truth – Jimmy Chattin

Truth: The End Makes the Means

Remember the Truth series? Suffering, simplifying, et. al?

Time to add to it.

Had planned to write a long thought-proof on why “the ends makes the means” is in close orbit to Truth. Instead, we start at base principles:

Survive

Similar to the content covered in what I know about business, for all things, survival is the end-all-be-all for, well, everything.

Nothing else matters until survival is guaranteed, no matter the means. All other ends, all other means, come secondary to the primal victory that is survival. The universe demands it:

No texts may be written for a sun long snuffed out, but the survival of the heavy matter it birthed leads to life (arguably a step to the meaningful purpose of the universe, if not the end itself – that being conscious life).
The thing that lives (by any means necessary) long enough to breed (again, by secondary means) survives on a genetic level to repeat the process.

The very fact of being capable of having this or counter thought is proof that survival by whatever means was required – if forbearers lacked the outcome of survival in any way, there is no way to think this end is anything but the ultimate course of everything.

Survival in Work and School

Whether being clever (i.e. cheating, reducing labor), charismatic (i.e. likeable, attractive), or strong (i.e. too good to ignore, confidence to impose will), succeeding at work and school and all other social ventures helps ensure one thing: genetic survival.

Schooling makes a person attractive and better prepared for work. Work gives a person resources by which they may support themselves, others, and afford social affirmations. Social cues of attractiveness (perceived intelligence, wealth, time spent in the care of grooming, et. al) brings others into a person’s orbit for the ultimate end: genetic survival.

By Any Means Necessary

There is… uncompassionate language all above. There will be more to come. Clearly there are statements of moral ambiguity.

This is true, as is the Truth: the end make the means.

Worthy of a post someday tying in ethics and suffering, morals are only those flexible, contextual considerations one can afford; any more and one’s naivete is taken advantage of, any less and one is ethically a monster, both routes a way to destruction.

Survival has a very tight budget on acceptable actions, and by nature Truth is morally ambiguous. Truth just is.

Truth Just Is: Justice

Justice seeks the Truth of a situation. By whatever means within the afforded morals of a society, justice is ideally the end from rational decisions based on factual and unbiased evidence. Just as Lady Justice is impartial within her blindfold, she is impartial to the morals or means of a situation: so long as the scales balance, justice has been done, the ends of society’s compact ensuring revenge for trespasses met.

Only after the ends of justice have been fulfilled do things like mercy or appeal come into effect. Mercy is a fickle secondary end to justice, a conscious balm to an idea of guilt for a systemic failing of society.

A Swift War of Survival

Speaking of an issue of society, a quick note on war.

For better or worse, war is. Should there be no war? For certain. That is an ideal, yes. Yet an imaginary one as it lies in the hypothetical future. We are only left with the Truth: war is.

So society must deal with war. Harking back to survival being the goal, no war exists if all participants are not crusading to facilitate the survival of themselves, their kin, or their ideologies (i.e. the governance of resources).

If one aims to remain ethical (i.e. do perhaps the only Good in the world: reduce net suffering), it behooves a society to make the ‘best’ of war, conduct a better war, a wholehearted effort. As Lady Justice’s sword of judgement is swift and final, better wars are swift, overwhelming, precise, and ultimately minimize suffering by guaranteeing the survival of a particular set of participants at the expense of another set.

Ends Elsewhere

Genetics, culture, justice, war – a few further explorations of the end making the means as a fundament of existence:

Lessons of History outlines “good” being the thing that survives.
In medicine, how few are the cures that cause more suffering than the disease. Radiological and chemical poisons, the cutting apart of skin and organs, pinpricks and pain – all to the benefit of the sick.
Caught in a trap, which limb is so sacred it would not be taken off to save the entrapped?
Wanting the body to feel or look or exist in a state it needs to, going through the wringer of exercise or emotional maturity or flexing mental growth (all hurtful) delivers the sought-for gains.
Quality art is quality art, regardless of the means of production (e.g. AI). Just as a starving body cares not where the next calorie is derived, a glutton may dare turn up their nose for the merest slight. Only those with the capacity – the affordance after baser ends have been met – can judge on means rather than ends.
Acting on one’s idea of ‘Love’ can do more net harm than benefit – this is the stuff of aberration and abuse.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
“Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you.” – paraphrasing Confucius, the Anti-Golden Rule
“Do or do not, there is no try.” – Yoda

Controversy

I attempt here to address the counter arguments I struggled with in dissecting that the end makes the means. This will be incomplete, so please add your own takes in the comments that we may wrestle with!

“How you do one thing is how you do everything.” This speaks to means – low quality effort, low quality outcome. The quote here assumes a linear A-to-B causation. Starting with the end in mind, B-to-* allows a person to walk-back the outcome to some starting point A required to achieve that outcome. With respect to the Oppenheimer movie in theaters at the time of writing, the end production of an atomic weapon justified every means leading up to the final product.

“Prior practice prevents poor performance.” More A-to-B thinking here. The goal is optimal performance – begin there, then practice (and quality practice at that!) is not directionless, but necessary. Only if ‘not poor performance’ is the goal can ‘prior practice’ be considered.

“Doing for the joy of it.” For the joy of it. Nothing done is done for the sake of the doing – there is an end, even if it is the sought-for positive feeling of action. (This applies to the learning of trivia or gathering of any excess.)

There is no, seemingly can be no, means without an end in mind. Can “the end makes the means” be reasonably controversial if the Truth of it just is?

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The base principle of survival (an end that justifies itself) leads firmly to a Truth of existence: the end makes the means.

Nothing I have wracked my brain for or discovered in study concludes differently beyond reproach. I entertain the idea that perhaps when means would taint the end – something that could not be forgotten, washed away, a haunting of origin – then I see a possible discussion being had. Until then, this is the end of my exploration.

Always tentative when tackling a potentially touchy subject, give me a sanity check – how far off is this line of thinking? What was missed? I want to know because in the end, being Truthful is better than being “right” – an end worthy of whatever means.

Cheers ~

It Has Worked for Others: Relationship Success

Known as “the frontpage of the internet,” Reddit has millions of users, many being purely readers of the articles, news, and editorials written.

I count myself as one of the lurkers, gleaning the insights and inspiration I can from choice forums.

One that caught my eye is from user (u/) u/Mela_Min: Married Men, what are the unspoken rules for successful marriage? [sic]

Turns out I had only the merest idea of how to make long-lasting relationships, well, long-lasting.

Out of 4.3K comments at the time of writing, I present to you both some of the highest rated comments and those mentions that really… spoke to me? Anyway, some tools for your own toolbox (bolded, paraphrased, and commented on).

Note: This article will use “relationship” in the form of a bond between two persons. Reminder I nor the folks paraphrased here are licensed or otherwise credentialed to give any mental, relationship, finance, legal, or other actionable advice.

Keeping and Growing Long-Lasting Relationships

Share values. Starting out on the right foot in a relationship is step number 0 upon which all else will be decided. Questions of domestic roles, how money enters and exits the partnership, lifestyle choices, children, family, political and religious commitments, sex, conflict resolution techniques, stress tolerances, and more all =deeply= matter to a relationship before it even begins.

Show your partner they matter. This speaks to a quote close to my own heart: “There’s no such thing as love; only proof [acts] of love.” – Jean Cocteau

Expect more of yourself than your partner. Extreme responsibility and high standards start with you. I cannot find the attribution: Relationships are always at least 60%/40% give-and-receive; the best relationships are when the partners both aim to be the harder worker, it being 100%/100% effort.

Do for yourself when you can. If you can / should do it, do it. Your partner is there for encouragement and to catch you when you fall, not carry your work.

Do it now – later is never. Following from the above, do not delay. Chores, questions, addressing conflict, giving affection – relationships are one resentful thought or a skipped stoplight away from no going back. “Tomorrow is the busiest day of the week.” – Proverb

Set roles of responsibility and hierarchies of value. Which career is more important? Who both likes doing a thing X more and is better at X? How will binary decisions in and out of the home get resolved? Decisions and tasks involving two in a relationship are not all equal, nor are the consequences. That said, revisit these hierarchies on occassion – priorities will and do change (more on that later).

Be explicit. No guessing, no games, no assumptions. Never be passive (especially passive aggressive!). What you say matters – what is bothering you, what you need, the wants you hold. Your Word is bond to the other’s expectations and to your actions. To say is to do, to do is to love.

Practice extreme Trust. A follow-up on being explicit, keep Trust. Believe what the other says until proven otherwise. Say what you mean and mean what you say. This point might ought be first, given “Trust is like a string. You cut it once and you join it later, but the knot – it remains forever.” – Anuradha Kamath

Get sleep and separate recharge time. Sleep is the foundation to physical, mental, and relationship health. So is rest and recuperation, but doing so separately (at least part of the time) keeps a person aware that they are still an individual that happens to be in a partnership.

Up your game. Your partner already likes you for your strengths, yet you are linked together now. As always with “the weakest link,” your faults now stand to jeopardize your bonds. Improve yourself, don’t be lousy at things. Learn, improve, and demonstrate competence to your partner – if you are bad, ‘git gud.’

If you are not moving, you are dead. Maintaining a relationship is death to the relationship. Become interesting, engage in new things with and without your partner. Bring something unique to the table, making every day the first date, every week a honeymoon. Yet realize the need for change carries with it the chance the relationship dynamics will change – no relationship starts without the possibility of ending too, but it certainly will change what is first was.

The bad will outweigh the good. We can’t help it – humans overvalue loss and negatives over gains and positives (at least two-times as much). So overcorrect when ‘bad’ issues arise and aim to forgive those trespasses you feel have been done (i.e. never mention these events again).

Public praise, private discussion. Always have your partner’s back in public. =Never= do ill to them among others. Keep the dirty laundry for discussion between your god, private journal, therapist, and partner. That said, be as personal as possible in private – hold hands, cuddle, look in each other’s eyes, speak clearly, these things help bring oxytocin and comradery when important things need handling. (Of course, if your partner is letting out enough to do you, themselves, or others harm, do what you must to save things!)

Counseling comes before the honeymoon, not during the separation. Seek professional guidance together while the times are good. Waiting to get help when the bad-ball is already rolling is a disadvantaged battle.

Be death to getting ‘one-up.’ Never aim to ‘beat’ your partner in disagreements or, virtually, anything. At most, it is you both against the problem in the world, a synergy where 1 + 1 = 3. Admit wrongness. Pick the hills to defend – these hills that matter will be few. In a partnership, there are no winners when scores are kept – only ever two losers.

HALT. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired – be none of these when needing to engage on serious / relationship matters with the partner. You can ask to delay a conversation, but not too much later (reminder that true “later” is “never”) – less than 24 hours in the future should you have ‘got your s*** together’ to then personally re-initiate the conversation.

They come first. Your partner, the relationship. Before career and family and children, choose your partner to maintain the relationship. So much flows from improving long-term relationships, virtually all else will benefit by taking a back seat to working things out between one another. Yet, this isn’t “choose to spend and do all things with the partner” – sometimes the choice of relationship-first is to be graceful when time and attention need to be pulled away for awhile (e.g. emergencies, one-time call-up, sickness, passion projects). If needing to decide, the long-term option will outweigh short-term inconveniences.

ABC Big Picture Themes

Again and again, people report similar principles in relationships success. Those are:

Act. Doing – taking action quickly and frequently – is a stellar principle to make sure folks appreciate their relationships vs. resting on laurels. 100%/100% contributions.
Be Better. Yes, you coming as ‘you’ got you into the relationship. What is happening to grow it? Your weaknesses and stagnancy are the weakest links.
Choose Them. Come back to your partner and the relationship again and again. Praise publicly and work privately (and personally!) to improve everything about your roles.

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Not all of the above will apply to you and that is OK. Check yourself, use what you can, and recognize that the more of this that does not appeal to you is like to be where your improvement ought start.

I know I have areas to better – how about you? What has worked in your relationships that ought be on the list? (Seriously, what to add?)

I can only wish you the best for all your partnerships – cheers to healthy and successful relationships!

You Are a Slave to Your Work

No argument: You are a slave to the work you need to do. Let you and I jump into why any other mode of thought is a delusion:

Getting Terms Straight

From the Cambridge Dictionary:

Slave – “a person who is legally owned by someone else and has to work for that person […] and has no personal freedom.”

Slavery – “the condition of being legally owned by someone else and forced to work for or obey them […] the system in which some people are owned by others.”

Free – “not having something that is unwanted or unpleasant.”

Work – “to do a job, especially the job you do to earn money […] to make a person or animal do a job.”

Job – “the regular work that a person does to earn money.” And, “a crime in which money or goods are stolen, or an action or activity that is dishonest or unpleasant.”

Money – “used to buy things, or the total amount of these that someone has.”

Reasoning

Making a leap in assuming you can connect the dots here, you need money to buy the things that make life survivable: Foods, clean water, clothing, shelter, medical treatment, etc.

All the above – at least in the United States – costs more than the means of production, and is actively denied a person without money. Without food, a person starves and suffers; without water, a person becomes sick and suffers; without clothing and shelter, a person is exposed and suffers; without medical treatment, a person suffers and dies.

(All this needs to be addressed further, so we go without mention of what makes life livable, e.g. means for recreation, time for rest.)

If prevention of suffering is one of if not the only fundamental Good in the world, then a person is obliged to have these things for themselves and those who depend on them. “Enslaved,” as the physical requirements of life are non-negotiable.

What Is Required, What Is Optional

Working in some way to cover the costs of merely existing is the obligation, the enslavement a living creature must carry out for the privilege of being alive.

This is a required enslavement, or experienced as a suffering (if the work be unpleasant) to prevent and reduce a greater suffering.

To care for others who are not able to provide for their existence – regardless of cause – is what a moral and just society is. Though not a total definition of a civilization ought be, without this care, “moral and just” must be left out of the society’s description.

Care for others is optional enslavement – we only have the morals we can afford.

Yet care for oneself, let alone others, is endangered when optional enslavement is required to earn the money to buy goods to sustain life.

What is that optional enslavement, not caring for others?

That enslavement is the excess beyond the cost of initiative, time, and material used to create the good, to exchange for the service. That is the money that funnels to one entity from many individuals. That is profit.

And profit is the name of the game in the United States – and by extension from the US’s economic and cultural global dominance, the world.

Treatment for This Condition

I am no financial planner, analyst, expert. This is not advice, because I do not know beyond a reasonable doubt the validity of the following. It seems to work out on the back of an envelope, though it is uncertain how it would apply to the facts of the world at large.

It is at least a start.

First, a definition of Profit – “money that a business [or person] earns above what it costs to produce and sell goods and services.”

Second, should there be profit? Yes – Communism tried to remove that incentive, and it led to a lot of suffering for entire populations. Profit can be the incentive to have taken the risk to do something that could fail. Yet, excess profit is excess optional enslavement to a job and thereby excess optional suffering for the unpleasantry of it.

Some thoughts:

Capped Percentage of Profit per Good or Service Rendered
- No one action will be more than an X percentage of the cost to create and provide the good or service, X being greater than the profit that might be rendered through other investments – say, stock – within a standard deviation or three. This leaves room for living well while also having cushion to make prices competitive by lowering them from the profit margin.
Progressive Tax of Profit Based on Market
- The bigger a single business gets, the less profitable by-percentage it gets, though the net amount continues to increase. It slows the formation of monopolies, allowing other companies to adjust and catch up, thereby encouraging competition. Further, production-cost-cutting is encouraged, as additional profit can be gained for a larger market share, benefiting the consumers while forcing innovation from the business and its competitors. Lastly, public funds are increased that can be reapplied where needed from the taxes, as is part of the responsibility of a society’s government (I forego chatting about such ideas here).

Compelled to Industry

Compel – “to force someone to do something.”

Industry – “the quality of regularly working hard […] in the production of goods for sale […] and makes a lot of money.”

You are compelled to industry, and therefor not free.

You are only as free by that which you can do without. Everyone is enslaved in some degree by the fact of being alive. Beyond those costs, and the costs of reasonable enjoyment in life, everything else is optional enslavement.

Yet the option is not yours.

By either or both through the means of your work or the profit for required goods and services, you are a slave to your work. This is the way of things, though it does not need to be so.

Rule #1: Play the Game

In your work, your society, your life, the first and #1 rule is this: Play the game.

What does that mean?

I mean, play the game. The “game” being the set of rules and expectations set before you. Cases in point:

In a job, the system is that the employee does X kind of work for about Y hours over a Z amount of time. The employer provides A, B, and C in exchange for and to facilitate that work. Skimp on any piece of this, or try to add more in on one side, and the job is no longer tenable for either the employer or the employed.

In diet, obey the rules of fewer calories, better calories, and physical use of the body. Anything else is at best a lie, at worst a waste of time. By the rules of the game of biochemistry, doing X gives X results, doing Y gives Y results, and cheating or failing to grasp what is happening at any point can be the difference between health and heart attack.

In language, not following writing, grammar, spelling, or pronunciation ‘rules of the game’ will quickly get you ostracized from it, i.e. no one will attempt or welcome exchanging with you because you have failed the winning condition: to concisely and efficiently convey useful information in communication.

Get on with it.

In short, you have a part to play in a great, grand game. Your responsibility is to know the rules and execute them the best way you deem fit.

Yet, which rules a person follows is variable. There are a base set of rules, these being fundamentals of the universe. Chemistry, physics, math. 2+2=4.

But there are other rules too. Genetics, weather, et al. of the ‘natural’ world – these add a layer. Culture, history, society – another layer. Family ties, daily life outside oneself – yet another.

Your biochemistry, your experiences, your obligations.

What you had for lunch yesterday, the clothes chosen today, the cushion of where you now sit.

Your hopes, your dreams, your fears and anxieties.

Layers, layers, layers. All your responsibility to know, work on mastering, and to execute in whatever the ‘game’ is.

What is the game?

Read again the above paragraphs: It is everything.

Perhaps it could be described as ‘society,’ but this does injustice to simplicity. Society does not dictate how a person learns about burning a hand on a hot oven.

Maybe we describe the game’s systems as physics, yet how much more must be known than only physics to understand why a rainbow is beautiful to a majority of folks, while others gain no pleasure from the aesthetics?

At first glance, nothing appears to be an easy answer. The “game,” as game-entertainment is systematic, may be best defined along terms of value. Perhaps, “the game is a multi-player-specified systematic approach to determining value, value being that which is wanted by any other player.”

Is that definition hardened against critique? Not yet, but just as ignorance of solar fusion does not stop plants from growing under the sun, a partial definition (e.g. plants grow in sunlight) is better than none (seeds unplanted in the dark).

Why do I need to “play the game” again?

If you do not play the game, you will be buried by it. You will become more of a tool for use by others than if sitting at the table to participate.

The game is active, as in it will actively punish nonparticipation.

On second thought, the game of *waves hands at everything* does not “punish” – that is a moralistic term, and morals are both subjective and only able to be afforded in relation to present context.

Instead, the game repurposes any and every part of, well, everything. If a player does not want to play, it will be a piece. If a piece becomes inconvenient, it is crushed into the pillar the game is played on – a pawn turned to dust and ash of buried history to support the present.

How could so cruel a thing ever be justified!?

“Cruel” is a poor term – the Hippocratic Oath handles aspects of cruelty much better than will be discussed here.

The Oath is a useful tool that has lasted thousands of years because it understands something about the game of everything. The game is not more fair or unfair – it just is, existing and churning and doing as it will.

Gravity will drop a cliffside rock, waves will wear rock to sand, sand will settle in an oyster, an oyster will make a pearl, a diver will adore the pearl’s luster, a thief will take the bauble by force, a hungry bird will eat what is left behind, and onward and onward and onward.

None of the above is “fair” or “cruel” or any such thing. These events, these things are, and that is enough for the game.

But to the question of justification: There are ‘outs’ other than being consigned to oblivion. Those either be 1) benefit from the game rules-as-written, taking advantage where possible at least personal cost, or 2) advocate to other players to change and how to change the rules.

Remember, “the game is a multi-player-specified systematic approach to determining value.” Players determine the values the game’s systems work towards. Whether the player-determination system is democratic, representative, monarchical, authoritarian, plutocratic, oligarchic, theocratic, or otherwise, that is the way the game is set at the moment.

There yet may be hope for the game to change, but only if a player advocates for it.

That is not enough reason to play the game.

Improving your situation so as to suffer less? That is not enough?

Then think of others: Change the rules to benefit as many as possible. Raise up the “pieces” you will come across to be “players” in their own lives again. Render your excess unto the less fortunate, or dedicate your play at life to the better positioning of another player of your choice, whatever the whim.

Or, just get out from underfoot. Care less about being a pawn. Seek to be less inconvenient for those attempting to make something grand of the game. It will be better for you and everyone else if done, for the game will seek to crush nonparticipants regardless – getting out of the way saves time and effort for everyone else.

Rule #1: Play the Game

Play it well. Find out and know the rules. Be the best player you can be.

Everything else is optional.

Advocate for yourself. Advocate for others.

Change the rules, yet only after understanding what can or ought be changed.

And if you can’t? Serve others following Rule #1 and get out of the way.

10 Posts 2021

Like in 2020, there have been dozens of posts in 2021.

So many posts cover everything from rewriting the famous Halo video game franchise, my understanding of Truth in our lives and the universe, book reviews, game conversions, game making, new game systems, work, finances, the pandemic, and so, so much more.

I share with you my impressions of the most viewed posts of 2021:

10. Truths About Relationships

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this post struck a number of cords. Loudly.

I have had the opportunity and honor to experience many kinds of relationships from many different folks. I have also the privilege of being highly insightful of patterns. These are the things I have found that hold True for whoever, whenever, wherever, forever and ever.

Give this tenth-most-popular post a read – it will improve your current and future relationships (not to mention perhaps blunt a certain amount of pain).

9. Devaluing Your Worth

There are so many ways to screw up goals, self-worth, life… Devaluing the benefit of your own labor to others is certainly an all too common thing to do 😦

Read to understand your greatest obstacles to attaining what you are worth: Ignorance of your value, anchoring low, not shutting up, and you.

8. A Taste of Digital Nomadism

After two years of the COVID pandemic, I have a large amount of that flying under the social radar to experience life as a digital nomad.

My impressions, my insights, and more. Between the good and the bad of this kind of lifestyle, it might just be the one for you 😉

7. #PaidMe2021

A breakdown and normalization of my salary in 2021 (sans the flexible nitty-gritty of stocks, benefits, etc.). Since I am a Senior Software Engineer working for mobile games in Las Vegas, Nevada, this post helps normalize industry and position and cost-of-living to be the same (or at least relatable).

Knowledge is Power. Empower yourself with this post.

6. Pandemic America – Daily Bread

Not sure why this was so popular.

I talk about what was eaten since the Pandemic, its effects. A bit of slice of life ~

5. Truth: Attractiveness

Being attractive is universal in all things. From aesthetics to gravity, reality demands attractiveness.

This is a more complex topic than for this short blurb – arguably for the blog post too – though it should get you asking questions of yourself. And if you act on your responsibility to be attractive? All the better 🙂

4. The Importance of Putting Things in Order

Inspired by a “Death Walk” I take periodically, this post outlines the process.

Time required, subjects to think about, actions to take… Death Walks have defined my life since I started taking them three years ago.

While the Walks often (and likely ought) to bring tears and intense feelings, for me they have been some of the best pieces of clarity of my life. I hope you will find the same ❤

3. The 6-Point Story Structure of Halo

With the massive backlash against Halo 5 and Halo Infinite releasing late 2021, I gave my shot at fixing a series in trouble.

This post was the start, studying the fundamentals of the most successful Halo stories. Found a pattern, wrote about it 🙂

Now it is up to me to experience how Halo Infinite did!

2. The Value of Being a Professional

Tools and rationale I have been using for years. Part of a toolbox that has gained others and I hundreds-of-thousands of dollars over the years. How much more to come?

1. Lasers + Shields = Boom in Dune

Guess what movie came out this year? 😂

This post from May 2019 blew up like Dune did. As the most grounded real-life analysis of a sci-fi staple, the eyes on this post are well deserved.

Bonus: Most Viewed

With the Dune 2021 movie released this year, one of my first and one of my most nerdy posts takes the cake for most views this year. Lasers + Shields = Boom in Dune was written in 2019, but oh boy, did it turn my stats on their head 😅

Check it out! There’s some cool math there. (Spoiler: Dune explosions ought be huge.)

Also check out 2022’s most impressionable posts.

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Check the tags, check other posts – I make ’em weekly.

Give me your favorites from this last year. Preferably, something other than mine so I can learn something too 😉 Cheers!

2022: Looking Forward

This was written some time ago with higher, more positive feels. With a very recent and personal loss, I am very appreciative of my past self.

That said, I now look for ways to make 2022 a more vivid year. Cheers -

Much like what I did at the end of 2021, here are the things I can look forward to in 2022:

Becoming Cyborg (Maybe!)

No details (yet?). As one of the first things in 2021 I will become a cyborg with mechanical (not just metal or plastic) parts. It will open up whole new vistas of physical and existential possibility, though in as much ought close a few too 😅

With a change in plans and COVID ruining a lot, I am not a robot yet nor am like to be anytime in the foreseeable future. With more pokes and prods, maybe? Still a little early to tell, but will let on should I get my upgrades 😎

Europe & Abroad

I have a credited ticket from a cancelled trip in 2020. Having gotten my booster and with a sincere hope the EU and other locales can get the pandemic in control regardless of whether I get to visit or not, if borders begin to open, I hope to be through them for a few months 🙂

Publish Games

I sufficed a roadmap for BITS and BITS-adjacent games back in November. If I can be true to myself and focused (despite all else that goes on in the year), you will be seeing at least free and at-cost versions of one if not multiple games. Hope I can count on you to support when the time comes! 🎲🎲

FI

The biggie of goals – Financial Independence. 2021 has been a ridiculous time of extravagant excess in salaries and markets. Will it hold up in 2022? If it does, I will hit a super-duper milestone, a game changer, a fundamentals shift in what I can consider for my life. Here’s to it 🤞

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And here’s to so many other good things to come in 2022! Not as many things as last year, though perhaps these are finer foci for my attention. Or I’m just a bit more realistic and/or tired from the surprises and horrors that naïve me had no idea about in 2021 🙃

BUT!

Remember: Despite what is seen online and in news and what we talk about on the daily, being alive right now (median and average) is literally the best it has ever been. Ever. Are there injustices and things needing to be better? Yes! That is realistic, to face the facts, so all facts must be appreciated.

Anyway. Do well, and may you feel well doing it 😊 Carpe omnia, folks. Cheers to the new year ~

Can’t Survive Contact With COVID

Plans, that is.

This blog post was supposed to tell about why I’m taking ‘off’ for awhile. Why the last few months (i.e. November, December, January) have had preparations made and the way swept clear.

All that.

COVID has other plans.

I rewrite here because of the news received – the highly-contagious Omicron variant of COVID has laid low staff and facilities in my entire county. No hands to handle, no services to offer.

Now the plan that has been in progress for a year to act on something that I have kept an eye one since I was 17 is indefinitely postponed.

Torn on my feels for this. No negative emotions for the affected staff, but g-dang, this trash disease and those trash people who go out of their way to spread it are just so… frustrating.

Look at me, being polite and all.

* DEEP breath *

Anyway, everything is up in the air. Have to be consistent with my posts, so here goes this.

At least it is only a plan that can’t survive COVID contact. Will be keeping myself in an away from others regardless for a good while.

Get your shots 💉💉💉 Wear a mask 😷 Stay in as much you can. Rage against those that bring about the injustice of it all.

Cheers ’til we safely meet on the other side of this.

It Is OK to Fail

Really, it is.

But failure snowballs into complete and utter debasement! Failing is a slippery slope to irrelevance.

Certainly don’t make a habit of easy failure. If failure must happen, make it hard-fought to get the most out of the slip.

If the failures are spectacular enough, the failure will be quite relevant! Regardless, the failure should be relevant at least to you to show what to do or not, in addition to being an example to other folks.

But failure is a sign of weakness! If I fail, I won’t be wanted, I’ll be scorned, and I’ll carry a Scarlet Letter forever.

While some folks may not want you over particular failures. And some truly severe Scarlet Letters are deserved so that others can be protected.

Yet you live only with yourself. Only you know the severity of guilt and the just penance. An so long as you are acting out the penance (even if it is only to not fail the same way twice), you are doing what is owed to the failure.

But failure can be tragic! It can scar and rend and kill and all horrible things.

That’s a fine point! Failure certainly can be immense in its consequences. But what are consequences worthy of worry?

As the saying goes, “any landing you can walk away from is a good one,” so the same applies to failure. Loss of money or time or knickknacks can be made up and should come with an adequate exchange of experience. Bruises heal and hurt feelings amended.

What can’t be put back together are the three serious scars that can remove opportunities for action or attraction:

1. Mind – Being unable to think straight, fully, or at all is a terrible, terrible thing. Brain damage, addiction, and dogma make up this scar where healing is miraculous (but we can’t depend on miracles).
2. Body – Being maimed, crippled, or made twisted changes the whole world. (Trust me, I know.) Losing limbs, suffering catastrophic nerve injuries, and physical scarring such as tattoos of hate signs make this scar horrific to live with.
3. Society – Being vile, abhorrent, or too dangerous to others or the culture is the quickest way to be identified with this scar. Outward physical violence, harm towards children and other helpless, and upending public expectations will slam you with a modern, contextual Scarlet Letter.

So long as these three scars are avoided, your failures won’t stop you!

But failure isn’t stopping me! It’s my fear of failing anew…

And that’s where coming to peace with failure comes it. It is OK to fail.

One of the biggest obstacles to what we intend and our lives being lived is us, you and I. Our thoughts dwell on the ‘what if.’ Prior experience and imagination can be a real bane in this regard.

That is why forgiving ourselves is the first step to making failure OK.

We are the ones that can stop habitual failure.

We are the ones who are already suffering under guilt.

We are the ones who can avoid the three disastrous scars.

We are the ones who must forgive ourselves.

Simply put, forgive yourself. It is OK to fail.

Why I Wrote This

The fear of failure lies strong on my mind and always has. I’ve developed rules for myself so as to fail less:

- Four monthly goals instead of twenty or ten.
- Peak physical and mental conditioning.
- Competing when I’m guaranteed at least bragging rights.
- Being ‘flexible’ in finding silver linings.

Failures still happen despite it all. Like this month’s goals I’ll be reporting on in a week. (It’ll be bad.)

And that’s OK.

Now this may sound like I’m giving myself a pass on a failure by using flowery words – it’s not (sans the flowery words part).

I know I’ve lived my life. What’s left is my duty to ensure my future self can live without the baggage of guilt or regret going forward. Casting off such suffering seems like a decent goal.

Wouldn’t you agree?

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Really looking forward to your feedback here.

Where have your failures been? How have you recovered? What are you still carrying around all this time since?

Here to talk to hear about what’s going on – drop me a line and we’ll get the convo going!

Until next week, go out to happen to the world knowing the failures you make along the way are OK. Cheers ~

Truth: Top 10 Truisms

What is Truth? We might know it by how these top truisms are us and the universe.

1. Simplify

Less is truly more. Should you need more anyway, there is some written on this.

2. Suffering Exists

Exists and is inevitable, a persistent, constant force in the universe. I have taken a deeper dive into the topic.

3. Knowledge Is Terrible

What is known cannot be unknown along with all of its consequences. Care to know more?

4. Be Attractive

Attraction is a basic law of nature where to be attractive is the only thing to be. More material outlining attraction is available.

5. Don’t Settle, Suffice

In short, have higher standards, but keep those standards in line with what’s sufficient.

It is naïve to think things cannot be better regardless of situation. To seek to be better is one of the most noble activities to improve yourself and the world. However, an obsession without end will cause more suffering that it corrects.

Wisdom arrives when you know the world and yourself enough to understand what, subjectively, is “enough.”

Achieving this is a numbers game. Be it the theory of Pareto’s Principle, the Optimal Stopping Strategy for professionals and love-seekers, or Statistical Significance, the number of trials to find what’s sufficient correlates with both knowing and achieving that “enough.”

Truth requires continuous action until higher standards are met sufficiently. For you, that means being the harshest critic of your own monstrosity, leaving nothing for anyone else to critique.

6. Competition Is for Chumps

Competition spends immense amounts of energy. The more energy one has unspent for competition, the more likely that competition will be a success. And survivorship is Good!

But a strategy of expending too much energy against others goes by another term: War of Attrition. Attrition warfare can also cascade into a Pyrrhic (a.k.a. not-worth-it) Victory. By its very nature, competition tends towards less-than zero-sum outcomes, all competitors having spent their energies against each other, not their goals.

To come away from a singular competition with less or even no energy takes away that fund available for future competitions over food, space, and mates. Thereby, a competitor may have survived the competition, but their likelihood of surviving thereafter goes down (not Good).

Be it peacocks maintaining elaborate plumage to out-gaudy other mates, male lions killing each other for pride control, or humans laboring and becoming indebted to attain status symbols that are more form-than-function, competition takes a toll.

So what is the alternative? As renown military philosopher Sun Tzu would have it, “the best strategy is the one that delivers victory without fighting.”

In competition, little is gained. Effort is largely wasted and suffering gets accumulated by all parties in true competition (consider the benefits of play, the faux competition).

Energy spent in cooperation or subtle, low-energy, indirect competition (if competition must occur) is much more beneficial; all else is for chumps.

7. Know Better

Despite knowledge being a terrible thing, it is a requirement to know better, especially of oneself. The Good that knowledge can bring far outweighs the harm that may arise.

As put, knowledge is powerful. However, having the wrong knowledge can be worse than having pure ignorance – the road to Hell is paved with good [but ill-informed] intentions.

So figure yourself out, your duties, and the when and where you are. Be more selfish in coming to these terms. Until you have the language and patterns of understanding to ask and enact what’s required, you are no use to anyone except at best as a pawn (others may know how to use you better than you of yourself).

Better knowledge starts with asking better questions:

What does culture demand in status and contribution? How can one survive in the environment?

What do you like? What do you despise? What do you fear? How do you fail yourself and society?

Learn. Study everything. Find that gaps that need filling. Others have suffered in ways aplenty so that you do not have to. Yet some of these lessons are faulty, thus only by sheer numbers of examples can better knowledge be affirmed (like how the community process of Wikipedia allows correct information to form).

Competition is to be avoided because of the energy it spends; the same applies to gaining knowledge. Defer to the expertise and strength of those that have lived and done the things you seek to do – if they have proven Good (i.e. survived and reduced suffering), they are models to follow.

After the questions and the study, you will have the better knowledge needed to not only improve yourself, but better the world.

8. Escalate

More. Up or down depending on the context, always get to better faster. (“Better” can also be ends to things.)

Escalation of magnitudes is preferred – doubling, halving, or changing ten-fold is the broad stroke required to anchor what’s expected in any exchange. If the strength of X is insufficient to twist open a cap, at least 2X is required on the next attempt.

However, delicacy is sometimes required in a situation – perhaps the vessel to open is brittle or a negotiation comes to a close. In that case, less than a magnitude in change is required, but escalation plays a part here, too: to achieve less than 100% change, use 10% (.1X instead of X).

Yet, it may come to be resented if too much is asked for, or cause disgust to ask for too little. What would be acceptable between those extremes comes from better knowledge and caring for one’s own wellbeing. Trust that another will defend their own self interests as you ought to be an advocate of your own.

Therefore, escalation is a benefit to the universe: It saves time (the expense of energy), it wastes less by finding the sufficient amount to expense (magnitude of energy), and reduces mental suffering from an effort too generous or stingy (buyer’s remorse).

9. You Are Responsible

With existence comes responsibility. All incentives, all motives, all actions, and, ultimately, all outcomes are the responsibility of the perceiver. Whether through the tangible consequence or the mental perception, the individual has stake in anything that goes on.

Respect yourself and take caution. All that you do and perceive is at least a subjective reality. Merely by consciously perceiving the world, you create what’s real. In this way, you are partly-if-not-wholly responsible regardless of context.

So what will you do with that great power?

In existing and therefore creating reality, you have a part to play in the suffering in the world, both for yourself and others. A person cannot abstain from action and expect that abstention to not cause suffering.

The only way to have a say in survival and suffering is to act, which carries its own set of consequences. Despite that, failures in action are overcome faster by further action and personal change of perception. A failure to act passively discovers outcomes that – if the universe has any bias – tend towards entropy, the ultimate failure to survive (not Good!).

(This brings up that action appears to be Good, but that’s a separate discussion.)

Whatever comes, by existing, you are responsible for all action, inaction, and your perception of the outcomes. Only by taking action and curating your perceptions might you also be responsible for any Good.

10. Forgive Yourself

A stark follow-up to the “Responsibility” point above, you must also take responsibility for forgiving yourself.

The journey to be better and do Good is long, difficult, and continuous. People are similar and people fail – you are much more like them than you imagine.

Meanwhile, you have the morals you can afford, so be merciful to yourself when you fail, slip-up, or otherwise dwell on what must be temporary setbacks. Should failure prove to be a habit, be the harshest critic of your own monstrosity and be better immediately in the moment (you may always recess to being lackluster later).

There is the same self-forgiveness universally. No land dwells on the consequences of a volcano or earthquake. Instead, the land bears its scars and continues. Indistinguishable it is for wind and rain and galaxies that crash into each other, each holding no grudge but instead swirling away to continue their atomic existences changed, yet continuous from one form to the next. No mountain crumbles under its own self-doubt or loathing, but continues to push up through the clouds by its volition no matter the wear. As you must too.

That’s the reason you must own care for yourself – no one else will have your drive or context to be up to the task of forgiving your failures, nor ought they if you’ve not done so already. Thus, through forgiveness, resolve some of the greatest sources of suffering for you: your own doubt and guilt and regret. Thereby, to forgive yourself is a Good thing.

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These ten truisms appear to be some of the most-true things for not only people, but all life and the universe, too. The sections above do not go into depth of any great description and proof-by-example, yet everywhere I look these things make themselves present.

As a character in a Zelda videogame once put, “it’s dangerous to go alone,” I only want you to take this so you can do Good and that Good may happen to you.

All something to live by. Cheers!

Truth: Attractiveness

Be attractive.

Truth itself is an enigma. Truth might be known through its many faces, though not all faces are equal in their value to Truth. But attractiveness? Attractiveness seems to be side-by-side with what Truth is.

Whether as a material law (magnetic/electric/gravitational), physical trait (symmetry/garb/health-signaling/etc.), or mental characteristic (charisma/stability/respect/etc.), being attractive secures the resources of survival. Attractiveness is an objective an d severe determiner of the consequences a thing receives in its lifetime.

The benefits are plenty: Ability to convince a person to do another’s work; Gather mates for raising offspring or protection; Decrease the likelihood to be neglected or killed (a reason baby animals are “cute”); et. al.

Being attractive gives the edge to survival – as has been proposed by others, that which is Good is that which survives.

This principle extends beyond biological evolution too. Non-organic nature seeks to persist in its states forever and ever, from thermodynamics to motion. What persists the longest are those things with strong bonds and mass; i.e., matter in the universe that is “attractive” survives.

Planets – the tiniest fraction of the mass of the stars they orbit – only exist that way if not subsumed as moons of even larger planets. Suns live only so long as there’s fuel to burn, the more fuel, the longer life a star has. Galaxies outmatch any planet or star for lifetime, attracting billions of stars, yet they cease to exist as a whole after cataclysmic interactions with something of approximately equal attractive potential (i.e. other galaxies).

Therefore, being attractive is a necessity of the universe, as plasma, rock, or mammal. Further, there are tiers of attractiveness, differentials of both magnitude of attractiveness and type.

Just discussed has been material attractiveness of the gravitational type, with examples of planets being in their own tier, suns another, and galaxies encompassing them all. The same applies to biological life.

An attractive baby is not the same type of attractiveness as that of a sexually attractive mate (ruin to any that foul-up this distinction). Two babies also cannot be deemed to be equally attractive (e.g. as soon as a child receives more ‘resource’ than another, that first child is by definition more attractive), a concept that also applies to shallow comparisons between two job candidates.

Anything that confuses the type or magnitude of attractiveness does not survive. Planets burn away in stars, social aberrant behavior is mocked and condemned, inconvenient (i.e. unattractive) infants are slain. Diverging from attractiveness is punished, thereby adding to the net suffering in existence.

If doing what is unattractive generates suffering and ends its existence faster, the contrast that does not create suffering and survives must be called Good. Being attractive is Good.

Bringing it back, attractiveness reinforces itself as being adjacent to Truth: Attractiveness is a universal quality across matter and time, nature tends toward attractiveness, and the pursuit and state of attractiveness reduces suffering.

How to Be Attractive

First, there is great advantage for a person to be born attractive. Natural symmetry, familiarity, secondary sex characteristics, easy display of health through skin, nails, hair, and teeth, and other traits greatly increase the survivability of both the individual and their genes.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Saint Ambrose

Regardless of birth, fit into physical and social environments. Being ‘average’ and ‘consistent’ for the surrounding context breeds familiarity which is attractive, as well as showing a healthy response to the external stimuli of a particular niche. Further, fitting in with others feeds into social affirmation, an attractive trait that signals others to act on and for one’s behalf.

Success in handling changes and challenges in the social intangibles and the physical resources for survival indicate two attractive qualities: Health in the now, and advantaged genes for later reproduction. Such accomplishment is part of seeming confident. Confidence itself is a sign of health, its natural assertiveness gaining resources for survival and protecting those resources.

There are other ways to express attractiveness; these assets are many and varied. Listening to the opinions of others and one’s self will determine what works best!

Attractiveness Elsewhere

Abraham Lincoln – “I have no other [ambition] so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.”

Sun Tzu – Appear as is best for your intentions with others. (Fake it to make it.)

Beauty – Attractive things exist so long as not too much is known about them at the time. (See: Knowledge is terrible.)

First Impressions – “If their initial impressions of the candidates are positive, employers show a higher tendency to ‘sell’ the job by providing information to the candidates about the job rather than gathering information from them.”

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Live an attractive life as best you can. Cheers.