New year, New yap

no doubt misguided rambling.

Time is subjective and not a real thing. There is a culture of creating new years resolutions and then constantly disappointing yourself and others when you fail to meet your own expectations within a said timeframe. Time, dates, days, weeks, hours, it is all irrelevant. The only thing that exists is the current moment and the presence of mind to experience said moment. Time is simply a measure of change. The individual mind has the power to influence said change. The more that changes, the slower 'time' goes. The more that remains constant, the less brainpower is involved and the faster 'time' goes.

Time is a conception generated by the human brain. It is not real. It is an agreed upon conception. GMT, GMT+9, GMT-9. A collective fiction, generated to bring order to a collective chaotic experience. Initially we measured planets passing through the night sky, phases of the moon, passages of the sun, changes in environmental factors (seasons). We measured and calculated change itself - we applied numbers to the movements of the planets, the movements of the earth itself, an entire language of mathematics devoted entirely to figuring out which section of change is occurring currently.

They say time is relative. How does time look to a tree? How does time look to a rock? A mountain? A bee? We experience change within a frame of 70-80 'years' roughly. A tree experiences change within 100-1000 'years'. What does a millennium look like to a tree ? A brief passage of change? What does a human life look like relative to a planet? Our planet has been 'alive' for 3.5 billion years. Humans have been 'human' for 0.01% of that. We have invented 'time' in that miniscule %. We have measured change and that is all. A day is simply the passage of the sun. A month the passage of a moon. A season the unit of change of our environment. etc. Fascinating really.

So what use is a resolution. You make a resolution based on what? The collective fiction of a date. A resolution does not need a timeframe or a starting point. A resolution comes from within your bones and soul, it does not rely on time, it relies on action and will. Nobody who makes a resolution to stop smoking on january 1st will ever actually stop smoking - because they do not want it. They do not want it, they just think they want it. And a change of number on a calendar is a good time to say 'let us do this thing i think i want now'. it is a delusion. The smoker who wants to quit using cigarettes will quit cigarettes at the exact 'time' that they consciously and subconsciously choose to quit. A change of number on a calendar lends no creedence to your internal will/habits/patterns. You will act when when you can no longer do otherwise. Until that 'time' your resolutions are performative. You will simply disappoint yourself. There is no time to 'start' or 'quit'. The time is right now, there is not other moment. 'i will quit smoking next monday, on januray 1st'. That is not a real intention and it will not succeed. The time is now, that is the only time that exists. Next monday does not exist. Nor does last monday. It is a delusion. There is only now.

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People are strange, when you're a stranger. - The Doors

Anything outside your locus of comfort, control or knowledge is inherently obscure. They actually nailed it, despite the psychedelic haze they seemed to exist in. A foreign language, norm or even person it is all strange until you grow accustomed to it. Then the limits of ones ignorance are expanded exponentially. Every new xyz one encounters leads one deeper into ignorance and strangeness. There is no end to it. Every question answered asks 10 more. ignorance is fractal. What seemed bizarre or strange initially soon compounds into a vast array of matters one must accept they will never understand. There is a fear in the unknown naturally. There must also be a moment of recognition - what you do not understand will never truly be understood and the pursuit of knowledge will only lead to increasing awareness of ignorance. Science, philosophy, all manner of intellectual pursuit inevitably lead to simply more ignorance. It is a blessing of curiosity and a frustrating curse, forever learning more and forever not knowing fully. Anything we know now will inevitably be, at worst - disproven in exchange for a whole new suite of possibilities or at best - turned into a stepping stone for the next new paradigm. The strange just keeps getting stranger. We figured out we revolve around the sun, then the sun revolves around a black hole. What next?

People. What is a person. What is a group of persons. Why do they believe in higher entities. Why do they kill each other. Why do they love each other. Why do they form groups and bands and tribes and governments and nations and clubs. What do they do every day. Why do they do it. Who do they think are. Who do they believe they are. Why do they believe that. Why do they hate, love, fear, admire, revere each other simultaneously. Who started to speak first. Who thought of god first. Who thought of war first. Who thought of going down on another one first. Who thought of shaving first. Who thought of washing their pits first. Who went over that first hill/treeline/savannah/plain first. Why did they do it. Was it fear. Was it curiosity. Were they alone. Was it a group of them. Did they come back. Or never return. Why did everyone else follow? To find a body or follow a body. To follow a herd of food perhaps, or the weather or any number of things. Why did they cross seas. Oceans. Forests, plains and jungles. Fighting, finding, feasting, feuding, floundering. One long succession of questions and inquiries from the very start to now. To what extent is our consciousness, our language, our awareness a survival mechanism or a gift. We are the ultimate dominators. We have bent reality to our will. We will soon dictate to mother earth what she once dictated to us. Weather, winds, atmospheres, densities, smogs, sunlight, pollutions. the powers of nature itself are soon in our reach, the scope of nature is in our hands. we can destroy it all. we can save it all. we can crush anything we despise, from mosquitoes to flu to cancer to uighurs. we will have ultimate control over all we can see and touch. this is not unrealistic to imagine, we have already altered the entire ecosystem of earth to suit us, we have fiddled with the climate to make it a bit cosier as well. We have created the tools of control. And simultaneously we will create our successor. a digital life form that we will inevitably fade in relevance to.