Shores of Night

 Morning, how are you?  I wanted to check, because it feels like we rarely take the time to ask, and that's something I find sad. As a Brit, the default answer is usually "fine",  noncommittal response that conveys nothing but a "I don't want to talk to you about it".  It's a sort of conversational wheel, designed to move things on to work or whatever we deem to be more important. At times I think we only ask because its considered polite, and a genuine answer would be met with consternation. Certainly, I find that when I remember something someone's told me, they react with confusion simply because that wasn't expected. It's quite sad, that we are used to what might be described as benevolent indifference, and suggests to me that we're still trapped by our troop size no matter how times we claim to be as clever as fuck. More than that, I feel that we're told pretty consistently that we don't matter, and encouraged to live vicario...

So, last night I learned that the second Critical Role  campaign has come to an end, which I found somewhat dismaying, because I'm still listening to the first campaign! At the time of writing Vox Machina are about to battle Umbrasyl the black dragon outside Westruun. A group of evil, and very old, dragons have basically screwed things up big time for the rest of Exandria (the fictional world), and the PCs have to find some magic doodads that can help them defeat the baddies...  There, you're mostly caught up to where I'm at now. I'm very much playing catch up, and love listening to the podcast (I'm not in the right time zone to even think about watching live on Twitch and I prefer just having the audio - the only thing I really want to see is Matthew Mercer's amazing Dwarven Forge models, and... um, Matthew Mercer, as apparently I have a wee crush on him). I mean, yum...   Yes that's one of things I have to ask myself about  (as I mentioned in my last post)...

 So, I have some changes coming up in the next few weeks. I'm relocating from the Midlands to the south coast of England - Bournemouth to be specific. (That's the English one, though I don't know if there are other Bournemouths, it seems a bit unlikely but who know? This is a strange planet we live on).  This means I'll be starting a new job (and I want to assure you that my opinions are mine not theirs's), and finding a new place to live (which I'm currently searching for), as well as looking to make new friends and meet new people. I'll also be turning my focus on development and trying to work out certain things that I don't want to talk about yet, but which might have mean I undertake some profound changes. I'm hoping to keep this blogging stuff up, and make it part of my daily practice - though it might become more of a journal and less of me ranting at the world. That is mostly because I hope to start making steps to doing things about what enr...

 One thing that seems very obvious to me is that humans are just apes with an inflated sense of worth. In part, that's because I currently live with a baby and am struggling to see how anyone could have doubted the monkey nature of the species. At around 17 months, the baby is pure monkey, right down to the noises she makes and how she tries to sit. That won't surprise any modern parents, but as a childless (by choice) person it came as quite a revelation to me. Beyond that - well, I find myself baffled by the refutation of Darwin's theories around evolution and can only assume that Christian doctrine was deeply ingrained and that the people who disputed it either didn't know very much about children, or very much about monkeys. Frankly, both those options seem quite likely.  It made me think about human consciousness and the way our intelligence works, which seems to me to be intrinsically tied to our troupe nature and our dependence on being part of a group. Even toda...

 I'm writing from an angry, tired, place at present. This world is too much and I'm sick of it. The problem is that "the world" is a nebulous thing for me - and it's certainly not the same as the planet. Likewise, "reality" seems to have very little to do with the science. If it did, there wouldn't be a tug of war between health (based in science, and vital for staying alive) and economics (a giant game of who's got the biggest financial dick to swing - that seems to only apply to nations). That so many countries have opted to prioritise the fiction of economics and productivity over the facts of the pandemic, and climate change, on so many occasions simply reveals us to be a narcissistic species; one that can't envisage a planet without us, even if that might be all for the better.  All my life I've been told that "reality" is important, but it always seems to be based on a set of fictions that don't exactly scan with my ow...

   Recently, I was reminded of why I dislike social media so much, and why I have no desire to be on it (with the exception of this site and my website). Part of it's to do with my mental health - I find it hard to be on sites like Facebook or Twitter because of the signal to noise which I frequently find overwhelming- but it's not just that. It's also that I'm very conscious that if you're not paying for something, you're the product. And as the Netflix film, The Social Dilemma , pointed out, we're constantly manipulated into viewing material, our attention spans hijacked for the sake of money. Youtube is reaching the point where I consider it to be unusable, and am wondering about going back to just buying music as a way to escape. In addition, it increasingly feels as if the Internet only exists for business, for shopping, and for others to make money, and I'm increasingly disenchanted with it. I suppose its a bit strange to post that on the Internet,...