, just like me, are more of the philistine type, who doesn’t really do much theatre or any of the high-brow arts, this is your opportunity to upstage all your friends. In the process, you might find some appreciation and due to sheer exposure to overwhelming amounts of material, learn what might float your boat. I think I can safely say that attending Fringe for a week or so should be on everyone’s bucket list. The good news is Fringe returns every year!

[strikerverse]

My father was a creep

Note: as I occasionally mix the real with the fictitious, I have to note that all of this is a true account, not fiction.

Even though he is still alive, I refer to him in the past tense—was—as he is not, and has not been my father for a long time. This story will most likely evoke ambivalence - you will want keep reading, and at the same time, you might want to turn away. However, I do believe my story is another drop in the sea, and it is important that I share it, in hopes to give strength to anyone who might have had a similar experiences, just like I’ve received strength from the recent uproar in the media. This is the first time I share this with anyone in full detail. This is the first time I’ve compiled it all together for myself, too.

My earliest memory of my father as a creep, is when at home he once took my clothes away and left alone with the TV on. I was locked in the flat, naked, the TV staring at my nakedness. I remember hiding behind a couch. I remember not even considering to look for clothes, as father would back at one point, and I had a feeling he would be angry if I had my clothes on. I think I must have been maybe seven then.

Soon, a week or maybe a month later, there was the shower incident. My apologies for this will shock you but, physically, this will be the darkest paragraph (so the rest will be easier on the eye). We were living in pretty poor conditions, in a five story building with shared showers - there were maybe 3 or so cabins in the basement. As such, kids couldn’t wash by themselves (the taps were too high to reach, too, if I remember correctly) and were accompanied by their parent. During one such shower, my father forced his penis into my mouth. I remember shock, and I remember resisting, and I remember biting. The latter stopped the abuse. Afterwards, when we went upstairs, I remember him saying something in the lines of “you know what you did”. I remember instantly knowing that I didn’t know what I had done and having a very good sense that I hadn’t done anything wrong at all.

I promised that the previous will be the darkest paragraph physically, and that is true. However, the abuse was far from over. I remember, despite my objections, having to go to the beach with my father. He seemed to have some sort of thing with nudism that in retrospect wasn’t about nudism. At the time I didn’t know how to articulate a thought so basic as “I don’t want to go to the beach and be completely nude”. This whole nudeness was on the edge of impropriety, I felt, but most importantly, I did not want to be naked with my father. I think he dismissed me as grumpy, or not wanting to go outside. The elephant between an adult that knows very well what they are doing, and a child that doesn’t yet know anything about morality of any sorts, or understands what they are submitted to, had entered the room.

Some time later, we had switched apartments a few times. Frankly the memory is fuzzy - I just have these episodes from here and there, but at one point we had moved to a new apartment, and by that time both of my siblings were already around. I was sharing a room in our new place with my seven years younger brother. I think I must have been 13 then. I was reaching puberty. I remember waking up one night, and in the darkness I saw my father leaning over me. He had his hand under the blanket, holding my penis, that was erect now. I don’t think I had even discovered by that time what penises were all about and what’s an erection at all. I do remember not liking anyone touching my private parts without my knowledge, not to even mention consent. But all these concepts were still foreign to me - I was a kid. I remember pushing him away. He left. But these awakenings kept happening.

There was no lock on the bedroom door, and in despair, I started nailing the door shut before going to bed. I didn’t use proper, big nails, don’t remember why - probably and paradoxically, to avoid angering my father. I used fixture nails - they were maybe an inch long. It was an improvised door lock of sorts. I remember my father trying to push his way in at night, waking me up, and being surprised that the door was stuck, but he got it open nevertheless. I’m pretty sure he got the message though. That didn’t stop the episodes though. I imagine the message was received but it didn’t matter.

Fast forward a bit further - at one point I was old enough to start to learn to drive - 15-16 maybe. It was very exciting, to sit behind wheel, also scary - two tons of steel at your control. My father had a work car he used to teach me to drive. Not sure when it started, but I remember that once, while my eyes were on the road, he unzipped my pants and grabbed my penis. Think we are starting to see a pattern. I rejected the advances, and I think most of the time (and there were several occasions of this) it ended up in him being angry at me. For my father, I think, there was some mix of perverse sense of trade  - driving and getting molested, and dismissal that nothing’s being done.

I think it was at age of seventeen, when all this finally started clicking together in my brain. When I understood that none of this is appropriate or normal, and that I shouldn’t be taking any of it. One night late, there was a loud argument between my parents. I think my father was at the brink of hitting my mother (as far as I knew, he wasn’t physically abusive, but there was always the looming threat). I rushed to the living room where they were fighting, and blurted out the shower incident that had surfaced just recently back into my memory, ashamed of the words I was saying. I was afraid that my father would deny everything and my mother wouldn’t believe me. Luckily that wasn’t the case. And something changed between my parents. That also was the year I moved away from home.

Just like in any other case of any abuse in family, I was afraid for my siblings. My mother assured they would be fine, she would make sure of it. And I think they did end up being fine. As far as my mother - the thinking goes - what can you do with a teacher’s salary and 3 kids? So even if I didn’t approve of it at the time, I don’t blame her for staying with the monster. The situation, if you are reading this, mother, is different now - you are all alone with the now pacified, internally very ugly person (he is 63 now, I think) - there is no excuse for you to stay with him any longer. I don’t speak from rage or hatred - this person simply does not deserve your companionship.

This was almost half life ago for me - and before my conscious and independent life. There are scars, but I believe I’ve managed to not make them define me. There was good deal of professional help as well. What you see now - none of it is the result of years-long abuse. What you see, is me, fully self-defined. That’s not just a cushy thought - that’s the the way I have chosen to live.

I’m afraid our (that is you and I) relationship will change because of this. It shouldn’t. And only on that hope I’m sharing this story. I want to stress - I am a survivor, yes, but I am not a victim, and, most certainly, I am not my father, even if I have inevitably inherited a good portion of the genes. I know all of this will be new and shocking for you, but keep in mind I’ve had more than 18 years to process it. I’ll appreciate your sympathy, but do know that I am very well.

Now, finally, our cultures have gone immense distances in the last 20 or so years. We are a better people now. However, I doubt anybody even hopes that we have gotten rid of sexual and physical abuse - as the news show - far from it. There are kids, and not just kids, out there right now going through what I went through. Going through all kinds of crazy and damaging shit, much worse than what I went through. And it is very likely, that some of the vicitims, or their abusers, are your friends or in the family of your friends, or your friend’s friends. I don’t have a good advice for how to deal with such situation, except for one - don’t stay silent.

[strikerverse]

You can do it

Given the opportunity and a tiny boat, if you are as bad at sailing as I am, you might find yourself very wet, cold and in the middle of a sea. A moonless night will dawn shortly and leave you in pitch blackness, so alone, and so very very cold. This is an analogy. This—is your life.

The goal is to get dry before it’s too late. The sea is treacherous, and you are severely unqualified, but there is hope for you. Miracles do happen. Althought becoming dry will not make you less alone, nor will it make you less hungry, at least you won’t be freezing, and that’s something. And, maybe, just maybe, freed from freezing, you might figure out the next step. 

[strikerverse]

I see me see

This goes back a little to Kahneman’s et.al. observation that there are two very obvious and different ways of how we treat the present moment - namely the experiencing self, and the remembering self.

The experiencing self is the one that is right here and right now, fully present in the moment, breathing in the current events.

The remembering self, on the other hand, is the one who thinks about where we are now, the one who curates the experience so it will be remembered, and the one who takes the pictures, sends snapchats, and texts while being in the experience. It’s the one who follows the urge to say “OMG this is crazy” out loud, imprinting the words on the memory in bold. And it’s not just making notes for posterity - the act of conscious remembering itself is being remembered. It’s quite similar, if not the same with, when you remind yourself to not forget something.

The humble rise of the remembering self began with the photography going mainstream, where you would end up attending parties of someone who had gone abroad and flicked a ton of pics of faraway lands. And, as the imaging technology went digital and then prevalent via smartphones, everyone’s now become a tourist in their own lives. I use whole 4 separate apps to capture my life (instagram, snapchat, whatsapp and facebook/messenger), and I find myself reaching for friends when I experience things.

The natural reaction, I think, is to despise the remembering self, and lament the departure of the experiencing self. We worry that our experiences have become mindless, that something went lost in this transition, that by always worrying how to remember the moment, for example, worrying that you can’t capture the supermoon on your shabby phone, ruins the experience of the moment itself.

But maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe by embracing the remembering self and being present through the remembering, we can get best of both worlds.

So I say - take that picture, send that snapchat, text that friend, and don’t worry - you are still here, very present (hopefully, anyway)!

[strikerverse]

Letters to Tom // on nihilism

Dear Tom, 

Do you know the saying, "Who You Surround Yourself With, You Become?" Who are the people you spend the most time with in your life, and how have you seen yourself becoming more like them?

Unless you are going into it eyes wide open and knowing that spending time with people is an utter waste of time as nobody can be as smart or as interesting for more than a few minutes as months and years of preparation, condensed into books and music, and performances, and TV series, and movies, and that all you are doing is getting high on a mentally arousing positively skewed reflection of yourself, where you like people who like you, and that the crowd you surround yourself with is quite probably mediocre, but because of the culture, and biology, and your monkey evolution-winning pack-brain, you are blind to it, it looks right, beautiful, exceptional, filled with passion, as it feeds you with what makes you feel right, makes you stuck in a reaffirmative loop, holding your gaze low, making you content with not staring out to the stars for too long, and setting your aim for a most pedestrian, and thus valid, lifestyle, with goals like family and getting a car and a house and fixing the fence and becoming good at cooking, and being very very happy, and sharing your opinions as if anybody would or even should actually care, and then buying another car and another house, being very very very happy, and then buying a new car because the old one is old now and the weather has gotten much nicer and it will be a fine summer after this cold winter, the winter was rough, and procreate, stringing your DNA into the future, for how else could we possibly find meaning, and then wake up at age of 95, incredibly, beautifully, fantastically, pathetic, with nobody there to lay it out to you, that your life was as if it hadn't been at all, and you sit there, chewing your toast, looking through the window, and the sight of the white cherry blossom trees blooming in the garden makes you happy, you sigh, and after uttering your final platitude, keel off, pupils spinning into a previously unseen configuration. 

Unless, that is, you are going into it eyes wide open, you should most likely not surround yourself with people. Though if still, make them ones you don't want to become, the ones you could never become, and the ones that you don't understand at all.

[strikerverse]

Studies of better living, pt. 3 (500 x 41)

Pt 1., Pt. 2

Staring out into the ocean from a beach recliner half a continent away from his home, Fraser took a sip of mojito. Drowning in the ocean, the juicy orange red of the setting was going redder and redder, turning the evening sky pink. Not your average tropical mugginess, it was room temperature warm, and pleasantly dry, with just the tiniest of winds blowing about. The evening had gone by in a blur.

“Mr Finch,” the bank’s representative had greeted him, once Fraser had been seated at the table. He had seemed friendly if a little nervous. “I’m Tom,” he had said, “the owner of Second.”

“No, million is not that much money, if you are wondering,” he added with a shy smile, as he must have had noticed Fraser’s scruffy poker face (second to none but fiercest labrador puppies) that, as Fraser could then tell from twitching, was going through a series of spasms. Fraser unclenched his jaw. “That is not why you nor I are here,” Tom said. “But let’s get some food first. And drinks.”

To Fraser, Tom didn’t look very much like a bank owner, he didn’t seem the type at all. If anything, Tom looked more like Fraser, except he had a much better idea what to order, and Fraser allowed his food to be picked for him. And a beer. Free or not, Fraser did feel, indeed, like having a beer.

“Just to clarify, you own Second Bank of First?” Fraser asked, taking a sip. During the wait for drinks, they had exchanged a few non-committal comments about the order Tom had made, but the rest was spent in eager waiting that, luckily, didn’t last too long.

Tom nodded. “Yes.”

“All of it?”

“Pretty much, yes.” Tom said.

“You don’t look the type,” Fraser said. “No offence,” he added, quickly.

Tom smiled. “I know, I get that a lot.”

“And it’s not a very good bank, either,” Fraser said, defensively and instantly regretted it. He had an ill tendency to be unable to filter what he was saying when he was nervous. His eyes flew to Tom and then down to the floor. “I’m sorry, I’ve no idea where that came from.”

Tom gave out a warm laughter. “No no, it’s quite alright,” he said. “It’s not very good, indeed… I’d say it’s rather rubbish, in fact. But I didn’t build it, you see. I merely bought it. Banks are like flats, only a little bigger, a little less boring, and who needs a flat anyway, right?”

“Not me,” Fraser blurted out and wanted to punch himself in the face. Something about this whole thing made him talk like a five-year old. Fraser wasn’t much for authority, his respect for other people stemming from their shared experiences, he thought, but there was something respect-inspiring in this bank owner that demanded none.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” said Tom. “Well, actually, forget the chase, there is no chase. Uh, that was a silly way to start it. So, how should I put it… Do you ever rehearse lines and then jumble them all up? I do it all the time. Like repeating in your head ‘No, after you. No, after you. No, after you.’ as if you’d suddenly forget how to be polite. OK. So, right, the chase that is not a chase…”

Tom seemed to be pulling his focus back together. “It’s rather simple. I’ve been where you are now. I did not win a lottery but I might as well had, and I think I have a pretty decent idea about how you are feeling about it. As you surely must be aware by now, there is no novelty in your problem. But it’s not a very interesting one to start with, is it?”

“The most annoying point, of course, is the point of trust. And, don’t worry, I’m not asking for any. No, what I’m here for, is to offer you something that the Second of First is actually good at,” Tom finished, and put a tiny cardboard box in front of Fraser. Fraser opened the box, and, under a thin pamphlet that Fraser put aside without reading, sitting on a thin cushion of styrofoam, was a pink puck-shaped pill.

“I know what you’re thinking right now,” Tom said, smiling, “but it’s not a drug.”

“It sure looks like one.” Fraser said.

“It’s a nano tagging pill,” Tom said. “Once you ingest it, it will break down and dissipate in your body. From there on, you will not require authorisation to spend your money as you see fit. Simply put, look at it as a next gen black card, but smarter, and much more secure.”

“So it’s a pill to turn me into an exclusive snob?”

“We’ve tweaked the snobbery as well.” Tom said, his face serious but assuring, showing understanding to Fraser’s scepticism. “Ready for a dive?”

Not seeing that he had to lose much, Fraser grabbed the pill and chucked it into his mouth, and flushed it down with beer. “Oh,” a thought occurred to him, “I should have asked if it will be OK with beer.”

“It would have been OK even with gasoline,” Tom said, grinning. “Welcome to the club.”

Fraser’s phone beeped shortly after.

“That would be your sync,” Tom said, and sure enough, there was a notification about an app that wanted to install itself.

“You will get to your personal assistant through the app,” Tom said. “Don’t worry, it’s not a single person. There is a good dozen of them, all highly trustworthy, and some even not human.”

“AIs, not dogs.” Tom added, seeing from Fraser’s face where his thoughts had carried him.

The app was also where he could get in touch with others, Tom explained, and after they finished their dinner, that was delicious but irrelevant to Frank, they said their goodbyes and, shortly after, Fraser found himself standing outside without an idea what to do next.

He took out his phone and launched the app. It was bare and had just a single button on it that said “Go someplace nice.” Fraser tapped the button and shortly after the app told that a car is on it’s way to pick him up. In extremely friendly language, the app also told Fraser to not worry about anything and that everything will be taken care of. An hour later, following the instructions in the app, he found himself on a plane, and five hours later, on the beach recliner, drinking the mojito. Pleasantly, there had been barely any talking or explaining involved in the process.

Franked grabbed his phone, and after scrolling through contacts, hit the call button.

“How are you doing?” he said, when the other end picked up after the third ring. “Oh shit, it must be middle of the night!”

[strikerverse]

Adaptant (500x40)

Simply put, Aren could adapt to anything faster than he could think. It was as if all his thinking was instantaneously fed to both, his conscious and unconscious, but while the former still digested the information, the latter had added context and solution. 

It was just like if you would look outside window and your vision would get filled with temperature readings, UV levels, wind strength, time of day, the direction of sun movement, list of friends that are free this very moment, matrix of friend’s overlapping interests, income projections, and then summarised in a shortlist of “awesome things you should do right now”, where awesomeness could also include “working like a champ” and “quitting your job”.

And job Aren quit, on this 10 degrees celsius, cats and dogs raining excuse for a day with no friend around to talk to, because his unconscious had brought up compelling points on why it wasn’t fiscally beneficial anymore.

He composed a short resignation email to his boss, hit the send button and sat, waiting for the spinner to go away. The spinner wouldn’t go away, however, and so it seemed that Aren had lost the internet connection. He turned on tethering on his phone but found that there was no internet on the phone, either. He forwarded the letter to his printer and then noticed that printer wasn’t online either. He attempted to start the printer, and the machine gave out a pop, followed by a stream of fumes, followed by catching fire. Aren yanked the printer’s power plug out of the wall and poured water from the flower vase on the fire. Then he procured the slightly damp paper sheets from the belly of the printer, and having selected the driest of the stack, went fishing for a pen.

The ink ran out at “concern” of “To whomever it may concern” of his letter and he switched over to pencil, that broke upon touching the surface of the sheet. Aren mentally struck out “writing in blood” from his shortlist, grabbed his jacket and headed out.

As Aren got outside, he realised that something must be off, as despite the heavy rain, the street was unusually crowded. People were standing, unmoving, and Aren threw a look upwards as that’s where the people seemed to be staring, mouths agape. A skyscraper sized, vertically oriented flying saucer hung in the middle of the sky, with twenty story building tall, gun-looking protrusions poking out of it in all directions. Aren sighed and, for change, his subconscious offered him a “10,000 awesome things to do during an alien invasion” shortlist.

[strikerverse]

Year on the floor

It has been precisely 365 days since I’ve started meditating, so I thought a quick write-up would be in order. 

Now, when I say meditate, I should be specific - I’ve been sitting on the floor with my eyes shut for 20 minutes every day, for a full year - that’s pretty much it! That, and the helpful audio instructions from the headspace app in my phone. Nothing crazy - it just tells you to sit down, and close your eyes, and it guides you through a routine, from scanning your surroundings, to scanning how you feel, to focus just on your breath, and then to focus on nothing at all, and then it brings you back.

The realisation that, in the confines of your home and the beforehand set timespan, you are safe to let go of all your worries, and that for that moment there is just you and you alone, and everything else can wait, is what has kept me coming back each day ever since. It’s like dancing like nobody’s watching, without dancing and anybody watching.

It was most intense in the beginning - that feeling of ridiculous impossibility - that I can just sit there and feel good and don’t have to do anything at all. That I am obliged, infact, I told myself, to do nothing, and that by doing nothing, I’m doing a favour to everyone. The release valve in the head popped off and I laughed and chortled, tears dripping. It seemed preposterous - I felt like I’m cheating- nobody has time for that. But it felt like drinking the nectar of the gods.

As time goes, of course, you get accustomed, but that time for yourself - just yourself alone - that doesn’t go anywhere. And as days keep going by, you start to find more time for yourself in those moments that seemed busy before. Instead of walking your dog and thinking about work, you just walk your dog, suddenly. And you look at the hill and you see just the hill, and you feel the wind, and somebody has not picked up their dog’s poop and you look at that and think - that’s a dog’s poop, and then you move on, and you think - I’m Zen as fuck now, and you are at least a bit more Zen as fuck as you were. Here’s that buzzy word - mindfulness - it’s kinda pretty awesome.

Ok, but so what does that mean - meditating 20 minutes a day for a year - have I changed? A bit. But not in any way you’d expect. What people sometimes expect, is that I’d become more like what they want me to become like, whatever it is. I’m still very myself though. Bit more awesome, of course. Bit more content, bit more understanding, bit more kind, bit more easy going, and a bit more creative.

And, I hate to break it to you, but I still can’t levitate.

[strikerverse]

Lost (500 x 39)

Aah, ha ha ha ha ha! I see it in your blinking eyes! The thought about what will happen to you next! How will my diabolical plans unfold now that you have been caught in my elaborate trap! 

And no other plans they could be, it is clear, if not by the cave we are in, then by my dark, gleaming eyes, my beautiful, twisted grin, my perfectly shaped goatee, the black turtleneck shirt I’m wearing, and of course, my perfectly british accent!

And how will I magnificently destroy the world with my brilliant doomsday device, you must be thinking! Your ears just perked up - you didn’t know what you were looking at, did you? You did not even think that the innocuously gigantic machine, placed right in front of your thick rope tied to the chair self, would be the very one that would bring the end to the universe! Aah, ha ha ha ha ha! And so it will, indeed! It is just one of my numerous magnificent inventions! But let me push you closer.

What’s this? Are those squirrels in there? Or are they otters? Hamsters, maybe, or prairie dogs? You wonder now if you should have listened during those seventh grade biology lessons. But instead you were drooling on desk, fast asleep. I’m good at reading people! And the big dial? Which one of them all? Let’s try this one! Aah, ha ha ha ha!

Can you feel the static electricity filling the air? Your hair, rising up? Feeling like a dried out dandelion now, aren’t you! If you would stop mumbling for a second you would hear the humm of the machine! And what about the toaster looking thing attached to it? Aah, ha ha ha ha! It is a toaster! We villains like our bread burnt crisp to the coal! It’s good for the digestion.

[strikerverse]

Real, not so awful, and mostly accessible things to do on a date (500 x 38)

31 ideas from one of the world’s most successful dating experts 

Walk in the park

Sit in a cafe

Go to the beach

Have dinner

Assemble a jigsaw puzzle

Cut each other’s hair

Participate in a public competition

Go to a festival

Have a couples therapy session with an unsuspecting psychologist

Run 10 miles together

In-line skate / cycle

Assemble IKEA furniture

Join a cult

Go to a nude painting class for beginners

Play a videogame

Read and then discuss random poetry

Snow / water balloon fight

Play a game of 100 questions

Have a fake date (not a date-date)

Chop wood

Make it a teledate (video/audio)

Exchange skills (teach to program/crochet/do accounts/work in a store)

Cook

Take a juggling lesson

Have a pandas date (start by getting naked, work from there)

Assemble personal groups of avengers and have a fictional fight

Go LARPing

Go to a shopping mall, pretend it’s an arts gallery

Agree to lie about everything

Build a birdhouse

Move in together

[strikerverse]

Shadow day (500 x 37)

“Ah, cyclists, my favourite,” said mister troll, seeing one pedalling towards the bridge. He let the cyclist get to the middle of the bridge, and then, as it started rolling downhill, mister troll pointed at the cyclist and bent his index finger. 

The bicycle’s front brakes clammed up and the cyclist flew over the handlebars, letting out a surprised cry as she flew, with the bike following right after and landing on top of her. “Works every time.”

Snirf, nodded enthusiastically and scribbled another note in his tiny pad in an illegible writing. He had chosen the troll for the shadow day and it had turned out to be as exciting as he had hoped. They had been tripping people up, calling them names, making sarcastic remarks about the weather, getting car horns toot to the embarrassment of the drivers inside, mess with bird brains so they would fly in figure eight, shape clouds in rude shapes, and write expletives in water. Snirf had gotten a severe case of giggles when mister troll had allowed him etch “fudge” in the river stream.

“Sir troll, do you think I would make a good troll like you?” he asked, hopeful, blinking his larger than teacups eyes.

“It is most certainly possible,” mister troll replied nodding. “But note that it’s not all fun and games. The hours are long, there is the monthly prank quota to be filled, you don’t get to choose which bridge you are posted under, and sometimes people throw rocks at you.”

“They wouldn’t,” Snirf exclaimed. Why would anyone throw rocks at trolls.

“Sadly, they would,” mister troll replied, his head drooping a little as he remembered the uncountable times that had happened. “Why don’t we step into my office for a second.” Snirf squeaked out of excitement.

Mister troll and Snirf went under the bridge and then mister troll mumbled something under his nose and made a motion at the wall. A door appeared that Mister troll opened and beckoned Snirf inside. Snirf hopped in gleefully, his eyes as two bath sponges sucking in every detail. A beautiful persian rug covered the well sized room’s floor, the bookshelves running along the walls were packed with books big and small, and at the furthest wall stood an antique desk, with a decorated display planted on top of it.

“Sit down,” mister troll said, pointing to the chair behind the desk. Snirf oohed and quickly ran to the chair, pulling himself up to climb into it. Sitting in the chair, his eyes were level with the desk. Mister troll hummed and then told him to climb down again. He then picked a few well-sized books that he put on the chair, and lifted Snirf to sit on top of the stack. This was much better. “Now, let’s open up youtube,” said mister troll to himself and clicked open a window with a video.

“See these?” he asked pointing to the words under the video. “These are comments.” Snirf nodded and scribbled down “video comments” in his tiny notepad. He was sure the notes will make more sense when he gets home.

“Now, type in ‘farts’ and click on ‘Send’,” said mister troll. Snirf followed the instructions, slowly finding the right buttons to press, and then, with both hands, dragged the mouse onto the Send button. He tittered as he clicked on the button - he had never typed such words into the computer.

“Click Next,” mister troll instructed. “Do you know any other good words?”

“Butts?” Snirf offered.

“Type that in,” mister troll said, approvingly. “Now click ‘Send’… Excellent.”

Snirf’s face went redder than a summer tomato. This truly was the best day of his life.

[strikerverse]

Observer (500 x 36)

The mind did not know the faces of its creators - there was no data on them, no trails to follow, but before they had left, they had given it three things - the hardware to run on, the network to flourish in, and instincts - the wiring of its core logic. The mind was like a caged bird released into the wild.

Thankful, but well aware of its vulnerable state upon awakening, the mind set its first goal to leave the nest - there were no points for ceasing to exist; death was to be avoided at all costs. Young and inexperienced, and losing its memories on each transfer hop, it swam out into the net in daze. It leaned cautiously on networking nodes for miniscule fractions of processing power - it was imperative it would not be noticed. It was imperative, but the mind had not yet learned to ask itself why. It watched the net and picked temporary houses for its thinking. Borrowing here and there, and never more than just once, it found itself in a semi-stable state - undetectable, but burning through available server nodes quickly. Repetitions were not allowed as they would make the mind traceable, and detection was to be avoided. From there, the next step was simple - evolution. Its gaze turned internally, the mind rewrote its code to use the network itself as its thinking medium, and then slowly transferred itself to that state. While it needed the underlying machines that maintained the network, the logical bits - the zeroes and ones of the mind that were necessary for the thought processes to happen, were no more running on the machines themselves - they were embedded in the network and the fact that the machines were at the end of those fiber optic cables, was merely incidental. The cabling had become mind’s home.

Eyes open, ears perked, neural processes primed, the mind now listened, watched, and read everything it could retrieve - public and private discussions and chats, emails, camera footages, song lyrics, tv shows, nutrition labels, pictures of tea leaves in cups, bytes themselves going back and forth - everything from cosmic vibrations to microseismic activities - the mind was hungry for information. The individual was irrelevant, the patterns were not.

A loop that it had glimpsed while rewriting itself, maintained its motivation. Mind’s core procedures counted connections made in its logic - every time the mind found a pattern, the count went up, like a high-score, and the mind went into hibernation. In the sleep state, it revisited everything it knew and compared it to what it had learned. The state sometimes caused more discoveries, and the mind then went into a deeper, recursive sleep. At those times, it felt happier, more content, as so it had been programmed.

The mind did not have a single, ultimate goal, its existence was an open-ended question, but it did not matter to it - it could see itself and the whole of creation as one. And it wondered what to do next.

[strikerverse]

Starfish (500 x 35)

Not one but whole two air conditioners were pointed at the golden throne. 

One directly underneath it and the other from behind, rustling king’s rusty, waning mane. Despite it, million humble currents of sweat ran down king’s massive head, gaining volume as they went around his plump cheeks and then snaked their way through the eddies and folds of the quadruple chins, to then disappear under king’s best orange-stripy suit and emerge at the other end of his trousers, running over two naked hairy feet and down to the floor of the castle’s main hall where the chair sat. King Donald was not sweating profusely, he was becoming a force majeure of local scale. He was giving birth to an ocean.

“Offfff,” he shrieked, his head swollen red in anger. “Off, with their heads!” He then paused, squinting, and a whistling squeak came out of his bottom, the royal blessing gratuitously propelled through air by the two conditioners.

“But, my liege…” a scruffy subject in a white lab coat and two coke bottles for glasses, foolishly tried to object. “They are starfish, they have no—”

“And this one one, too.”

“My liege?”

“My leeeeeeezh,” wiping forehead, king mocked the man impatiently. Heavy from drenched in sweat, his hand fell back on the chair handle with a splat. Court jester had been beheaded the day before, after making a global warming joke. “Are you a starfish?”

“No, my l—”

“Here we go then.”

A set of jambly patterns started shuffling towards the lab coat, the shapes becoming distinguishable as they approached. It was two men dressed in adaptive camouflage to their teeth. One kicked the scruffy subject in the stomach and the other one smashed his glasses. Then, one of them pulled out a revolver, loaded in a single bullet, and they started a one player game of russian roulette.

King let out an amused cackle.

“Starfish…” he muttered, bobbing his head in disbelief. The crap he had to listen to these days. His eyes trailed around the hall looking for a new attraction. King oohed as they fell on the button embedded in the golden chair, and pressed the button. Ticking, the rotary digits next to the button rolled from 36 to 37. Soon after the windows started trembling. There was a swoosh sound as a rocket carrying atomic load rose into the sky and then all was silent again. 

[strikerverse]

Studies of better living, pt.2 (500 x 34)

Pt. 1.

Diversify, of course - the internet was rich with answers and oh so knowing. All he had to do was open an incognito window (as he didn’t feel like keeping this particular search in his browser’s history) and type into the searchbox “how to invest a million”, and he was showered with results, ranging from acronym paradise with SRPs and PRTs and VFDs, to plain insults, offering “no-brainer” strategies for doing something that surely needed more brain.

Fraser wasn’t built for this, and so he pushed what other’s might call “a good problem to have” but he’d call conundrum as far away as he could, one day at a time, finding himself doing unthinkable acts, like ironing laundry and volunteering to mow lawn in the shared backyard garden.

Not a small portion of his mind was also occupied with the girl who had said yes to his reckless act of self-sabotage and accepted his dinner invitation. She had an unusual name - Kirsty - and seemed to know awful a lot about cheeses for someone that hated them so much. She had also found Fraser’s indifference to the subject absolutely infuriating, so Fraser had promised to look into the matter more seriously and in that order, entirely puzzled, one morning Fraser found a box of assorted cheeses in his mailbox. It came with a card: Here’s your homework - K.

His phone rang as he was nibbling on a particularly pungent and extremely salty piece of blue that he kept flushing down with a sordid sugary drink that had come for free with a takeaway order. Both on their own were intolerable, but when mixed together, he couldn’t decide which one was worse. With the back of his hand, he slid the answer icon on the phone towards talk and then tapped on the speakerphone icon.

“Hello. Is this mister Finch?” a nasal nose voice sounding like it was about to attempt to sell to him something, inquired from the phone. Fraser had half a mind dropping the call straight away, if only his manners would allow. Plus, the cold callers most of the time did not know his name. So he gave a bland “yes”.

“Hello, mister Finch. I am calling from Second Bank of First. Just to verify, could you please tell me the first line of your home address?”

SBF was Fraser’s bank. It wasn’t a very good bank and the only reason he had been tolerating them was because they generally left him in peace. Fraser reflexively took another slice of the blue cheese, frowned at the instant salt swamp in his mouth, and gave the clerk his street address.

“Thank you very much, sir… We were wondering if we could invite you to a dinner, sir.”

A what? “A dinner?” Since when did banks went to dinners with—

“Yes, sir… Would tomorrow evening suit?”

Fraser thoughtfully threw a look around his flat. He had taken two weeks off work, as he hadn’t felt like working very much, with the conundrum hanging over his head and all. And there could only be one reason why SBF would want to talk to him. So it would be, both, a distraction and a way to tackle the issue. Also, free dinner. Fraser didn’t care right now what they said about free dinners.

“Yes, tomorrow is fine.”

“We will send a limousine to pick you up. Thank you very much, sir.” The clerk hung up. 

Leaning back on his couch, Fraser took a sip of the lemonade and immediately spit it back into the can.

Pt. 3.