we live in a world without a safe space to solidify our minds

If you read what I write is not that hard to see that I think in a very unstructured and liquid way. That’s a deliberate choice and I’ll try to give my reasoning as to why no modern thinker should have a structured and solidified system of thinking like the previous generations did.

Lets first examine what is a structured and solidified way of thinking.

The first component is the belief system; the group of ideas that the thinker assumes true. Things like the nature of reality; the existence of god; if reality is objective or subjective, among others. The thinker may provide his reasoning for believing in those truths, but that reasoning will be done in his way of thinking, which itself depends on those truths.

The second component is the reasoning system; the way in which the thinker determines how truthful and idea is. More analytical thinkers will use some kind of logical system to derive their ideas from their axioms and therefore find them true. More axiomatic and intuition heavy thinkers will first have an idea from observing reality and them reason if that idea fits into their belief system.

And with those two components, beliefs and reason, a thinker creates a coherent system of thinking. Then, armed with their system, the thinker starts to create models and concepts to abstract components of reality into something comprehensible. Once the model is developed enough we call it a “philosophy”.

The core problem is that all abstractions, all thinking, all models, are inherently simplifications. Which is fine as simplifying something into something comprehensible is a necessary step for modelling it; and then, empowered with the model, you start to study it, and, once the analysis shows the limitations of the model, you improve it. But in a globalized and interconnected world a thinker is exposed to so many systems of thinking and realize their limits so fast that is almost impossible to be attached to any of them.

Some of those systems of thinking have an objective reality; some are centered on the subject; some with an individualized sense of self; some with the self as just a part of the whole; some empirical; some spiritual. And all of them, if you think about it seriously enough, with equally good arguments. Each useful for analyzing a specific part and scope of reality, and completely inadequate for others.

Attempting to create a comprehensible system that gets us closer to the “truth” is laughably obvious to be a fools errand to anyone living in the modern world. The closest thing a thinker can have is their own method of not going insane while absorbing the amount of information readily available and constantly flowing and changing that we are exposed to daily.

A more modern and sophisticated approach is choosing the right way of thinking for each task, while being conscious of the limitations and contradictions that come associated the beliefs that come with it, and making the necessary adjustments in real time to fit it to the problem. The problem is that if you survived without going insane in modern reality, you are so finely tuned to find contradictions and limitations in ways of thinking that you can’t structure the adjustments you made without, in the process, finding the contradictions and limitations of your own thinking. And while you keep trying to fight to keep your thinking limited enough to fit into a box so you can wrap it, the world already changed so much that those adjustments are already inadequate to tackle it.

The mind of a modern thinker is not a palace or a temple, instead, more close to a favela: with more inhabitants than it should and forced to constantly change and evolve to survive.

of the beginning

Our sense of self is not rooted in what we are, but instead, what we aren’t. It’s not meant for understanding, it’s for exclusion, protection.

We play a sum zero game in a positive sum reality. And it is breaking our souls.

Each day we find a problem and are forced to deal with it alone. Each day we are convinced, and convince ourselves and each other, that we are alone. All the while living collectively.

The individual flourishes when individualism dies

There are many problems that humanity is facing. Many of which are very urgent. Many of which we all have ideas on how to solve. But we feel that we have no chance of solving any of them. We are confined to do our jobs, that we inherently know have no meaning, while we watch society as we know collapses.

Maybe it’s because we live in an era of a collapsing empire. Maybe we are at the brink of a new, marvelous, chapter of human history. Maybe we are at the end. The only thing I know is that it feels unbearable.

reality

How do you describe something that only exists as a motion? How do you describe something that the moment that you look at it it already changed into something else? How do I describe a philosophy that by the nature of what it is, it isn’t a philosophy?!

That’s the problem in my writing. The focal point is never what I’m writing about. As with any piece of human produced knowledge, the focal point is the human that produced it. That’s the interesting part. That’s the unique part.

But the problem is that I refuse to solidify into something. I refuse to stop flowing. Any of my analogies exist only to analyze the thing that I’m analyzing and only for the amount of time that I’m doing that analysis.

I have no intent of ever creating a method of analyzing reality that is a one size fits all and that stays solid for long enough to be described and developed into a philosophical system. I believe those things are relics of the past. We live in a time where a thinker is not someone who has a great way of thinking, instead, it is someone who is great at constantly creating ways of thinking. Each day, each week, each year, our world is completely different and needs complete reevaluation.

I said before and I’ll say it again, If you believe you’re sane you have gone completely insane. There’s is something extremely wrong with anyone who is sane in a world like ours.

to be heard.

Although writing comes with the advantage of being heard by many more people than I can access by simply talking, it comes with it’s own disadvantages. Mainly, the principal component of an effective communication to be heard and understood: hearing. The relationship between the writer and the reader is a one way street.

Because of that, writing (and the same applies to videos) is a very violent form of communication. I, a foreign agent, am inserting thoughts into your head without you having the option to intervene. Your only options are to either stop or continue. You can’t ask me a question, point a contradiction in my line of thought or do any sort of contribution to the process.

I wish I could simply talk to you. But sadly, I don’t find many people interested in talking about the things that interest me. Maybe I’m too arrogant. Maybe I think too highly of myself so I don’t let others change me so I become interested in what they are. Maybe this is simply who I am.

Normally my texts are directly related to the title. As I find this form of communication an extremely blunt tool without the elegance that I need, I restrain myself to simply writing about a single subject at a time. That way the reader at least consents to the cognitive violence that entails afterwards. But this time I’ll allow myself to express myself a little more.

My other texts are extremely disorganized. They are simply me writing as I think, without any regard for the reader. It’s simply me screaming for help. Desperately wanting to be heard and understood. But I think the time has come for me to starting addressing the limitations of the medium. I think that from now on I’ll be more cognizant of the reader. That if I want to be understood, I should write something understandable. That instead of aspiring to be a crazy/genius/god, I should just be a human. But maybe that’s the most inhuman thing that I could do.

I would love to make a career of being a writer — mainly because I like writing and it feel “natural” for me — so then I could have free time to do other things. That would allow me something that I find essential to being a good writer: have a fulfilling life. You need varied experiences to have inspiration, otherwise you have nothing of note to write about.

I have a blog in Portuguese that I wrote poetry and various sort of things for 14 years. It registered a big part of my life. I ended it with a puzzle: a text with a password. If you read my texts in there and understand who I am, you can guess the password. Two people so far have correctly guessed it.

Now I want to start writing in English, so more people can read. As it is not my native language I don’t yet express myself as well as I do in Portuguese. But that’s fine, I think the essence of what I want to express still comes through.

But with all of this is kinda hard to explain why I keep writing. Nobody, besides family and close friends, read what I write. I don’t really have the expectation of becoming a professional writer — the things that I want to write are not really compatible with a book (at least I can’t imagine it). And although It sounds incredible, I don’t think that I’m good enough to be a Kafka, where people discover my writings and I become famous after my death. What I write will probably only exist in a forgotten corner of the internet and as fragments inside the minds of AI’s.

Why I write? Because I like to write. Because it’s fun. Because I’m bored. Because I have something that I need to say. Because I would love to become famous and be heard by many. Because I’m human.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you more than you can comprehend. Have a good life.

the silent war that governs everything that happens

You can think of the universe as a virtually infinite fluid dynamics system.

Every system has multiple vector (arrow) components contributing to the system behavior. And each system behavior is a vector of an even larger system. Ultimately, the largest system, that encompasses the whole universe and all systems contained in it, is entropy. All things converge to equilibrium - that is, with our current understanding of the universe, of course.

Applying this to our society we can divide it as a complex system and its subsystems. From the smallest actions constituting vectors, to their collective convergence leading to nations starting wars and making economic decisions.

But there’s a key difference in the systems of humans: we reason. Differently than other species and other entities in general, our “actions”, our vectors, have intent. This is intent is derived from our individual model of reality. So, naturally, those with more sophisticated models can take actions with higher accuracy to achieve their goals. Those that can model and predict the effect of their actions with greater accuracy will have a disproportional effect on the convergence of the whole system. And, sadly, human cognitive abilities are not equal on all individuals.

These individuals - lets call them “thinkers” - that have a higher effect on the overall direction that the human race all eventually realize this, the ability that they have that most don’t. And once they do they have a choice to make: use this ability for the greater good, or for themselves. We see this everywhere: billionaires using their wealth to gain political power to become even more powerful; philanthropists trying to create institutions that will outlive them; scientists dedicating their lives to solving humanities toughest problems; teachers; and so on.

Although on a low level, I consider myself a thinker - and one that wants to use their abilities to the greater good of the human species. But while trying to do so I realized something: there are many places for people that want to use their abilities for personal gains to gather, but not many for those that want the greater good. I haven’t yet found a place where I can find people that also understand this and want to do something about it. People that recognize that thinkers have a responsibility to employ their abilities on improving the living conditions of the human race.

My writing is an attempt at that. We need to gather, organize and start creating communities that others can find.