The Barrow

There will always be those who hate you. Stop caring.

There will always be those who think you're some sort of degenerate pervert or whatever. Stop caring.

There will always be those who think you're ugly or stupid. Stop caring.

Learn to say “I don't give a fuck” even without anger. Just don't.

It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you aren't.

The forest path analogy I made the other day with regards to the moral compass has given me more analogies.

Though some experienced hikers are able to navigate the woods, this does not negate that the well-established path is the quickest and easiest way to not get lost. Likewise, the path's legitimacy does not invalidate the experienced hiker who can move through the woods with ease.

Some of us prefer the woods, but know we need a good compass to navigate them.

Rest your heavy eyelids now and drop your weary head. There are no fleeting worries now for you're already dead.

The things you see before your eyes and all that's done or said are no more real that dreams, my friend, for you're already dead.

Someday soon you'd give it all to return right here to tread. I think you'd best remember this for you're already dead.

You'd do just well to stand up straight and quit your comfy bed, for every moment is on lease when you're already dead.

And when that fateful moment comes, and you away are lead, think right now where you should be for you're already dead.

At some point during the 2010s when I was an aggressively fervent leftist, I mused it was far worse for someone to engage in behavior they knew was wrong than it was for someone to engage in the same behavior without such a belief. In some ways this might be somewhat true, but lately I've been musing almost the opposite: it is better to have a moral compass and know where the path lies, regardless of how well you stay on it. Maybe both are true to some degree. However, I think I would rather deal with another person who knows where the road is, regardless of what wandering we do in the woods. I myself probably wander off into the woods more often than I should, and I think maybe more paths and trails can be cut through the wilderness (especially where a path lay before), but wandering without any direction or orientation is perhaps the worst way to navigate the dark forests of life.

One of the best things I have ever done is to make a commitment to acting and speaking with intention. This means, to the best of my ability, only doing and saying that which I have made a concrete and deliberate decision to do or say. This means eliminating mindless coasting, floating, or running on autopilot. This means trying to stay present and immersed in life at all times.

This means that even if we make mistakes, they are still the result of our best intentions. No more “I was too lazy to do this” or “I mindlessly snacked all day” or “I didn't mean that.” At the very least, our mistakes will be more honest and indicative of who we are.

This is exceptionally helpful in many areas of life, but especially in our interpersonal relationships. Speaking more slowly and definitively and with more intention will do wonders for how you interact with others.

Have a happy Friday.

People operate by vibes, and once you see this, everything makes sense. The content of your statement doesn't really matter – it's entirely how you say it. Remember this the next time nobody listens. Become the type of person people listen to, and they'll listen. Make a conscious effort to always speak more slowly and deliberately, and watch people fawn over you. Likewise, embracing all parts of yourself, even the bad parts, and moving forward with sheer dumb confidence will yield the same results.

It's like a cheat code.

The greatest price of liberty and freedom of the mind is a sense of lonesomeness, hostility in kind

from those who walk with steps together, marching in a line; with every notion lined up straight, to thought now disinclined.

“If I think X I must think Y,” they say wholeheartedly assured. There is no room for discord now; the lines must not be blurred.

We cannot mix the two hands' work: it must stay split in two! And if you can't fit neatly in the World says: fuck you!

If I weren't able to separate myself from it, the world today would be exhausting to someone like me who still holds a lot of millenial ideals.

Most people like me have vastly changed their viewpoints and ways of thinking since the late 2000s and early 2010s. I briefly did too, but when the illusion was broken for me in 2019/2020 I quickly fell back into the way I had been before being brainwashed by ideas I encountered in college.

My own age cohort has become largely insufferable moral police who jump down people's throats for small perceived linguistic crimes, in an oddly puritanical way. This has caused the zoomers to rail against us and go the other way to an almost comical degree, embracing prudishness, paradoxically at the same time as edgy personalities and humor. It would blow the mind of someone from 2009.

Where do those of us who aren't duped by the corporate cult of weakness, yet don't care how people arrange their relationships or sex lives go?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Evolean and Nietzschean models of the Will, which in these models also has significant ethical implications. A passage from Evola's Ride the Tiger really stuck with me – to paraphrase: remorse occurs when secondary desire motivates the person to behave incongruently with his Will, but the Will is yet unbroken. This resonated with me, as this does seem to explain both my behavior and my feelings toward it. While I subscribe to a more Jungian model, that is, of a somewhat equal partnership between the ego and the shadow, this makes sense. Though the person should integrate their shadow (and in fact both Nietzche and Evola advocate the same, in different terminology) the Nietzchean/Evolan model treats the True Will as the “truer” aspect of the psyche, whereas in a Jungian model, they are more equal. Anyway, I digress.

It does seem apt, this model of behavior and remorse. Whenever I let my lower self dictate my actions at the compromise of my higher values, this is when remorse occurs. The answer seems to be to let the higher self steer the vehicle, and regularly let the shadow out to play in contexts where it is safe to do so.

You know, often, when I say I miss older ways of computing or connecting online, people tell me “there's nothing stopping you from doing that now!” and they are technically correct in most cases (though I can't, for example, chat with friends on MSN ever again...) However, let me explain that while this type of thing can sort of fill that hole in my heart, it isn't the same.

Say, for example, I wanted to connect with others over a BBS. This wouldn't offer the same types of connections it used to. While there are BBSes around with active users, they're no longer there to discuss movies, Star Trek, D&D, games, etc. They're there to discuss BBSes. The same can be said for Gopher, old-school forums and all sorts of revival projects (such as Escargot, Spacehey, etc.) Retrocomputing enthusiasts, while they have a variety of interests, are often in these spaces to discuss the medium itself and not other topics. This exists at a stark contrast from how things were in the past, where a non-tech-inclined person may learn the tech to connect with likeminded others (as I did as a Zelda-obsessed kid.)

The same can be said of old media. People will say “well, nobody is stopping you from watching old shows/movies now!” Again, they are technically correct. I can go home right now and watch Star Trek: The Next Generation to my heart's content. It will never again, however, be current, or new. When something is new, it serves as a shared cultural experience. Remember how Game of Thrones felt in the mid-to-late 2010s? Yeah, that.

It's sad. I sustain myself on a mixed diet of old things, new things, and new things intended for old millenials like me who like old things. It can be bittersweet.