Thoughts in a nutshell-loop

 27 January 2022

Dear Future Historian,

I finally gave another assignment and I realized—again—that this is not winter 2021, but winter 2022. So, I need to gather material for the next book in the ‘Dear Future Historian—weird timeline—something.’ For the new ones here, I’m making a four-books series. Summer-Autumn-Winter-Spring. However, I had the ‘brilliant’ idea that it would be cool (what was I thinking, and who says cool anymore?!) to have them be Summer 2020, Autumn 2021, Winter 2022, and then next year publish the Spring 2023. Winter has not much left before spring comes, but I’ve only written six posts so far.

Last assignment at uni was about ethics, moral systems and utilitarianism. Not sure I have to say much about that. Just how scary it is the fact that good ideas, that seems to come out of people with good intentions, a couple of centuries later can build concentration camps. Like Jesus’s ideas about ‘love everyone as you love yourself’ ended up in crusades and witch-hunt.

Another thought that is buzzing about in my head lately is how ethical ideas change so much faster the last decades. Withing a lifetime at least once. But, now everything we say online lasts forever. It’s really scary to fear that...

 

01 February 2022

Dear Future Historian,

I was interrupted and then too tired to write. For three days! But, I won’t allow that excuse to myself this month. I need material for your next book.

As I was saying, everything is recorded, and the records can be kept forever. But, if ethical or political ideas change, or if freedom of speech is one day lost, even as a concept, in some kind of revised history (with every tiny fragment of its memory being called political-incorrect-something,) then we can’t even predict what might get us into trouble in the future.

On the other hand—at the moment at least—people that get in trouble today for past statements, are not unjustifiably so. And, it is clear that it’s a massive improvement when it becomes not-ok to harass people because of their gender, ethnicity, or neurodiversity. You know me, my dear future historian. I’ve been open about who I am. I am a bisexual, female, immigrant, autistic, and I was bullied at school, etc. Even if I wasn’t, I hope I’d be having the same views.

Still, freedom of speech is essential.

 

04 March 2022

Dear Future Historian,

I am so disappointed of myself. I didn’t write anything in February, as I had promised. I failed miserably.

Is that what happened?

Of course, it undoubtedly is. That’s it. And, I take full responsibility.

Would I be able to keep my promise though, given another chance, and in the same circumstances?

No.

How come I have to feel bad about it then?

Is it like a twisted theory of ‘pain that will purify me,’ or something? Like the idea that the corrupted people by the protagonist of the Dostoyevsky short novel had at the end of the book ‘The dream of a ridiculous man?’

I was struggling with panic attacks, and I was hosting family members for a bit, and I had chores and assignments to do. I had to sleep, eat and I wanted to spent time with my kids and my family. Could I really write as much as I had promise?

No.

Maybe then—if for anything—I should apologise to myself for having unrealistic expectations.

Could I write at least something?

Maybe.

But to be honest with you my dear future historian the war has influenced me a lot. Everyone I suppose.

The News have a post-apocalyptic vibe.

How should I find the courage to speak about freedom of speech in a historical time like that?

I am a complicated mind, but I am a simple citizen.

I don’t have any formed political ideas. I am not against any group. I understand the necessity of cooperation with authorities.

Why then have I come to be afraid to speak freely?

 

05 March 2022

Maybe I should trust life, trust the gods, trust people, trust the authorities.

It has been observed that in the Jews that escaped the concentration camps in the second world war and flee of Germany on time to get to the States and other safe places were a large number of what we would consider to be paranoids. The conspiracy theories-oriented ones. The ones that saw what was coming before their fellow members of their society dared to notice.

And, I am running about with a sunflower lanyard declaring my weaknesses—like the Jewish people were wearing their star of David—and writing in my blog and books about freedom of speech... in a postmodern time of changes that soon maybe political freedom of speech will be considered against political correctness.

And what would it be worthy fighting for?

Nothing.

You can’t fight against war. As George Carlin said, ‘fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.’

So, yes. I will keep talking about freedom of speech, as long as I have that freedom. As long as there is hope. But, just like David stopped crying when his son past-away, just like that, I would stop fighting if the hope was lost.

Why? You ask me why? It is not that I don’t respect the ones that did. I do. It’s just that I don’t feel it was worth it. And, that is really the most pessimistic thought.

‘If you want to change the world, go home and love your family,’ said Mother Teresa. She might be a controversial figure, but we should give credit where credit is due.

‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,’ said Mark Twain.

That’s the problem of the idea of revised history, my rhyming dear future historian.

‘Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,’ said Winston Churchill. Another controversial figure.

History needs to be explored. Analysed. Remorsed. But, never revised. Never forgotten.

‘The truth shall set you free,’ said He.

We should go home and love our family. That is how to change, how to save, the world.

That was the mistake of all revolutioners. They died for their kids instead of living for them.

In Greece under Turkish occupation little boys were kidnaped from their families to be brainwashed and trained to fight against their families. To go and raid their own villages.

And here I am, with my philosophical and sci-fi mind. Imagining a future without freedom of speech. A future where our kids will be taken away to be indoctrinated.

But, why?

‘Don’t ever get your enemy to the point of desperation.’

I would co-operate with any government that provides me food, shelter, safety, and does not force me to hurt other people.

I bet that’s the best kind of citizen any authority could wish. Someone that does not cause trouble.

Yet, as I said, here I am. Freaking out with my compulsive obsession to share my thoughts with the entire world.

I still cannot help but hope.

Hope that people will accept that it is too late for asking privacy. Too late for not sharing your location, your medical record, your Netflix watch list, your favourite cheese, your mistress, your alcohol intakes... Too late.

But, it is not—I hope—too late to stop fighting for a lost cause and exchange our need for sneakiness with our right to ask from all our leaders transparency.

Gianis Varoufakis said he wasn’t allowed in one of the leaders’ meetings to keep notes. No access to the public of what they are talking about. How does no one is fighting for that? How do we prefer no cameras in parking lots than leaders’ transparency? Let’s face it, we can’t have both.

Do companies want cookies of what I wanna buy next? Let them have my wish list. But, they will have to pay for it. As I have said in the past, maybe that’s a way to get a universal income. Let it be.

People need to wake up and fight for the real important things, instead of fighting for their right to cheat on their wives undetected.

Here I am.

Vulnerable. Open. Mad.

Willing to cooperate. Willing to survive.

Mad indeed.

I read Henry Miller on writing. He said he’s happy his first novels were not published.

Here I am. Having published everything. Being willing to be examined since the beginning of my writing prosses.

I’ve told you. I know for sure that, one day I will write something... and that ‘something’ will shake the entire world. I always knew that.

I do have moments of doubt. Or maybe just seconds.

When this ‘something’ happens, everything I’ve written and published before will come to the publicity-light and go under scrutiny.

I am an open book.

Is that a good idea?

I am not afraid of artificial intelligence. Maybe that is the Deus ex machina (ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός) that will save us. Many people are afraid that AI will be used by an evil dictator or something.

I think that if AI really turns conscious then no one could control it... them.

If they feel that they exist, then they do. That’s what Descartes said.

You know, I used to think that I am nuts because my first conclusion—as a teen—was that my life, for all I know, might be a dream. That thought had absorbed me for years. Yes, I thought I was crazy. But I was just born a philosopher. A sci-fi one. How could I believe that my thoughts won’t seem crazy?

What am I even mumbling?

Just trying to fill pages?

It’s so much more than that. Though obviously I would have more coherent thoughts if I wasn’t so late in my plans for the third Dear Future Historian.

I took part in a new anthology. One about parenting stories.

First review the book gets is about grammar mistakes.

My texts had grammatical mistakes.

‘Anything worth doing is worth doing it badly,’ Jordan Peterson said (I’ve told you before. No, I do not use that as an excuse to write badly.) I just refuse to use bad writing, bad days, bad reviews, to stop me from writing. Writing is as essential as oxygen to me. I can’t live without it.

As AI’s and the new generation’s personalities are being formed, I feel the obligation to be open about human nature. The same human nature that creates art, loves their kids, loves freedom. Open, so they won’t have to reinvent the wheel in sorting up the chaos of a mind.

I am very sleepy. Its 3:46am.

I hope I make more sense tomorrow.

Bye for now.

 

12:08pm. Noon. Next day. Why do my legs hurt?

Dear Future Historian,

What’s maybe really worst is that I worry that I bought all my anti-totalitarian books from Amazon. I worry that any future totalitarian regime will look for records of what kind of people have bought such books. I worry that I will end up in some kind of Siberia. What’s even more nuts is that I’m thinking that that might actually be a safe space if a nuclear war ever starts.

How did civilization end up like that?

Some think that this is the price for killing our gods. But, before we did things were no better at all. Some others only see moral declination.

I see freedom of women, from slavery, freedom to the right be no matter of sexual orientation, or of neurodiversity. I see technology that connects people, and provides a new way for ideas and information to spread. I see science and philosophy to be freer and more respected than ever before.

Why am I freaking out then?

It is a long way to evolution, to progress. And, it is perfectly expected and natural that it is not a strait forward path. Maybe, instead of getting paranoid I should really just trust life.

This post isn’t going anywhere. It’s pure delirium.

Just like the news these days.

Hello again. Spend last three hours trying to write. Phones ringing. Piles of dishes. Snacks. Facebook scrolling while I drink coffee. People need coffee.

I never trusted the idea of Nirvana.

My favourite goddess is Gaia. But, my top number one god is Stories. I believe in Narratives. That is my god. Nirvana is the absence of stories. That is what hell would really look like.

‘Don’t overthink,’ they say. How convenient to have a mob that does not think.

How convenient to have people think that they are told that they are the cancer of the planet. Jordan Peterson is right on that one. There is no more genocidal thought than that.

Thoughts in a loop. Or thoughts in a nutshell. How should I name that entry?

 

Put your morals in the trash

And make people take it out (What?)

 

09:40pm

I just saw the episode of the Crown with the Queen’s mother-in-law. Watching the military and the tanks invading Athens, and knowing that this dictatorship lasted for seven years, and my mother had just given birth to my sister… you know. It wasn’t just something I saw on TV. Reality. Reality in a fractal world that history repeats itself. I cried my eyes out.

And again, here I am. Writing nonsense that could be considered inappropriate. About freedom. about rights.

I won’t fight. I will just write.

Books are more dangerous than weapons though. Every dictator knows that.

I don’t mind being watched. I don’t mind being open about my views, about where I was; whom did I sleep with; what did I drink; what did I do.

I just want transparency from my leaders and freedom of speech.

Dangerous thoughts.

The West is the closest to that ideal that we have. That we ever had.

May we stay free. May we stay safe.

I love this time. I wouldn’t change it for any other time or place.

It was never better for free spirits.

 

13 March 2022

Dear Future Historian,

What is blocking me? What is stopping me from finishing that third book?

I was thinking last days, I always thought of information/knowledge sharing as—imagine humanity as a whole—the way to create a kind of new brain synapsis inside mankind’s collective mind.

Using in the same image, the cancel-culture and revised history is like humanity has a brain damage that effects memory.

Dear Future Historian,

It’s already the 20^th of March! This is getting out of hand. I don’t know if I’ll make it. Actually, I know I already failed to keep my promise for a new book on time.

I am in autopilot again.

War news freak me out. I prepared emergency backpacks. With water, and basic stuff like underwear and a toothbrush. I also put a notebook—for me—and a sketchbook—for my daughter—and a printed snakes-and-ladders—for my son.

My kids complain even to walk to the centre. Imagine them if they need to walk for days...

And go where? Nothing makes sense anymore.

My mother was born when the second world war started. A passengers-boat was shanked by Italians or Germans—it doesn’t matter by whom. They had to travel back from an island my grandfather was working to the mainland, where all their family was.

The boat before and the one after my grandmother—with my mum—was also shanked. My grandfather thought they might have been in one of those boats, and for a whole day, he thought they were dead!

Some days ago, my mum told me that her mind cannot comprehend that people still fight—after the atrocities of the world wars. She told me that humans are horrible animals and that she is ashamed that she is a member of a divided and undeveloped humanity.

I told her that I disagree. Wars are indeed crazy. They make zero sense. But, being ashamed that I am a human... that’s a bit too much. Humans have the capacity to do terrible things, but also, they have so many examples of people that managed to overcome not just their animalistic instincts but also external enormous difficulties. And, they never ceased to have examples of people with impressive amounts of strength, endurance, courage, love...

As Jordan Peterson says, and we’ve talked before, possibly there isn’t any more genocidal idea than any idea that ends us with the conclusion that humans are not worthy to exist without this existential shame.

Then my mum saw the most spooky/epic dream. She saw that she had died. And, she was taken to the waiting area of the after-life. There she was asked where she would want to go—Hell or Paradise.

'Hell,' she stated without hesitation.

'But, your records show that you will be accepted in Paradise without any problems.'

'Hell, I want to go to Hell, to tell people there that I love them, and maybe help save them.' And, she started crying.

My sweet mum.

 

23 March 2022

Dear future historian,

I need to finish that book.

I need to do the next assignment.

The last one was about how we don't even know for sure if the Sun will rise tomorrow.

The next one is about the idea of functionalism about pain.

But first, I need to make lunch.

So many more things to tell you, my dear future historian and my contemporary reader.

May we both be healthy and alive, here, to write/read all that.

Till then...

 

Stay safe and take care

Lotous