#the whole universe functions by video game logic anyway so it doesn’t matter but I am feeling a little silly & wanted to share w the class

[telekitnetic-art]

I’m slightly delirious (I am sick as a dog right now) but I would like to present to this website: an idea for The Last of Us that I’m calling The Salt Method

Basically, salt is a natural anti fungal agent. So, what if you could fight off the cordyceps and zombies with salt? Just throw some salt water on them and watch them run? I don’t See why cordyceps, even if it’s evolved to withstand heat, wouldn’t still maintain its natural properties as a fungi to be weak to salt.

I actually found a study involving how cordyceps reacts to salt solution (I can’t pretend like I understand half of what it says but I’m linking it anyway to seem smart)

Basically what I’m saying is we need an adaptation of the adaptation of TLOU HBO where Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey just lug two bags of salt around and sprinkle it on everything like that one chef meme

Now, the downside of this method is that it’s probably very likely that widespread usage would lead to very serious environmental collapse as salt doesn’t only kill fungi but also. Basically any other plant but hey, you can’t make an omelet, etc etc. I also don’t think this would cure anyone who’s infected, I think once ur infected that’s all folks. However, it could trim down the zombies enough for society to not completely collapse question mark?

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

That soulmate thing you wrote a while ago I just found and now I want to read the rest? Is there more? No..? Well now I'm just crying in the corner thinking about karma and nagisa losing colour and just- not knowing- AHHHH

referencing this 

Alright, fine, you asked for it. 

-

Being friends with Akabane Karma is weird. 

Not that Nagisa has anything to complain about. No, he likes being friends with Karma quite a lot. That shouldn’t surprise him, considering they’re soulmates and all. It’s strange to think about, that Karma’s soul was made to slot in beside his, that Karma is supposed to be worth the spectrum of the universe dulling out into tones of grey. 

He became Karma pretty quickly, rather than the more formal ‘Akabane kun’. After Nagisa asked that Karma call him by his given name, he only obliged so long as the favour was returned. 

Somehow Nagisa’s sure he can’t tell him the truth. He’s already taken the colours from Karma’s world, what next? Karma deserves so much more than to be stuck with him for the rest of his life. Nagisa just hopes that he thinks it’s a mistake, that he doesn’t try to push Nagisa further, than he finds someone far better to settle down with eventually. 

It all sounds so serious, but they’re still kids. 

They do kid things. 

They go to the cinema and loudly discuss movies afterwards. After that’s a success, they go and eat fast food together because that’s all a couple of first year middle school students can really afford. And then, they get comfortable. Karma talks to him in between lessons, they swap comic books over the weekends, Karma teaches him how to play his favourite video games and Nagisa watches in appreciative quiet. 

“It’s blue,” Karma explains, more than aware that Nagisa can’t see the console for himself. “Kind of like your hair.” 

Nagisa does him the favour of not calling out his blatant lie. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend Karma can actually see colour, that Nagisa didn’t steal that from him. 

Karma was already the most important person in his life. But now he’s the most important times by ten, and Nagisa starts to understand this whole soulmate thing. It’s not really how he imagined love to be. Sometimes, Karma makes his cheeks heat up when he gets too close, but Nagisa’s not really filled with mushy kissing feelings or whatever. All he knows for certain is he might drown, without Karma by his side, although he was perfectly fine before. 

“Why don’t you transfer up?” 

Nagisa says it one day, sitting on Karma’s bedroom floor. It’s a week and a half after Karma’s thirteenth birthday, and his parents were actually around for once. Nagisa knows that, because Karma spent the entire winter break texting him to complain about it. It means that they’re only just ‘celebrating’ now, if you could call it that. 

Karma looks down at him lazily from his position, lounged out across his bed. “Huh? What’s that?” 

He really wants an answer, though. “Your test results were all above 90. You could easily get into Class A.” 

“What fun is that?” Karma laughs in a mocking way that makes Nagisa wonder what he even found funny. “They’re all zombies, that Class A. For a slacker like me? No dice. Why?” He tilts his head. “Trying to get rid of me, Nagisa kun?” 

Briefly, Nagisa wonders if it’s a good thing he can’t make out the gold flecks in Karma’s irises that he knows are there, but he never got the chance to look at up close. In grey scale, Karma’s… a lot. Nagisa’s not sure how he’d be able to function, with the whole palette available. 

“N-not at all,” he replies, “class wouldn’t be the same without you.” 

He can’t quite see if it’s flush or not, but a part of Karma’s face does darken. “Boring, probably. It’s already miserable enough.” 

“It could be worse,” Nagisa shuffles up on his knees. “At least we’re not in E Class.” 

Karma huffs. “Doesn’t seem so bad, aside from the walk.”

“Someone like me couldn’t make it.”

It’s the truth. He’s not like Karma, not really. There’s the thing, they get along well, and Nagisa feels so light he might float off into the atmosphere whenever he’s with Karma. But they’re also so different. Karma’s smart, and brave, and strong. Karma does things his way and has no qualms with fighting to get it. There’s no way Nagisa could ever be like that. 

He almost feels like fake, just being beside him. The way it should be, Karma’s on top of the pyramid, and Nagisa’s just one of the stones at the bottom. Karma being his soulmate feels like some kind of divine practical joke, especially now that Nagisa knows him, knows that Karma’s not just that person he yearned for from afar, but so much better. The selfish part of him drinks it up, pretends it won’t end once Karma gets bored. 

“Hey, Nagisa kun?”

“Yeah?” 

He swallows. “How did you know, when you met your soulmate?” 

Nagisa squeezes his eyes shut. “I locked eyes with them for just a second, and then everything went grey.” 

“Yeah but,” he rolls over, “how did you know it was them?” 

He shrugs, because what else can he do? “I just knew.” 

All that matters is that things between them are good. 

Until. 

“I just don’t think we should hang out so much anymore,” he says. 

It’s a cold day in March. Karma’s been distant from him for a couple of days, leaving Nagisa’s messages on read, barely sparing him more than a look in class… Nagisa’s been spending pretty much every waking minute trying to figure out what he did. But he keeps coming up blank, and this really is just coming out of nowhere. The only logic he can really pull is Karma finally realised how bored he is with someone like him. 

“Your grades aren’t very good,” Karma continues to explain. “And I’m busy, anyway. It’s just- don’t waste your time asking me anymore, okay?” 

And it’s as if the colours fade all over again. 

“Okay.” 

[canadianpharmacieswebsite]

The Simulation Hypothesis: Some Bits & Pieces

One might try and think of our Universe as just a big version and variation of “Star Trek’s” Holodeck but programmed from the outside like a computer simulation or a computer / video game. Perhaps like in the “Star Trek” Holodeck, the characters who did the programming can also enter their creation and interact with their creations much like our relatively primitive (in comparison) virtual reality setups. This is known as “The Simulation Hypothesis”. Is there any evidence at all for this scenario? The Simulation Hypothesis: The Eight-Fold Way of Reasons *Probability. The Reason: Really real reality is a one-off / a one-and-only. Really real reality can however contain multi-millions / billions of virtual realities / simulations. Place your bets. *The Accelerating Universe (and associated notation that the energy density of the Universe remains constant thought the Universe is expanding). The Reason: This implies a free lunch / getting something from nothing. Simulations can of course create this illusion. *The “Observer Effect” (especially the delayed Double-Slit experiment). The Reason: There’s no known, natural, or rational explanation or mechanism apart from introducing virtual reality’s special effects. *Radioactive Decay. The Reason: No causality. Again, this is an illusionary effect that can be programmed into computer software. *Mathematical Equations. The Reason: If you were to ask one of our video game characters what their ultimate reality was, they would, on reflection, and being smart little buggers, have to answer “mathematics”. Now fast-forward to your reality, which is ultimately what? Mathematics. All of physics – the bedrock in thinking about and describing reality – is describable as or in mathematics. Now the really interesting thing is when you examine the mathematical equations that describe the laws, principles and relationships of the physical sciences, against all expectations, the exponents and coefficients nearly always tend to be low value whole numbers and simple fractions. These equations are not human inventions. Mother Nature dictates what they must be – or perhaps they are written into the software that determines those laws, principles and relationships of the physical sciences. *Fine-Tuning. The Reason: Now it is not enough to design and give properties to each of the bits and pieces that collectively make up the Standard Model of Particle Physics. They have to be fine-tuned to fit together. Just like Lego Blocks, you can intelligently design thousands of types of Lego Blocks, but if they can’t or fail to snap / fit together then what’s the point? Simulations and the software that programs them into existence have to be fine-tuned in order to make any sense of the simulations in and of themselves. *Mind – Body / Brain Dualism. The Reason: The physical is affecting the non-physical and vice versa. This defies common sense as well as any sort of explanatory mechanism. Again, one can call on special effects to create this illusion. *There’s also the category of things seen but always elusive and never substantiated: ghosts; UFOs; Bigfoot / Sasquatch; Loch Ness Monster (and other lake / sea monsters). They tend to all fall under the category of “It can’t be therefore it isn’t” versus “I know what I saw”. The reason for the paradox: This contains inherent inconsistencies and contradictions. And there are numerous examples as suggested above: UFOs, alien abductions and ancient astronauts; mind over matter from ESP to telekinesis to remote viewing to the placebo effect; accepted miracles (by the Catholic Church for example); supernaturally themed visions; ghosts, hauntings and poltergeist; phantom objects (i.e. – trains); anomalous disappearances; OBEs and NDEs; past lives and reincarnation; alternative medicine from copper bracelets to acupuncture to use of crystals to the power of positive thinking; the wee-folk like leprechauns, elves and fairies; the not so wee-folk as in the Amazons or those Biblical giants in the earth as well as Goliath; and one should honestly also include quantum physics here. There almost seems to be way more things to disagree on than agree on. [See also section on “Cryptozoology” below.] It would appear that since the dawn of recorded history, in all cultures and societies, across the gender, age, racial, etc. boards, multi-millions of people have had “it can’t be therefore it isn’t, but I know what I saw” experiences. However, as you would be well aware, Hollywood’s special effects can create all sorts of things that can’t be yet things that you see! The Simulation Hypothesis and Cryptozoology Can the Simulation Hypothesis help explain the ins and outs of cryptozoology? Crypotzoology itself is the investigation of anomalous animals that have been witnessed, yet which remain outside of the realm of normal zoology. *Cryptozoology is yet another example of [Con] “It can’t be therefore it isn’t” versus [Pro] “I know what I saw”. [Pro] The sightings of anomalous animals are geographically unique and pretty consistent. [Con] These animals shouldn’t / couldn’t exist. [Pro] But ordinary people with no ulterior motive have reported seeing them. [Con] There are however no bodies and by now there should have been bodies found. So why just plesiosaurs at Loch Ness? Why not other extinct ‘marine’ reptiles like the ichthyosaurus, or the tylosaurs or even the mosasaurs? And why just a very select few of Scotland’s lochs are home to plesiosaurs? And why is a marine reptile in fresh water anyway? In Africa there’s the ‘dinosaur’ Mokele-mbembe. But why not the Dodo or Pink Elephants? So why just huge hairy man-apes in the Pacific Northwest? Why not woolly mammoths or sabre-tooth cats? In Australia we have the Yowie. But why not killer koalas or moas? In the Himalayas you have the Yeti. Why not dragons or the wooly rhinoceros? In Mexico / Latin America there’s the Chupacabra. Why not unicorns or centaurs? Then there’s the Jersey Devil; Mothman; the Beast of Exmoor and on and on it goes. “It can’t be therefore it isn’t” versus “I know what I saw” is easily resolved as noted above by special effects technologies, like programmed software. The Simulation Hypothesis and the Hard-Wiring of the Brain *When you were conceived there was no neural you; no brain, no hard-wiring. Hard-wiring fell into place as you developed in order to successfully carry out the physiological functions that would keep you alive and kicking over after you were hatched. However, in the absence of learning and experiencing your environment, either formally or just through living day-to-day, it’s difficult to explain where your visions of immaterial concepts – those Carl Jung “collective unconscious” archetypes for example – come from. If you do come pre-equipped with innately derived immaterial concepts then there is programming separate and apart from your initial genetic programming that’s going on. Concepts like Carl Jung’s “collective unconscious” archetypes cannot be hardwired into the brain from conception on down the line unless they were actually programmed by external influences to be there. I’m just going to substitute Jung’s “collective unconscious” – which has no real explanatory mechanism – for programmed software. The Simulation Hypothesis and Consciousness / Free Will *An interesting question is, how can you simulate consciousness? How can you give a simulated virtual reality character free will? Now if we are virtual reality does that mean it is possible to create Artificial Life with consciousness and free will? Will Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) have free will and consciousness by our design? Probably not in both cases. Take one of our space probes that lands and roves around and explores the surface of a distant planet. That space probe cannot rely on instructions from say NASA’s Command Centre back on Earth due to the time lag in communications. The space probe has to make its own decisions in an emergency; when crunch comes crunch. But does the space probe – with limited A.I. – really have free will? No. It has been pre-programmed to do A, B or C whenever X, Y or Z arises. Even if it could be done – not a given – the last thing we’d probably want to do is give A.I. free will and the keys to the city – just saying. Better to be safe than sorry. You probably wouldn’t want to create a video / computer game where the characters had free will / consciousness as that would spoil the fun of playing the game. The point is that you are in control, not your simulated characters. So in the Simulation Hypothesis, your apparent consciousness is just programming and of course you have no free will. You can program a computer to display “I think, therefore I am”, but the computer doesn’t really have consciousness nor free will. The Simulation Hypothesis and Mind Over Body / The Placebo Effect *The ordinary run-of-the-mill Placebo Effect is one thing (one mind; one body), but when mind-over-body gets taken to extreme and even ludicrous lengths (many minds; one body) then special effects programming seem like a logical requirement. Now you would no doubt believe that if a body has a medical condition then that body has that medical condition. But one body can have more than one mind and such a condition is often referred to as multiple personality disorder. Now each mind will have in the same body its own unique set of medical conditions which will come and go; appear and disappear as that personality comes and goes. So say you have this body and personality A has associated with it medical condition X (but not Y or Z); personality B has medical condition Y (but not X or Z); and personality C has medical condition Z (but not X or Y). But as personality A becomes personality B, malady X disappears and malady Y appears then in turn disappears as personality C comes to the fore along with malady Z. This is totally crazy but also totally verified. There are of course some limits (like death – see below). One’s body doesn’t become pregnant then not-pregnant then pregnant again as the body’s personalities come and go. Bones aren’t broken for one personality and unbroken when there’s a change to the next personality. But any medical condition that the real Placebo Effect can have on a body just inhabited by one mind equally works for any one mind (at a time and in turn) that’s part of a multiple collective of minds – dual personalities in one body. Here’s another extreme illustration of the Placebo Effect. We’ve all seen pictures of those rather strange and unique individuals who can embrace all manner of self-inflicted tortures without pain or suffering or experiencing injury; individuals who survive (even thrive) being hung by meat hooks through their flesh, who seem to be nearly immune to intense heat or who have swords run through them – no blood; no medical condition results. Then too we’ve seen karate experts who can punch through solid bricks and boards without flinching or even feeling a thing – as in severe bruising or broken bones. Initiation ceremonies in lots of tribal cultures are another example of mind-over-body – the Placebo Effect. But if the Placebo Effect is so effective, then why do we ultimately die? Even if you took a daily anti-death pill that you were 100% convinced would prevent your demise, you will still eventually kick-the-bucket. It seems as if not even the Placebo Effect can overcome death and therefore might there be something else going on behind the scenes – like programming. The Simulation Hypothesis and Death Either there is an immaterial / non-physical component to the human species or there is not. If there is not, there can’t be any such thing as an afterlife, near death experiences, out of the body experiences, death bed visions, reincarnations, past lives, etc. Yet these aspects part and parcel to the death and dying process have been postulated and recorded by nearly all societies / cultures over nearly all of recorded history (and probably well before that at least in terms of the afterlife concept – grave goods found in very ancient burial sites). How does that make any sense? If there is an immaterial / non-physical component, even after your death (or the death of others), for there to be such things as an afterlife, death bed visions, reincarnations, past lives, etc. that immaterial / non-physical component has got to operate and navigate around in space and in time in the absence of any sensory apparatus (eyes, ears, etc.) and an organ (i.e. – the brain) that can perceive and interpret those sensory aspects we call vision / sight, hearing / sound, taste, touch and smell. How does that make any sense? There seems to be another case here of “It can’t be therefore it isn’t” relative to one of “I know what I saw / experienced.” No matter what side of the fence you’re on, you’re damned if you’re on one side and you’re damned if you are on the other side. That said, the obvious alternative explanations are 1) experiences are all in the mind and just mental delusions, or 2) people are deliberately perpetrating frauds and hoaxes. IMHO I don’t think either one of these explanations are entirely credible. Let’s examine each of the death-related categories in turn and ask whether or not special effects might be in play here. Death Bed Visions: It seems highly improbable that someone, especially a quite elderly someone just hours away from the finality of death is going to hoax death bed visions. Delusional mental states are far more probable an explanation except you’d think that death bed visions would cover or incorporate a very wide, wide, wide variety of visions, not just visions of already dead relatives and friends. Near Death Experiences (NDEs): The eyes may be the visual organs but it’s the brain that does the actual seeing. Neither eyes nor brains are present and accounted for in NDEs. Nor are any other sensory organs. So how can a person relate an NDE if that person in that immaterial state can’t experience anything external reality, being 100% deaf, blind, etc.? Out of Body Experiences (OBEs): As with NDEs, and closely enough related to NDEs to include them here, OBEs suffer from the exact same sort of impossibilities that NDEs suffer from. In an OBE you are in a non-physical state and lack any and all of the sensory organs and sensory processing abilities that would give you the ability to actually relate your OBE to others after-the-fact. Reincarnations: If you have been reincarnated, that implies that some sort of immaterial part of you survived death, wafted around the Cosmos for a spell, then got incorporated into another biological body. What would be the ultimate purpose I know not since it would seem logical to have the concept of just one immaterial part inhabiting one and only one material body. If the immaterial part of you survives your body’s death, all fine well and good, but why not just enjoy the immaterial afterlife instead of coming back for another round(s) of enduring physical existence? But like all things immaterial, the best explanation is the Simulation Hypothesis explanation. Past Lives: There is no possible way that you can go from a past life to your present life without going through an immaterial / non-physical stage. If you remember a past life then this immaterial “you” that went from past body to present body contained memories which suggests that memory is immaterial. Yet can you really conceive of having an immaterial basis for your memory since your memories can obviously be affected by physical mechanisms – disease, injury, drugs, lack of sleep, the ageing process, etc. So in this case the more obvious explanation or conclusion is that people recalling past lives; past memories are delusional or outright hoaxing. Special effects to the rescue? Afterlife: To start things off, the concept of an afterlife is a nearly universal one, and when concepts cross nearly all cultures and societies, and all eras, then one has to sit up and take notice, for there’s some explaining required. Since there is no solid or actual knowledge that people possess regarding an afterlife (belief / faith – yes; knowledge – no), we can neither conclude the afterlife is real or just wishful thinking and a self-imposed delusion reinforced by the collective wishful thinking by the rest of humanity. What probably can be said is this: if there is an afterlife you’d have to experience it in an immaterial / non-physical state without any sensory apparatus or the means to process any sensory data. That’s a concept that makes no logical sense at all. But all is not lost in you invoke simulated special effects. If your life is just virtual reality then your afterlife can also be just virtual reality. The Simulation Hypothesis and Religion *Is the Simulation Hypothesis up to explaining theological themes? Consistent themes in religions include: Concept of the Supernatural: The concept that there is a supernatural almost (but maybe not quite) seems to be written / programmed / hard-wired into the psyche even before the dawn of civilisation that is during the hunter-gatherer stages and prior to numeracy / literacy and the rise of agriculture and farming. This has resulted in near compulsory if not downright obsessive behaviours, ritualistic and otherwise. However, immaterial concepts cannot just be hard-wired into the brain without external input. There’s no gene for the supernatural. Thus, I have to go along with the idea that this is a form of special effects programming. Concept of Creation: Why the concept of creation at all is a big mystery (to me at least) since we’ve never witnessed the creation of the Cosmos, of the Sun, or of Planet Earth, or of the origin of life or of basically anything. What we observe tends to be cyclic and so we have no real need to conceive of any creation on the grounds that it makes a lot more sense to just think that all we see has always been here, and our ancestors would back up that idea since they had to deal with the same cyclic stuff that we do. No one has ever known anything different. Again, the concepts central to creation are perhaps hard-wired and thus programmed software. Concept of Supernatural Deities: There’s hardly any religion anywhere, that existed at any time, that didn’t include the concept of supernatural deities, usually many (covering all the bases and the basics); someone just a loner god. The reasons why aren’t too surprising. You need an agency to explain the unexplained; the good shit and the bad shit. That too appears to be a hard-wired need. However, since there aren’t any supernatural deities, any actual evidence for them and knowledge of them must be the result of programming. Concept of Anomalies / Miracles: All religious texts are full of unnatural anomalies. The best way to explain the unexplained is to look at those special effects generated by the film / TV industries. There’s nothing so miraculous that programmed special effects can’t create. Concept of the End Times: Much like the idea that there was an origin; a creation, there tends to be a near universal belief that all things will come to termination, either in fire or in ice; either with a bang or with a whimper. Again why, I’m not sure. There seems to be little logic in assuming this. Maybe it is because we ourselves terminate that we think it only fair that everything comes to a grinding and deadly stop. Still, all good computer simulations / software programs have to end sometime, and this inkling of that finite duration is what we envision as the End Times – the end of days; the end of the computer program. More About the Concept of an Afterlife: The only part of you that could in any way survive into an afterlife would have to be an immaterial part of you since when you snuff it, your material remains go nowhere. But any immaterial part of you would have no sensory apparatus so how could you enjoy an afterlife when you couldn’t experience it? On the other hand, if your life is but a computer simulation, then equally so could your afterlife be another simulation. One software program ends (death) and another begins (afterlife).

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[redefinethegrind]

Pleasure

I am writing to explore what the concept of pleasure means to me. I have been grappling with the idea that ‘Earthly pleasures’ are a distraction in life. I am finding that this is true much of the time. For example, when I was focused on buying more and more things to keep me happy I was simply paying to have objects around that were compelling to my psyche in one way or another. Often times I found myself buying things just for the experience of the purchase. I have several video games that I’ve never opened. I bought a $1,500 camera and took 6 pictures with it before selling it for $500. The list goes on and on. I had ideas and plans when I purchased these items, but once they were in my possession I lost motivation for some reason.

A distraction from what? Pleasure distracts from learning and experiencing life. Not that it has to, some experiences are naturally pleasurable. The truth is, I get no pleasure from almost anything at this point. I feel like deep conversation with my significant other is about the most pleasurable thing I have currently in this reality. Second would be cuddling my dog. Third would be reading an interesting book or article. Other than that short list few things stack up.

The things that used to seem “worth the effort” now seem irritating to me. I could have used that camera to start a Youtube channel as I had originally planned. Then the idea of staging the shots, recording, editing, uploading, and promoting sounded overwhelming to me. It was a project that I could never commit to starting. I would rather lay around and watch Youtube videos than make them. The thought of even getting started caused me frustration. I got no pleasure out of that camera.

This makes me wonder why? What changed? I used to get a great deal of pleasure from recording music, posting videos online, promoting the bands I was in, and even playing out occasionally. Now it all sounds like a hassle. On the off chance that I do feel like recording music, I have gotten to a point where I don’t share it with anyone. Now, the opinion of others does nothing for me. They could love my music or hate it, I wouldn’t care one way or the other. Even uploading music to the internet sounds like more work than I want to put in let alone promoting it. Music used to be enough to get me off of the couch, now it feels stale.

Have I run out of good ideas to record? Have I made everything I needed to make? I don’t know the answers to these questions. I am at a point in life where almost nothing gives me pleasure. I used to enjoy a good meal in the evening after work. Now I still think about eating frequently, but nothing sounds good. I just eat to eat usually. I stopped drinking alcohol because it makes me an unpredictable and unpleasant person. The feeling of being drunk lost pleasure as well. Now all I think about is a headache and a dry mouth.

I’m not sure where to begin looking for pleasure or if I even should. I realize that this life is short and that if anything everyone deserves the chance to smile. I just don’t know how to truly smile anymore. I don’t get excited to do anything like I used to. Right now, I am asking myself “Ernie, if you could do anything in the world right now what would it be?” My honest answer is “go back to bed.” I wish this weren’t true and I wish I had answers for you. I don’t feel overtly sad or depressed. I am actually fairly chipper in mood and optimistic with the possibility of going back to work and continuing forward with a normal life, whatever that is. It just doesn’t excite me or thrill me.

That leads me to think, does it even matter if I experience pleasure? I’m not sure that it does. I know that the old me would have said “life is short, the only reason to be alive is to have fun every day.” I am no longer convinced of this. I am beginning to feel like I am here solely to learn and observe. That isn’t always fun or pleasurable. In fact, many if life’s greatest lessons hurt like hell. So, what is the point of ever putting my happiness before that of another? I think there is no merit in this. What about victimless crimes? That is, what about things that make me happy and don’t adversely affect someone else. Well, I’m not sure that those things exist. I think of getting caught up in a good book for instance, but the downside is I could be using my time to help someone else. I realize that I have to keep myself sharp and in order if I want to give back to others. I’m just not sure how to balance everything and how much self-love is truly appropriate.

I have incorporated healthier eating habits into my diet again and have also re-started with a yoga and running regimen. The hours I put into myself feel selfish to me. I know that ultimately my brain is more functional when I do these things. I also know that other people seem to get away with doing way less and seem to function fine. I can’t explain this. I feel like without pushing myself to take care physically I would simply stay in bed.

I am a natural recluse. I have developed a distaste for most socialization. This has lessened some as my depression has faded. That makes me wonder if this whole constellation of symptoms could be explained by depression or not. Does it even matter? I should be taking steps to treat depression in my life anyway as it is best practice to err on the side of safety. I will continue with my healthy lifestyle interventions for the fact that I feel them clearly helping me.

I had been leaving my home weekly in the evening to spend time with a group of friends playing trivia. This seemed helpful at the time. Now that I am back into recluse mode that doesn’t sound like much fun at all. I am now more inclined to read a book, listen to music with my earbuds, or jog around my neighborhood. I am favoring more isolating activities lately. I notice myself speaking less words in the day now. I am looking at the floor more than I used to. I am observing human interactions in public at more of a distance.

Although I am interested in this topic, I don’t have any desire to change my likes or way of life. I don’t feel like seeking a new hobby out. Nothing sounds like much fun to start doing. I believe if I were to die right now very little in this universe would change. That isn’t to say I’m suicidal or ready to check out, I’m just out of good ideas. The most logical thing is to stick around and search for something positive to do with my time. I am planning that. I want to give back to others. That gives me the most pleasure of anything in this world. I don’t help people for my own pleasure, but it is a nice side effect. That means I do enjoy feeling good which leads me to believe I do value pleasure to some extent.

Once again, I’m faced with contradicting beliefs. I value pleasure but don’t believe it really matters all in the same thought. Somehow, I always believe things to be black and white at the same time. I’m not a liar. I really do believe everything is the same as nothing, I just don’t know how to better explain it.

[thebuttermouse]

Presentation- The Butter Mouse- How to Build Universes With Creative Upcycling

Slide 1: Intro Slide 'Hello everyone, thank you for coming today. I am going to discuss my latest project, the Butter Mouse, and how it shifted from a rough collection of flash fiction to a fully formed piece of digital storytelling. I will demonstrate how thanks to the plethora of creative online publishing tools and ease of hosting and creating content online, you can mix together scraps of old project, and 'upcycle' them into whole new universes. And finally, I am going to show you how if you do want to work on a creative project, there is no reason why you cannot start working on something this evening Slide 2: Sketchbook, and comic strips From this, I have always been jealous of things like comic strips, where you can build up a huge collection of work by doing lots of little things over a period of time. I always think it must have been remarkable to have worked on something like Andy's House, or The Flamingo Men, and be able to look back on such a huge body of work. It would be great to be in the position. So, and of course I appreciate this is a decision that that hundreds of people have made, I set up a flash fiction blog to keep my writing going. And at that stage that's all it was. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, and this is what I cannot stress enough. At this point, the Butter Mouse was doodles in a maths exercise book, the creative equivalent of sit ups. Slide 3: Different stories, same title Perhaps by the very nature of the the fact that these were ideas pushed out in a hurry, the stories started to interconnect. And this wasn't just thematically. The title of one piece was the perfect fit for another a few weeks later. For example, there were three different stories that fit the title 'The Horror Tandoori' and three that fit 'Herring Aid.' Also, and this was genuinely never necessarily my intention, but a lot of the stories seemed to be on the weirder end of the spectrum. As I grew in confidence with the blog, they only got more experimental. Slide 4: Twine After a few months, I began to experiment with format as well as narrative. I had previously done some work with Twine, the interactive (and crucially free) fiction software maker, as part of my course at Bath Spa. For those who aren't aware of what Twine does, it is a super easy to use software that allows you to make a 'choose your own adventure style' game, pretty much by just entering text into different boxes. I am not sure how familiar you are with interactive fiction, but usually they are sprawling worlds, more like a very basic form of RPG, that takes several hours to complete, and usually have many different paths you can take. I wondered what it would be like like to create interactive flash fiction, that was less about world building, and more about a quick idea. For example, I created one called Guilt, where no matter what you did, the world ends within three clicks, and on the very first page you have to choose between killing all the children, or killing all the doctors. Again, this was purely experimental, but it was interesting to see how having how basically no choices adds a completely different feel to interactive fiction. So there were definitely some themes and ideas, but it was all a little discombobulated, and I was looking for ways to bring everything together. Slide 5: The Butter Mouse script The key to the project turned out to be the name itself. The Butter Mouse was originally a character in a script I wrote years ago, about puppets who come to life, and vampirically drain the life of the presenters of a children's television programme. Although the script didn't go anywhere, I found the name evocative, and several readers found the name evocative too. To start with I whacked it down as the name of the blog without much thought. But now with the writing coming together, I wondered if there was a way I could use The Butter Mouse name to tie everything in place. Slide 6: Where Is Bill? Photo At the same time, I was thinking about if there was anyway to fit in with a small transmedia project I made on Mars called 'Where Is Bill?' About a worker at the Aqua Park who is captured by aliens. It mixed YouTube videos, fake podcasts, fake blogs, and interactive fiction to tell this story, and although I was pleased with some of the results, it never really had a purpose, and wasn't properly released, so was sitting on my computer's hard drive with little to no value. Slide 7: Upcycle- reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original. I wondered if there was a way to do a form of creative 'upcycling,', and smash these ideas together. Nothing intrinsically tied the flash fiction, the title, and the transmedia project, but was there a way they could join? For anyone who is unsure what upcycling is, I have included a definition on the screen. So this is how they play off each other. The Butter Mouse is now a creature that is able to travel between different dimensions. All of the stories then become accounts of what it has seen on its journey, or fake factual accounts of people discussing where they have seen The Butter Mouse. And with a few rewrites, Bill in Where Is Bill is has no longer been captured by aliens, but has slipped into a different dimension. This is where the ease and cheapness of available software, editing and publishing online prevailed. I went back through the all the work on The Butter Mouse, and tweaked the odd thing here and there to make it fit this new brief. I re-edited the videos, podcasts and blogs in Where Is Bill, and next mont they will be posted on the blog. So with no extra cost, and some working tying everything together, these scraps of forgotten ideas and writing exercises have turned into something new, greater than the sum of its parts. Slide 8: One of the 'article sections' What this resulted in was a whole new flavour to The Butter Mouse. It now has the feel of a conspiracy theory, more in line with creepypasta and Illuminati Youtube videos. This means it is the fictional work on it feels suited to the internet. A being that travels through dimensions is no less out there than the conspiracy theory that Finland doesn't exist. This is not just writing that has been put online, but a project that suits being published online. Slide 9: Experimental stuff Though The Butter Mouse has come together from scraps of various projects into something new it still has its original function as a writing exercise. Only now the small, weird ideas are perfectly acceptable a look into a world different to our own. This allows me the freedom to experiment with any weird ideas without damaging the over all narrative. There is a story you can only read by following the clues in the story before. A story that is sideways, because the writing is in another dimension. Some weeks it is just a monster move in five hundred worlds It all fits the brief, because rather than lots of esoteric stories that don't connect, it all forms one larger narrative. Write down a minute of your dreams on the back of a receipt, and it won't make any sense to anyone who reads it. Make a dream journal, and they come together into a logical document. This culminated in the final idea of working out what the Butter Mouse actually is. That dependent on what dimension you were in, the creature could turn into anything. It might be a mouse shaped piece of graffiti on the wall, it might be something like a tiger. Anything at all. And in our dimension, in the world we inhabit, The Butter Mouse is the Tumblr account, The Butter Mouse. So technically, we are in the world of the Butter Mouse right now. Anything that could happen, could end up as a story. Which is about as far away as you can get from literary sit-ups. Slide 10: Upcycling in picture. What I hope you can take from it is that if you have any scraps of old project, it is now so easy to bring them together. I have always considered that creative time is never wasted. Now for me creative time is always making new resources, like spinning wool even if you are not sure what the jumper will turn out like. It is just a case of finding a way for them to tie together, or be converted by new media into a way that makes sense. What I've started doing is looking through old laptops and hard drives, to see if there is anything that can be cannibalised. Next week I have combined videos of Bristol and Osaka Zoo to make footage of another dimension, and next year I am going to get as many of my old holiday photos as possible, and turn them into a year travel blog from an alternate universe. Just as the work on the blog is creative flotsam and jetsam, so do they become flotsam and jetsam from another dimension. Slide 11: Spreadhseets And I also hope it can show you that whatever the situation you are in, you can keep a project going on in the background. Twine, Tumblr and Youtube are completely free to use and public. On total, the whole project has cost me basically nothing, and now spans dimensions. Now, I fully appreciate that I was lucky to have these resources to hand. To have script and the wreckage of a transmedia to weld onto the side of a flash fiction blog, and call it esoteric science fiction is a situation bespoke to me. But I hope it shows you that if you have stuff that is simply hanging around, why not try and stitch it together? What is the worst you can happen? Is there no way you can mix your cooking blog with your song lyrics, and call it a ghost story? And even if you don't have a library of material, think about what skills you can smash together instead. If you are good at making spreadsheets, why not make a crime thriller story made in Excel? Can you find your old emails to your an ex-girlfriend, and cut them down into romantic haikus? Even if some of it doesn't work, surely it is better than nothing. Upcycle your old material into something new, and use the strengths of online publishing to make it something people can view. Just like an old piece of furniture can be remade on wet Sunday afternoons, regardless of your creative skill set, and what time/budget you can put into your story, you can make something that will regenerate old and forgotten ideas, and push you to experiment without the restrictions of traditional media. So just a final point to emphasise that you really can turn any skill or piece of work into a creative project, if you check The Butter Mouse tumblr account in about an hour, a fictional version of this presentation will form this week's story. And right now in millions of multiple universes, slightly different versions of this blog are being presented and posted online, by beings of all shapes and sizes, all with slightly different lives. So, I want to thank you all for being part of The Butter Mouse. Thank you.