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Bullying: Random Thoughts To Share How does healing works? One don't know. One could write it down, to reason with it via logic, even to plan for the worst of what one could do in each situation if things play out in those ways, but they never assure. Logic is logic: they failed to calm the emotional. This is not an article about how; but one questions you all, my fellow readers, how? Various logic can goes. Compared to the past, one should appreciate for how less victims there are nowadays. At least, that's what one assumes. In reality, one don't know! But with the advent of internet, and how children weren't grown ups, we can say bully are everywhere, ranging from young to old. Percentage wise, they may be the minority; but absolute wise, the number looms large. And we can't look at the percentage in this case; for bullying concerns the individual. It's not like the economic market, that America GDP is a small percentage compared to global percentage. Rather, a person being bullied cannot be reduced to a number; what says percent! And yes, physical is quite aggressive; but physical-wise, you can defend yourself, say, with martial arts. The worse comes mental-wise. You can block someone, you can sue someone to court; but let's speak seriously: the psychological damage done is done, nothing can reverse the damage. The only way one know how to heal the emotional is with time; but when it arise again (even just the symptoms), you're in fight-or-flight again. You say the payment given when you win a court decision? Nope, money can't soothe your feelings. Maybe you'll live with it, yes, esp. if you're poor enough to look at the money as not just another number added to your already long number that the former barely register, so you can use it to rear your families or perhaps protect yourself from being a future victim; but the future is the future, the now is the now. And we spoke of the internet. Cyber-bullying carves the mental images more easily than carving it physically, no? And one just searched the numbers online. In fact, there were quite a lot of bullying (32% median as of 2019) happening in school. Outside school one didn't search, but one believe (though not researched) that the numbers probably weren't too much smaller. Perhaps you encounter it in daily life, but more probably in work; for work environment imitates school, no? By the way, the facts are only the reported numbers; what about the not-reported? Are they as many as those reported, or even more? https://www.unicef.org/media/66496/file/Behind-the-Numbers.pdf And what can one say? That many are lucky to not get bullied? Or that they know how to protect themselves? Or perhaps, they just haven't *yet* get bullied, that it might happen some time in the future, that you might get to get such once in a lifetime at least? One don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But we certainly are taking it for granted, those most of us, that as long as we're not the victim, it's none of our business. And probably one shall be guilty of bullying others? One don't know, nor can one remember. One might have bullied others when one was young, but because one can't understand the other person's feelings back then, blind, one might not have known. If so, one shall apologize, now that one got more in touch with one's emotions, for whatever one had done. So if one get bullied, is that the ghost that haunts back? To let one feel shame or role playing of the victim? One don't know. By the way, distractions won't work. In fact, it makes things worse. So, no, no distraction. One should face it head to head, any kind of problem, and deal with it a.s.a.p. to let one's heart returning back to the calm situation. After all, calm is the ultimate feeling that lasts. (As for staying in one's comfort zone, that's another story.) Excitement, positive-wise or negative-wise, are temporary. Prolonged depression and that kind, therefore, is bad for your health. **Remember to Like and Subscribe.** Find me at Upwork. https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~011a1c60f09fff5f90?mp_source=share

The Youth Is Our Future? No Longer True: You Adults Had Killed It "The Youth Is Our Future", says the teacher, says the ministry of education (government), says whoever. Yeah, OK, whatever. Alas, now, one is no longer a Youth, so one is no longer your Future. Because, lacking your praise to "keep up the good work", one whose Future became the Now, being crushed by life's circumstances (being not a financially independent person, leaving one with student debt, panic of whether one could own a house by age 60 based on the liability larger than asset accumulation currently, and hence all hope is lost), fall back into no Future. Your Future, whom you would've want to change the country, to make it, perhaps, "great again" (Nope, Not America, Not the US, one don't come from there), had the flame of hope dwindled and extinguished long before he even started. "The Youth Is Our Future?" Alas, You Killed It. Too much praise for the younger generation. One used to think one live in the Garden of Eden, where only praises from the adults come (if you do what they say and be a 'good' kid, i.e. 'obeying' kid). Alas, the Garden of Eden collapsed immediately and with no mercy at the face of adulthood. Yea, however much good deeds one did that God raised one to heaven, **(S)He never says that, nor assure that, one who's first enters heaven won't in the future fall back to hell!** Kids nowadays are future puppets, puppets of the older generations, puppets of those who aggregate money. Inequality being less because of housing and retirement? How liquid is those money even? **Wealth isn't defined as such illiquid assets one holds, but how freely your** ***cash flows****.* Alas, they're not. And only the rich can flow their cash, and you can be 'wealthy' but cannot spend a dime on food. If we're a generation of good kids, of obeyance, who is to take the leadership? Those long gone shall raise from the grave and continued to live for another 300 years, that is. No, they can't die yet, because we no longer had young leaders. We had echoes whom could keep the current structure from decaying too fast (no structure don't decay, they just decay fast or slow), but to create new structures? Only those of older generations can, and we? We only copycat. For sure, our new way of innovating is to copycat from everywhere and patch them together and form a new product, then other people start seeing other way, and before long, we're being flooded and be "just another one of those" even if we're the one starting it. And who said what we started is clever if others could easily copycat our ideas? **By default, something different strikes so hard to the paradigm that people find it difficult to comprehend!** If it doesn't, we're probably indulged on being "different" when we're just another clone whom permutate the number of available solutions in some permutation "seed" (i.e. if you understand what "seed" means, if not, search up "seed used in computer generated random numbers"), which are also available for others to permutate the same way as we do. A product that, once exposed to the public, takes no longer for copycats to emerge, because, it's so easy! Visit me at upwork. https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~011a1c60f09fff5f90?mp_source=share

All Of It Makes Sense! AI, Drones, Robots; these are starting to take over our lives. While they haven't replace every single corner of the world, we see in developed countries like US, UK, and China that they replaced workers to an extent. McDonalds (or is it KFC) have robotic arms, together with AI (or maybe don't even need AI) to automatically fry the french fries (since it's just specific steps and timing), and perhaps chicken? Then, there are drones delivery of packages and whatsoever replacing human deliverer, then where drones aren't in work, auto-cars replace them (one isn't sure if that's real, but one saw videos on YouTube that there are auto-delivery cars in China to deliver food and many deliverer waiting to grab one but being snatched by the auto-delivery car instead, hence losing their job). All these changes means in the future, unless you change your job, there would be less job and less job. People mentioned about introducing new (unthought-of-yet) job for those who don't have today. People said about what other stuffs people could do. Worse, people pay you for scrolling social media or updating information about yourself, as in the Web3 arena. But Mother Nature had another idea. The problem with not enough job, not enough food, not enough of anything, is because we have too many people. The ultimate solution, then, is not to create new job, to create more food, but to reduce the number of people. The first thing that may come into your mind is for more war like Russian-Ukraine or Israel-Hamas that kind, and you think it's cruel. Or maybe, you think, create a concentration camp to reduce the amount of inhabitants that kind of stuff. But they are all wrong. Just statistically, war kill far **far** less people than hunger each year. We only care about these cancer, these war, these tsunamis, that hurricanes, because they're news worthy, not because they kill more people. Perhaps, all of these add together didn't even register a portion of how much hunger had killed in the "Third World". And by a portion, one really mean "a portion". How small it is, plot it on a pie chart and see for yourself. OK, let's get back to the main point. To reduce the number of people, we don't have to be cruel to kill the current living; we just need to reduce birth. Those that're never born we won't inflict any pain (for they haven't yet exist) nor any torture. And **luckily, Mother Nature had already reacted with that.** Just see how many people refuse to have a child today and you'd know that Nature had fight back. Many countries said, PLEASE, GIVE BIRTH TO MORE, AND WE'LL REAR YOU with subsidies, like Japan or what other countries that had decreasing birth rates currently or even to low levels (but that one didn't hear about). These aren't a problem to Mother Nature. To Her, on the whole, she just wanted to lower the amount of inhabitants as it rises to a level that our Mother Earth can no longer sustain without destroying itself in the long run. Yeah, well, energy does get into a cycle, but that cycle is far longer than we'd expected. Just like climate change will eventually turn to Ice Age, but by that time, perhaps we're long extinct due to the heat we created ourselves, or maybe we'd migrated to another planet already, we don't know. So, it doesn't make sense anymore of countries trying to increase birth rate. Yes, for the sake of the country having not enough people, the government might want to increase birth rate. But looking at the global level, it no longer makes sense to try to sustain so many births when resources, jobs, and etc. aren't enough. We should look into decreasing our birth rate until a sustainable level, a level that doesn't strain our world so much. So, keep up with the good work, stop having babies for the moment until we need them again. P.S. the "not enough food" part: one don't know if you notice, but one noticed the chicken and pork meat bought today are smaller, hypothesizing that they don't have enough time to rear them big before slaughtering. All the more sense if that means we don't have enough food, or we don't have to do something as premature slaughtering. Ignoring the idea that slaughtering of animals is cruel as it inflicts torture here.

Some Findings On Norland Norland the game that is. Ignore the lead image; there's no 'free' non-copyright image one could use without infringement. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1857090/Norland/ Ok, let's get started. The game itself is very difficult to play. Even trying to make it easy is hard. The first thing to do, even before the game start, is to make sure that all the people in the world is weaker than you. That is, set them 50% on city size and army strength. Then, you need extremely good relationship with them to start with: everyone aim to be peaceful; everyone is your old ally. OK, that per se isn't going to help in late game; enemies are going to be sworn, especially those peaceful-turned-ambitious alliance leaders, but it could buy us time. Selecting traits; one go with 3 brothers and 1 wife, as bride can easily be married from other places. All should have decent level of intelligence (say, 7). Then, King, one changed his 'star' to trade. He aims for persuasion and trade. Queen, aim for really high intelligence (at least 13). Then, one of the brother is going to be "manager", which'll manage lots of buildings; another will be "fighter". The latter, just aim for high combat, and manager should have high management. Aside from King, which if you send him visiting other countries, you need a second trader, so one assign some 7 to "manager"'s trade skill. And make sure your Queen isn't too old for giving birth -- don't max out the skills or they'll be 40 or 41 years old. One usually aimed around 36 for da boys, and the queen early 30s or even late 20s. Moving on, one prefer to activate all the positive modifier, max out the gold, no unholy band, and no scenario. Just, as easy as possible; and even that is hard. And you should start with an alliance, with you as the head. One start by annexing 3 countries, and make oneself the head of the alliance (not suzerain but **head of alliance**.) Starting the game, just build. One can't say what to build, but you should start with lumber/wood gathering. Then, getting your way to build other stuffs. There are other guides online that speaks more clearly than one; because one just want to quickly skim through this part and focus on the military. Anyway, always trade with the trader: you need weapons (mace and arrows initially, then light armor and shield later on); you need books; **Don't buy the prisoners!!!**; and whatever you're lacking (food, alcohol, etc.) you buy, and whatever you have a lot of, you sell. Ensure that when you sell, you don't go over the market supply/demand limit (it'll have a number that guide you.) or you'll be selling dear. And there's this thing to lower the price of product sell to your peasants to ensure they can buy food and alcohol; but again, that's covered somewhere else. Let's move to the military. Military part, yes. Hire mercenaries! 3 is enough. Really speaking, knight aren't important. First, they're too expensive. Second, we already have our "fighter" to lead. Unless you don't have a fighter, don't. Or unless you see some use to it? One don't know! One can't remember if they came with an armor or something. Anyways, being 15 in attack points, there are other 12+ attack point mercenaries that aren't knight as you scroll; and they're cheaper too! Remember, you don't have that much money at the beginning. We just need to hire 3 and that's already paying insanely. Now, how to expand? The quickest way is to attack bandit tribes. To do that, ensure that you already have a prison camp (or whatever it's called) built. Build it near your barracks, and put in the day and night patrolling that radius it in. When you have mace, they knock bandits unconscious (not sure the probability, maybe 50/50?). The prisoners that brought home can be hired as soldiers. As you gather more and more of these, you can sell these prisoners off (whoever is damaged too badly, like lose an eye or too badly injured that will waste your 'salve' to heal them) to the holy trader. The rest of the prisoner, you hire them as soldiers. And as you attack more bandit camp, your army became larger. Because they're previously bandit, they have a 'knife' icon that says they aren't very willing to listen to commands. We can only have that much of them; but that's all right, because soon, our peasant will become loyal/fanatic enough to join our ranks. And soon, when you sell off stuffs more and gather more money, either to the holy trader or to your neighbors, you'll gather more money to hire more mercenaries, which're relatively safer than bandit-turned armies. Iron is important, as they're needed for later. Trade them with your neighbors. Build mine in your country to mine them. Don't wait, because later after we've access to tools, then we'll be starting to build weapons. These weapons are tradeable with other countries, but keep in mind how much tools you can make, how much charcoal you can make to produce tools and what-nots. The link of supply and demand goes again. All in all, gathering a supply is what means you don't have to worry about demand for the short period when you have access to crafting weapons and armors. Unfortunately, that's what got into problem; one's lacking the tools to craft. Until one upgrade the building to higher levels, it can't keep up. And one haven't found the balance for what no. of lumbering you need, how much charcoal you need, etc. That you have to tune yourself. If you start seeing your neighbor forming alliance, quickly get the other people to join your alliance! The earlier, the better! That's why we need very good relationship with everyone around -- they'll readily join if you have +50 (one think this is the number?) relationship with you. The problem is, one didn't realize this early enough until they made a line and blocked off the way for one to get everyone in one's alliance. The trick is to balance how much countries you annex (because if you reach some number, the church will start to charge you 2x tax on your army -- which is equivalent '12' units of land, but not 12 countries, because some countries are larger and take 2 or 3 units of land, one think). If you're in the same situation as one, then you have to break the alliance. The thing to do this is to force the head of the alliance into neutral pact, then the alliance will automatically disband. But you cannot immediately do that, because your neighbor will see you as cheating and they lose trust in you. You need to change your status with them first. That's where dark deeds come in. You shall try to assassinate the king (or perhaps any other members, depending on the success) of the other country. One isn't sure the skill needed to increase the chance, because there are several -- perhaps intelligence and persuasion? Anyway, after it fail (or success), you can start forcing it to neutralize, to which it'll get rage. The king will say, one's the head of an alliance and you ask me to disband my own alliance? You muppet! And now, you can start to attack it (within 3 days, of course, or you'll lose face). Now a sidenote. Just because you can assassinate someone doesn't mean someone can't assassinate you. Ensure that you save checkpoints! Otherwise, if your people die, it'll be a pain in the arse retraining someone from scratch! It's ok-ish if it's the bride married, but if it's your starting 3 brother 1 wife heroes, any one of them, ha ha ha.... To die because of age and to die because of assassination is 2 different things. The way to prevent this is to have enough army in your hometown, and build patrol everywhere, day and night. Actually, everywhere your manager, fighter, king, and queen went. At night, make sure the lord dormitory have night patrol, and put "priority" to lower it to the minimum. When you attack it, make sure you have enough soldiers to get at least 60% in your favor! Untimately, the higher the batter. You should now have soldiers fully equipped with weapons, shields, and armor to increase their chance of success! The first time one send, one sent 18 (excluding 'fighter') against the enemy 10 or something? It was a success. Now make sure you have good relationship with the neighbors annexed by your mortal enemies, otherwise they'll (probably) reinforce the guy you're attacking. That's what one did wrong in a previous game -- one war with everyone around me, no one is my friend, all my enemy, and dead rekt it is. It's like, unless you're Genkhis Khan that don't need friends, otherwise you won't be strong enough to fight your enemy that have friends! One country might not be stronger than you, but together, it's like trying to break a bunch of chopstick stuck together! New Game it is! OK, one haven't continued play for more; but the longer you're detached away from your 'old ally'; meaning, after you conquer your neighbor, the neighbor of neighbor but not directly your neighbor, they'll be more neutral towards you than good friends. And since they're more neutral towards you, the above thingy you cannot do. You must ensure that you become good friends with them first before you can rinse and repeat. Otherwise, as one tried, they'll become negative and likely help their alliance head if you ever come to battle point. OK, that's perhaps it. Overall, it's a difficult game. One can't imagine the hardcore version, plus all the negative trait, negative starting point, minimum gold, everyone hates you, etc. is going to survive at all... One can't imagine! **Like and Subscribe!**

Rewriting Life Stories Now, another thing one read from the book *How to Know a Person* by David Brooks. He spoke of "rewriting your life stories to be coherent". This rewriting, in fact, is done in your **subconscious**. You never knew you rewrote your life story, that you rewrote history. When one was 16, one faced with a friendship crisis, and seek out self-help to "solve the problem". The ultimate problem wasn't totally solved, but things have been better, and one appreciated one's effort, and still keep on trying to better oneself at it. The problem is, when one told one's life stories, one told about how before 16 one was so lonely and alone and suddenly one found the true meaning of life! Unfortunately, that's not true. And worse, **one don't know that it's not true**. In fact, when in primary school, while yes, one don't have any close friends then (due to how one behaves as a classroom clown so people see me more as someone whom cannot become a close friend, not even entering a group), but to say that one don't have friends is too much an exaggeration. One used to play "ice and water" with random groups of friends. One used to play chinese chess during recess. One used to gather around other groups of people; though they don't totally welcome one, they don't reject me either, and one just sit, look, sometimes participate a bit, but not much. Yet, that's far from "no friend". The focus is, just how strongly one can rewrite one's history is fascinating. As one got to secondary school, one got more and more lonely, particularly after changing school that caused a lot of familiar friends to move away between those who stayed and those who moved with me; plus, those familiar friends are split into different classes. We do have new opportunities to make new friends, but that is starting all over again. In contrast, back in primary school, one only have one large change of class between primary 3 and 4, when primary 4 onwards, they group you according to your rank in school (total points you score across subjects, so the more patient teachers are assigned to the 'more difficult to be taught' class, probably). It means, if you're not slacking off, and the others in your class also not slacking off, and you're all in the top 3 class, you probably don't swap class that easily and stayed in for 3 years. That's also the same in secondary; but making friends in primary school when you're still adolescent and making friends in secondary school when you're a teen is a totally different story. You don't totally understand what it means by "throwing away your face and just go all out and make sure you get friends" when you're still in adolescent (well, except for those God-granted kid that mature too early in their life, which is, what a pity, they may never had enough time to learn what it means by "don't care about face"). But in teen years, you start to care about face, and the relationship, how you interact with others, changed. That makes friendship making harder, unless you're outgoing enough, brave enough, etc. And "time bias" probably led one to rewrite one's life stories. Because of how vivid you can remember a few years back compared to decades back, you put more weight to the recent timeline than to the ones older. Furthermore, one might had imposed the current feeling on the past feelings, hence distorted one's memory of the past (at least, to temporarily for a few years or even decades, cover up that part of the memory so one couldn't access it). Plus, author David Brooks also mentioned the distortion, to align your consciousness, your narrative story, so that what you tell yourself is more coherent. One really agrees with that. For now, one had multiple life stories to tell oneself. The friendship crisis, since it's not totally over, nor do one think it'll be over before one die, will continue on, and one'll certainly come back to it and never put it down, to make "friends" the central stage of one's focus. On the other hand, one had other things to pursue, like one's careers, so that'll take slightly more focus at the moment. The reading done on the book is to remind oneself, however one goes far and deep into the career route, **do not forget** what is the most important thing in life. Career can never make one satisfy, so never forget to seek out friends, to make new friends, and hopefully find a handful of close friends that could last until one die. Or at least, for decades, and not just a few years, which is way too short to know each other, to peer beneath what they displayed in public, and believe me, starting all over again is a pain in the arse, so if you could preserve your current friends, do them. **Remember to Like and Subscribe.** **One now offers casual writing service to the public. Check it out!** https://www.fiverr.com/s/D84XrA

The Lack of Viewing People's Soul One could have made closer friends in the past; but one confide, one felt scared. In fact, currently just started reading "How to Know a Person" by David Brooks, it reminds me of something one never saw. He said, to see another person in his/her *soul*, and that's something one lacked. Another is the feeling of afraid. Let's explain. Taking years to learn the skills to make friends, like listening attentively, opening up oneself to make oneself vulnerable, and some other "technique", if you prefer to call it that way, it's easy to make friends. Plus, to make it not a manipulation, being repetitive is one, internalizing it is another. That one manages to do years ago, so that wasn't a problem, and it make one a few friends; and some other friends that leave. But, something's not right. If the "technique" really works to bring them in the first place, what causes them to leave? In one's scenario, the first is feeling scared. When being with someone for too long and too attentive, one can't control but fall in love with him/her; and if one doesn't want to pursue the other side into a romantic relationship, it creates a conflict. In the end, unable to face oneself rather than unable to face the other person, one shied oneself from them; and they, of course, felt something, and tried to pull back; and with failures, they gave up completely. One gave up oneself rather than they gave oneself up. And for romantic relationship, as a shy person, one tried to keep an eye on the other side, but can't muster the courage to pursue the other side. And one's brain keeps popping up "plans to get together" or "plans to see each other more" or whatever; and without the courage of course. Worse, it felt manipulative. And worse, when you find someone shining too bright in the room, (s)he will occupy your whole brain, and you can't fit someone else anymore, to bring your attention to them. Even this paragraph, one tried to put it *less clear* than the original writing should be. Because... (Get away with the because and start putting out actions, bro!) Combining the two, plus David Brooks's sentences from the book, it's the lack of soul. OK, not lack of soul, but lack of seeing others via viewing their soul. It's the ego that stereotypicize people, it's the inability to not judge people secretly inside while showing interest outside. Yes, after chatting for a few moments one felt curious about them; but the first impression, one can't suppress the brain passing signals like "oh, not with this guy. Oh hey, talk with this guy. Oh hey, this girl is beautiful. Oh yeah, this guy looks interesting, maybe he had lots of things to share. Oh yeah, this guy/girl looks utterly dull, boring, and kept looking at his/her phone without taking an interest in the surrounding. Should one even approach? Or would it be a waste of time?" As If... As If making friends is a productivity activity! Thanks David Brooks for bringing such blind spots to the spotlight! **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** **One now offers casual writing service to the public. Check it out!** https://www.fiverr.com/s/D84XrA And, one had been publishing book "afterthought" in my website. Check it out! https://wabinab.github.io/?category=afterthought

A Little Opinion About Climate Change Some people say it's real, some people not. Use data or feelings to convince, it doesn't matter much here. The thing is, climate change *is real*, even without human intervention. If our history is correct, Earth had a point of climate change in few million to few billion years, one don't remember the "exact" approximation made by people who studied Earth's atmosphere since it was born. All things equal, Earth can be said to be an imperfect closed system, if nothing from the outside, like asteroids or man-made spacecraft, brought back stuffs from the outer space. Of course, imperfect because the energy it got from the Sun (and other source, if applicable), and energy lose to space, probably doesn't equal. Otherwise, materially, we won't expect much change; or only small changes negligible to the huge earth, like small asteroids that burnt to ashes as it drifted along the atmosphere before reaching ground. Now, the important wording is, **even without human intervention, climate change would happen**, but on a scale much much larger than our own. So, why are we so scared about climate change? There are a few reasons for that. Every climate change is *probably* accompanied by the extinction of large no. of species. If climate change slowly, the body system can adapt to the change. If climate change too fast, extinction of at least some species is probably unavoidable. We are scared that human being cannot respond to such change intrinsically (installation of air con and other cooling mechanism don't count, cause they're extrinsic measures), and hence we go extinct. But mother nature don't care about that -- we can be extinct as long as Earth is still a warm bed to produce more organisms, micro or macro. In another few billions of years, people of the future may discover our remains like we discover the remains of Atlantis; and they probably would think us as aliens that had visited Earth and had gone away! Who knows? Especially if our technology is higher than them, we would think of those tech higher than us as from "aliens" rather than believe they're from an ancient civilization, because we cannot accept there are another species more clever than our species on Earth, but we can accept if they come from outer space. God knows why... Then, if you're like Alexandar von Humboldt, you're probably scared of the species around us being extinct, excluding human beings. That's environmentalist and protectionist: animals and plants that can't respond fast enough. Though, it's weird to think that if they would die, why don't we? Yes, we have tech as an external measure, but that don't mean anything. At least to one, that isn't usable in the long term, or as a long term measure. Side effects will aggregate to a point where it's no longer side effect, and will swallow us alive. Ultimately, some stupid people extrapolated some trends to continue infinitely in the future, and assumed Earth would become like Venus... Come on, where do you find so much sulfur to melt in the atmosphere? Carbon dioxide trapping gas? Well, yes, certainly it'll trap quite a lot of heat. Then, how long would it take to heat us up to that point? Is there enough carbon dioxide to trap all the heat from escaping to the universe? Is there enough sulfur compounds to add to the atmosphere to help us trap that much heat? Maybe, maybe not. One don't know. The problem with "stupid" comes from phrasing it too confidently that we 'will'... 'will' my arse. Ultimately, our largest concern is dealt with. Let's go for secondary concern -- our desire for luxury. Heat makes the environment 'unbearable' (God knows whether our ancestors ever said the sun is unbearable; but we certainly. As we get less and less used to being under the sun, more and more under the roof, shades, inside aircon room, we cannot tolerate a higher temperature than what we're having in the past). We don't want the heat to make us feel bad. OK, that's another meaning. Then, preservation. Dang it, 'preservation' again. See, the nature is changing, but we stupidly tried to hold on to the present, to freeze everything in the constant and don't let anything change. We want to live in the now! If temperature rise, the ice in the Alps would melt, and people can't go ice-skating anymore, so we want to *preserve* it. That's another form of luxury that climate change threatens. OK, that's probably what one could think of now. May add later if something comes up. **Remember to Like and Subscribe.**

Speaking About News You guys probably had known that news distorts the reality of what actually happens by various ways, including: speaking of opinions as if they're facts, often in subtle ways that hinted without the listeners/readers being aware of it refusing to announce anything outside the focused topic Well, if it's for propaganda, it's 'reasonable'. That's being done on purpose. Otherwise, it's not. Recently, one heard about "10th anniversary of MH370" and how sad the families were. The problem isn't with the families, but how the news reported it. First, the news put it *as if* they were the only ones sad in the world. Why not speak about the thousands and millions of somebody's relative whom died of hunger? The events that happened in the "Third World"? Because they're not newsworthy. The sadness of each individuals probably equals, but the news makes them as if the "Third World" lives were unworthy. OK, that's a little extreme. Let's say the news does report the Third World. Yet, human beings, we, the reader/listener, aren't particularly good at linking the two separate events up. We can't associate the no. of people who died in an earthquake being reported last year to the report of the masses whom died being reported a few days ago. We would had forgot the first. Time made things less severe, at least in terms of feelings. That's why people eventually got out of their problems without needing to go to psychology or physiotherapy or whatever unless they forced themselves into a cycle of chronic depression. Notice we speak of "selectively reporting". To keep a news short, the news reported only on the selected topic without making a comparison to anything else, nor gives us "further reading" that spread across different point of views. While it's tempting to say they're not wrong, they're actually wrong. News should be kept away from distortion at all cost. Quickly reporting whatever without caring about how the reader interprets is irresponsible for what you'd spoken. Of course, if you'd already spoken it, take time to clarify with an upcoming news a.s.a.p. before time took its course. Another error being "10th anniversary"... You serious, bro? As if it's marriage? As if it's birthday? As if it's a happy event that you have to celebrate? Of course, the news doesn't report it in a "happy tone", but the word suggested so. Instead, "we have not heard back in a long time; it had been 10 years since; time had not extinguish the waiting hearts." That sounds more right? Nothing to suggest a happy event? Seriously, reporting needs to be more careful, treading the needle roads to ensure what they're reporting doesn't pluck a string that suggests a bias towards what they think when it's supposed to be neutral, just collecting and transferring the facts without adding in the personal opinions. Unless, like this article, it's an **opiniated article**, then one should state it clearly that it's not facts, but opinions! That's it for today. **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** Some bookkeeping One had wrote less articles recently, because one publishes them on one's own blog. Even so, most of the posts relate to what one had read about, and wrote as an afterthought rather than targeting articles like this one. That's because one recently picked up writing diary again, after long time; so most of the things one wanted to speak out is written there, day to day, than being shared to the world. Maybe something worth contribution, like this article, one wants to speak to the world than to oneself or a book; otherwise, one would resort to a diary. https://wabinab.github.io/

Afterthought: Simple Truth By Kent Nerburn Now, a really short book that shares wisdom is always worth. We don't necessarily need to listen to what he says, but in a world where too little of us listen to what our grandpa and grandma had to say, it's always worth learning from the elderly. Instead of trying to nit-pick in this article, one would rather summarize what he had said that one found interesting, rephrased or not. Sometimes, one may make some tweak so they contain one's opinions also; so always refer back to the original book for what he said, and here will be what he said plus my tweak. Ready? Education doesn't stop in school. After high school, after university, we should continue learning by cultivating an endless sense of curiosity and wonder. School taught the modern paradigm accepted in its disciplines, called knowledge. As for learning outside of school, from books usually its knowledge, but sometimes, there are wisdom; though most wisdom can be learn with experience only. *The true measure of one's education isn't what one know, but how one share what one know with others.* Work is a vocation, a calling. We could treat it as a means to an end, to earn money. Yet, whatever we do, whatever we invest our time into, it'll make us us. The affirmation and security an employee's job gives, we have to pay back with our freedom and dreams. *And a person without dreams is only half alive.* Money cannot be remove from our life, but they don't make us happy either. Really, being satisfied with something doesn't depend on the amount of money you have, but how you think about your circumstances, hence how you think about money. If our desire is to earn more money, we can never earn enough. If we earn enough to fulfill our needs, we don't need to earn more money. Don't be too stingy with money; keep only what you need to survive. And, avoid being in debt; for debt means spending more now in expense of spending less in the future. *Knowing how to be poor means developing an unerring instinct for the difference between what's essential and what's only desirable. It means not getting caught up in what's lacking, but finding meaning in what one have.* Possessions started out as something we believe will make us happy. Alas, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky had mentioned about "Regression to the Mean" before, which is applicable here (while not exactly what they try to mean): you cannot stay in constant elation nor constant depression all the time without putting in effort to maintain it; we tend to regress to baseline. What makes us happy a moment ago, or hours ago, or days ago, will feel nothing soon. When possessions mean nothing to us anymore, they became a burden, for we humans felt hurt more by losing an equivalent amount of item than the elation we gain by earning an equivalent amount of item. If we have less possessions, we'll value each of them more. Appreciate! *Remember, possessions have no inherent value. If they increase our capacity to give, they become something good. If they increase our focus on ourselves and become standards by which we measure other people, they become something bad.* Giving is what Seneca called "benefits" in the English Translation of "De Beneficiis" (**On Benefits**). We don't need anything in return of a benefit, including the cameras and recognitions and headline of a news. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3794/3794-h/3794-h.htm *You'll start to feel what's common among us. Once you become a giver, you'll never be alone.* Traveling doesn't have to be far, neither it needs to be in another country. A tourist visit a country for many reasons, the food, the places, the museums, the history, the language, the scenery; a traveler practices wanderlust: the urge for adventure, and the desire to know what's over the next hill. Someone said, a traveler is just someone whom tried to escape the burden of life; but if the solid routines had dull our senses and our dreams and our curiosity, (perhaps not even) comforting and limiting; the unwillingness to get out of our comfort zone not because the comfort zone is comfortable, but because we fear what's new more than what we currently experience, even if that means going home and getting into cold war with your partners every day, if applicable. *Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life, becomes smaller and smaller. To be a real traveler, one must be willing to give oneself over to the moment, and take oneself out of the center of one's universe.* *All the risk and hardship will seem like nothing compared to the knowledge and wisdom one will have gained.* Loneliness is an epidemic that swept the whole world in the 21st century; the ease of mobile devices had dealt its irreversible damage. Solitude is forgetting our "self" to calm one's mind and heart, to find the meaning of life, to allow wisdom to accumulate, and to allow ourselves to deal with lingering problems that we buried with the activities in our life, just because we felt so scared of doing nothing. *Silence becomes a symphony. Time changes from a series of moments strung together into a seamless motion riding on the rhythms of the stars.* *When we have a part of ourselves that's firm, confident, and alone, we don't need another person to fill us.* Love is a mystery we can't seek out; it happens when it happens. When it comes, appreciate; when it goes, let it go. Love creates dependency, and losing something hurts so much we're not willing to let it go; but we have no choice, it's not controllable. Not that it won't come again; it may rekindle with the same person in a a different way; but when it go, we can't force it to stay. Appreciate that the person had come to your life and paint a picture, complete or not, and remember there are so much more person out there that don't experience what you felt. ("much" because uncountable no. of humans hehe). *Don't take advantage; don't cause pain. How you deal with love is how love will deal with you. You don't choose love. Love chooses you.* Marriage can be disappointing, marriage can be tolerating, marriage can be for social reasons, and marriage can be love. Author said, the central secret seems to be choosing well; to look past the initial fascination (a.k.a. the first 2-3 years of romantic blindness to each other's flaws); and marriage needs to have sex, or sexual desire will occupy one's attention, preventing one from giving one's whole to one's partner. All relationships, not just marriage, requires laughter. Even a relationship with colleague based on seriousness deteriorates without laughter. And, couples don't live in a control world; they interacts with the environment too; so don't be blind to your environment. And, one need to respect and accept how one's partner confronts the mysteries of life; if one can't respect what they did/behave, perhaps consider reconsidering the relationship. *Truly fortunate partners manage to become longtime friends before they realize they're attracted to each other. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other.* Parents may surprise their children, but their children certainly is a gift to them. To get things right for them, parents would be willing to sacrifice their dear face to get what's best for their child. We can't remember how we grow up, nor can we remember what we'd seen when we first open our eyes; but we can see someone growing up, and we can invest time with them, and they will influence our life with mysteries and awe. Don't fear the loss of freedom; neither seek it to fill one's void. Parenthood requires wholeness. If one don't have wholeness, one should wait. *It opens one's world into a new sunlight, and is a gift greater than a dream.* Strength isn't muscle, at least not only muscle. Courage, conviction: they causes us to act. Sometimes, grit. Perhaps we wanted to do something else more interesting than taking care of one's parents or grandparents; neither are more muscular. Do what you must do without needing the praise nor recognition. True strength doesn't mangify others' weaknesses; it makes others stronger. *True strength isn't about force, but about conviction. Its opposite isn't cowardice and fear, but confusion, lack of clarity, and lack of sound intention.* *Strength based on force is a strength people fear. Strength based in love is a strength people crave.* Tragedy is unavoidable. We can only emerge from tragedy stronger. Tragedy tell us what's our responsibility, gain us knowledge (and wisdom); it gives us a chance to think life afresh. One shouldn't fear tragedy and suffering. Ask yourself, how could you heal from the pain and suffering tragedy had caused? *How one respond to tragedy and suffering is one true measure of one's strength.* Spiritual Journey is God; whether we believe it or not, in whatever form: the modern monotheism, dual-theism, or the older Greek polytheism; or even Taoism which believes nature is God (and God is Mother Nature, as far as one understood). If people reject you with meaning, don't argue with them; it's no use convincing one who can't be convince. Just take one's journey outside the walls; and leave the others argue within the confine of the walls. Begin by accepting where one is. Then, practice, walk the talk -- prayer, meditation, worship, good works -- however it be. In one's mind: you can reject to be religious, but you must have a philosophy; a philosophy acts as an anchor to your life, so you could see philosophy as spirituality, as they're both anchor of life. *Have faith in one's path. Follow it as one can; change it if one must; but don't give up the search for the sea.* *Don't refuse to seek God because one can't find the one truth.* Elders are who we would be in years, decades, or a century if you believe you could live that long. Or, you're already an elderly. The losing of one's muscle means one no longer capable of doing what one could when young (though this isn't always true if you retain a hunter gatherer's life -- grandpa or grandma, they remained helpful until the end of life, and they die quickly than stay in bed sick for long). The degradation of one's brain, especially if you don't use it actively enough (or learning new things often), means you're not as capable mindfully as you did. Yet, we don't think that far; we treat them as children, we forget our younger generation would treat us as children in years or decades. Don't pity them! You won't want to be pitied, do you? They offer us the knowledge of their past, and the wisdom of our future. *Caring and respect, listen, laugh, and even challenge. The words and actions of the elders are to be taken seriously.* Death is a common mystery. We fear death because we fear we lose our "self". But fear is something too great to celebrate, too great to fear. *Embrace the process of dying as a passage into an harmony; perhaps it's a vastness of empty silence, or maybe it's a presence. Even in the greatest place, the silence has a sound.* And finally, here are some more interesting sentences from the epilogue: *We are prisoners of time, victims of biology, hostages of our own capacity to dream.* *A life well lived must somehow celebrate the promise that life provides.* *There's in each of us, no matter how humble, a capacity for love.* *It'll be these small touches that'll become our legacy to the universe.* (The small touches are the small acts and moments that perhaps will make a difference.) *If we have played our part well, offering love where it was needed, strength and caring where it was lacking; if we have tended the earth and its creatures with a sense of humble stewardship, we'll have done enough.* ***It's a small legacy, perhaps, but a legacy nonetheless.*** We don't know what the people of the past, whether they wanted to leave their legacy. Some may just live life on, confined within whatever they care about. Others may set out to change the world. Whatever that is, one'd leave a legacy, even if one's not aware of it. What legacy do you want to leave to your friends, your families, your relationships, or if you're world bound, the world? **One now offers casual writing service to the public. Check it out!** https://www.fiverr.com/s/D84XrA **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** This article/blog is first written in wabinab.github.io. https://wabinab.github.io/article?filename=2024-06-16-Simple_truth.md

The Diary: A Trip On The Road The alarm rang. Snuff! It snapped one's dream in half. Grudgingly getting up, one made for the clock. Right, 5 in the morning. Not the time to go back to sleep, at least not today. Meditations, checked. Filled one's bottle with water, checked. Stuffs packed yesterday, checked. Brushed one's teeth, checked. It's time to leave. Streetlights and headlights lit the road clear, though, light pollution was 'light'. That didn't last long. As the morning sun rise, the sunlight brought colors to the silhouette of trees. Innumerable unidentified species could now be seen. Yet, dashing at 120 kilometers an hour, what's unidentified will remain unidentified. Few village houses lurked in the vicinity. From a gray-ish clouds in the direction we're heading, a rainbow that ends itself at the edge of the cloud displayed in all its glory. This month was refreshing, with the occasional rain. It wasn't before. We could still seen patches of forest burnt down from a weeks-long drought from before. Others were remnants of droughts from years ago. Burnt down plant remains replenishes the minerals in the soil, as undergrowth, meters tall, carpeted the floor. Most of the time, it was so thick that trees never grew back; others are regenerative, with specks of green visible on branches full of brown. There were also trees with weird figures, or maybe, 120 km/h just isn't slow enough to view it in all its radiance. Have you ever saw an apple tree where its apple isn't hung down, but balanced on its branches upwards? A month long might seem sufficient for plants to grow back, but it didn't seem to be the case, at least they didn't grew fast enough for one to witness. The undergrowth section was still sooty black, though the upper barks from trees were not, with brown leaves still hanging on its branches, unburnt. Perhaps the fire wasn't tall enough to burn the whole tree, hence stayed only at its undergrowth? The tree died because of the fire? Of the heat? Or was the leaves deprived of oxygen? One don't know. Suddenly, the environment dimmed, became blurry, misty. We'd entered a section enshrouded with thick mist. We noticed that mist wasn't visible on the highway section, but clearly visible on both sides, the forested section. My dad logically concluded it was due to the distance: it isn't thick enough for us to see. The distance does explain a bit, but one don't think so in this case, for one could still see relatively clearly the distant sky in the direction of the highway, while those trees in vicinity wasn't as clear. The concentration of particles was more likely. Perhaps, the trees could retain the mist, while the roads not? Oh, how wonderful is nature. Too bad, one couldn't continue to observe as one's eyelid drooped. The next time one opened it back, one was at the final section, about to cross custom checks into another country. We thought countries had boundaries, but not nature. Actually, that's not true. Alexander von Humboldt's *Naturgemälde* already introduced a boundary between nature. Similarly, since we entered the final section of the road, trees were relatively rarer compared to earlier sections. It seems to be cut at a certain point, and after that, it was the world of the undergrowth. Like the undergrowth that grew back after a drought, this time, huge patches of land were devoid of trees, at least very rare, and they were almost always stunted. Perhaps the nutrients were insufficient? Trees took longer to grow than undergrowth, and they stole the sunlight from reaching the seedlings that presumably sprouted? One don't know. After crossing custom checks, we saw vast land on one side cleared for palm plantation. Oh, the unsightly! The monotonisity was rude for one's eyes. The observation of nature brought one into memories. One used to regret, for not climbing a tall structure located in the middle of a forest, not to see the forest, but just because it's *the* structure. How could one not thought of the beauty of nature, regret to not observe it more closely? Yet, how could one had known better before reading Alexander von Humboldt? Along the road, one spotted trees that had few of their branches yellow, while the rest green. One hypothesized they were newly grown branches that hadn't yet developed chlorophyll, but one don't know. They seemingly not dying, neither do one seen such lacking in chlorophyll except in variegated leaves. In Antifragile, author Nassim Taleb noted how closing one side of the road exponentially increased travel time instead of linearly. Where we travel, single lanes built decades ago weren't expanded, yet used everyday as cars traveled to their workplace. These guys suffered from traffic congestion every day, because of a stupid top-down design. When a single lane road with lots of cars ended on either a traffic light or a roundabout, it's a sure trouble. https://www.amazon.fr/Antifragile-bienfaits-Nassim-Nicholas-Taleb/dp/2251444769 https://www.amazon.fr/Antifragile-bienfaits-Nassim-Nicholas-Taleb/dp/2251444769), During the journey, one tuned out of the environment for most of the time, reading books and articles. One article one read was Traveling At The Speed Of The Soul, the punch line being a reference to Rebecca Solnit's book, Wanderlust, that says, "I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about 3 miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought." One agreed. After all, how could you focus on nature if traveling at 120 km/h? Or even half that speed? https://www.noemamag.com/traveling-at-the-speed-of-the-soul/ https://www.noemamag.com/traveling-at-the-speed-of-the-soul/)), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78287.Wanderlust https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78287.Wanderlust), One day isn't long. One found oneself on one's way back home as time traveled. We encountered another congestion due to unsynchronized customs. There were only 3 customs opened, compared to 6 or 7 on the other side. Furthermore, the people whom worked at the 3 was much slower than those working at 6 to 7. It was a double penalty. The wait wasn't in bleakness. A dog standing before a huge puddle looking towards the forested direction. A bird, brown body, black head and tail, pecked its way as it move from left to right. Gray birds half its size flew sideways, to get out of its way. The dog gently and slowly pushed towards the bird, eyes fixated on it. Far before it reaches its vicinity, the bird flew onto a relatively 'low' branch above, low to us, but high enough to be out of the dog's reach. Seeing it not coming down, it turned its attention elsewhere. With the same forest but on the other side of the road (you usually sit on one side of the car, and look out the windows of that side than the opposing side, yes?), one noticed some tree species seemed to grow in vicinity, while others spreaded out. Perhaps these trees hadn't had a better seed distribution method, hence they fell on the ground, and they now fight for minerals, sunlight, water, etc. Their branch even hugged each other! Though, these growing method isn't unique, forming densely and sparsely populated regions. Those 'sparsely' populated regions were carpeted by thick undergrowth. As the evening sun sets, reddish hue caressed the clouds far beyond the horizon. The trees lost their colors, and later, their silhouette faded. But hey! We'll be back home soon! Appendixes 1. There were also grass that grew up to few meters tall that looked like rice plants but they're not. 2. One read about the Persians, and they mentioned "Mithra" -- the fire, light, and the sun. That fits Mythra in Xenoblade Chronicles 2! 3. The last paragraph and similarly, the second paragraph, had taken some inspiration from Mio's diary in Xenoblade 3, final chapter. It *is* great English, in one's mind! **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** **One now offers casual writing service to the public. Check it out!** https://www.fiverr.com/s/D84XrA

Afterthought: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf With clear and illustrative words, author took one to travel with Humboldt, through his pains and agony, his worries and disagreements, and most importantly, his adventures. One was fascinated by adventurous writing, for it took one through the mountains and valleys, and somehow, one just enjoyed it. Seriously, whether the account written is accurate or slightly inaccurate isn't of the utmost importance. We humans only have so much time on Earth, and being enjoyable when we can, doing the things we like to do, is what one can guarantee. The author did a great job at that. Humboldt, an adventurous person, yet being able to sit down and wrote books, that's fascinating. That encouraged one to learn from his patience, and write a book oneself. One didn't write anything in active language before; even this book of Humboldt's adventure is written in a passive language. (By passive, one means from a third person point of view, while active means imagining you're one of the protagonist or you're a non-interactive protagonist that passively travel with those characters). So, reading this book actually let me start writing a book on Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Translating a video into a book is much easier than writing a book yourself, right? Though one call oneself a "writer" than an "author" in that case, and claim no credits on its content than on its "translation". We'll see how that goes. One used to read Marcus Aurelius, and one thing he said was utmostly true. No matter how popular you are at the moment, when "you are" became "you were", people no longer remembers you. The only reason we remember Christopher Columbus and Isaac Newton is we studied them in school. The reason we studied them in school is because our world currently is dominated by science. If in the future, say, science was replaced by something else, like how science greatly replaced most of religion in today's world, we wonder if we can still remember these names. Even in the short period after your death, you'll still be remembered, how long can you ensure people will remember you, when everybody had their own problems to worry about? Even our ancestors -- we most probably only remembers up to whoever lived through our child age, mostly our grandparents but for some, none, and others, great-grandparents. If they passed away, how many generations still help them clean their graves before they were undisturbed forever, except accompanied by nature? On his 100th birthday, he was celebrated all around the world. On his 200th, no one came, for people forgot about him already, plus he's German, which means the two world wars wrecked havoc on his reputation after his death. It also showed how unimportant reputations are. Ernst Haeckel had understood it earlier. We should too. Which unfortunately Humboldt didn't. He had been "controlled" by reputations that he had pleaded publishers and others, or hated some translators that might destroyed his reputation. It doesn't matter now, for you probably wouldn't have heard him. Popular guy in the past like Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, wouldn't even be known if you don't touch on Roman Empire's history or Stoicism, which he's known for. One was introduced to him via Stoicism; and you, have you even heard of him? Neither do one heard of Humboldt before reading this book, despite being a science-y person. The author incorporated people whom had been influenced by his thoughts, like John Muir and George Perkins Marsh and Charles Darwin. Honestly, one probably only knew more about Charles Darwin, and the others either one never heard before, or just heard his/her name, like Henry David Thoreau, but never read what he wrote nor didn't know what his occupation was except that other think he's famous when one don't think so. Author's diversion into these people and took us into a short one-chapter adventure through these person's life, one think, is amazing. After all, while the skeleton of the book is termed Humboldt, the actual title is "The Invention of Nature"; so if you'd expect it being his autobiography, you're only half correct. Author introduced about his disciples for how his thoughts influenced them. That probably includes oneself. One could never stand the narrowness of getting into a single discipline; envisioning oneself as more a generalist, a jack of some trades, and a master of none. The bringing of a solution from some other discipline to fix a problem in the discipline one met, is what one can do; though, without statistics, one can't say whether one do it better than others or worse, so that'll have to leave it for another day. It couldn't be too shallow, for one need to learn as much as one could in a single discipline until all the basics and, in the narrower fields where one love, to an intermediate level, typically via experimentation. Humboldt's lab is the nature, not in the room. One would wish so too; though wish is just wish until they come true. One day. Lastly, this book now introduces one to read more about Humboldt's *Personal Narratives,* first 2 volumes of *Cosmos*, Charles Darwin's *The Voyage on Beagle* (not his popular *Origin on Species*, though, which one hadn't read and hadn't plan on reading yet in the viewable future), and perhaps *Man and Nature* (which will have to see if it arouse one's interest or not). Now, that's a lot of books to cover. As far as one hope one could split into multiple brains and squash everything as quickly as possible, one isn't a computer processor, so that'll have to digest slowly by slowly. And in this complicated and complex world, perhaps it's time to remember him again, for his polymath, to solve the world's problems. One's offering casual writing service to the public. Check it out! https://www.fiverr.com/s/D84XrA **Remember to Like and Subscribe.** First published on wabinab.github.io. https://wabinab.github.io/article?filename=2024-05-20-Humboldt.md

Teaching Children Outdated Information Parents teach their children to be successful; but not every parent are very successful at their teaching. The only teachings that proves useful are time-invariant principles that don't get outdated; yet, parents, being normal human, aim for the current fad. What they don't realize is the fad being outdated after their children grows up. Let's assume [1] that artists are successful, and earn a lot of money, around 1560 AD in Venice, Italy. It was still the Renaissance; alas, in a decade or two, it's no longer in Renaissance. The sun is soon to set. Yet, the parents, grown up regretting not becoming artists but peasants, want their children to do better than them, sending them to art tutors to become artists. Alas, by the time they grow up, artists aren't successful anymore, the sun has set, and the world moved on to, say, scientists and researchers, as the new tomorrow. The parents had just made a really, really wrong choice that made their children utterly unsuccessful. It's a choice we face. We can't predict what would be successful in the future, so we can't teach our children to be artists, doctor, dentist, pharmacist, whatever that now earns a lot of money; we never know if they no longer earns a lot. Yeah, probably not doctor, doctor are almost always in lacking, seen from the past few decades. The future? Unknown. Probably we have robots that can do better job at simple stuffs, we don't know. And only those experts and complicated and complex operations cannot be replaced. Instead, if you teach your kids time-invariant principles, it's not likely to be outdated. For example, teaching your kids to fail at your school exam; if they never fail once, they deserve a lecture, to understand that, they need to fail, in the real world, to be successful. That if they don't fail early, when they come out, they would be in real trouble. Or in some cases, one heard that people who never failed in primary school, when failed in secondary school for the first time in their life (in their teens), feel shame so strongly (babies and small kids don't feel shame, most only develop shame in their teens, with exceptions of course) that they just cry out loud. They cannot fail, their parents cannot have them fail, their teachers cannot have them fail, and they cannot have themselves fail. That's the real failure. The inability to accept failure is the real failure. Teachers and parents have been teaching the wrong thing so far, if they had not let their kids fail now and then, and climb back up, to struggle up the road of obstacles. The failure should not be too overwhelming that they can't climb back up, but it should not be too smooth that they never encountered even minor failure either. A healthy dose of failure now and then is acceptable, and makes your kids healthy too! **Remember to Like and Subscribe.** Notes: This is a wrong assumption (the money part), but oh well, for the sake of the example, we'll "assume" forcefully, even if it's wrong. (In fact, only few original artists are successful, and most probably don't earn a lot, as far as one's concern, only enough).

Let's Speak About Xenoblade A Bit... No story ever leaves such lasting emptiness in one's heart as that of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, not even its prequel. The writer's animate the story with a twist that leaves intense emptiness in its watchers (it's game cutscenes, not words); yet, (s)he must have thought really hard on how to leave lasting emptiness. Yes, excluding Xenoblade Chronicles X, which leaves a "???" and "wtf" with its final scene; be it the Xenoblade Chronicles 1's where the first characters' girlfriend being killed and taken away, not be seen until eons of chapters later (and hence makes here unplayable, sad), or the bringing away of the main character's girlfriend (again) by some guy his girlfriends knows a millenium ago **plus** the willingness for the girl to sacrifice herself to save the boy **but** immediately followed by a return and an empty lip that we never knows what they spoke to him (as the writer leaves the answer unique to each watcher, to his/her imaginations and expectations)... You see, the background wasn't as depressing as it was. The first series was adventurous, which they boy doesn't just, in the future, have one wife but two; so while one is away, another quietly followed beside him and patiently look at him as an outsider, while herself is an insider. Plus, the later comeback of the first girlfriend proves a relieve to fellow watchers, despite the long no. of chapters in between. The second series also similar. The growth path of the main character, the support from his partner and friends... sometimes, you just need to lose something before you really understand what things mean, and no one can share their experience with you, not unless you experience it yourself. While imaginations is wide, you really don't know how you would feel losing something, until you lose it; especially if you're skillful enough to put yourself in the main character's shoes, as if you are him... [1] Now, now, never watch Xenoblade Chronicles cutscenes without preparing a handkerchief. It's a 20 or so minutes cry with the final chapter; as if, you'll lose her forever. Throughout the adventure, the writer had placed her in a position that the watchers cannot but put her in an important role, esp. if you're single like one is. The relief from the final comeback, despite some questions to be answered by each one of us individually, is still a relief. Happily ever after. Unfortunately, that's the final "happily ever after" you'd see in the Xenoblade Chronicle series, as of writing. The scene and the background of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 proves desolate. A warring period where humans can only live for 10 years -- and 10 years isn't a long period -- makes one think of how time passes so quickly. Before long, one would forever turn to ash, and never to see the world again, if you don't believe in resurrection. Our live proves longer, but it won't be as long as we think it is; the busyness of life, the inactivity, or repetitive activity, proves how fast time travel, without waiting. Yet, there are times where we wish time will stop forever, that every second, our concentration are so in the "now" that time passes so slowly we can hear the tick. With 10 years to live, the wish to live in the "now" are strong. The wish for time to pass more slowly, to experience more of the world, is so strong. Yet, captivated in a warring state, where dying is the utmost peace one can have, that training in the earlier stage, and battle in the latter stage, is the only few activities one can experience, that time itself isn't the only shackle one need to break through to gain liberty, is how constant and throughout the desolation the background brings. The music plays an important role in its definition. One really love sad music, and Xenoblade 3's music fit one's taste. The bereaved and those left behind, being the main soundtrack one identified suitable for reminiscing memories of the cutscenes. Now, unlike Xenoblade 1 that only have one sad theme [2], and Xenoblade 2 two (and maybe a few small ones that one don't remember quite well, like bringing the girl to visit his parents' grave is one small one); Xenoblade 3 is a constant desolation, [3] a constant bombardment, that suppress and suppress, until *that* chapter comes, and everything swoosh itself out. The emotions are released from the shackles; and prepare yourself, it's an hour in tears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4MXGl1Qbgg&ab_channel=NintendoMelody Presumably, one lost a dear friend around that time that enhances the emotional trip. The story is typical of Xenoblade 2, showing how weak the main character is, how he can't do anything, except in a longer cutscene. Plus, this time, the girl is doomed to die, killed by the main character's past self [4]. Oh, how sad it is, to watch your girlfriend die in front of you, and you can't do anything except to say goodbye. [5] Oh, that's life. With a plot twist: unlike who's that writer again that always ends with the main character dying for all the stories (s)he wrote??? (if that exist in real life), the character swap body with the past self, so the past self died. That's somewhat a relief, at least temporarily before the final chapter. The problem lies when they have to be separated forever; ok, maybe not forever, but as for the game, the author seemed to announced that this trilogy is not to be visited in the next, and (s)he probably will start a new sequel? One don't know. If that's the case, then, to be separated forever is not funny. The final boss had stopped time [6] throughout the chapter, and when he's killed now, time started to tick again. The queens determined it's not time to merge the two worlds, for they cannot be sure that annihilation won't happen; and decide to separate. Unfortunately, the separation is both space and time, for whatever memories that flows during the unending war, during when time stop, would fade, as she wrote in her memoir: As the morning sun rises, my lingering memories fade. I no longer see your silhouette. It's too far gone into the haze. But, hey... It's all right. I won't forget you. Not until we can meet again... I swear it. Notes: Since one is male, one's writing from male's perspective; one is unsure of female perspective, maybe other female would write about it, or had wrote about it, who knows? Ok, there are quite a few sad themes, but each of us feel differently, so one would speak from one's position. It does have some more meaningful sadness scenes, and indeed, it has probably more than in Xenoblade 2, now that the author is more skilled at writing sad stories. At least one feel it from time to time, except maybe one or two chapter. Well, when you die, you're resurrected; the lacking of babies from natural childbirth means they actually bore it from a DNA database, and it's reused again and again every time you're dead. So you got revived again and again, each time without the previous memories unless those gods grant it to you to remember, to their favor. By Chapter 1, the main character still have 1 years 3 months to live, while the girl only have 3 months left to "homecoming" (a.k.a. slaughtered). By this scene, she only have 1 month left; and this scene peaked with homecoming. Presumably, whatever time they experienced is a sidetrack of time. If you imagine time flowing like a river, you can cut from a river so that water flows sideway from the main river stream. If the river carries the power of chrono, you're stealing time sidetracking the river. (Lead Image is a screenshot of the game, taken here) https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Xenoblade_Chronicles_3/gallery

Afterthought: The Discovery of France by Graham Robb Wait, France wasn’t a single country several centuries ago? Several years ago, one was interested in the language of French, but never learned the history of France, until one read this book. The prospect that Europe was a warring place were misty then, but not totally unknown. Yet, without reading history books in depth, one really thought the world was similar to what we have today, with nations as the main ruling country. After all, one only have more knowledge on China’s history and its neighboring countries, which are ruled by dynasties; but the general history books never mentioned about life of peasants. Furthermore, one heard of the Roman Empire, but don’t know how it was rule either. The macro blurs the micro. It was interesting to know France was divided into smaller entities, from the smaller villages to larger *pays*, and perhaps only country; but the single voice probably never exits the capital; and the further from the capital, the less effective the words of the king. Local rulers probably don’t even influence much on the villages, but only in the nearest “city” or “town.” Different people speaks different *patois* (dialects), it’s a wonder how, when a villager makes a visit to the nearest town/city, communicate with other people. Though, it’s possible that the nearer the village, the more similarity in the patois, making one able to understand another that’s not too far away. But there are case where crossing over a river, you might find patois that’s so different from yours that one can’t understand. Perhaps trade between villages facilitates patois to be more similar, if applicable. One don’t know. Centralization has its advantages, like easier communication, easier information flow, a lot of things easier. Yet, a top down design tends to aim for efficiency, and brings lots of side effects, especially after the fall of the top. For example, if a city suddenly got cut off from central government, food, water, and other stuffs not local to the area can’t be received. On the other hand, a decentralized farm ensures a spread out of risk: if it plants its own food, it won’t have the problem. If it has its own well and water supply, it won’t rely on central distribution. Read more in Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Anyways, after the Revolution (one isn’t sure which Revolution it is, there seems like several Revolution, perhaps the 1789 French Revolution? [1]), they decide to wipe out patois in favor of the French language, build schools that teaches in French and punish whoever using the patois. https://archive.org/details/Antifragile France was neither Protestant nor Catholic. In fact, it has its own fairies, virgins, gods, and priests. The Christian spread later. Still, some still throw the Christian’s god and saints away in favor of older customs, with its familiarity. One was misled by present religion, imposed on the distant past, when it could only explain at most “leftover” [2] from within a century. Before Greenwich Mean Time, the meridian was in Paris. No wonder we have difficulty tracking clock, and figuring out time from the past from our international definition of datetime today. Yet even today, some countries and cities still use their own datetime format; and just several centuries ago, different cities have their own time as a continuum, until the advent of railway, which the station clock has to make it discrete to time its departure and arrival, to make people’s life easier. Unfortunately, time had never been discrete, even today. Yet, we already lived in this unnatural world with unnatural time, perhaps with the most stupid invention about time: the timetable [3]. It’s interesting to know that dogs of the past and dogs of the present are different. Since the invention of automobiles, dogs lost their jobs, and become a pet to be pat at home; at least most dogs. There are still trained dogs at police department to sniff drugs, and other dogs to help human with disabilities, and other dogs to climb the mountains; but overall, many species of dogs no longer have these abilities, nor do we train them to do anything other than going on the stage and make some audience laugh, or being posted to YouTube and other platforms that goes viral for no other reason than people feeling the world too boring and needs something viral to watch. It’s nice to hear that dogs know about travelers who got trap during heavy snow (unsure about blizzard), and they bring with them a basket with food, (water?,) and medical kits which the traveler who got lost can use, and the dog can lead them to the hut. Most fascinating, they aren’t only trained by human owners; but passed on generations to generations, with older experienced dogs teaching it to younger dogs. That would be a rare sight today, perhaps, at least one never heard of it before. In Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, author mentioned that the Age of Reason was the realization of our ignorance. Yet, even into the early 20th century, France was ignorant of their natural treasure, their land. It wasn’t until British travelers coming to look for some adventure that they “discover” NewFoundLand that locals take for granted. Yes, locals know about them all the time, people are living there, yet no one ever stop and took notice of it, nor have the idea that it’s worth taking notice. Even until British travelers arrived in groups, to see these places before they disappear, “modernized” by railways and other modern inventions, the French didn’t realize it yet as a lost treasure, except probably as a chance to earn some money. https://archive.org/details/sapiens_202104/page/14/mode/2up It comes as a shocking news: France got the largest artificial forest in Europe! One know forest can be artificial, but at a large scale? Actually, one don’t know. One don’t know how large is the largest artificial forest, nor do one know how it looks like. In one’s memory, artificial forest tend to be neat and tidy, clearly not randomly placed. Though, as plants grow, it’ll become random. As for animals like deers, they’re imported! Can you believe it? Imported just for the forest to have some life! One is speechless about this, with mixed feelings, unsure to marvel, or to absorb that forest have to be artificial after so many cutting down done in the past, due to our ignorance of nature protection. But who can really protect nature in the past? Bandits lurked in the depth. There’s a phrase in Chinese during war, called “逢林莫入”, meaning to not enter the forest in case there are soldiers hiding and close the encirclement, finally all annihilated. In war times, burning down forest would be a clever trick to save the life of your soldiers; or if you have the time and able to, to go around. Even today, there may be secrets that we still don’t know. Yes, satellites allow us a view of the world, but from the surface, we can’t scan anything under it. Adventurers may still be traveling to discover things and places not yet discovered. Perhaps, you may one day heard of some underground cavern? One don’t know. Even if not, there are a lot of lost culture that we don’t know today. We probably don’t know how to carve the Damascus sword (or is it some sword that we lost the smithing process, what temperature for how long, and their hammering technique, hence we can’t made that metal anymore). Similarly, the loss of patois was seen by teachers, who’re also historians, as a regret. In certain days, people still dress up as they did several centuries ago, though. Yet, it’s a wonder whether cultural dress are really cultural, as in lasted for several centuries since the Roman Empire. Some scientists who tried to look for it eventually got disappointed, as their cultural dress wasn’t even a century old, and many were spread from Paris, but due to communication barrier, their “fad” was a fad in Paris of the past, yet the new fad didn’t reach the tailor until many years later. Speaking of Roman Empire, the fascinating thing is, Roman’s road were built to last!!! Can you believe it? They are the best roads, because locally-built roads are shitty! It’s no wonder: if you need to maintain a road made of smashed rocks and stones, and if it’s done by the slaves, it’s near impossible. The slaves built the road for the rich to use, yet it need maintenance, yet the slaves had no obligation to maintain the road that they almost never going to use. And with roads building in sections, and one section unbuilt can make the road unusable for very long. [4] Perhaps, this was all around Europe. The tiny villages instead of a single government was the norm of Europe several centuries ago. At least, one’s friend told me it was in Germany. Who knows, how it would be in other countries too? **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** Notes 1. A list of revolution can be found here, though one can’t ensure that’s all. https://guides.loc.gov/women-in-the-french-revolution/revolutions-rebellions/1789-1830-1848#:~:text=The%20three%20major%20revolutions%20in,his%20famous%20wife%2C%20Marie%20Antoinette. https://guides.loc.gov/women-in-the-french-revolution/revolutions-rebellions/1789-1830-1848#:~:text=The%20three%20major%20revolutions%20in,his%20famous%20wife%2C%20Marie%20Antoinette.), 2. By “leftover”, one means that science had gradually replace religion globally, so even if it was established within the last one or two centuries, it’s slowly being “replaced.” Though, one don’t know how religious people in France are today, so one can’t really speak about it. 3. The timetable was invented to control the factory workers. Since factory workers have to work in assembly lines, they can’t go to break when they want to. The stupid thing is, you’re not allowed to break if you already feel hungry, and you must go to break even if you don’t feel hungry; perhaps even toilet visits are time, one don’t know. Imagine, you have to pee within 30 seconds, so any extra pee you have, you have to suck it back into your liver. Imagine, you’re only given a fixed amount of time to poop, and any extra poop that didn’t come out during that time, you have to leave it inside your large intestine. Such stupid invention. 4. One wonder, why people can’t cross without the road, even at a slower pace? Is it because of the horse carriage wheel that’ll get stuck? But other people’s carriage wheel had got stuck for long, and had already suffer for many years, can’t they just go? Or maybe there are marsh and swamp, which one doubt how you fill that without it sinking… Though, they’re able to drain the whole province of that land which one forgot the name and plant trees and other plants, such a marvel feat, who say they can’t build a road on a marsh/swamp? (This article was first published in wabinab.github.io. For more of similar stories, check out the “afterthought” category, where one discuss about the books one read.) https://wabinab.github.io/article?filename=2024-04-26-France-History.md https://wabinab.github.io/?category=afterthought

It's A Dream 25042024 The door opens to the one-person-capacity balcony. Overlooking the meadow, the breeze, the smell of grass from the distant, it was relaxing. The neighbor to the left has a longer and larger balcony, and a smaller metal grid that looks like a balcony in between, but wasn't designed for people to stand; just some places where if you accidentally drop your items from the windows, it won't fall all the way down. To the right, there was a square-spiral staircase down to the very bottom. Further right, it was foggy in one's dream. Wait, why are there 2 people standing on the metal grid in front of one's window, overlooking the meadow. Both short, but one fat, one thin. Off you go... So one kick them down, all the way it fall. One enter back into the room. The next day, they're still standing there, not going anywhere. One thought, perhaps the door is too small, not enclosing the balcony; so let's make the balcony indoor. (See notes 1) That means calling someone to replace the door with a folding door that could enclose the whole balcony. After some text exchange, they started chatting to one, and one thought, why not handle the problem first? They say, they're just middle man waiting for someone else to come and fix that thing for one. Oh, yeah, ok. Eventually, the door is magically fixed; but one didn't register it as "fixed," but the person had already hung up. One expect a message back. One don't know how he/she is going to reach one, but when opening one's instagram, one found there was 10+ new messages, so perhaps somehow she got to my instagram via some unknown methods? Anyway, clicking into the message, it was written in language that one don't understand. Most importantly, there was a popup with a button on it. How did you even do a popup on an instagram app? Unfortunately, the button is enchanted, such that it can enchant whoever sees the button to press the button. That's the start of a computer virus spreading. The problem with this virus, which one dubbed "the back button virus", is that you can't press the back button on your phone. Every time you press "back," it'll be replaced by something it want you to type. For example, that button redirects you to download an infected game, but it requires you to login to your play store to do the downloading, so if one's email address is "wabinab@read.cash", then every time you press the back button, it'll auto fill: "w", "a", "b", "i"... Pause!!! If the back button doesn't work, how about the hamburger menu? The hamburger menu brings up a list of active apps, so you can drag and close them, or switch app. Ok, let's do that. Ok, it's successful. Now, you'd not want to click back in again until you delete the app and reinstall, and clear your phone of virus. That's not true; one thought, if one want to browse instagram, clear the memory and click back in, it should be at the home page again, isn't it? Just like you search things in instagram, you drag and close, you go back in, it's in home page. So, it won't be infected by virus again, yes? No, that's not true. The moment one click back into it, it displays a page lacking of design. It only have some illegible images blurred from one's point of view, and a button. This button isn't enchant, but one would like to go back home, so one press that back button. Alas! The back button curse works again! Pressing the back button automatically redirects to press that button on the screen, and here you go, you're redirected to a page that downloads the game. The game screen, to attract your attention, is a half-nude sexy model that don't need extra description (you see these nowadays in China ads, China apps, when browsing Chinese novels pirated page, usually as a box on the bottom right; not sure about other countries'). Now, you're doomed. The page locks all your button. You can't turn off your phone pressing the power button. You can't change the volume pressing the volume button. The home button, hamburger button, all don't work anymore. You have 2 choice. First, pull out the battery. Unfortunately, that may only stop it temporarily, and pluck it back in, one don't know what will happen. The problem is, the battery is no longer easily removed. New phones nowadays built in their batteries such that mundane people can't remove them. Furthermore, not every home have screwdrivers to crank the back cover out, or unscrew it if applicable. Basically, since battery cannot be remove anymore, that leaves us with one final step: factory data reset. And yeah, here it goes, the pin goes in, goes out, black screen, restart the phone back, it's all back at usual, with all your data, settings, preferences, lost. If you have a China's phone which didn't have Play Store readily installed, and can't install with ease, that's a hell load of a way towards setup, all because of a back button. The sun rise up, it's time to wake up. That's the end of the dream. Notes: It's weird, they're standing on the metal grid, but one is enclosing the balcony; there's no logic in dreams, right?

Difference Between Trading Cryptocurrency And Common Stocks One day, a friend ask, if one could justify the price of stocks by the value of its company, how do one judge the value of Bitcoin? There are no price/earnings ratio. Like fiat, Bitcoin derived its value from public trust, and speculators and investors willingness to bet on its future. Except, it's not controlled by a government. Yet, as a medium to exchange for goods, we can't treat it more like a stock than like a fiat. Government control fiat to be stable, because human likes stability; but without a government, Bitcoin can't be stable, so only speculators and investors trade in it. But let's not forget that Bitcoin is a coin, a currency, not a stock equivalent. There is one type of coin that acts like stocks though. These are the coins minted by DAO. DAO, where the "O" stands for "organization", acts like a company, hence it has an inherent value. Hence, we can relate its coins to the DAO's value. As stock doesn't reflect a company's value, DAO's minted coins also don't reflect a company's value, hence it tends to have overvaluation and undervaluation. At least, that's how one sees it. One doubt, with a coin that replace its stock, a DAO still have stock; but one don't know. DAO varies from DAO to DAO, and perhaps some board of directors might decide to have a DAO creating stocks, even though one don't see the point. In conclusion, trading Bitcoin isn't the same as trading stocks. One trade stocks because one see the undervaluation of a stock price compared to the value of the company. One trade Bitcoin because one believe it'll rise in price in the future, when it's being undervalued. Probably a whole new field of investment are to apply to Bitcoin; yet, some of the current investment principle, especially those that relate to self-control (patience and wait), applies in all situation, regardless of how the trading is done.

Exploring Life On Mars “Three, Two, One, Expunge.” The lock releases, the lander detached from the spacecraft, heading toward Mars. It all started, when a mad scientist really think that a lighthouse is a great idea for planetary exploration. A floating fortress measuring 300 meters tall, with several arms stretching up to 45 meters, weighing barely 815 kg, it’s a beast of planetary exploration. It had been designed for lightweight and robustness, to last for a thousand years before breaking down. The more high-tech the equipment, the less likely it’s going to last, as the complexity makes it breaks easily; and we can’t fix such high-precision equipment on Mars! Guess it’s computer? Yes, the analog computer, consists of gears. How about the radio signal, also generated by gears! The descent was typical. Watch NASA and you’d know how it worked. About 300 km before hitting ground, the lighthouse detached the heat shield, extending its arms outward. Blades, attached at the end of the arms, started turning with wind gustling through. At sufficient speed, the battery boost its speed up even further. Eventually, the lighthouse hovers at a height of 1.5 km above ground. Alas, the battery don’t last long. We need electrical charges a.s.a.p. Luckily, the mad scientist had thought of this. Solar panel requires maintenance, and dust would cover it up quickly; it could be used as a backup. Wind? Not really, we can’t be sure there is constant wind; we’re not on Jupiter. Luckily, the mad scientist found some heuristics: the ability to harnesses energy via difference in potential difference in planetary height. They tried it on Earth, sending hot air balloons with electrodes up several hundred meters into the air, attached via a copper wire to the end of a motor, and closed the connection by grounding it. It worked on Earth, it could work on Mars. With electricity crisis out of the question, it’s time to search for sign of life, present or past. Oxygen isn’t necessarily required, we can’t disprove the existence of anaerobic species. Similarly for water; but let’s just assume that water is required; for we used to live in water before living on land. If martian surface is cold, we can find ice on top; but we’d like to find underground lakes, several hundred meters beneath the surface. Luckily, several tools are fitted on the tip of the lighthouse, among them the water-scanner. The water-scanner emanates a waveform that could penetrate Martian soil, up to working distance of 300 meters (from the surface of Martian soil, ignoring air in between lighthouse and ground). Upon hitting water, it’ll reflect the wave. Making sure the lighthouse didn’t leave the magnetic region of Mars, a 5 years search started. The mad scientist was invigorated! What’s more, we have a surface mine of iron ore nearby the site. The next thing is to search for underground cavern. We want to create a base for exploration, preferably not a floating one. An underground cavern next to a lake is like beaches next to the sea. You’d build ports, and a town where sailors could replenish their supplies. If there are none, we could just make an artificial underground cavern. Luckily, the site where we dig down, 15 meters from the lake, comes with a small cavern; saves us time. If there are no water source that refill, lakes eventually dries up. Perhaps there might be geyser down, we don’t know. What we can do is reduce evaporation. The rocks that covers up the lake aren’t porous -- they minimize evaporation. For a close system, we can even see clouds forming near the ceiling, averaged 30 meters above the lake surface. Our drill site will be the main escape site for existing clouds and future water vapor. We want to close it up. It’s time for our bulldozer and drill to scrape some iron ore, send them to our 3D printer on board the lighthouse, to make contracted door and walls, extended upon delivering to where it should be. The door opens horizontally, facing the lake; and we could close the hole on the ground as well, but no, we’ll leave that open for ease of entering and leaving the hole. Plus, it would make our elevator more difficult down, if we need to build something more complicated. We don’t know if there are creatures in the sea. However, the mad scientists already thought of that. We’ll send a small ship, built on Earth, equipped with ultrasound for bathymetry, cameras (including one underwater, all infrared), and several high-intensity (high-lux) lamp facing several direction (which don’t always turn on unless necessary, to save electricity; similarly for other equipments). The ship is equipped with its own batteries to power its motors, recharged back at the port. Unfortunately, we don’t find copper ore and no copper refinery on the lighthouse, so we can’t 3D print an extra long wire that connects the boat directly to the power relay at our base, which is connected to the lighthouse. The battery ultimately have limited power before it needs to return, limiting its range of exploration and equipment use. Other more fragile equipment, like those used to test the water, are limited. We have pH papers, yes; and we have a bucket to collect water, but not equipment to analyze it. The samples could be sent to lighthouse for basic analysis, though, as we have a camera attached to the end of a low-multiplication microscope, the image could be sent back to Earth. For more detailed analysis, the sample will have to travel back to Earth. Here is another place where the iron ore comes handy. We don’t build return pods due to weight concern, but we could 3D print return pods. The return pods encase the water samples, stored in limited plastic tubes (glass is too fragile). However, we can’t be sure the sample we send back to Earth is valid. Temperature change transporting it from the ground to the surface, and heat loss is not preventable, for the mad scientists didn’t load heat blankets to encase the plastics, again, for weight concerns. This means some bacteria might have died out, and the content might have changed. Even if we finished building the pod before transporting the water, it would take some time to reach from the lake to the pod, and the pod itself is metallic (which means heat loss is quick). It’s not stored in vacuum, we don’t have the equipment to do so. Nor could we release the air when the pod reach space, for the difference in atmospheric pressure, we cannot ensure the plastic would not break. See, it’s not made of expensive material, but cheap stuffs. Though we have a heat shield, we can’t be sure it won’t reach boiling point inside the transport pod, boiling the water. The plastic can sustain boiling water, though, but isn’t comparable with melting point of glass. Even with such limitations, we decide the send the water sample back to Earth. The return pod are launched from the top of the lighthouse, beaming to the satellite above (still remember the “thingy” where lighthouse detach/expunge from? That’s the satellite in space). Upon receiving the landing pod, the satellite will change its course, targeting Earth, before launching the pod again. It’ll take some time before the pod arrive at Earth with its ionic thrusters. The landing and retrieval of water samples isn’t worth the story. We did it lots of time, just check NASA and other space agency stories. Living creatures is a possibility. They lure deeps beneath the lake, like the sighted but not camera-ed loch ness. Oh, we could test the oxygen levels; no we can’t, we didn’t load the chemicals and equipment to do the testing, not even on lighthouse. Furthermore, we can’t be sure that they’d preserve their chemical composition upon reentry, for weight concerns means none are stored in closed system. Limited heat can spread from the heat shield into the lighthouse upon reentry. We’ll just assume there are monsters, large or small, and capable of digging through martian soil. We need to build an albeit closed system. First, all 6 sides would be closed with metal plates. Though, at the top of the side facing the lake, we would have porous metal bars, criss-crossed fences. A hole would be made in the middle, so any vehicles (primarily boats) entering and leaving would drive itself onto the elevator, transferred up, before lowered down on the other side. Two 3D printed magnetic beam weapons face the lake. These weapons fired beams, which only works in air, and greatly weakened upon entering water. Beams do get dispersed and reflected much more in water than in air. We also have weapons facing inside, in case the unknown beast could bite through the plates and enter the base; these weapons will be left to the imagination of the readers, considering its strength, ability to turn quickly in small space, physical or laser, etc. The metal plates and metal bars, of course, are also 3D printed. Lots of 3D printing that take lots of time. To secure the base, screwing isn’t enough, for a large force can move them. Even a heavy-weighted fence can be moved by a large force, even for a short distance. Therefore, we need piling. Before raising the fences, holes were drilled deep into the ground, before pilings are lowered. These pilings are 15 meters in length, with cavity in the top 3 meters. When the fence are fitted to its position, metal bars located inside the metal fence are pushed down to fill these cavities, therefore joining them to the pilings. Optional screws could be used to screw these metal bars to the pilings. Pilings aren’t just drilled “down”, but also left and right, 3 directions. We don’t do it “up”, because gravity falls down. Pilings aren’t just located at the gate area, but also other places, except they aren’t locked; just to ensure the floor can withstand heavy weight without sinking. The battle scene will be left to the reader’s imagination. Assuming there are huge loch ness monsters attacking the base, the firing of the cannot, the hitting of monster’s body against the gate, the trembling felt. That’s not all! Consider there are monsters digging its way from underground, biting through the metal plates, and internal weapons firing at them before they destroy the magnetic beam cannons. The mess they left with after they left, the reparation process, time and energy it took, and checking whether equipments in the base damaged, what can or can’t be repaired. The feedback it give on how to upgrade the barriers and floor (thicker floors? Or maybe of other materials, if we find another mine?) With our base built, we can finally turn to exploration. The lake is huge, and a boat based on its base can’t go too far, however large and strong one’s battery is. Communication is another problem. Even if we disregard the stalactite matrices, acting as barrier for radio wave penetration, we need to consider the weakness of radio wave emitted from the ship (to save energy), the dissipation of directed radio wave energy (unfortunately, it’s not laser, but conical, in case we suddenly misaligns), hence its range. We want to connect, at each point, relay station. The relay station gets its energy via iron ore wires (we still don’t have copper, sorry; and energy beaming is a little high tech, which we could do if you have any good idea at such distance). Each relay station consist of communication channel, capable of receiving radio signals from the boat and transfer them back to the base, hence lighthouse, satellite, and back at Earth. The relay station also acts as a charging station, where the boat could charge itself. Since the transfer of energy is weak, we need good batteries that dissipate slowly, to counter against the inefficiency of iron ore wires transferring electricity. Finally, the boat could temporarily put its resources on the relay, and the base can send a container boat (built without a camera, only runs along a certain predefined path, solely to pick up stuffs left by the explorer boat) to return to the base. Storage boat are easier than conveyor belt, for energy considerations, and the monsters occasionally attack these equipments, for they aren’t protected by weapons, and have to be occasionally repaired. The discovery of martian life marks a successful project for the mad scientist. While communication takes long, the mad scientist actually treat it as a game, if you ever played Oxygen Not Included before. Except, the game is slow to respond, and only simple-enough instructions can be executed. He cannot know if there are martian storms that might destroy the lighthouse, or other factors that requires the lighthouse to detach from the base and temporarily run for its life. He can’t know, whether he’ll find water on Mars. Overall, it was satisfying, and perhaps, even after his death, his successors could benefit from such mission, for human touch feet on Mars, in the optimistic phase, would be centuries to come. Until then, durable exploration devices like the lighthouse outperform all other 3-year-lifetime rovers. **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** Notes: This story is **fictitious**!!! Alas, robust, not antifragile. Antifragile requires some deep thinking of how to implement it; which one haven’t do it yet, if it’s possible. Though, one isn’t sure if this has something to do with magnetic field or not. For every 1 meter in height, you gain +100V of potential difference on Earth; that probably isn’t true on Mars. Second, if you google, you’d find out that only half of Mars have magnetic field; and whether this magnetic field flips to the other side, or moves with time, one don’t know. Plus, +100V sounds a lot; but it actually isn’t, because power is voltage * ampere, and ampere is small, despite high voltage. The numbers here have no meaning. They’re mostly made up. As this is fiction, so are the technologies fictitious. As if we’re playing Oxygen Not Included. Yeah, oxygen problem solved. The first time you played too long, you’d face the “out of algae” problem, then only you look at the electrolyzer. Then, you’d face “out of coal” problem, then only you start thinking how to save electric with energy-saving batteries, and smart batteries to turn the generator on and off. Then, you need to solve the happiness problem where your people get too stress when you put too many ugly stuffs where they go. Then, you need to solve the food problem, because dirt will also run out, like algae. That means plantation. Then, you need to solve the temperature problem, because most edible plants can’t grow beyond a certain temperature! Oof! This is lots of trial and errors before you learn how to get it work. Psst: If planets don’t have enough water, you need “water rocket” to transport water from time to time. One could do auto control with the interplanetary package launcher, but that requires lots of radbolts, and crazy setups. It’s like bathymetry using ultrasound fitted on ships! Don’t ask me how we 3D print magnetic weapons, nor did magnetic weapons exist. As for the beams, you could treat them as light beams, if you learned about reflection, refraction, and probably light dispersion. Liquid particles are more concentrated than air particles, that’s why laser can’t maintain too long a distance in liquid, as compared with air. This story is first published on mirror.xyz. https://mirror.xyz/0xa32e05D545FEc9cADb46BEB0839E3Ac0A9E39d9B/yBQuk13fJI8C5Wq3WlDNlbuzDzQpIgEpy68Bn18hUNY?referrerAddress=0xa32e05D545FEc9cADb46BEB0839E3Ac0A9E39d9B

Afterthought: Clear Thinking By Shane Parrish The author himself mentioned, this book is a mesh of many books, articles, podcasts, and ideas he read, heard, and learn from others; with a few examples that share his experiences. The style of writing reflects self-help, with every sentence focuses on convincing the reader to make changes, if what you're doing now isn't already aligned with what he's speaking about. Effectiveness is of no question, for self-help author had perfected the technique for decades, even centuries, on influencing people. For a reference, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was published in 1936-37. Though, if you read too much self-help books, you'd feel weird and manipulated by the technique of writing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People Contrast with a book that's written to inform, to raise awareness, to introduce a new idea. The style focuses on something original (hopefully), without trying to convince you to do something, nevertheless it's effectiveness doesn't decrease, at least for the books written by the great authors who invest in their writing. By invest, one don't mean just the writing skills; though they're important, they're secondary to clear thinking. In Writing To Learn, author introduces that, a clear thinking writes clearly. From one's feel, even if it's written in a semi-repetitive form, to ensure the reader always getting reminded by that one single point the author is trying to make, it feels different from the repetition used by self-help authors. What exactly cause that feeling, unfortunately, one can't pin it down. Perhaps, it's the gap in between good and very good writing, and great writing. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/585474.Writing_to_Learn There's nothing wrong with how it's written, though. Author had stated clearly that it'd be written in that form, and it's one's choice to continue reading anyways. One recommends slowing down to read the final chapter. It works better with recalling and taking the time to think. If you need a sad BGM, go ahead and play a few on the playlist. Later, take quiet time (without the BGM) to think it through, and sleep through it. Perhaps you might discover a whole new world, and set off on a brave new world. **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** First written in my personal blog wabinab.github.io. If you like more of these, a full list can be found here. https://wabinab.github.io/article?filename=2024-04-11-Clear_Thinking.md https://wabinab.github.io/?category=afterthought

We Live Longer Than Our Ancestors? You ever heard that our ancestors lived an average age of 30+? Gradually with Industrial and Medicine Revolution, our average age increased to 50+, 60+, then around 80+, 90+ today. Is it really due to medicine alone? No. Though modern medicine helps, it's not the sole factor. Yet even with medicine, do you wonder how it helped us? The old medicine, witchcraft, etc. are dependent on experience, not wonders. In Sapiens, author Yuval Noah Harari mentioned the inability to accept oneself being wrong (which is still significant today outside the scientific world), the reliance on experience than experiment, the ignorance that any information not discovered, or don't have an answer in the Bible/any other religious codex isn't worth pondering, makes ancient people die faster visiting the doctor compared to resting at home, letting the body heal for itself. The early advent of modern medicine discovers lifesaving medicine that, after ignorance for so long, dramatically improves our lifespan as you'd expect before slowing down upon reaching a plateau. https://archive.org/details/sapiens_202104/page/14/mode/2up Today, we thought, at least one thought before, that modern medicine only do good in giving us modern vaccine, modern medicine (antibiotics), etc. that increase our lifespan; or perhaps the invention of chemotherapy extends the lifespan of cancer patients. Yet, this is a mistake. It's no doubt that vaccine like HIV and COVID prevents you from catching these deadly diseases; yet, we can't deny that there may be little to no cancer patients in the past, for if people's average age is short, they don't live long enough to catch "cancer." By "no doubt with vaccine lengthening our lifespan," one mean the eradication of smallpox. As for disease, with one's amateur knowledge, one only sees the giant contribution of antibiotics in preventing death from contagion to deadly disease not killable by our bodies alone without taking antibiotics. Otherwise, one can't see other as medicine than as iatrogenics, yet. The benefits doesn't convince one that one's body can't heal itself without taking it. Therefore, disease and pandemic eradication does lengthen our lifespan, but it's really just a few medicine, like antibiotics, that helps. Others probably don't. Yet, it's not just how we think medicine helps wrong. Statisticians also gave us the wrong impression via "average," which has no s**t use without its variance and/or standard deviation. Really, there are more interesting data than the statistics. Did you know centenarians (who lived at least or more than 100 years old) exists when average age is 30+? Probably not, given how misleading is the "average." When one read the Renaissance by Will and Ariel Durant, there are a lot of significant people living to age 50, age 80, even age 100+; one could say they don't represent those of peasant lifespan, yes; yet if average age is 30+, one's impression is, even if you're long lived, you couldn't possibly lived up to 2x the length, yeah? Maximum 70 years old already is long-lived? What do you mean these guys lived to 80+, 90+, 100+??? What happened? https://archive.org/details/TheStoryOfCivilizationcomplete/Durant_Will_-_The_story_of_civilization_5/ The answer lies in the graph where people dies isn't bell-curved, but fat-tailed. Child mortality rate was high. A lot of children died within a few days after birth; it's a miracle in the old days for one to live longer than 5 years old. That's why, people of the past took the risk and give many births (remember, mother dies easily giving birth in the past, unlike today with surgery); yet the no. of children reaching adulthood is around a third, even less depending on country, (financial) situation, and many factors. When child mortality rate first declined dramatically, we humans don't immediately reduce our pregnancy rate; perhaps that's one partial explanation of the population boom in the past 2 centuries. And it takes 2 centuries for us to finally have higher death rate than birth rate (in many developed countries). See how slow our mind aligns, and how unwilling we are to change our minds. Anyway, the reduction of child mortality rate probably lessened the fat-tailed effect towards early death, moved it towards living longer life. So, even with unhealthy diet and unhealthy exercise regime we have today, our "average" increase dramatically with drastic decrease in child mortality rate. Yet, medicine can't be the sole cause in "average" increase. The mindset of war was appealing in the past, for to increase your economic capital, you need war in the past. What? Trade with other countries? You'd be kidding me. That's extremely slow way to capture capital compared to plundering. We today can do it, why not the past? Because the past is the past! Capitalism wasn't invented until the Dutch invented them; even so, these LLCs also have a long way to go. Plus, europe is still trying to spread their mindset around the world, which will took several centuries of conquering colonies, rebelling for independence, before the world took off. Plus, monopolies aren't good for the economy, which is quite true all the time. We also have monopolies today like Google, Amazon, etc. The gathering of capital, the creation of credit is a long process, with bubble expanding and popping lots of times before we get to today's world. Only when we can make more money by trading than plundering do people support peace. **You'll have to satisfy your greed before settling for a peaceful life**. Otherwise, you'll live hungry, or unless you're willing to live in poverty, to understand like Buddha and the Stoics, that material wealth is of nothing compared to internal peace. It's not the major outbreak of war like WWI and WWII that brings the most suffering to people, but the unfinished rivals between two clans, two tribes, or two villages, all independent of one another, yet exist in the tens of thousands of millions, that hits the hardest. The aggregation of small scale war may be more destructive than large scale inter-country wars. When people lose war, they're deprived of food, water, etc. Perhaps famine is one of the largest cause of death in history; or even if not, it has significant cause. Unfortunately, you can't treat famine with medicine. Who would have thought, we have so much food today that instead of donating to those in poverty that needs them, our inequality tends us to waste them instead, throwing it away without finishing it, taking more than we can eat, etc.? Notes: Originally, one was writing this against "medicine" being the sole factor of our lifespan increase. True in some sense, for giant pharmacist might be over-intervening with our body, where they give us medicine when we're healthy, just because they want to earn more money, hence reduce your lifespan overall. Yet, as one wrote, one realized it's also medicine, not nowadays giant pharmacist, that help with lots of factors. Just see how writing can make one rethink one's decisions, and ask oneself, "Is one getting it right?" One don't know about what exactly cause the population boom. Another reasoning might be people need more hands in the fields, or people need more hands earning money (even with the extra mouth), or whatever reason.

What Do You Mean By "Most"? What does "most" actually means? By definition, there are no exact definition. Everyone has their own understanding of "most". Let's discuss. For each of these example, only some of you would agree with the definition, depending on how you define "most." Hence, you most probably find only one, or at most a few, but most probably not all definition you agree with. Plus, this list isn't exclusive, as it only includes those that one could think about. Say, we divide a pizza among several person, not equally. The one holding the largest portion of that pizza can be called "most." In mathematics, consider that the largest portion of the pizza is 30%, but since the second most is 25%, third most 18%, etc. even if the number 30% isn't a lot compared to 100%, it's still "most." Next, anything more than or equal to 50% (half of the population) can be considered "most." Perhaps this don't need any explanations? "Most" could be perspective than mathematical. When you 'feel' like 'many' around you (your friends, families, colleagues) agree/disagree with something, you'd conclude that "most" of them are (fill in the blanks). This is more of a selective bias than a misunderstanding. Most probably we get together with like-minded people, so it gives us a false impression that "most" people are (whatever); especially when we falsely assume these like-minded people are generally representative of the general population when they're not. Even a very small population can cause such misunderstanding. Example, if you ask just one person, and he says yes, you brain can trick you to assume you had asked lots of people and everyone says yes. Less extreme, if you ask 2 or 3 person, and they say yes, you also come to conclusion even if your brain don't trick you to assume you ask many, as your brain can consider 2 or 3 person "many." In conclusion, the vagueness of "most" means we need more mathematically accurate words to clarify what we really mean, than let them be vague. Otherwise, what you convey will almost certainly get distorted because your "most" most probably (ahem, perhaps 80% probable) isn't the same as others' "most." **Remember to Like and Subscribe** Edit 14/04/2024: The Meaning Of "Many" Many people confused "many" with "most." Let's use an example. If there are a thousand people in total, and 500 wore dresses, we could say, many people wore dresses. How about, if there are a million people, and 500 wore dresses? Could we say "many" wore dresses? Yes, of course. 500 is a lot of people. Hence, "many" does not have an association with the total no. of people; it does not anchor itself to comparison. Instead, it's hedged on an absolute number. 500 people is a lot of people, in one's point of view, regardless of the total no. of people. The number 500 isn't any magic number, replace it with your internal anchor on what you consider "many." "Many" isn't dependent on a percentage to the total.

The Irreplacable Role of Utopia, and The Awakening of Awareness The Irreplacable Role of Utopia Human beings always adapt to their surroundings, if they're not killed immediately. Such adaptations means we could never feel happy if we're always pursuing the future. The Buddha, the Stoics, therefore encourages us to be satisfied with the now, for what we hold, and not crave for more. Unfortunately, not everyone could do that, though. Many still pursue for better stuffs. What they used to pursue are now seen mundane, ignorant of what they hold they used to pursue. Their expectations raised, such that if asked to revert to a previous version, they'd mourn, for the feeling of loss is so great. Given this psychological tendency that we're never satisfied, it's best that we live in the current moment of (un)conscious evolution, without ever reaching utopia. For a utopia is perfect, nothing left to be improved. Humans, finding out they could not crave for the better, that they already had the best, that everyone around them have also the best (the same product they're holding), cannot find what distincts them from others, lose their status of having better products than others, and have nothing to look for in the future. The result is unknown, but we could guess decadence, loss of meaning of life, loss the will to live. A peak always ends with a decline, perhaps with no exception. Of course, we already have the answers: Buddha and the stoics gave us the answers. If we're satisfied with what we have, we won't be slaves to greed, status, dignity, reputation, etc. And if not, perhaps we should never build the utopia, even if we can. The Awakening of Awareness How many technologies, after they're invented, aren't put to use? People know about steam power far back into the Roman Empire, and cooking produce steams every day; yet it wasn't until the First Industrial Revolution that put it to pump water out of mines. (See Notes) Upon the first invention, everyone's mind is opened. It could use to pump water out of mines, why not use it for other stuffs, like the railway carts to pull mines? If it could pull mines, why can't it pull people? The most difficult step is 0 to 1, and we wonder how long it'll take for the 0 to become the 1, and how many technologies today we have are still in the 0 stage, awaiting for its 1. One thought of this when one saw the toroidal fan blade. Who would have thought you use maths to make such blades? Now that toroidal opened one's mind, one would think, oh, why not use a mobius-stripe shaped blade? https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20010088092 It's a question, how can we shorten this interval between a technology being discovered, and someone putting it to real case usage. One devise the partial gap lies between scientists who discovered it, and inventor who applies it. (One don't think engineers are the one doing the application, in one's opinion, but architect/inventor who care about the 'how' not the 'why'. The difference lies in the latter doing bottom-up evolution-friendly method of discovery, compared to top-down fragile method). Notes Though, one can't be sure if it's due to not thought about, have the idea but too lazy to implement it, or unable to implement in large scale even if thought about it. For example, steam engine requires fuel to boil, which is a lot of coal. If during the Roman Empire they don't have coal mines, or whatever reasons that they don't appreciate coal, provided they found shallow/surface coal mines, logs aren't sufficient to provide lots of power compared to coal.

Longevitology: The Secrets To A Healthy Life “Unbelievable! That’s impossible! It’s not backed by science!” one thought. Yet, if one was to **rethink** one’s assumption, whether science backed everything. “No, because science is the search for things we don’t know, and there are lots of things we don’t know. Plus, science haven’t yet disprove God’s existence.” Before long, one found oneself standing behind the doors leading to the event hall, supposingly hosting 300 participants. After taking attendance, one was allowed to enter the hall. https://adamgrant.net/book/think-again/ One make one’s way through passages, directed by hands of facilitators, and allocated seatings at random. If you ever been on board of an economy class plane, like the Boeing 777 before they expanded the width of the seat, even for a skinny person, the hands can barely move, or even put beside your torso. The seats are just similar, except instead of being greeted by shared seat handlers, you’d bear physical contact with another person, and hope the person beside you is skinny enough to not oversqueeze into neighboring compartments. Physical contact is always great, soothing one’s feelings. Who experienced touch deprivation during Covid-19? The projector was turned on. On screen displays the definition of longevitology, says “the attraction/absorption of the energy from the universe to fill up your body, which in turns improve our metabolism rate and the speed at which new blood is created in the marrow, to flush out diseases and pain in our body.” “Ok, science hadn’t yet prove the existence of the energy from the universe, at least not one’s aware of, yet good science is never to prove something’s existence, but to disprove its existence; and science probably haven’t disprove it yet, or we wouldn’t have so many terms like ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark matter’, where ‘dark’ may refers to non-illuminating matter, but could also means non-matter, i.e. ‘objects that we don’t know what it is.’” And if it’s not disproved, we can believe it till it’s being disproved. To prepare for the event, we were asked to meditate, to empty our minds of thoughts, or just go to sleep sitting on a chair, while waiting for the event to start. Great, one brought with one “The Renaissance” by Will and Ariel Durant, to kill time, but was asked to meditate? Don’t you know that Gen Z adults today have zero patience when doing nothing? The event started with “opening your acupoint” (开窍). Acupoints played an important role in Chinese medical history. Each acupoints are linked to certain parts of the body, when stimulated, could provide soothing effects to its corresponding parts, or even healing effects. Perhaps the most common acupoints one’d stimulate, without knowing it’s an acupoint, locate to the left and right of your eyes, when you have headache on either left or right side of your head. Another is between your eyes, to the left and right off the top of your nose, which you stimulate when your eyes hurt. Many chinese novels says we have 365 acupoints, but the exact amount one don’t know, just a lot of them, hundreds are best guesses. Yet, for this event, there are 7 main acupoints that linked to your body parts, at least that’s what they said. Acupoint C1 is the portal absorbing the universe energy, doesn’t exist in your body; yet the other 6 acupoints are “closed,” hence “opening your acupoints.” We start with **C7** (on top of your head, the most important of all ‘other 6’, between the axis where your nose and ears intercept, or where your hair spirals out, if you aren’t bald) and **C6** (Put your fingers between your eyes, above your nose, and move up toward your forehead until you feel a cavity). With eyes closed, one feels their fingers pressing on C7 and C6, while slowly reverberating as if internal energy (Qi) being transferred; though one didn’t feel any surge in energy from the universe. Meh, but it’s comfortable, so that’s forgive-able. Upon removing their hands, one was led back to one’s seat, asked to drink some water, and return back to meditative state while others wait for their turn opening their acupoint, probably another half an hour or so. As everyone had their acupoints opened, the teacher came on stage, and we could finally open our eyes, sit straight, and focus on what the teacher had to say, with a mind ready to **call out “bullshit!”** https://callingbullshit.org/ The teacher starts with lots of explanation, not one you’d expect from a professional debater; for one reasoning is enough, to not easily being attacked, not easily finding loopholes in a single reasoning, and strong enough to make one stand. Yet, different people have different worries, listening on different channels; and the teacher probably have to address them speaking at different channels one at a time to convince at least most of us to believe in what he had to speak. Example, some are worried that, if they help people heal, they might catch their disease; the antidote is that the energy of the universe first fills your body before transferring to the patients’, which is stronger than the disease, so the disease is killed upon entering your body. Others are worried about going to hell (for God’s sake, what does that means, helping people going to hell???), and the teacher had to explain that the doctors you visit receives merit points, albeit in the form of their local currency, and they probably go to heaven, so why did you go to hell instead? Some others, like oneself, is convince more by the scientific facts, or at least logical non-scientific facts that sounds like “common sense” (when it can be “common nonsense”). The initial explanations aren’t clear, at least not clear enough one could convey it to you. It’s only two days later, after several testimonies from the audience, that one gets a bit of it. By that time, one was finishing Book IV: *Via Negativa* of **Antifragile**; which suggests against the use of medicine for mild diseases like headache or depression, instead our body will deal with them ourselves, that reminds one, perhaps this longevitology takes advantage of our body’s own immune system, making more sense. Plus, testimonies are filled with people resorting to medicine, *via positiva* interventions; and the removal of medicine probably helps their body recovers, without the side effects of medicine prohibiting such recovery. Some other testimonials sounds like pure coincidences, wrongly associated with longevitology, though one can’t disprove it not related to longevitology. Others still aren’t convinced why it’s better than medication; and convinced via medication targeting only the symptoms, not the cause of the disease, while this does (in what ways??? Read on!) https://archive.org/details/Antifragile With people convinced at least to come back the next day, even bringing in their relatives and friends that was absent on the first day, the teacher finally gets to the most important point: the **how**! There are two branches: one to heal existing pain or disease, another to prevent being ridden by future pain and disease that could be avoided (that is, being cut by a knife isn’t included, nor being knocked down by cars, but back pain can be prevented by good posture). Starting with healing existing pain, for that’s accountable for most of the audience, or the audience won’t be there if they don’t have pain, unlike you’re in one’s situation partially forced by one’s parents to the event, on behalf of making more friends or meeting new friends, which is convincing, for one’s life goal is to make long-term friends, friendship that could last at least 60 years till one’s death. It’s easy: put one hand on the area of pain/disease, another hand at its corresponding acupoint (C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, or C7), which one could find in the last page of the “assigned textbook”. In case you don’t know which is which, just put your hands on C7. In general, it’s related to the nearest acupoints. E.g. C7 and C6 is located at top of the head, so it governs the whole head. We’ll explain the locations of C2, C3, C4, C5 later. (unfortunately, one don’t have reprint permission for the image on the textbook) Then, the steps for prevention: Eyes looking forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out through your mouth. Repeat 5 times. Close your eyes. Breath normally. Maintain (in meditative state) for at least 15 minutes. Open your eyes. Do step 1 (that is, eyes forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out via your mouth, repeat 5 times). Sounds easy? Practically not. How long can you meditate? Like most meditation, if any thoughts pop up, you’d slowly acknowledge it, delve in it, analyze it and see if it brings you any signals you don’t hear when you’re on your phone or busy with other stuffs, then finally resolve it by dismissing it. Yet, some thoughts are so difficult for one to face that one wants to numb oneself on one’s phone than to face it directly. Other people think meditation is a waste of time, just because they don’t understand the importance of connecting with one’s subsconcious. Still others just can’t sit still, actions, actions, and more actions! Even 15 minutes is painful. Like exercise, the joy comes later when one can finally break free from the shackles of the urges that strongly prefers the phone, that strongly prefers actions, from the shackles of fear of confrontation, to solve a problem at its root. Probably at the 10th minutes only one feel the joy; some can only feel so after 30th minutes; differ from person to person. “The importance comes with practice and trying. We humans learn by practicing, not listening; and without trying, we never know whether it’ll work or not.” Probably the testimonials are biased towards those that’re only successful, disregard those that’re not; yet one agrees with this sentence the teacher mentions. In Antifragile, author convinces us on the importance of actions than “talk” (which he spelled it as “tawk”). The latter reminds one about how a strong fear prevents one from even trying, like fear to propose to a girl one like in case one puts oneself below the lights while being rejected; like fear of telling teacher one had to go to the bathroom for fear of cutting him/her halfway through his/her speech and getting scolded. Yet, these are just one’s imaginations; for one isn’t the girl or the teacher, so how do one know how (s)he will react without even trying? Perhaps, locked in a world with myriads of technologies enslaving your attention, that deprives your body’s ability to heal itself. For it was when we finally relax, free from all external demands, when our body could relax and heal your disease. An attention-deprived state is comparable to fight-or-flight, which postpones healing to a later stage, after the supposing “danger” is over. Alas, most never got free from the shackles of the screen, constantly in fight-or-flight mode, to switch to the next most interesting news, fear of missing them out, even to the point of reducing one’s sleep, or at least disrupting one’s sleeping schedule. Longevitology offers the time and psychology, to recreate an environment where technology hadn’t yet deprives us of our attention, finally allowing your body to relax after years of locked in “busyness.” **C5, C4, C3, and C2** **C5**: Between the 6th and 7th bone of your spinal cord, counted from the top. If you’re finding your own, it’s in between the two largest protruding bones; or you can try extrapolate where your shoulder lines meet, that’s about it. **C4**: It’s approximately directly behind the axis where your heart lies, but on the spinal cord. **C3**: It’s approximately directly behind your belly button. **C2**: It’s the final bone of your spinal cord, where you can feel a sharp tip (as if we used to have a tail there). Directly below is the anus. (All acupoints lie on the axis of your spinal cord) **Original Text (Optional)** (You could skip these text. They’re don’t meet what one actually want to say) Well, any words with “-ology” sounds cool, does it not? Don’t be confused, though, it’s just created to attract attention. Longevitology is the absorption of “universe energy,” which helps improve our metabolism and blood creation (in the marrow), which in turns speed up our recovery from disease and pain inside our body. One’ll try to explain why it works, from its perspective and from more logical (which may or may not be scientific) perspective. **On The Limits of Modern Medicine and Treatment** (skip forward if you don’t need explanation) In **Antifragile** Book VI, *Via Negativa*, Taleb explained that mild disease could be treated by reducing intake, instead of increasing intake (*via positiva*). The latter is taking in “pills,” or involved in interventions (operations, surgery). The former, reduce your food intake, for example. Let’s take a deeper look at why this makes sense. https://archive.org/details/Antifragile Every pill has side effects. Some side effects are directly relatable, such as, if you don’t finish your antibiotics, remnants bacteria would develop antibiotic-resistant mutation, and the same antibiotics must be prescribed in larger amount, or switching to a stronger antibiotics, to continue the treatment. Other side effects aren’t directly relatable, especially those that their side effects happens only few years later [**Requires an example**]. Recalling back, who would have thought a pill that brings immediate benefits would have cause such large side effects after such a long time? Sometimes, doctor might ask you to take pills till your time of death. Therefore, author suggests that, unless you’re on the verge of death, or risk dying without intervention, don’t take pills. Example, if you got hit by a bullet, you probably want to remove the bullet especially if it causes unstoppable bleeding. Similarly, in **Sapiens**, author Yuval Noah Harari explained that, if you got hit by an arrow on the torso, you’re most likely dead from infection; while today, it can be easily treated by antibiotics (to kill the bacteria causing the infection). https://archive.org/details/sapiens_202104/page/18/mode/2up However, if it’s not to the verge of death, your body most probably can repair it, especially when you’re still young or in middle ages, when body functionality is still high. For children and old age, it might or might not work, depending on how weakened your body functionality is. Example, if you have a headache, refrain from taking painkillers (like Panadol). If you have depression, refrain from taking antidepressant medicine (like **Prozac, SSRIs,** etc.) Never never use “I don’t have time for headache” as an excuse! https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/248320 In Taleb’s word, the benefits from such medicine isn’t enough to offset the disadvantages it brings. One last thing. Your body meets equilibrium depending on the product you use. For example, if you use artificial tear droppers, to ensure you don’t produce too much tears, your eyes will stop/lessen secreting tears. When you stop using it, it’ll gradually come back. To smoothen the period in between, you might want to lessen it slowly by slowly to reduce a sudden jump in changes. In the upcoming discussions, we’ll use this *via negativa* to explain quite a lot of phenomena, on how it relates to longevitology. **How It Works?** (This is a simplified version that applies to all. For more specific and longer version that’s not explainable without long paragraphs, please **visit the classes**). https://longevitology.org/#classes At the body parts which you feel hurt, injured, or whatever problem, put your hands there for at least 10 minutes. Put another hand at the top of the center of your head (it’s where your hair spirals out. If you’re bald and hence can’t feel your hair spiraling out, it’s about the interception of your nose axis and your ear axis) also for at least 10 minutes. It’ll slowly heal your wound/disease. The encouraged timing varies person to person. On average, 15-30 minutes; actually, do it until you feel comfortable, even if it means an hour or two. Plus you don’t have to do it yourself; someone else could help you do it. During the process, technically speaking, you should be concentrating on emptying your minds, in meditative state (albeit, posture don’t have to be meditative, just anything comfortable). But the teacher say, while you can’t watch TV while you perform such actions, you can perform such actions while watching TV. The former is your current aim is to perform healing, while the latter you’re resting. It may be less effective, though; for it’s probably the concentration, the staying away from the busyness of life, that allows your body to finally have time concentrating on healing your pain which usually they don’t have the time and attention to. The meditative state is for both person, if you’re helping someone else, you should meditate; the person helping someone else should also in meditative state. Relax, don’t need to think of anything. You don’t need to pass your Qi (气) to another person; because you absorb the universe energy, transfer it through your hands, to the other person. Instead, if you focus on passing your Qi to them, you lose your Qi as Qi isn’t universe energy, hence it requires time to replenish; while universe energy is everywhere and you just redirect it; universe probably replenish faster than you replenishing your Qi. Also, some people says it works without touching too, but one isn’t sure about this. Their explanation is, if you already open your “窍穴” (more on this in “Does it work?” section), your Qi can be redirected if you point your palm at the other person. This is useful if it’s between different gender, and your country have restriction between cross-gender touching (like in Muslim countries, or people who prefer not to be touched in other countries). And there is the method of “swaying”, like if you help someone fanning with a fan. Exactly how it works is unknown. These are just a few of a lot more; which one will skip. You’d want to attend a class perhaps to know more about it. **Does It Work?** Well, before one knows longevitology, one used to put one’s hands on one’s stomach during stomachache. One don’t know if it increases one’s healing, but at least it soothen one’s pain. Generally, they say you need to open your “窍穴” before you can accept universe energy. However, if you’re more believing in science, you could always try without, yes? (For science explanation, see below “On the Limits of Science Applicability” section) **Meditative Training** There’s a meditative training that you should do every day. Basically, one doesn’t see it very different from other widely-available meditations (let’s ignore the different meditations the yogi developed for different purposes). Here it is: Eyes looking forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out through your mouth. Repeat 5 times. Close your eyes. Breath normally. Maintain for at least 15 minutes. Open your eyes. Do step 1 (that is, eyes forward at a target, breath in via your nose to your lung max capacity, breath out via your mouth, repeat 5 times). That’s it. To ensure you know it’s 15 minutes, set an alarm clock on your phone, then start. When your alarm ring, open your eyes, turn off the alarm first, then do step 3. At the beginning, you could start step 2 with 10 minutes first; later increment it to 11 mins, 12 mins, finally 15 mins. And it doesn’t have an upper threshold: you could do it for hours, one heard from Dr. K the yogis do meditation for days (yes, hibernation so your intake of water and food can be delayed, living longer than the 3 and 7 days you’ll die without them respectively. Not sure if your heart beats slower like in bears’ hibernation, though). **Does It Really Extend One’s Life Span?** Perhaps we should look more at healthspan than life span. In **True Age**, author Morgan Levine talked the importance of extending healthspan more than life span. If you have a longer healthspan, even one as long as your life span, you’d die with less sufferings. With the math, if you live to 60 years, but your health span is only 50 years, then you have 60-50=10 years of suffering (that is, feeling pain, or even losing certain abilities). https://www.amazon.com/True-Age-Cutting-Edge-Research-Clock/dp/0593329287 As a relatively new field, we won’t know whether it would make us centenarians. One can only see its effects in extending healthspan so far, by reducing one’s suffering even at old age. Whether or not it’ll make us centenarians, we may know it in a century or two. **On the Limits of Science Applicability** One’d like to remind all readers that **science cannot explain all phenomena**. In **Antifragile**, author Nassim Taleb reminds that many of us confused *absence of evidence* with *evidence of absence*. Sounds complicated? Let’s take two examples: https://archive.org/details/Antifragile **Absence of Evidence:** We have no scientific studies that prove that God does not exist. **Evidence of Absence:** We can prove that ether (aether) does not exist. Unfortunately, the gamification of science funded by influential investors, requires most studies looking for **evidence of presence**, rather than **evidence of absence**. Furthermore, looking for evidence of presence easily traps one into confirmation bias, mistaking the *evidence of presence for absence of evidence*. That’s why people say they don’t believe in God, because science cannot prove that God exist, when science should be the one to prove that God does not exist. The conclusion is, so far, one isn’t aware of any scientific studies proving the existence of “universe energy” or “energy of the universe”, yet we can’t disprove it either. Consider dark matter and dark energy; the “dark” here could have several explanations, among two are “it isn’t illuminating/glowing,” and “it is matter that we don’t know, and it may not be matter at all, we also don’t know.” If we take the second explanation, it’s very probable that these “materials” aren’t matching those available on the periodic table, including its composites. Or it may be, we don’t know. If there are so many objects we don’t know about the universe, why disagree that “energy of universe” doesn’t exist? You never know if they flow around you, especially if only interacts with gravity, but presence in so small an amount that even our best equipments couldn’t detect it (unless it aggregates in tremendous amounts, consider how weak the force of gravitation is compared to other fundamental forces). Plus, how can we be sure our equipment can indirectly detect “dark energy”, if it doesn’t interact with any existing four fundamental forces? Generally, we can’t; so we’ll accept its existence until it’s disproved. Just like you would believe in God’s existence until science can prove it doesn’t exist. As for longevitology, we don’t have scientific research to disprove it yet. Yet, considering how long it had been (32 years, as of writing, if one got the correct information), someone would had sue it if it hadn’t at least had some work aspects. Of course, some may be coincidences, but we don’t know. We can’t prove it is coincidence, neither can we prove it be not coincidences. **Notes:** **Antifragile** by Nassim Nicholas Taleb https://archive.org/details/Antifragile **Thinking, Fast and Slow** by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky https://archive.org/details/thinking-fast-and-slow-daniel-kahneman/page/n7/mode/2up **Sapiens** by Yuval Noah Harari https://archive.org/details/sapiens_202104/page/18/mode/2up “I don’t have time for headache” is taken from a Malaysian TV ads, that tries to sell you painkillers. **True Age** by Morgan Levine https://www.amazon.com/True-Age-Cutting-Edge-Research-Clock/dp/0593329287 Originally published on Mirror.xyz https://mirror.xyz/0xa32e05D545FEc9cADb46BEB0839E3Ac0A9E39d9B/BnYOheaqfkBDnjWjcTaqrnJ_FoHyj4Qxornj5sgnAn4?referrerAddress=0xa32e05D545FEc9cADb46BEB0839E3Ac0A9E39d9B Lead image taken from here;

Is cryptocurrency antifragile, with its volatility; compared to fragile fiat currency with its pseudostability? Something worth thinking about...

If Money Is Fictitious, Then Why Not Trust Crypto? Yuval Noah Harari, in *Sapiens*, introduced that Gods, Mythology, Limited Liability Companies (like Boeing, Adidas, Tesla), and money (the dollar, euro, etc.) were fictitious entities that we made them up, and collectively believing in its value. Where we lose trust, they lose their value. If the gave and giving money value, those hard currency (gold, silver, and other metals), paper currency, and fiat; and crypto is also a virtual currency, why do we trust the former more than the latter? How does both fictitious currency differs? We probably don't. We trust something when, with experience, we know we can trust them. Ultimately, if you see currency that're collapsing all around the world, losing their price for the past few years; and consider some currency that collapses due to hyperinflation in some places nowadays (and in history books, like Germany after World War I); we probably know we can't trust the currency, but we refuse to think about its volatility, fragility; and we have no other choice as people around us exchange in *that* currency. On the other hand, the fluctuation of cryptocurrency are huge enough for the average to notice, and most human clung to certainty, they can't bear a volatile currency. Even if the world are made of probabilities, where something happen is highly probably (more than 95%, or more than 99%), and some very unlikely (less than 5%, less than 1%); people like to think in terms of black and white, the "always will happen 100%" and "always never happen 0%", as if they exist when they don't. Similarly, trust comes in wide acceptance. Except for the few stingy, people want money as a medium to trade for something else they need/want, not to hold the money per se. If not many traders accept cryptocurrency payments, then it cannot buy what they want, hence lower trust. Similarly, people often operate on necessity: if there are no need, then don't bother me, leave me alone, for one have other things needed to do, like work, scrolling social media, watching TV, and all other things more interesting than hearing your pitch to accept your currency. Plus, people around me don't even use it, so you convince them first. In conclusion, both type of money (actually, all type of money) exist only in our imaginations. If one day, we decide to eradicate trade from human society, then money will cease to exist. Similarly, their value lies in our trust toward that entity; for if we don't imagine, or at least forced to imagine, how could it come to life? References: *Sapiens* by Yuval Noah Harari

No Title 1.5 如果是时代在推进我们，而不是我们在推进时代。。。 and if we have a calling... Calling is probably a result of 时代 pushing forward... The thing is, one really really want to cry when being challenged. Yet, one wants to know the truth more than the tears of defending one's position. Both shed tears; the former, tears of defense; the latter, tears of joy... In *Writing To Learn*, William Zinsser said that writing is having a clear thought, and that thought translates into words. A revise of the writing is an act of rethinking, probably. Then, there are fiction writers with some plan, then he wrote them, but to a point he had no control over the plot anymore; for what uncovers like flower blossoms, even the author can only watch it uncover and blossom. This is probably clear thinking. And with high probability, clear writing.

Not Always Grit The inner strength to persevere, when faced with difficult challenges, and see it through the end, not giving up. That's grit. First popularized by Angela Duckworth, her research shows how it correlates with success. Like most books, authors don't argue against their main theme as much as for their main theme, except in the case to convince you not. We'll do that. In fact, one agrees that perseverance is important to get something done. Without, you would see half-finished projects everywhere. But what about direction? One could travel down a road far with grit, but not recognizing the wrong road traveled. When you're too gritty, your grit forces you to see it through, and not allowing you to quit. If that means several years or decades, that's it, years wasted, decades gone, and you'd achieved nothing of significance in the "correct" direction. Take an example: you work through a project, and you'd feel like quitting, yet you're gritty, so you end up finishing the project. Great! Grit in the correct direction. Another example: you want to be an entrepreneur, but your family put immense pressure that you'd be a doctor, to *keep on track*. You regret it later for not changing course. Meh! Grit in the wrong direction. Another worse example: someone popular on TV has a big idea. Then, some government execute his idea, he ensure it'll be successful. It turns out not, but he's so attached to the idea he cannot see it otherwise. Furthermore, changing ideas means admitting mistake, and what make of his face? Grit and stubborn really is a family. Overdo grit, and it'll become stubbornness. It's probably better to analyze what you'd grit over before continuing, and have a half-a-year (or a shorter period) check, whether one should continue gritting through, or correct course. It's no use moving a long distance if it doesn't take you in the direction you'd prefer. **Remember to Like and Subscribe!** Notes: **CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION!** Correlation is not causation! Correlation is not causation! Important thing say three times! Personally, one hate the word "passion." It arise negative emotions; probably because "passion = burnout" to me. And the overuse of such words in CV means its too fake, numb to the word. Most of these are "by-and-large" rather than totally. For example, the author is a scientist, so she don't only argue for the main theme totally, and she did mentioned about getting your kids to try many stuffs before settling on one. As usual, one don't see a problem in not settling on one, but anyways... That entrepreneur doctor example is taken from *Think Again* by Adam Grant. https://www.amazon.com/Think-Again-Power-Knowing-What-ebook/dp/B08H177WQP That next example of popular guy is from *Superforecasters* by Philip Tetlock. https://www.amazon.com/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Philip-Tetlock-ebook/dp/B00RKO6MS8 And, one suggest putting down face if it stands in your way to change. You could keep it if it don't, though; but don't let it stand in your way to change, to learn. Extension of point 3, "by-and-large" also means, if there are any certainty one mentioned in the text, it's only partially true. Nothing is certain, and there will always be exceptions. Don't be that "well-actually" guy! (read more on this on *Calling Bullshit*). https://www.amazon.com/Calling-Bullshit-Skepticism-Data-Driven-World/dp/0525509186 The book is *Grit* by Angela Duckworth. https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth-ebook/dp/B010MH9V3W

The Stars "Papa, Papa, how many stars are there?" There was a moment. He was lost in thought. It feels like eternity, until... "As many as there are ideas." It was by a hillside. The distant city lights flare into the night sky. As if there exists a boundary separating their skyline from the city's skyline. At least the stars were visible. She think, "How many ideas there are?" Good question. She mentioned, "We can't see the stars in the morning... so are there no ideas?" Now, science would say, the stars never goes away, the sun just shines too bright for us to see any stars. For a kid, who cares? He pat her on the head, "Do you think you have idea in the day?" She recalls. There was the difficulty of homework. There was the fun of play. There was the enjoyment of TV, of YouTube. There was the internet. "No, I don't think so..." And she look at the horizon, at the distant city, over the boundary, noted... "They probably don't too..." **End of Conversation.** **Remember to Like and Subscribe.** Epilogue Discussion The original story intends to speak of the limit of original ideas. As more and more rubbish got generated, copycats are more real than originals. As vast as there are stars as there are ideas, the stars aren't unlimited; neither are ideas. So, do one day, one day, will we be out of ideas? This story speaks of a different story to the original; unfortunately, one's mind changed as one think.

A Payment System On Near Protocol While QR code scanning for wallet addresses are quite popular, it isn't clear; how do we let the money receivers define the amount of money to receive, rather than the person doing the payment? Here comes the payment system on NEAR Protocol. The receiver specify an amount in NEAR, which generates a QR code for the payee to scan and send. Normally, both parties can retrieve past transactions from their wallet. Here, we took one step ahead by returning a temporary receipt to save you from navigating to nearblocks.io and search for transaction histories for confirmation. P.S. Receipt is only available after you "activate receipt" (cost 0.1 N), and you choose "only one payment" (meaning, only one single person is scanning the QR code). And how do you know how much money you have paid last month? Last year? For the past 10 years? Stats tracking aggregates total payment made for the last 12 months (literally), and the last 10 years (literally), current month and current year inclusive. P.S. (If no stats, it won't be displayed, like the image above). You also need to "activate stats", which cost 0.75 N. Start logging in today with your favorite wallet on the web app (link below), and setup a POS receive-payment system to receive payment in NEAR! Links Mainnet: https://wabinab.github.io/pay-near/tabs/receive Testnet: https://wabinab.github.io/pay-near-testnet/tabs/receive

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No Title 1.3 Do one lose faith in present day humanity, because things are getting difficult? Economy getting worse, war periods are outbreaking (the cycle of WWI and WWII is probably repeating in the next 3 decades), so forward thinking leaves worry. As if those from the past lives in the brightest day. Let's not forget the worries every period experiences; Though the previous two generations stay golden era, they have their own worries, and their own war to fight, and 3 generations before Z, probably lives through WWII, and 4 before, Great Depression and WWI, averaged. They never lose faith! So we shouldn't. Persevere through challenges, as one can't change those that comes our way. If we survive, keep going, make friends, stay together for each other. If we die, hope for the best on the future generations!

Loneliness Exist Far Longer Than We Think Assuming we just heard from most other people talking about loneliness, that we are the loneliest generation of them all. Ok, one isn't a psychologist, but indeed, one do feel lonely, so it may be true. Again, if what the scientists and psychologists and people whom noticed it said it's true, then probably loneliness epidemic starts way longer than you'd think. We whom born in the 90s and 00s might thought that our parents or grandparents live in a state where loneliness wasn't a problem. Wrong. In fact, this video (loneliness documentary by ColdFusion on YouTube) demonstrate that loneliness was an epidemic back in the 60s and 70s, so that includes at least our parents' generation, or even you are born at/before that time. Thing is, not sure about elsewhere, but based on books from US writers, loneliness even dated back even earlier than that. https://youtu.be/I19btmIBhx0?si=o1UHR3Bs2dGMOYy9 In fact, this book (Man's Search for Himself by Rollo May), written in 1953, already talked about the rise of loneliness really quickly ever since WWII ended; and there were a "transition in state" from an older Victorian era (if one got it right, is it Victorian?) with a different culture and different aim in the late 19th century, throughout till early 20th century (after WWI, before WWII, 20s and 30s); yet author described more loneliness after the war. So probably the loneliness epidemic, after more than a century, only got worse still... https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Himself-Rollo-May/dp/0393333159 The future... **Remember to Like and Subscribe.**