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Anything short of the rawest, most honest human connection will be gobbled up by robots.

Nay Eliason in a newsletter about AI’s inevitable triumph, except for . . .

Waves of inconsequential ephemera are launched like mental missiles. In conversation, online—everywhere that communication is possible. One Current Thing after another. A few days of hysteria, and another Current Thing thrusts it aside.

Don’t take the bait. The Current Thing is neither bitter nor sweet, neither right nor wrong — these judgments reveal who you are. The Current Thing is a random social hallucination — or a deliberate effort at manipulation.

• Random? Why add energy to a random process?
• Deliberate? Why, by supporting or opposing The Current Thing, further someone else’s efforts to acquire power or wealth? Isn’t your own life more important to you?

Point out The Current Thing out for what it is: a fart in a windstorm. Trivial. Without substance. “Ha! Yet Another Current Thing!” Pointing and naming removes its mystery, just as turning on the light banishes shadows and reveals what was hidden in darkness.

Then ignore it. Employ the Golden Key (per Emmet Fox): stop thinking about the problem, and think about God.

If there is value in The Current Thing, time will reveal it.

Postscript. Inspired by this tweet:

Briefly opposing the current thing during its short period of relevance is just playing your own small role in the ecosystem in which it has successfully become the apex predator — you’re the thing it gnaws on

https://twitter.com/webdevmason/status/1584212839341772805?s=46&t=SVt1bUUzw9YqgGL_9c8rvQ

The bird app was full of unexpected nuggets today.

First, how to know people and be known:

in my experience living in the 2nd largest city* in New Hampshire you simply have to go to the same coffee shop every single day for 2+ years and you’ll meet 100 people, the mayor, your wife, etc

• (pop 80k, where I was born, 10 miles from here)

https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1583456761138147329?s=46&t=M0pHvFJ2AAihbcnAt3zIqQ

in my experience living in the 2nd largest city* in New Hampshire you simply have to go to the same coffee shop every single day for 2+ years and you’ll meet 100 people, the mayor, your wife, etc

• (pop 80k, where I was born, 10 miles from here)

Second, the essence of making a true friend:

friendship is a choice you make to be open with people. actually open. and i’m not talking about the showman’s vulnerability here.

take a risk on someone. you might be surprised.

https://twitter.com/nvpkp/status/1583425686345502720?s=46&t=M0pHvFJ2AAihbcnAt3zIqQ

Stop drifting. You’re not going to re-read your Brief Comments, your Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the commonplace books you saved for your old age. Sprint for the finish. Write off your hopes, and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can.

Meditations, 3:14

Or, let’s get micro and practical in my life:

Stop drifting. You’re not going to re-read your Brief Comments, your Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the commonplace books build anything with those domain names stacked up in Namecheap. Sprint for the finish. Write off your hopes the fantasies that made you buy the domain names (this is such a brilliant idea that only I can do), the dull sense of obligation to self (you told yourself you would do this so you must do this), the unjustified sense of effortless greed (this will make me millions of dollars while I’m sleeping), and if your well-being matters to you, be your own savior while you can throw those psychic rocks overboard (mark all of those domain names to expire) and make your Boat of Life bouyant.

Written after awakening at 5:00 am.

It’s a good day to be traveling fast. Today is the day of my salvation.

Postscript, added later.

1. It’s not 100 domain names, but it’s close. Namecheap shows domain names at 25 per page and I have four pages of domain names. I don’t want to waste my time counting.
2. I logged on with my phone (then my iPad) and started deleting until the app broke. More later, when I’m on my computer. I have more to go.

The atrophy of older traditions of self-help has eroded everyday competence, in one area after another, and has made the individual dependent on the state, the corporation, and other bureaucracies.

Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism

People are busy.

They want the 80-20 of the 80-20.

Tennyson.

The country’s going to hell, etc.

The future is more likely to be like the past than it is like a linear extension of the present. That’s from Joe Norman. I think it’s right.

Imagine extrapolating from a single point. (Present conditions). Now imagine extrapolating from a series of points. (Observed past conditions). Which line is likelier to be predictive?

This may be why RETVRN and trad culture is seductive: because it has an element of truth. It has an element of larping, too. But after you boil away the “larp” sneer remember that the old stuff worked and has a good track record. Exhibit A: Meditations. Exhibit B: Christianity.

You are a real person, good things are better than bad things, existence exists.

On my way to 1,000 blogposts I have found myself stalled in the 700s.

So let’s write something up from seat 5D, AMS to LAX. It won’t post until I’m on the ground at home, because why spend money on wifi in the sky unless it’s mandatory for work?

I am unenthused by Twitter, or at least the part of Twitter I see. I see performative intellectualism and earnest hustle. I found myself saving threads and individual tweets to Instapaper. “Oh, that’s good. I must remember it.” No, not really.

In reviewing the Instapaper backlog I discovered that 90% is shallow. There should be an internet law about that. Maybe it should be a shallow and snarky reworking of a better-known 19th century observation.

And that kinda proves the point. The internet distills, and retains the ephemeral.

Nuke the Instapaper backlog.

Cut Twitter back to maybe two or three follows. Log on intermittently.

Go to paper and pen. There are two nice indie coffee places close and equidistant from my office. I found joy sitting at a sidewalk table in Milan, Madrid, and Palma. Me, an espresso, and a bottle of water.

More of that. You already know the answer. The Kingdom of Heaven is within.

Go to human interaction. Face to face. Phone if distance demands it.

Slow.