inquiry

whatever comes to mind

> Perchance to blog again soon?

One can only hope.

> Remember me? > > I guess it doesn't matter if you do or don't.

I do!

> Would I even care if so? Does it really matter to me if > some strangers online recognize my fake online screen name > where I throw out some random and useless thoughts here > and there?

It does if/when it does, and doesn't if/when it doesn't?

So my latest issues seem to be “certificate” (security) related.

No idea what changed. Nothing I know of on this end – although Lord knows how Chromebook updates might have fucked me over of late.

What I do know is online realms have been on a steady march to exclude hacker/generalist types in favor of the whizbang attention-sapping apps of the big boys/girls.

It makes me rather sad.

But then I remember the continuous beauty of the backyard, of endless perchances of a walk, of how dust-mopping the house leads to infinitely more satisfaction than reading others' evidence of mental illness, and attempting to infect them with my own.

This writer's days with write.as are suddenly seeming numbered, as a script I've used for years centered around this curl call:

curl -s -L read.write.as

no longer returns anything.

Browser works fine against the url, of course. But no longer the curl call, that I might parse things to my liking.

I can't fucking express how much I fucking hate “progress” that interferes with doing things intelligently.

Okay, it might not be write.as's doing. My be my internet provider, or some other assfuck in between.

But “who” matters not. I'm not going to copy/paste from some goddamned browser tab content into a reasonable editor when I already had read.write.as content coming down into my editing context completely to my liking for years and years.

> Maybe it's me?

Maybe you were relatively half full before said observation/seemingness, relatively half empty at time of said observation/seemingness?

I've heard there might be a borderline sinister relationship between subject and its objects.

> As my blogtar gently weeps..

Heart!

> I could try an Inquiry-ism for a blog post title > (modified song lyrics for the blog post title, as > seen above), and seeing those in the R.w.a feed are > always quite nice/refreshing ([just read through his > archives!](https://inquiry.writeas.com/)) because it means > some wittiness is about to drop on the R.w.a landscape.

Well.... <blushes>

> Eventually, with enough repetition and exploitation, > everything once meaningful turns into a farce.

Sibling, perhaps, of “familiarity breeds contempt”?

> I miss “T” sometimes. He now identifies as “G”, > as in a female “G”

I must admit I occasionally marvel in people obsessing over what they insist shouldn't matter (e.g. gender, skin pigmentation).

> So, when someone says “you see everywhere nowadays” is > not even a legitimate statement in 2021 (or for the past > decade, I am assuming), because “everything” that is > out there (available to see/read/etc.) on the Internet > is not seen/read, because algorithms assume everyone just > wants to see what they, the individual, wants to see. Over > and over again. The same type of stuff. > > Talk about some boring stuff!

It's been that way ever since I can remember in money-making realms.

(But 'money' isn't to blame any more than a blade sunk into another human being is....)

Also does Robert Smith's “it's always the same” come to blog-reading mind.

> I am doing something wrong with the CREATE > TABLE part of this particular MySQL db. I am getting > an error that says different things depending on how I > implement the commands – and I cannot seem to “reverse > engineer” (or solve) what the hell is going on.

See also: the joy of non-digital journals. ;–)

> Sometimes, the single most important thing to do in the > morning is: sit on the couch, with the kitten curled up > on my lap, purring, as I sip my coffee.

Now that sounds like living!

> Why I'm sick of technology

I'm pretty sure I'm a member of your choir that got thusly ill a few years before you.

> As far as I can tell, the root cause is money.

Money in and of itself is innocuous.

Root cause is self-centric people.

Again. And again. And a billion gazillion times again.

> So please, if you are a developer, product manager or even > investor: we need to make a concerted effort to actually > improve quality of life, not add new venues to deliver a > death by 1,000 cuts.

There is no “we” in the great downwardly-spiraling sea of self-centric instantiations of individuality.

> Usually I cannot come up with a good title for a blog post, > but I cannot just not have a title, so I come up with some > BS that has nearly nothing to do with the blog post. It > all works out in the end, though ;)

C'mon dude! How many times must this writer illustrate song lyrics spoofs as titles?

Get busy with titles from your time parlayed into introductions to your blog body text.

> Been a minute since you stopped in 'round these parts.

Would that it were a New York minute!

> would love to get back into the analog, physical, IRL, > no BS digital format style of thought documentation.

I prefer when it just “happens” way more than when it becomes ongoing thing, which soon enough starts feeling more in the direction of chore/obligation to this here part time pseudo-blogger.

> I am Asexual. Yes, That's a Thing.

Isn't it funny how the phrase “a thing” seems to raise the stakes on an alleged common objectivity, yet all subjective conceptuality contexts remain utterly disconnected regardless the idiocy of a seeming focus of subjectivity therein insisting otherwise?

> In future updates, I will describe more about what I and my > family are doing to unhitch ourselves from this existence > and prepare ourselves for the coming of a new age. It will > be difficult, but it must be done. > > The first step will be to fully kill the capitalist, > consumerist, white colonizer in our heads. Only once we > are freed from that slavery, can we begin the conversation > about what comes next.

Well-written, but the entire article presupposes a preponderance of intelligence in the species that quite simply has likely never existed, let alone in these “it's on a screen or it isn't real” times....

So, hey wow read.write.as, how ya been?

Super duper amazing day. Description literally (ha ha) wouldn't do justice to it.

Likewise, your reading this couldn't possibly rise to the level of your not staring zombotically at a screen.

Live.

> I go somewhere, do something, get into such and such > activity, and I completely forget to write anything > throughout the day. I think I put up a blog post when > I woke up this morning (and some other BS micro rant > after that (now deleted)), but what I am saying is: if I > have anything else going on, even if it is just sitting > outside in the fresh air, then I usually opt for doing > that instead of writing, or even picking up my laptop. I > just...like doing other things too much to be persuaded > to use tech, lol!

Talk about great post timing relative to what I wrote above! ;–)

> Ever hear the old maxim that “radio DJ's became radio > DJ's because they love the sound of their own voice”? I > feel that could be a parable about me and my (self-imposed) > daily writing activities. Maybe I just like the “tone” > (if I could call it that?) of my own prose?

Well, I just so happen to like it too. :–) I'd also add “pacing” to “tone” – both within individual posts, and between them. I dare say I could set my blogging watch by it.

> I implore anyone/everyone to give journaling a go – it's > fxxxing amazing!

This weeked we hit a winery armed with paper/pencils/pens, and I finally got back with the kind of journaling I really enjoy: a mix of drawing, thoughts, squiggles, and paragraphs. Throw it on the stack (need to remember to consolidate the stacks one of these days..), forget about it, hopefully smile and grin a bit somewhere down the road as it maybe jogs free bits 'o memory.

I'm liking how that method results in a little for a lot of effort, but it's rather concentrated quality. Also, the “lot of effort” part implies significant time relative to how quickly I can knock out something like this. It's enough of an effort that I probably don't want to do another right away – in contrast with blogging, where I could write endlessly, therein often swallowed by my own familiarity-bred contempt.

> Isolation

Beautiful.

Still loving the power and brevity of this:

"abide in awareness
with no illusion of person
you will be instantly free and at peace"

Nothing has opened my eyes to the real cause of the downfall of civilization than becoming a school teacher.

It's quite simple, really.

Most people are hiding from what genuinely creates a better future, which is investing in children.

They find six figure jobs, or minimalist existences with no contact/investment in children, etc.

There's no mystery here, people.

Argue as your ego feel it must about which side/tribe is more full of shit.

I say all of you avoiding sharing your person/knowledge/wisdom/empathy with the true representatives of our future have less than shit for brains.

Just wanted to note I think our > fearless leader is a writer par excellance in his own (w)right.

Do feel blessed that someone that can write the code that makes this possible can also write verbiage worth reading.

I do believe such a combination is rare. I mean, when is the last time you read something worth reading from whoever create the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.?

Where's the proof they know other than how to profit from others' automaton-ic usage of their software?

Think. Feel.

The only thing that has come to matter is what I want to call “in-periencing attention pre-mind”.

In the above, the word 'mind' attempts to connote the seeming field of “I” and “not I”, thoughts about each percolating, swirling, typically spiraling downwardly as though toward some unseen drain.

Note that in mind, there seemingly can't be the one without the other. The mere thought of “I” whooshes its opposite into seeming ex-istence along with it.

What happens is a gnarly model fractal-ishly filling the entire seeming mind space to the point of seeming to constitute the world.

That's all the world “is”: a set of thoughts emanating, as it were, from the thoughts “I” and “not I”, descending rather tree/nested-like (compsci sense), the “I” thought bolstered by thoughts like “I am this I opposite all that not-I”.

But, again: what seems to be is merely thoughts happening quickly enough that an “I thought” believing itself to be an objective reality couldn't possibly notice the, um, “sleight of mind”. Said “I thought” effectively ignores how it actually happens, i.e. becomes ignore-ant.

The cure? (no, not the band (although it's a very very very fine band))

Attention withdrawing from energizing all that, to the still/small/quiet place that, in fact, isn't even a place, because “place” is merely a notion in the aforementioned mind mess/jungle/world.

How?

Quiet mind enough, awareness back upon itself, and it suddenly becomes obvious.

But not explainable, i.e. put into the modeling also known as words.

In fact, as soon as you (the model of you) explained it (to the model of you), “you” are already lost in modeling again.

(See also: the message contained in the Beatles song title “Within you, without you”.)

> I must not be a bad player in my own game. > > I know the rules. > > I know how to play.

Sounds like the game of loneli... I mean blogging.

> And that is what it comes down to, I would say – the > Internet exists (like TV exists, or gambling exists, > or cigarettes exist), and it is up to the individual how > they will approach it (the WWW). Is it some draw-you-in > “virtual substance” that numbs you and makes life > suck? Or is it a miraculous tool that can alter lives and > livelihoods and be a point of leverage for the quality of > life I, you, anyone can live?

It's pretending to be doing something other/more than staring at a screen while staring at a screen.

> Anyway, it is now midnight, 9.11.2021 – the 20 year > anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and I still > remember where I was when they happened (huddled in a > classroom at Northwest High School where we saw the second > plane hit on live TV). Devastating day, a lot of emotional > trauma. Sad, indeed.

Somewhat fitting, I was in the bathroom occupied with the larger of the two numbers.

<days later>

We went to a concert I – 25 years or so ago – never could have guessed I'd eventually attend. Great music.

Pretty much all the rest? Automatons running into automatons. Not unlike the classroom. But drinking.

But I'm happy for the musicians that laughed all the way to the bank amidst said clank clank clank.

Didn't sleep well. Just not used to being so revved up, so seemingly perpetually on the verge of being violated.

But then Mind Only comes to mind.