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The downside of a goal oriented world

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All around us, day in and day out we are suffused with messaging to be our best selves. As Henry Rollins sang “Do it, don’t think about it, do it!” (which Nike immediately stole and turned into their own “Just Do It” ad campaign). Self help books instruct us in a miriad of ways about how to visualize our goals and how to achieve them, despite the odds. After being dragged to church the preacher has us pray as a way to reach our goals, no matter what. I remember thinking at this time that I guess that I should leave my wife and kids to reach my goals, unachievable otherwise. This “Achieve your goals, no matter what” mantra that life gives us causes tension and is probably the root cause for many broken homes. Many of you have endured from me over the years an expression of this tension. My massive mental bag of goals, such as having hours a day to play my piano, ride every skatepark in the world, yada yada, have given me nothing but grief. I have great kids and a hard ass May as...
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Perfection

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We all remember being in writing class class at some point in school with the teacher explaining in depth the true, underlying, meaning of some story as most of us scratched our heads, strongly suspecting that the teacher was full of shit. I’m reminded of this as I read a book about a piano player describing how the left and right hands contribute to the story, portraying full ranges of emotion and every other element that makes a story great. There must be high points, recovery time from those highs, humorous parts, chase scenes, and resolution. Similarly with an artist. How the blank space belittles the subject, how the bold reds and subtly painted eye direction let the viewer in on the subjects true intentions. In performances of all kinds. Motion telling a compelling story, balanced in rhythm, contrasting sections to shock the audience, or flowing, breezy lines of motion pulling at the heart strings. The best teachers always emphasize this adherence to story. Most of us inward...
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Living in a Simulator

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  We are all probably living in a simulator. If you extrapolate the ever increasing realism of the “metaverse” over the next hundred years, considering that the largest companies are now dumping tens of billions of dollars into it, you will come to realize that we will reach total realism in this virtual world, not being about to tell real from fake. The next mental leap, easy enough taken, allows you to realize that if we can achieve it, then it probably has already been achieved before somewhere in the universe. Whoever achieves this ability will be able to make unlimited virtual versions of this universe in simulations. Therefore, there is a good chance, or actually almost definite chance that we are living inside of a simulation as in the Matrix. Ok, many of you have already taken this in. Now, I have to ponder another inevitability that I alone seem to ponder. The reason for life. If all life tends to evolve toward complexity in the long run, then the end goal will be to...
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