Humankind invest in convenience and comfort.
We choose the path of less resistance as often as we can.
It’s what has brought us here.
Our need for it is self-fulfilling. The more we get the more we need.
“It’s a nice life you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.” Convenience warns us, knowing how much control it has over us.
Like most power it feeds on complicitness.
When we expose it it’ll become impotent. Ironically we won’t. We don’t want Trouble.
“You can’t just walk into things with your eyes half open. You’ve got to know what you’re getting into and take possession of your life. It’s a thought process you constantly have to reaffirm or you’ll drift.”
Paraphrased quote by Guy Ritchie
Among my scariest thoughts is the one that in 100.. 500.. 1000 years from now everything will still be the same. And this is harsh.. But nature takes care of a lot of problems over time. If we mess with immortality many ideas might very well outlive their relevancy.
At night
– @PierreMinik
our mind
live in dreams
At day
our mind
dreams in reality
At night
our dreams
is our freedom
At day
our reality
is our prison
At night
we believe
we are true
At day
we know
we are true
At night
At day
we are mistaken
11 år siden startede JJ og jeg vores første business sammen. Hør os fortælle historier mens vi mindes intense, lærerige oplevelser som friske og naive iværksættere. Ufiltreret og med detaljer vi ikke har delt med andre før.
In a Universe full of matter,
@PierreMinik
You are all of it to me.
Take a pause. Its the only honest advice I can wholeheartedly wish for you.
Take a pause like nobody is watching.
Take a pause. Inhale the sky. Let the waves of the oceans wash over your mind. Feel the colours of the sunset. Taste the texture of the air passing through you.
Take a pause. Be quiet for a generous moment. Notice how the nature subtly approaches you.
Take a pause. Relax your body without enforcing discipline upon it.
Take a pause. Observe the stillness coming before a storm that never arrives.
Take a pause. Enjoy the serenity of the mountains.
Take a pause not for the infinity your body will be rewarded.
Take a pause celebrating how swiftly you can reach nowhere.
Take a pause to thank your heart for its loyal beats.
Take a pause. Find comfort in how the universe informs the answers to your questions.
Take a pause. Experience your blood calmly dance to the music of your heart.
Take a pause not because its the only thing that is efficient.
Take a pause as your soul undergo a soothing rebirth.
Take a pause to honour the long journey that brought you here.
Take a pause. Preserve your heat like snowflakes coming together to protect the landscape from another cycle.
Take a pause to see your thoughs from a far.
Take a pause. Contemplate the language of the space that surrounds you.
Take a pause to appreciate the curve you were granted by time.
Take a pause. Sense life showering you with kindness.
Take a pause. Take a pause like your body, conciousness and innerself are friends finally reunited.
Take. A. Pause. Its the only place you can release you worries into the abyss without retaliation.
My glass is almost empty.
But I don’t care.
My card will be declined if
I try to buy more to drink.
But I don’t care.
I was way too tired
to go out in the first place.
But I don’t care.
I had important things
planned for tomorrow that
aren’t likely to happen.
But I don’t care.
Everyone pushes to
party harder.
But I don’t care.
The others think I’ve grown
weak declining their free beer.
But I don’t care.
I don’t care.
I’m as drunk as I need to be
and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
The only thing that matters is
I finally have her undivided attention.
The rest was, as they say,
a journey meant to be. ❤️
@PierreMinik
You can believe it to be contradictory but even within despair, in its heart of hearts, there lies hope.. Because a condition of despair… Still assumes a life to be lived and that means a chance of meaning to be meant.. and love to be loved. Life is always worth losing.. Because it is worth living.
PS: If you came here from social media the cover image is from a recently released music video I was a part of by Frederik Elsner.
Downside up and outside in
I’m not laughing. You’re laughing.
These giggles are not of joy.
They’re giggles of sadness.
I find a comforting freedom in the shadows. When I feel the society and the norm is periodically bordering insanity I find relief in turning things around and look at the opposite of conventional wisdom.
Also inverting some popcultural sayings and cliches can be super fun. 
We don’t always need a positive outlook on life. Theres no valid rational nor irrational reason to keep the witchhunt on negative emotions going except to ackowledge that some people desperately are in dire need of that witchhunt for their own sake. That is okay as long as you remind yourself to resist needlessly punishing yourself for having negative emotions. 
Many of us impart our views upon the world believing they are gonna hit with the force of mass extinctive astroid impacts.
More often than not they barely delivers the severity of a mosquito flying about while one tries to sleep.
Which is a good thing.
World views should at worst just briefly keep others up at night. It shouldn’t be something that envelops masses of the world in fear for their lives.
We still have a lot to learn when it comes to communicating humanely at the scale of a connected mankind.
One thing that we have yet to understand is the freedom we fuel evil every time we proclaim another human being to be a monster.
Call someone a monster enough times and sure enough the evil within anyone of us will find a breeding ground to roam more viciously and corrupt the growth of benign ideas.
“You are lucky”
they self-assuredly assert
“You have double of everything”
they proclaim so sure of themselves
Two heritages
Two mother tongues
Two families
Two homes
Two places to belong
It’s the lie
in any one of them
that shatters the shelter
of all the other lies
meant to comfort
Time and time again
they show you
in words and in actions
that you are never
to belong to either
You vividly recall
when you understood
that it is always
all or nothing
and never both
at the same time
Full of doubt
and uncertainty
you trade to get
temporary
freedom and peace
as you choose
a stance
a loyalty
a default
And with the
pledge of allegiance
worn as a faux mask
you feel as if
you’ve sold your soul
for something
that was just meant
to hide the
rage and agony
In the researching I do I try to beware of my own biases on the subject and what I bring with me that might cause something to be considered less or more favourably.
Confirmation bias is one that I’m extra cautious about and seems to be one of the easiest to notice once you start looking which isn’t without irony in itself.
We’ve all been there: that meeting where someone mentions some product or service you have known about for quite a while but hasn’t considered in a long time and after the meeting you suddenly start seeing ads for that product or service on social media or elsewhere on the internet thinking that your phone or the meeting software recorded your conversation.
You can easily get a bit paranoid but coming from both a tech and communications/marketing world you know it’s just our brain messing a bit with us. Either the ads were already there and you just weren’t noticing them because they were like elevator muzak to your mind, or in most cases today, you researched (or someone near you) researched something that brings forth that service in a sort-of-speak-of-the-Devil kind of way.
My recent searching has been in several directions as always but two directions that I thought lived on different paths somehow ended up colliding as if they lived on the same spherical planes.
It probably was just a mere coincidence more than it was my brain remembering something very distantly connected.
One of the directions was about some famous artists and great thinkers, like da Vinci and Einstein, and their way of thinking using external tools.
Bonus: I recently was in awe of this quote attributed Einstein but I could not verify it:
“My pencil and I are smarter than I am.”
Writing my first book in December I discovered the value of externalising my thinking and has since been fascinated by different kinds of thought visualisations and mental models.
For some reason all of these fascinations always seems to be rabbit-holes for me where I deep dive into an entirely new universe with their own weirdness and wonders all over that I mostly never looked upon in that light.
This thought probably was a bit struck by my new washing machine sounding like a game-menu-level-selector when you power it on because I got stuck while reading about Leonardo da Vinci and I started pondering who the other “turtles” in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were named after.
I couldn’t remember what Michaelangelo was known for… But I got distracted as always and ended up reading about Sumerian kings on the list of Sumerian kings which apparently only has one known female monarch on it and that had a reference to [something] Uruk and then I pondered why a name in the earliest known civilisation had a name sounding primitive like Uruk-hai from Lord of the Rings kind of way. It was a “A rose by any other name […]”-moment and my confirmation bias alarm started ringing so I let it go.
The second direction was about cocktails which I really like for both their aesthetics and pocket philosophy. And taste, of course. And any disciple abundant of mechanical gadgets can be certain it’ll catch my attention.
Alcohol in Greenland as well as many places I guess is considered poisonous for you and consumption is portrayed as entirely self-irreverent.
I definitely believe it can be both, especially if you develop bad habits around alcohol during troubling times of your life. It’s deadly if you get to know it as a form of absolutism.
But I also know it can bring good things to life too. Cocktails for me is a way of acknowledging that it can be awesome if respected and cared for. It can show that if you approach it as a process rather than for its result it’ll be very rewarding.
Cocktails don’t even need to have alcohol content in them to be worthwhile. Something I offent get reaffirmed in, and recently by Ivy Mix when she mentioned a friend of hers had published a book called Drink What You Want. Her friend, John deBary, apparently started a brand called Proteau which makes cocktails that are zero-proof, ie. without any alcohol.
Anyway… I started playing with the name/word Mix in a visual way. I wanted to make an animation (which I am not very good at yet but I enjoy trying) with a cocktail getting filled. Researching what MIX in roman letters was I stumbled upon the Sumerian number system and even when searching for the name origin it seemed to be a shorthand of a deity-entity named Michael. Searching further on that I stumbled on a quote that really resonated with me:
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
Michaelangelo
Either way, I ended up getting consumed by these thoughts and made a logo-like illustration that I might one day use for something.
The tagline is starting to grow on me. It seems to reflect my way of dwelling way too deep into something trivial or nonsensical. 😉
“Snowstorm in a cocktail glass.”
Pierre Minik
I know what you are thinking. I was there once too. I was silently thinking those thoughts. They’re not uncommon for anyone in your position… The time has come for me to intervene. Believe me, when I tell you, you’re destined for even more greatness than you pursuit.
I know… We don’t believe in fate, so it’s a bit ironic to claim this. Yet, history has shown that time and time again irony is inevitable. Irony is just a mere illusionary connection we believe to be relevant.
There’s nothing in your past that signifies believing that you will amount to anything near what I know you will achieve.
Which ever prism you choose to look at your past through you are an outlier and all odds are against you.
Look around you. You are an imposter. Just like everybody else.
That is irrelevant in itself but combined with your hunger for both more and less that’s exactly the necessary environment for this… It’s the catalyst for this… Process… It’s the cocktail you need to stay thirsty.
You have fallen so many times you stopped counting. I would be lying if I told you you’re done falling.
The fallings.. They’re coming for you. They’re not there to stop you, however. Sometimes… They’re there to hone you… And other times they’re there to take you a part so you can assemble yourself better.
How you decide which parts to keep and which parts to discard is important but whatever you get rid of will hold precisely the weight that keeps you from soaring.
I know you’re doubtful… And rightfully so. Trust the doubt. It’s the doubt that you need to drive you even further.
I know all of this to be true and I’m aware that you have no good reason to believe me. After all, I’m wrong all the time and so are you.
But it’s just like the math teachers who thought you were cheating because you had the correct answers upon request but couldn’t yet connect your answer to the formula.
You are exactly where you need to be. It’s not an easy place to be in but embrace what brought you here. Your life is preparing you like a chef working on getting their mise-en-place perfect.
All the variables that needs to be right before you get there are brute-forcing behind you like the surfers lining up anticipating their next good wave.
It’s not your decision when, how and why they will align. All you can do is keep preparing and pursuing it.
You’re right where you need to be… For now. You have much to learn still and one of them is this:
Success like failures are just outcomes. Both relies on many things. Most of which are not even in your control.
The chaos is unsettling. You can’t calm the chaos yet you must keep questioning what affords your unruliness.
It’s your disrupting questions and mind-at-battle that will bring your ducks in a row.
Your questions are not comfortable and you are not meant to be comforted by them. Stick with the preposterousness and snuggle the process till you’re able to walk the talk.
It won’t be easy.
It will be worth it.
Don’t hold back.
For neither more or less.
Lastly I will say one last thing. I say this only because I’m confident we can endure it. It’s my parting gift till we talk again. Be wary as it’s a trembling thought:
You will instil to greatness and in the process you’ll achieve more than you think is possible. Will it matter?
Yours truly,
System 1
You’ll meet a lot of people, who, to put it simply don’t know what they are talking about.
In 1970, a CBS executive famously said that there were four things you would never ever see on television:
A divorced person, a Jewish person, a person living in New York City and a man with a mustache.
By 1980, every person show on television was about a divorced Jew who lives in New York City and goes on a blind date with Tom Selleck.Develop your own compass and trust it. Take risks. Dare to fail.
Remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.
Aaron Sorkin (May 13 2012, during commencement speech at Syracuse University)
The speech is well-worth listening to in its entirety.
Embedded within languages are multitudes of interpretive perceptions describing our inner and outer space; any of which are worthwhile experiencing as they’re explored.
If you haven’t been in Nuuk you wouldn’t know about our lack of proper sidewalks. Walking within the city often means walking along the roads to some extend.
If you stand close to the road when an ambulance with an active siren drives your way, you take a step back.
You don’t do it for your personal safety, however.
Here, as far as I know, an ambulance responding to a medical emergency has never hit anyone and there is usually enough space everywhere for both driving safely and walking despite the lack of proper sidewalks.
But you do it to respect the ambulance driver and for the ambulance drivers cognitive load. You take your step back to signal to the driver you have seen him and that you will allow him to drive past you without having to worry about your movement.
It’s an instinctive response and we do this for several reasons but I think it mainly comes down to that we care. We’re a small town and anyone the hospital porter is driving out to help could be someone you care about or someone whom you know care about.
Taking a step back is an effortless movement for us. It’s a tiny price we very willingly pay for much-needed peace-of-mind for someone about to help another human being in what may be a matter of life and death.
Likewise, upon stumbling into a funeral procession, regardless of our driving direction, we collectively used to pull over and wait along the side of the road till the procession had passed. A lot of drivers still do this. It feels a lot like a natural response but it’s an unspoken gesture and because it’s not mentioned those whom may not know about this probably won’t do it.
Pulling over and taking a brief pause from the always busy race of commute-travelling is a signal to acknowledging the grief of those participating in the funeral.
Every action you take is a signal to those who may gaze in your direction.
Often I catch myself speaking ill of the sheep of society because I feel like there is so much in this world that could be better and the bystanders help maintain the status quo by providing a sense of righteousness for those who benefit from the status quo.
I do this despite really not liking to talk ill about almost anyone because there’s usually nothing others are doing that I haven’t already done myself or could imagine myself doing at some point.
And it’s kinda bizarre because I think and talk shit to myself about myself all the time. It isn’t till I utter the illness towards others I realise the harm my thoughts and words can convey.
Even the best of us will make mistakes. It’s inevitable as all of us really know nothing in the bigger sense.
Our critics are usually right in some sense. We, when we critique ourselves, are usually right as well in some ways.
But mostly it isn’t important if we are right. Being right is almost always not important. What actually, and eventually, matters most is simply the process of being less wrong.
What ever cause you choose to champion remember to keep in mind why you do it. It will have its price. Whoever and whatever you care about will one day perish. The nature of existence is to cease. As it should be.
“Death is the tax we pay for living.”
So, what is it to you?
Last week I meant to write a bit about the economics of personality and affordance of personal perspectives but instead I ended up writing about the volatility of perception. I actually had to go back and change my original title to reflect the change in subject.
If you came here from my social media profile you saw the post thumbnail had a quote from a wishful message I wrote to my mother during the wake of COVID-19. Roughly translated the message was:
“[…] Others fears the world will never be the same again, as if that is a bad thing. I hope the world will not be the same. That we learn deeply and begin to appreciate each other more and become more inclusive.”
I’m starting to believe this could actually be the outcome once this atrocity fades. I get the butterflies that makes me believe we could be at the beginning of the eradication of agonism.
Yet I fear that we might overshoot too far and end up on a dangerously bad track.
One of the few things I know to be true is that shadows are a great place to hide things which are too delicate to survive in the blisteringly bright light. I know the shadows for some provides freedom to those whom can’t afford the exposure that comes with the light of normalisation.
This freedom I talk about is not freedom of speech or the so-called freedoms our laws describe we should have.
I talk about simplere freedoms that I can only sum up as being like a tomboy amidst a gang of boys. It’s the kind of freedom that allows one to be the individual before being a component of a group.
The kind of liberation of that comes with embracing the ugly when everyone else only wants beauty (yes, a sarcastic piece but it holds relative truths if you look beyond the surface).
The result of limiting freedom is usually always radicalisation.
Mind you that the shadows does not only provide refuge for wicked things.
Instead of going all out on this subject I’d instead like to share a sample chapter of my first book about my personal account of having schizophrenia. It’s in danish but hopefully should be readable with an online translator.
The chapters is about destructive thoughts I rarely get to share with people because we commonly prioritise the accommodation of positivity or superficiality.
Sidenote 1: If you like the chapter and can read danish I share my book with anyone interested free of charge. Just contact me to get a copy or ask about it in the comments here or on social media.
Sidenote 2: I don’t know if or when the book will be published as I currently don’t possess the cognitive surplus to find a suitable publisher or even make a decision about how to publish it.
Before I share the chapter I’ll leave you with another (translated) quote from my book:
“Sometimes I discover tiny pieces of peoples imagination that advocate we as humans collectively can’t comprehend the depth of our thoughts yet and therefor only converse superficially with each other wherein we gloss everything.”
The book chapter is titled in english. The content however is written in danish:
Jeg føler en hvis trang til at skrive om nogen af de destruktive tanker jeg har for jeg føler bogen misrepræsentere mit sind proportionelt hvis man ser på stemningen i bogen generelt.
Der er bider af selvødelæggelse og masser af spor af personlige kampe men alt dette er skrevet i et opstemt sindsleje.
Smerten går en del dybere end det og hvis du er let påvirkelig eller har en livlig fantasi vil jeg anbefale at du springer til næste kapitel.
…
Organiseret menneskeliv på jorden vil kollapse. Jeg tror det er indenfor vores eller vores børns generations tid.
Jeg ser mange indikatorer på at det vil ske i en ikke fjern fremtid.
Først og fremmest har vi som menneskehed været absurd heldige når det kommer til vores lemfældige omgang med atomvåben, hydrogenbomber og alt i den kategori. Der er et dusin af veldokumenteret begivenheder hvor det har været op til enkeltpersoner at bestemme om atomkrig skulle bryde ud.
Under Cubakrisen var der russiske ubåde lige uden for USA’s grænser der blev afskåret i deres kommunikation til Rusland og med omverdenen. Amerikanske krigsskibe dybvandsbombede dem.
Besætningens protokol var at besvare ved at sende deres missiler afsted men det var på ingenmåde almindelige våben de havde om bord. Det var atomvåben.
Det kom så vidt at de ville affyre deres våben hvilket i følge deres reglement krævede 3 officerers godkendelse. 2 af officererne godkendte. Den sidste nægtede.
I 1995 sendte Norge en flertrinsraket op i atmosfæren der skulle studere nordlyset over Svalbarde. Den blev mistolket i Moskva fordi dens signatur lignede et amerikansk atomvåben der var på vej i mod Rusland.
For første gang i lang tid blev atomkufferten fundet frem og præsenteret for Boris Yeltsin. Hans folk fortalte ham der med stor sikkerhed var et missil med et atomstridshoved på vej. Hans protokol dikterede at han skulle gengælde denne. Han fik ti minutter til at beslutte sig for hvad der skulle ske.
Han gengældte ikke og dermed blev et angreb der ville have forsaget 3. verdenskrig undgået.
Dommedagsuret er i dag 2 minutter fra midnat. Det tætteste siden 1953 hvor først USA afprøvede hydrogenbomber og Rusland fulgte trop.
En dag løber vores held ud og vores tændstik knækker.
Og selv hvis vi bliver mere fornuftige med vores masseødelæggelsesvåben så lurer klima krisen over os.
Jeg ser intet bevis for at vi vil holde vores klimaforandring på et niveau der ikke skaber kolossal forandring og ødelæggelse for menneskeheden.
Folk der er uvidende tror det handler om at vi mister lidt flot natur og at der er tale om søde dyr der forsvinder. Det er ikke dét det handler om. Det handler om massedød, klimaflygtninge, tørker, skovbrande, oversvømmelser, mangel på fødevarer og mangel på drikkevand.
Og det er kun de eksterne konsekvenser vi kommer til at opleve. Så er der de menneskelige, de sociale, de økonomiske, de etiske, de organisatoriske, de civile og alle mulige andre konsekvenser der vil følge i kølvandet..
Selv når jeg siger det så er folks reaktion bare: “Ja, det lyder forfærdeligt.” men tænker at det nu nok skal gå. De føler det ikke på dem. De tror det er i et eller andet fjernt land at nogen bliver lidt ulejliget.
I mens diskuterer de om deres elbiler eller deres dieselbiler kommer til at putte mest CO2 ud i atmosfæren. Og om hvad de kan købe og forbruge for at redde verden. Og at vi nok skal stoppe med at smide plastikposer i naturen og lade vær med at bruge engangs sugerør.
Det er flueknepperi. Det er marginaler. “Øhh.. Ødelægger vi vores fremtid med 98% eller 96%? Jeg tror kun det er 96%” skriver hulemænds idioterne med deres modsatrettede tommelfingre, på deres alt for dyre smartphone, lavet af utrolig effektive slavebørn, der fastholdes i økonomisk konstruerede fængsler og kæmper for blot at overleve.
Jeg prøver skære ned på mit klimaråberi for jeg kan se at det ikke bevæger sig hurtigt nok alligevel. Jeg kan se at det blot er blevet til hult og overfladisk personlig branding når ingen af os gør noget anderledes. “Pierre hvem? Nåå ja, ham der der ved en del om klima og går meget op i det.”
Den organiseret menneskehed er tabt… Men mennesket skal nok overleve. Jeg kommer til at overleve, hvis ikke jeg altså før dør af cancer, hjerteanfald, selvmord, et biluheld, astma, hjertekarsygdomme, diabetes, leversvigt…
Og grunden til jeg kommer til at overleve? Det kaos der kommer til at regere verden over afspejler blot mit indre kaos og det har jeg pænt meget erfaring i at navigere. Jeg kan muligvis ikke fange og bære så mange rensdyr eller ramme en sæl men jeg vil kunne kompensere kraftigt med mine tankeevner, min forståelse for manipulation af andre og min kapacitet til at gøre ting med hensigt og det vil give mig alt jeg har brug for.
Det her var måske faktisk et lidt uærligt kapitel. Ikke at disse tanker ikke optager mig. Men de handler om en dystopisk fremtid. En fremtid! Det er ikke i dag. Det er uærligt for jeg oplever mindst ligeså omfattende ødelæggelser nu. Det dræner og tynger mig. Gnaver sig ind i min samvittighed. Fortærer mine drømme og korrumperer mine intentioner. Gennemsyrer mit håb. Det borer sig dybt ind i hjertet på mig. Det smerter mig som tusinde syle spidse nåle der penetrerer min hud. Det hvisker børneviser i mine ører om sniffende børn der elsker og forguder deres skæve og fordrukne forældre der i fuld offentlighed misbruger dem. Det holder mig fastspærret i en dødsdans koreograferet af dukkeførere fra helvede. Spillet opføres i et brændende teater bygget på smertefulde operationer foretaget i vågen tilstand og uden bedøvelse. Det dræber mig ved at drukne mig i blod fra teenagere der har begået selvmord. Men døden giver mig ikke fred for jeg ligger vågen i kisten og råber om hjælp men ingen hører mig. I den iskolde jord mærker jeg ormene og parasitterne fortære mig langsomt. Men kulden gør dem sløve og de gør det ikke færdigt. Efter hundredevis af vintre uden en eneste sjæl har været forbi og tændt et lys og alle har glemt der lå mennesker her i hvad de troede skulle være deres sidste hvilested bliver jeg genopdaget og graves op for at blive udstillet i et ildelugtende og klamt museum. Mine øjne er væk men jeg kan mærke væsner der er ligeglade med mig får sig et grin og noget underholdning. De stirre på min halvfordærvede men relativt velbevarede krop hvori min udødelige sjæl stadig sidder fast. Kroppen er fyldt med huller og resterne er tørre og læderagtige. Luften omkring mine rester føles som biokemiske våben og det gør de fordi det er giftige gasser, der skal hjælpe mig forblive velbevaret. Endelig en dag lukkes museet og jeg smides på lossepladsen hvor jeg ligger i blandt beskidt plastikaffald, skarpe metaldåser og glasskår der skærer ind i og snitter mine rester. Rotterne finder mig og prøver spise mig men mit legeme er blevet giftigt af bevaringsgasserne og de dør hurtigt en smertefuld død i opkast og afføring. Her får min krop lov at få sin sidste hvileplads i mellem døde rotter og deres ekskrementer. Indtil ozonlaget sprænges som en sæbebobbel og alt på jorden udslettes som havde vi aldrig eksisteret. Støvet af os alle bliver langsomt finere og finere men vores bevidsthed hænger på en eller anden mærkelig måde stadig fast i resterne. Hvad der før var en samlet enhed, en sjæl i en krop, er nu splittet i trillioner af trillioner af trillioner af atomer. Vi mærker den dybe splittelse men kan intet gøre. Solvindende der fører os ud i det tomme og endeløse univers føles som en sandblæser mod bar hud drevet af motorer fra en jetjager. Lugten er tung af solbrændt svovlsyre. Vi rejser alene og forvirret rundt i de næste millioner af år i intetheden før vi finder sammen i en ny gassky der kollapser og bliver til en ny stjerne på himlen hvor vores rester presses så hårdt i mod hinanden at vi kombineres og vi eksploderer voldsomt ud fra vores kerne. Vores fælles skæbne er at blive en ildkugle i himlen der brænder så kraftigt at helvede til sammenligning blot er en finsk vintersauna. Her brænder vi i milliarder af år og vi har for længst glemt vores ubetydelige, menneske liv. Kun for at blive påmindet om vores menneskeform når nye menneskelignende væsner rejser sig på en planet nær os. Vi ser deres udvikling og deres handlinger og fortvivles i realiseringen at vi blot er blevet en energikilde for noget der ikke engang kan nå menneskeheden til sokkeholderne. Vi genkender deres ondskab fra vores tidligere liv men de har ikke en eneste dråbe godhed i sig. De er summen af alle vores menneskereligioners dæmoner.
In my last post I touched on my notion of (non-financial) poverty, how it connects to our behaviour and what understanding poverty in a slightly different alteration can do for us.
In this post I’ll pick up one of the keywords I postponed addressing in the last post: the concept of willingly doing something.
Or perhaps more concisely unwillingly doing something which is the fabric of being a slave.
Sidenote: I’m on a new medication which makes not only a lot of cognitive functions very costly and even inaccessible at times but also manipulates the comfortability and feelings associated with the cognitive functions. My expressiveness suffers quite a bit when translated from thoughts to written words. The medication also cause some angst and a feeling of physically being unwell that result in a much less elegant flow and more frequent, more fragmented leaps which I feel are evident in this post. I don’t intend to come back and change the material when/if I regain clarity because I respect all the parts that make up the sum that this post is. The context from which I wrote this are as much a part of the post as anything else.
In many people’s perception slavery is something which is part of history. It lies distantly in the past.
During anytime there will be some who are stubbornly blind to the existence of a powerful force – like fish can be unaware of the water that grants their existence.
I describe it as stubborn because it’s a choice made that consistently have the same outcome. Right till it doesn’t.
Also know that blindness is an active part of seeing. Our eyes only see a tiny slice of the electromagnetic radiation which we call visible light.
Slavery is a powerful force that bends anything it touches.
Your immediate reaction upon experiencing slavery might be that slavery is bad… which it is… But also be aware of the need to reflect upon what bad means in this context.
How does glass bend? It doesn’t, it shatters.
How does metal bend? Most metals will resist while applying force and then spring back, overshooting slightly till it returns to its equilibrium.
Metals wears out and gets fatigue when having bended too many times and eventually it will break.
Now, the above mentioned physical behaviours depends on the temperature in which these things take place. Molten glass will bend almost fluidly and the many different ways metals can behave depending on their environment has spawned its own spectrum of concepts and vocabulary.
How does gas bend? It doesn’t, it moves and gets out of the way.
Human cultures are environments that cause the same humanness to behave differently.
Experiencing powerful forces always demands action but within some environments the most common action is inaction. The response action will stubbornly be inaction – right till it break its mold and becomes something else.
By the numbers, there are more slaves today than ever before. There even is an online tool to test your behaviour to learn how many slaves work for you.
The nature of slavery is that it’s a forced stability and forced stability is bound to become unstable. Unstable conditions are not sustainable.
What are we if not slaves to this torment?
Is a quote by one of my favourite protagonists/antagonists, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner.
Like any well-portrayed protagonist/antagonist she walks the very fine line that draws good from evil and vice-versa and her behaviour and expressions gives insights to the fluid state good and evil exists in.
This torment references the nature of existence. Ultimately we will always depend upon the rules that makes up our universe – till we figure out how to leave our universe.
Slaves to this torment touches on the nature of the unwillingness that comes with existence and the struggle it is existing.
If you place a thing in the center of your life that lacks the power to nourish it will eventually poison everything that you are and destroy you. As simple a thing as an idea or your perspective on yourself or the world. No-one can be the source of your contempt. It lies within, in the centre.
This quote is from the intro from the Faithless’ track Liontamer.
I have a few issue with this quote but mostly it has nothing to do with the quote but our common misconception of what simplicity is and what within means. Most of the quote speaks truth to me. I will dwell on simplicity another day.
Slavery at its heart is survival. It’s unwillingly doing something simply because it will prevent us from not existing.
You cannot arrest an idea.
There are people whose existence has transcended their physical being and they’ve become an idea because they refused to become slaves of dogma.
Far from everybody is meant to break the mold or transcend into an idea. Most are simply meant to exist for themselves and for those they care about. Nobody is meant to be everything for everyone. We all hold just a tiny piece of the puzzle.
So don’t feel too bad when you notice your own slavery and the prisons you exist in; or perhaps just know that feeling bad is okay.
You will come across things in life that are not what you want but what you need (SPOILER: don’t watch if you haven’t seen The Dark Knight and intend to watch it).
These things will test your willingness/unwillingness. Keep in mind they are two faces of the same coin that reflects living and survival.
In order to survive we also need to live.
To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.
To everyone who carry Kalaallit Nunaat (🇬🇱 Greenland) within their heart, happy national day. 🎉
The tags I append my posts are keywords that’ll help me find a post again. You’ll see Steve Jobs in the tags because I made a reference to his definition of dogma just like The Matrix is tagged because the last quote in the post I learned from the character Mouse in the popular movie The Matrix.