I think a big part of our problem is the lack of stable lifescripts. Instead of having a clearly delineated set of rights and obligations, [young people] experiment with different identities, mostly concerned with how other people perceive and react to these identities. Traditional societies tell people what their role in society should be; our society leaves people to "wing it".
I agree. We have no stable lifescripts because industrial age scripts were terrible, and we finally threw them off in the late 20th century, but we still haven't found any good ones to replace them. So Trump is like, let's return to the terrible ones (factory jobs, Victorian morality, race/religion wars) because it's better than having none. I don't think we've had good lifescripts since we were nomadic forager-hunters, and going back to that is not realistic, so it looks like we're going to keep muddling through bad scripts and winging it, until we find some good scripts that fit our technology -- which right now is a fast-moving target.
My latest understanding of social change comes from my latest obsession, Picbreeder. Liberals see history as steady progress toward some future Utopia, while conservatives see a golden age in the past -- but these simple ideas are only good as directional pointers, not as visions of how things are. I think history is like biological evolution. There is progress everywhere, but there are also mistakes and dead ends, and there is no destiny, no place we have to end up, only a constantly unfolding variety of options.
When I'm breeding a picture, sometimes I'll notice that it has slipped from something good into something ugly, and I'll go back ten or twenty steps and try a different path. In the real world you can't do that, but in both Picbreeder and politics you can evolve the picture toward chaos, and sometimes good stuff from the past will re-emerge -- or more often you'll end up somewhere unimagined.
I disagree with almost every particular thing Trump is doing, but I agree with his instinct: the picture needs chaos. Last month I predicted that 2017 would be more catastrophic than 2016, but what I'm seeing instead is that it's weirder. Check this out: Burger King Offers an Adults-Only Valentine's Day Meal with an adult romantic toy. That's even weirder than Donald Trump being president.
Back to my obsession, my process on Picbreeder has been moving away from realism toward abstraction. I'm thinking less "does this look like something I recognize?" and more "would this make a good album cover?" My two latest are titled Space Trooper and Moon River.
Whether your default activity is helpful or harmful depends on where your mind automatically tends to go... daydreaming itself has at least three different flavors: positive constructive daydreaming, which has lots of playful, wishful imagery and plan-making thoughts; guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, which has lots of anguish and obsessive fantasies; and poor attentional control, where it's hard to concentrate on anything.
So the value of meditation is not to kill "the chattering monkey" but to work with it so that its chattering becomes increasingly helpful. Related: thanks Orin for recommending a great book on meditation, With Each and Every Breath, available free online. My other favorite meditation book is Mind Science by Charles Tart.
]]>Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange
There are treasures in the deep that you'll never find on the surface. Like a fractal, everything unfolds with more beauty the closer you look. On marijuana I'm a better person -- happier, more playful, more perceptive, with enough social intelligence to understand a subtext-heavy show like Mad Men. In a few sessions last spring I gained more self-knowledge than in the whole rest of my life. I see connections, and I feel connected.
Typically I'll do only one vape bowl per day, maybe two bowls several hours apart, or one dose of homemade edibles. The second day is often better than the first, and the third day can be almost as good. Around the fourth day I mostly just feel numb, I'm not finding anything of real value, and my body is protesting the constant thirst and deepening tiredness. So I come up to the surface, and then it's like having the bends. I can get stuff done (including posting here) but I'm irritable and unmotivated, and the only thing I look forward to is sleep.
For the last few weeks, as soon as I feel normal again, I've been going back down for more sunken treasures, and lately I've been doing creative work that's better than anything I could do sober. Last weekend as a daily warmup I did a trilogy on Picbreeder: Wizard, Shaman, and Demon. It's like having a really good job, but I'm feeling worn out from spending all my time either under the ocean or in the compression tank, and I need a "vacation".
This is the four week schedule I'll be trying next, or something close to it: 3 days on, 4 days off, 3 days on, 4 days off, 3 days on, 11 days off, and maybe it will be like traveling around the ocean to dive in different places.