Ran Prieur

January 6.

2021-01-06T18:00:39Z

January 6. I want to wait for some perspective before I write about the Trumpers who right now are storming the Capitol. But this is a good time to post this image of what Trump really looks like, if his orange makeup and hair are photoshopped off.

Some reddit links I've been saving up, starting with psychology, which now especially I think is more important than politics. Mental Health professionals, what small things do parents do that give their kids mental health issues later in life?

Redditors in Therapy: What is One Thing That a Therapist Has Told You That Changed Your View on Life?

Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People. The author doesn't mean it in a bad way, just that most content on the internet is created by people who are totally obsessed with that particular kind of content.

And posted yesterday on Weird Collapse, Call for suggestions for "Welcome Post", as the subreddit gets more readers. My favorite bit: "I really enjoy being able to read collapsy posts that are also shruggy."

January 4.

2021-01-04T16:40:19Z

January 4. Out of all the board games I've played, my favorite for theme is Spirit Island, because you play nature spirits trying to stop colonizers. And my favorite for gameplay is also Spirit Island. It's a super-brain-burner where you're trying to optimize a bunch of moves by different spirits working together.

Nobody I know likes to play it, but that's okay because it's perfect for solo play. A month ago I got the Jagged Earth expansion, and since then I've been playing three-spirit solo games whenever I have the time. My goal is to play a nine-spirit solo game, which will require bending the rules, buying more tokens, and getting access to a giant table.

Anyway, when you play any game a lot, you tend to see it as a metaphor for other things. In Spirit Island, there's a trade-off between gaining energy, drawing and playing cards, and placing presence on the board. So I'm thinking, in modern society, there's too much energy and card-playing, and not enough placing of presence.

What is placing of presence, in the real world? It reminds me of my favorite definition of love, by Thaddeus Golas: "Love is the action of being in the same space with other beings." It also reminds me of the practice of being fully present in each moment.

A week ago, I mentioned the metaphysical idea that heaven and hell are in this world. So a good trick for being fully present is to let go of any notion of an afterlife, or greater success in this world, and just say, what if this, right here, is heaven. Of course, if you're having a bad day, or a bad life, it's more realistic to say this is hell. But you can start with a good moment on a good day: smoke some weed, go on a walk, watch a sunset, and imagine that you're already in heaven, this is it.

From the Tao Te Ching: "Without desire, to observe the mystery." And if you can do that, then you can practice the same move in increasingly difficult times and places.

January 1, 2021.

2021-01-01T13:10:09Z

January 1, 2021. I can't think of anything to say about the new year that's not completely obvious, and I seem to be in a mental fallow period right now. Posted yesterday to Weird Collapse, Alienation and Doublethink is a smart blog post that starts with a Twitter thread "in which Allison Pearson claimed that she knew 'hardly anyone' who knew somebody who'd had Covid only to immediately say that her whole family had had it." The point is, a lot of people have two minds, one for practical stuff, and one for ideology.

The author mentions Soviet doublethink, and corporate doublethink, but I'm thinking, in those cases, you can get sent to the gulag, or lose your job, for allowing practical understanding to inform your ideology. Where's the penalty for accepting the medical consensus about COVID? For that matter, what's behind the recent surge in flat-earthism?

I think ideology exists for its own sake, and can thrive in the total absence of extrinsic penalty and reward. There's something about humans that compels us to tell stories about the world beyond our senses, and we get in trouble when we depend on those stories to feel good about ourselves.

Is this something we can overcome?