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I used to think it was bad that people are not capable of managing human affairs rationally, ethically or effectively. now I think that's completely fine. there are multiple superhuman forces pulling in complementary directions. I don't need to know how it all works out
my imagined "worst case scenario" for humanity got a lot less scary when I read Station 11. more than 90% of humans die in the first chapter and then the rest of the story is gorgeous and hopeful and realistic
then I read Ministry For The Future. again, there's mass death. but they also solve climate change. not bc one group has a master plan, or "one true perspective" but bc multiple groups have complementary + contradictory plans, a great irrational muddle that gets the job done
there are great big holes in society where very important things should be. big big things like justice, companionship, ethics, sustainability. holes create suction and opportunity. there's an entire generation rushing in to fill the empty space
you wouldnt believe how much suffering is optional. so many people live in a social climate that demands they pay attention to all the bad things simultaneously. they really believe the way to be a good person is to be stressed about all bad things, to attempt to hold them all
if you measure the challenges humanity faces against the capacity of specific individual humans, yes the future is bleak. but the future is not built by people, it's built by superorganisms and hyperobjects at multiple orders of abstraction. put not your trust in princes
I wrote recently about intense suffering I experienced for years. it's fixed now. how? by a completely inscrutable process of maturation, by grace, by evolution. not because I had a good plan, or bc of my merit, or the one weird trick that healed me https://t.co/V2h3rNFbft
I haven’t taken acid since 2019 but last night I dreamed I was back in that altered state of mind, a high fidelityt reproduction, indistinguishable from the real thing I wish I had good advice when I started tripping in my early 20s. every acid trip I ever took was intensely challenging, at least in parts that’s probably normal for people who are a bit jumpy/neurotic, unless the setting is carefully controlled for someone with my constitution, it’s just so easy to get caught in a paranoid loop. all the circuits my sober mind uses to maintain a sense of safety suddenly become unreliable and I’m forced to confront the depth of unsafety I feel when my coping strategies are offline wow, there’s a lot. unsafety is too small a word. terror! for a couple decades my emotional baseline was “occasionally interrupted terror” it’s kind of unbelievable now in retrospect, how significantly my inner landscape has been terraformed there is no moral of the story. I’m just reeling, don’t want to look away
people are going to ask me to be less cryptic, "Rich explain yourself. give me reasons to be hopeful". they do not want to be hopeful it's hard to get a man to understand something when his identity depends on his not understanding it
@RichDecibels what you said wasn’t cryptic at all it was clear; but some things are hard to see if people haven’t had at least a tiny glimpse beforehand. Like if you describe an animal they’ve never seen before, they’re not gonna get it. Ppl gotta go see themselves, hero’s journey, etc etc