But he's thinning a bit on top!
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13.3.18
5.3.18
HEART OF BALANCE REVIEW-STEALING FIRE by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
REVIEW OF STEALING FIRE
I really was stimulated by this book particularly the
chapter on psychedelics. This is where I first heard of the amazing Sasha Shulgin and his incredible wife. Why hasn't a film been made about this pair of beauties? There were so
many resources to follow up and, after all isn’t that what you want with one of
these self-help books? A really accurate roadmap that gets you from geeky useless
mental underling to superhuman hero-entrepreneur. Isn’t this what life has now become
about? Inadequate pawn to ubermensch or
uberfraulein in as short a timescale as possible?
Have we not arrived at the nexus where we can just ditch the
spiritual nonsense and get right down to it?
And become great leaders because we are great kite-surfers? Become super successful CEO’s because we go
to Burning Man? And not only will we be
this super smart super-person but we will also be lean and ripped, tanned,
speak several languages that we have learned while sleeping and be known at
parties for hooking ourselves up to digital instruments that show us altering
our heartbeat and brainwaves at will.
Everyone will laugh and want to be our friend.
Well-No! Nope. It actually does take the ten thousand hours.
I’m really sorry to piss on part of this books premise. I’m afraid my view is that it’s hard time, and
hard regular practice to achieve mastery. And part of that is that there is a thing
called growing up and evolving the Self into additional capacities, physically
and emotionally and spiritually and intellectually. Then there is also the shadow-Self. Growing up takes time-it is an inevitable
equation. Highly focused personal development practice needs Time, lots of
Time. And I’m afraid it’s also no one
way street-every step forward means half a step back-sometimes two steps
back. Sometimes the dark night of the
Soul intervenes for a few years, or even a lifetime. Personal development is evolution and takes not geological timescales but just a lifetime.
It's part of the bitch about being human-you just find out what's what, then you die. It's a raw deal. But the thought of the geeks transmuting their consciousness into newly made bodies and grabbing another ketogenic-enhanced seventy years is a definite no-no. The problem with this futuristic tech is that the only humans able to afford extended life will be the nasty rich ones. I'm ok with extending the Dalai Lama through a kickstarter campaign but I am not extending Peter Thiel, Vladimir Putin or Goddess help us-the Trumpet in the West!
It's part of the bitch about being human-you just find out what's what, then you die. It's a raw deal. But the thought of the geeks transmuting their consciousness into newly made bodies and grabbing another ketogenic-enhanced seventy years is a definite no-no. The problem with this futuristic tech is that the only humans able to afford extended life will be the nasty rich ones. I'm ok with extending the Dalai Lama through a kickstarter campaign but I am not extending Peter Thiel, Vladimir Putin or Goddess help us-the Trumpet in the West!
And the Silicon Valley billionaire premise also fills me
with a dark premonition-something strange-maybe it’s dread. Maybe it’s the feeling of nonsense upon
stilts. Possibly the idea that great
wealth conveys narcissistic arrogance.
Possibly even the heresy that just cos you code-you are not a source of
wisdom. The billionaire geeky man-child villain who dreams up twisted digitally enhanced nightmares already walks among us.
That shady, Marvel-type villain, Peter Thiel, being put forward as a mentor fills me
definitely with dread. Let this sucker
in and it could all turn to shit as if microwaved. In a recent rather brilliant essay in The Baffler (March/April No 38) Eugene McCarraher, an associate professor at Villannova University describes him thusly, '...PayPal co-founder and vampiric plutocrat Peter Thiel (an enthusiast of Objectivism and a recent recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Hayek Institute)...'
Objectivism is of course the drivel dispensed by the arch rationaliser of greed and selfishness, Ayn Rand whose books continue to fly out the shelves apparently-it can't just be Paul Ryan buying them. And here, the Ayn Randyan, Hayekian, economics-lite, neo-libertarian bullshit is inherent in the prose and it is what troubles me most about this silicon valley philosophy of can-do; as long as we are left alone to be great by the nanny state and it's huddled masses. The fact that at root it appears so individualised, atomised an approach to living and the fantasy that these billionaires got there entirely by their own nerdy talents when they are just dipshits in the ocean of life-just like the rest of us.
Objectivism is of course the drivel dispensed by the arch rationaliser of greed and selfishness, Ayn Rand whose books continue to fly out the shelves apparently-it can't just be Paul Ryan buying them. And here, the Ayn Randyan, Hayekian, economics-lite, neo-libertarian bullshit is inherent in the prose and it is what troubles me most about this silicon valley philosophy of can-do; as long as we are left alone to be great by the nanny state and it's huddled masses. The fact that at root it appears so individualised, atomised an approach to living and the fantasy that these billionaires got there entirely by their own nerdy talents when they are just dipshits in the ocean of life-just like the rest of us.
And that teams should emulate American elite military units
like the Navy Seals who are allegedly training their soldiers in meditation,
yoga and psychedelics to become even better killers, to get into FLOW. As if killing is about skill-Skilling? When we all know killing is like sex-most of it happens in the head.
Because at root what is happening here is a re-referencing
of what the meaning is about being alive.
Here, being alive is about performance. It’s about what you do in the world! But I suspect the truth is that what you do means very
little and what you are means a very
great deal.
Gentle reader! Read
it! Twice!
3.3.18
Rebirding the Peak District
A few weeks ago, the ecologist Alex Lees published an online poster on a topic that might strike you as recondite: the bird life of the Peak District. Half the poster showed the birds that currently exist there, the other half showed the birds he would like to see. It has so far been viewed 140,000 times.
19.2.18
Notes towards an essay on Biophilia
Notes towards an ESSAY ON BIOPHILIA
CORROSIVE IMPACT OF MODERN SOCIETY
ORGANISATION IMPLACABLY DRIVES TOWARDS PLUTOCRACY/ KLEPTOCRACY AND BIOCIDE
GREED
CORRUPTION
MASSES ARE NEUTRALISED BY DRUGS/ALCOHOL/REALITY TV/ CELEBRITY/ SOCIAL MEDIA/ INTERNET/ THE VISUAL IMAGE AS TYRANT/ THE CORPORATE CANCER/ THE RISE OF FUNDAMENTALISM AND NATIONAL INFERIORITY COMPLEXES/
THE REPLACEMENT OF SPIRITUAL BELIEF SYSTEMS BY BELIEF IN MATERIALISM
THE RELENTLESS RISE OF NARCISSISM
THE SEPARATION BETWEEN SELF AND BIOSPHERE
THE SEPARATION BETWEEN HUMAN SOCIETY AND OTHER LIVING BEINGS
THE RISE OF SCIENTISM (LINKED TO MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTIONS OF REALITY)
THE RISE OF IRRATIONALITY IN BELIEF SYSTEMS AND THE ECONOMY
THE LACK OF AN OPPOSITIONAL BOUNDARY TO CAPITALISM
THE RISE OF FASCIST BODY IMAGE SENSIBILITY-THE CONCEPT OF PHYSICAL PERFECTIONISM
THE OBSESSION WITH CRUELTY, CRIMINALITY, PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN CINEMA
THE HOLLYWOOD DEATH CULT
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FEMININE
THE EMASCULATION OF THE MALE
THE EASY AVAILABILITY OF HARDCORE PORNOGRAPHY
THE SHIFTING PLEASURE TRIGGERS OF THE PERVERT EVOLVING TO EVER GREATER DEGREES OF STIMULATION TO TRIGGER A RESPONSE-DE SADE
OBSESSIONS WITH LIFE EXTENSION SCIENCE
OBSESSION WITH BIO DESIGN VIA THE GENOME
FOOD AS FETISH
THE RISE OF A MIND CONTROLLING PRESS
THE EVER DEVELOPING PSEUDO SOPHISTICATED COMPLEXITY OF THE ARTS
THE RISE OF A SELF ABSORBED AND INDIVIDUALLY IMMATURE MIDDLE CLASS
OBSESSION WITH TRIVIA
CELEBRITY BECOMES A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE
THE SEXUALISATION OF CHILDREN
MASS IMMIGRATION LEADING TO VIOLENCE
ASSASSINATION AT ARMS LENGTH BY DRONE
THE INTERNET OF THINGS
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