The Blog Nobody Found Last Year

Well, if you are reading this sad, little description, you are capable of reading things.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

You're out of touch, I'm out of time

I feel you, Daryl Hall & John Oates. But not as much as the inevitable dread of entering a new decade of life. Yes, I'm saddened to say that we'll be leaving the whimsical, haphazard and irresponsible self of yester-decade and replacing it with some sort of corporate approved even more lifeless puppet of a self. Is that it, we're just going to roll over and die from an attack like that? Let's see what this echo chamber of a blog has to say about that.

While it's true that we haven't made the most optimal choices over the last 10 years and we're in the midst of coming to grips with not only the regret of such decisions but also their consequences, the optimist would say this is an ideal learning opportunity to become a better man in the coming decade. I've heard that snake oil pitch before, but then again what's the alternative? Perhaps we're not good at taking on advice, irrespective of whether we make the effort to do so or not.

Surely, there would be some optimal choices that one could derive certain principles that can guide the future? Employment is certainly one of them, yet I can't bring myself to say that's a complete success. The employer is… a fickle one, let;s put it that way. Stay on their good side and continue running the race, get on their bad side and you're off to Noddy Land by two.

Oddly enough, I am reminded of the different ages in Age of Empires, where each age has specific constraints and options avaialble. Does one go for a steady progression to the next age, or risk it for the brisket & attempt to rush the enemy for an early win? The consequences can be dire in either case, requiring additional mitigations as to whether the risk was managed well or not. Indeed, it all comes down to that word once again: Risk. You could even say it's the very thing we've been trying to avoid for the last 10 years.

Suppose you knew the outcome of certain decisions you had to be making, would you try to defy destiny or march relentlessly into whatever the universe has prepared for ye? The question would be is which path is the right one, for it's always a mix of the two that makes a man worth his value. But when to apply which strategy, and how do we know if one's value has truly hits its apex? Perhaps it's there we find the ugly answer: You don't know, you will never know and choosing an option is the only way forward, even if you find out it's wrong in the end.

The idea of taking any action in a world of such uncertainty is preposterous. Yet, that is what we are called to do everyday: Make a decision in a world of varying quantities of unknowns. For if the fool makes a choice and results in 100 repercussions, would that be any better than the bystander who made no choice at all? What of the peers, enemies and the rest of the crowd that is always around us, regardless of whether we want them around or not? While it's easy to look to them for the right way forward, that should only be the route in lieu of one's own goals. After all, how would you even know if they've nailed down what they're after?

All in all, it seems nobody really knows what they're doing - which is hardly a surprise. But, we are still called to make a choice to move forward, correct or not. Risk is the name of the game for the next 10 years, one might initially assess. But it's not the risk itself, but the choices and mindest that entail the presence of said risk. Learn to control it and doors will be made open one way or another.

'Til next time, young padawan.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever actually eaten a guava before.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

I just can't believe it, they forgot the onions!

Woah-ho, you can add text modifiers to blog titles now. I wouldn't be surprised if this was added way back yesteryear, since nobody tells me about these new features that still get rolled out to Tumblr every red moon. Still, we're here now and making some marginal use of them.

As usual, my throat is getting all banged up and got me thinking about things as what normally happens. Where are we going exactly? It would not be the first time one would say that the blog has always had this directionlessness about it - Over the years, it has gone here, and there and everywhere. With each era presenting its crown jewels for the taking - a respectable ATAR score, a university degree, a jorb. It would be a fallacy to say that one has achieved all that's yet to be attained. Yet at the same time, it's always these teeny tiny recurring moments that never go away - a scratchy throat, clothes that never quite dry the way you want them to, a person of supposedly significant personal worth asking you for stuff again. Indeed, we can clear out the big boulders of life, but the small pebbles are ever so present.

So what is the point of this premise? Certainly not to say that the small tasks of significant multitude aren't worth doing. Rather, we spend so much time doing the small things over the course of time that they become greater than the large boulders themselves. The thinkers among ye would ask "Surely, there'd be a way to minimize such fripperies?" But perhaps that's not the right question at all to ask - after all, something always takes up the spare slots in life, productive or otherwise. Is the ask to simply accept this phenomenon as is? That would certainly be the easy way out. But perhaps there's more to this problem than what's described. Allow me to explain in the most convoluted and least intuitive way possible:

Suppose you've been tasked with moving cells around in a spreadsheet to earn some arbitrary amount of income. It's a daily routine of doing the same task for a few hours each weekday. What if you were to start slacking off? Would you still get paid the same amount? On the contrary, would you feel guilt that you are paid the same amount for less output or even distressed at the fact that this is a legitimate strategy even recommended by the beholders?

What would you do knowing that your time is simply spent worrying and plotting what might have been? It seems not everyone can enjoy the simple aspects of life without their proverbial strings attached. It's as if these thoughts fill in the voids of time not because we want them to, but because they must in the grand scheme of finding the wonders that be.

In such manners, perhaps the best strategy is to shift with the times. For the best of times, and in the worst of times. After all, you may just very well find the thing you need all because of a whimsical experience in the circus of life.

'Right, I'll keep this perhaps more concise than I normally would stretch it out to be - the temperature isn't exactly a friendly one as of late and this blasted throat is certainly going to be a troublemaker in the week to come. Still, if not for the curve balls, could we get a shot at being king of the hill?

'Til next time, young padawan.

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

It's that time of the year again. The time to beat out our brains.

Another post, another Tumblr UI change. Or maybe the Tumblr UI is changing according to my whimsical posting schedule? Either way, we're back after a long slew of life-related events. You can be sure there are more on the way this year and that I will be equally stressed and frenzied to get them sorted out in a way that hopefully doesn't result in deep-seated regrets.

It's times like these that once can feel as though I'd have my brains taken out and buttered. Where should I turn but to the vices once more? But life is always ready at the helm, poised to throw a wrench at your face when you least expect it. Indeed, it's as though life is all one giant exercise to shift the domain of problems in such a way that you never quite know how to solve the immediate problem on hand but smart enough to know that changing the focus will buy you some time.

One of the problems is the age-old conundrum of where is our time best spent. Do we try and solve those really difficult problems, or should we actually *gasps* start enjoying life? I wonder if things would have really turned out differently had we taken different forks in the road, but that was then and this is now. But I digress. Who actually likes solving difficult problems? Perhaps the loser who has nothing to do with their time. Or is it that we see something beyond the horizon, a better future if you will? And that by solving said problem, we might be fortunate to be the stepping stone on which greatness is achieved.

Then we have a strange problem on our hands: Why solve a hard problem when it costs us ourselves in due course? If you read between the lines, it's almost a selfless act of sorts that one would want to see a better outcome, one's own happiness be damned. And who knows - said happiness might be collected in one form or another somewhere along the way. Perhaps think of it this way: One person's joy is the cost of unlocking the happiness and freedom of others to experience. In turn, others who are willing to carry this cross might take up the challenge and continue iterating this exponential pattern of solving difficult problems for the sheer peace of mind that they've run their part of the race.

Is that it then, that the fate of some are destined to simply be problem solving machines without ever finding any personal joy from said work? That would be under the naïve sumption that such joy is the only motivation for anything. If one is willing to sacrifice for the greater betterment of their fellow countrymen, the pursuit in itself can be the prize in thereof. And if that's not the case, one can always look to the natural adjacencies to find all sorts of other motivations: Love for the craft! Spite for those who deemed the task as impossible! Intense hate for a particular problem or domain! There's bound to be all kinds of maniacs who can share the same sentiment on some level.

What of us who are able to enjoy the proverbial fruits of their labours? It's as though we'd been allowed to steal away their brains at their expense. Or perhaps it's the calling some of us need to make productive use of this lull in life, in the midst of all kinds of other life problems. Indeed, we may never actually solve the full set of problems laid before us, but we can at least solve the problems that either bother us the most or have a promising future attached. Will those that come after completely take one's work for granted? Most probably. But we strive not for credit's sake, but because we're inspired by some power from beyond to wrestle with a problem that, if left unchecked, will beat out his brains.

'Til next time, young padawan.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

The 2023 Review: Misery until the end of the age

9 grueling months since the last post, huh? And this blog doesn't even show up in Google search results anymore, no less. As the struggle to stay alive and/or be an interesting romantic partner is as real as ever, let's get one thing straight: Times have changed, people have changed, I have not changed.

There, I said it. And this newfangled Tumblr user interface isn't doing any favors. Bleh. Anyhoo, the matter of the fact is that we've only become better at worrying about these !@#%ing "responsibilities" that you're obligated to achieve before you hit 30 otherwise you've officially become a waste of time and space. What do I mean by this specifically? Own a house. Get married. Have kids. Be financially stable enough so that your parents don't have to apply for the pension. Alright, maybe not so much that last one. But I guess we've finally become that boring Strong-Sad-esque person that nobody ever liked, constantly cheesing and choosing and never really achieving anything in life because we're so busy trying to balance the 5 plates that've smashed years ago and forget all about the new plates we're supposed to be juggling now.

Yes, it's a long way to the bottom of the leader board now. Some would even say that I'd be better off doubling down and forget about this whole "becoming a waste of time and space" nonsense and just ill-chay ut-oay. But that's always been the paradox, hasn't it? We're too stressed to relax, and we spend the time that could be used to relax thinking about things that stress us out. Man, how do all those 40-to-50 year old bozos do this? It's like we're supposed to be sad, homeless, unemployed and maidenless before we hit 35 in this era.

One thing that's always bothered me is that we've seen this come around again and again, something which promises purposes but perpetually disappoints every time. From good university grades to getting a jorb, one could say with 60-70% certainty that the aimless pursuits of adulthood are also like chasing the wind. So why is this even a conundrum to begin with? Perhaps it's always been a case of "keeping up with the Joneses", and more so something that everyone keeps pushing onto us at every stage of life - that you must be equal to or greater than your fellow countryman.

Contrarily, your fellow countryman might not reciprocate that same camaraderie and overtake your with or without remorse. So you have no choice but to fight, which should result in victory… hopefully. And so the rat race continues on until one of three things happens: You win, your fellow countryman wins or both of you lose. In all cases, somebody is going to have to become the stepping stone for success, even if that someone wasn't even considered as part of the original scope to begin with.

If one can never win, or more accurately win under a set of specific conditions almost as probable as winning by sheer luck, then why bother at all? Just relax, don't do it. Perhaps we can learn a little something from our fellow gym rats, in that they've accepted that they'll never be as big as they want to be yet they strive for that ideal anyway - almost as though it's in their DNA. What this could mean it's all a matter of perception - the horrors of having to face monstrisities like buying property or not donking up a relationship will always be there, but we can at least choose our approach to them. Do we cower in fear, dragging ourselves to the finish line? Or do we run 'n' gun like there's no tomorrow, seeing success as whatever the road hands to us as our reward? Or maybe we'd rather take a more laid-back approach: Just to the bare minimum necessary to stay alive and pursue whatever we want within good reasoning?

So it seems, as it often is with these blog posts, that nothing is really as straightforward as it seems. Is it truly the way to force oneself to "enjoy" the mundane pursuits of paying taxes and chasing down that career with the better pay grade? Put into perspective, changing the self suddenly becomes an appealing option, but then again, the choice to cry in the shower or drink random chemicals under the sink is as different as it gets. What should we make of them haters who more or less have it all together? As the gym rats do, gaslight 'em and do everything we can to make them feel worse about their life choices and situation. Because remember, you elevate yourself above others by bettering yourself or alternatively by pushing everyone else below. Not that this is useful advice outside of a gym context, but you get the point… I would hope.

'Til next time, young padawan.

Ah, the joys of cinnamon bun ice cream. After 6 months in the freezer, it was hopefully worth the weight.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

"Fine, I'll do it myself" said the newfound fool

Or at least that seems to be the recurring trend these last few months since the last post. To be honest, I've been feeling rather rage-filled in the most recent of weeks, mostly to do with the fact that people are changing with the times and that it's making me feel bad for not making much progress in one's own life. The logical thinker would conclude that I've nobody to blame but myself and you'd be... I'd like to say wrong, but I'll let your imagination fill in the end of that sentence.

"Anger, eh?" you might be smugly thinking "I bet that's the first feeling you've legitimately experienced in years!" As much as it surprises me as well, it's shocking to know that I can still have these "emotions" even about the most ridiculous things such as this. As with with problem, one of the first questions to ask oneself is: What will you do to resolve or at least minimize the problem? This would imply that one doesn't directly have to make any progress to actually get the individual's life together, in so far as to ensure the problem domain is shrinking in some capacity. And the fool would say? Eliminate the competition - You can't compare yourself to others if you're never aware of their own personal progress. This is certainly not a silver bullet solution, but as the Megatherium in us would rather prefer, anything goes to make it to the next day.

So one is willing to be a total recluse, a.k.a. jerk, in order to better ignore one's lack of action in life. Surely, one would want to seek more positive emotions such as "joy" and "positivity", assuming we've heard of those words before. Perhaps in a time before lock downs were a thing, this would be ideal but it does sort of swerve back to the problem of how far one would go to pursue happiness, if I can call it that in this case. Think about it: You could put down everyone you knew and sacrifice all you have to experience some kind of meaningful joy, and then the feeling fades. What have you left? Not even a receipt, that's what.

We now have a conflict of sorts: One does not want to make progress in life and solve one's problems in any meaningful capacity, at the same time one would rather remain in the dark with all these problems that ultimately mean "joy" and "positivity" are not within reach? Something tells me that stoicism can only get you so far before the Big One hits. So it seems one doesn't have a choice but to *shudder* interact with others in meaningful and emotionally inspiring ways. Isn't it going to be obvious that one's relations with others is only for some ulterior motive? The flip side could very well be equally true: Everyone knows you only do things out of some external motivation, so just double down on what people are already expecting of you.

But more than that: What about the feeling of "fulfillment"? Seems like a strange tangent to take, but hear me out on this one (again?): If we don't even know what we enjoy, then what will we do in those opportunities that randomly fly in our faces that enable us to briefly do something worth doing? It's a strange idea that there are inevitable nuggets of time where we can do these things. I don't use the term "public holidays" because these are more broad and can come about in many other ways, in case you're wondering. Anyhoo, so tell me why it's important to have these "fulfillments"? Well, think of life as being a good ol' hotpot soup and all the experiences are like ingredients, imbuing some element of flavor into the soup. For oneself, this has always been the most bland bitter soup money can buy, and at the end of it all, is this our manifest destiny? That we are to become these dry fools, with or without our objections?

Following on from that analogy, perhaps that's the true reason why nobody prefers associating with us is because our "soup base" is not taste-worthy at all. So this is where the actual work aspect might come into play: If we make the attempts to *gagging* befriend others and care about people in the right way, then perhaps we too might become a pleasant aroma for those around us. Of course, this is still mostly speculation - This could very well not work or even backfire. Then again, it's not like we have much to lose in that regard.

Lastly, what should we do once we have found that "first fame", if I can even call it that, when we initially enjoyed being in the presence of others? Well, it's the maintenance game from here on out. After all, isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place back in 2014?

'Til next time, young padawan.

I can only imagine that my social aura is like drinking one of these: Only with a strong sweetening agent such as honey makes it, for the most part, barely tolerable.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

More of the same: It's all a car crash in slow motion

You know things are bad when the largest highlight of the week is buying iced tea. Which is to say, everything that has led up to this point has been, at least to some extent, meaningless. Spending years of one's teenage years looking for part-time work? Studying hard to land that elusive grade? Heck, even spending hours upon hours trying to perfect your financial workflow. All of it - all for nothing.

Of course, your natural instinct would be to thin that I'm overly pessimistic or grasping too hard onto the hopes and joys of yesteryear. I'm of the view that people who seem to "enjoy" that 30's are just putting on some kind of facade to mask the hollow lives they live. It may not always be the case, but I've yet to be explicitly disproved much of time. Yet, even in times of idleness, we would choose to wallow in our homes, desperately finding some errand or small chore to do without having to invest into a proper hobby? It's as though your 20's are your prime years not only in terms of peak physical, emotional and mental stability but also for refining the inner character.

Is that the goal then, to make a mad scramble to chisel the soul as much as one can possibly achieve before the proverbial concrete settles in and hope that the output looks at least half-decent? There would be an equal probability of things looking even worse than the initial block of marble, which from a loss aversion perspective might be the better choice to do nothing. At the same time, the same conversation would be had years later, wondering why things are the way that they are, only to remember that it was because nothing was done. One can't also help to think that this is a more systemic problem, that this experience is but a small pebble in the grander scheme of things. To which the natural justification could lead into "I don't have to do anything because other people are just as content at living their mildly miserable lives" and "I blame the system for all of my problems and why things don't seem to be getting any better", essentially scapegoating the system itself for one's lack of life-changing progress.

So is the plan to get out there and experience as much as possible, knowing full well the futility of such an endeavour? One line of thinking is that if the life has truly been a fulfilling one, you wouldn't be in this mess trying to make one's life count for something, as the condition would already have been met. And even if such a lofty goal were to be pursued, is life just a never-ending thrill-seeking adventure for the next big dopamine hit? I'd like to think this is not a pursuit for happiness or purpose per se, rather to understand more about one's own character as well as the limitations, optimisations and edge cases one is geared up for.

How would one measure the development of the self and internal personality? As with anything as intangible as this, you'd have to rely very much on gut feelings and instinct to tell you whether or not things really are changing for the better. If it turns out nothing happened, then nothing of value was lost and everything turned out the way that you feared anyway, so there's nothing to be surprised about. But if things did improve, what now? I suppose the natural instinct would be to keep building up that body, in the metaphorical sense. Keep chiseling the marble, for you can consider yourself one of the elect who have the privilege of watching their lives shift according to one's will and determination.

And for those who aren't as lucky? Perhaps it just requires some more time to figure out how this whole "developing your personality in your 20's" actually works, and stay up all night to get lucky. But how do you know you'd even make progress in the right direction? After all, we certainly don't need anymore extremists, lawless gangs and madmen. Without any hard measure for progress, this could be a very real possibility.

So the proposition is to "make the most" of your 20's, running the risk of not making any progress or even becoming worse off in the meantime? The pessimist would be quick to say that things are always going to go south, it's just the degree and magnitude of south-ness that one can control. To that end, may as well take the lesser of the two evils. This also goes to imply a stage of life in things get far worse than they already are, potentially going towards the extent of having quite literally no free time anymore, or having to pursue things that previously were governed by choice now undertaken by sheer obligation with no obvious gain. I suppose one can delay that stage for as long as possible, for even the people in that boat desperately want out. Or at least the ones I'm aware of.

Because at the end of it all, a life worthy of the calling we have received is not only one that was enjoyed but also one that served a true purpose. Obligation, as powerful of a motivator it might appear to be, is only the surface of life.

'Til next time, young padawan.

To be fair, nothing is as simple as it was in that other time and place. Which is why we should extract that essence and propagate it into the future for others to enjoy.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

"I've got a bad feeling about this": First the body, then everything else

I'd like to think of this post as one of those finish-offs before a long, heavily implied hiatus, as with what normally happens on this blog. I'll also randomly mention that I'm typing this in the midst of some random back pain that's suddenly decided to jump on me just days after taking out a private health insurance policy. So much for being the early bird... So in light of that, let's see what kinds of rambling I have installed for you.

Recently, I've been playing a certain video game (this time, it's not a Steam game for anyone who think's they're a know-it-all) to which I've randomly asked myself the question: "What happens if I just give up now?" To throw in the towel on hours upon hours of studying game mechanics and acquiring knowledge useful to an extreme subset of things today? At the same time, that's all a video game is, at least in its most bare form: Something to pass the time.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time I'd given up a video game without having finished it, and for sure not the last thing I'd give up so far. Of course, that's not to say that such things are abandoned forever and lost to the ravages of time. Being nostalgic and perhaps even revisiting old pains has its merits - After all, where would we be without the past to stand on top of?

Abstracting that idea of giving up a bit more, what about giving up our ambitions? To simply become another pawn in the system, and live the meager yet socially acceptable life of one whose sole purpose is to fulfill obligations through rain, shine or hail? Perhaps you might be reading this already, and this is your current truth. If our mainstream media is anything to go by, we're constantly urged to follow our dreams and kick logic to the curb in order to live a fulfilling life. But does that life provide sustenance? Security? Funding? Sanity? It's always possible to live the dream and stay asleep to everything else around us.

Would the plan be to double-down on our obligations, knowing full well that we neither have an avid interest in doing them nor are we necessarily good at them? Well, we're not exactly strangers to painful burdens and time is but another one to add to the rucksack of disappointments. I suppose the alternative would be to "make the most" of any downtime such that life is a fluctuation of extremes: Sometimes, the days are mundane and even pain-wracked, and others filled with full bellies and clear skies.

Plainly put: What is the long term goal, with or without advice from parents? If you're anything like me, you'd be surprised just how much of a crutch your parents have been, from making your dinner to paying the bills to providing unsolicited life advice in light of your problems. So where do we go once they're out of the picture, put one way or another? And (I would hope) that may very be an acceptable response: That there is no "big vision", but rather a collection of smaller visions forming a larger mosaic of life experiences. Sure, we might not have all the pieces upfront or always know where we're walking, but at the end of the day, life will and continues to be full of unknowns.

I suspect there's also that implicit fear that we will be times when we make sub-optimal choices, and this time without the safety net of our parents to help recover from our failures. As hard as it is to accept, that's just the reality of the ages: Sometimes failure hurts, even being irreversible at times. But, we've got no choice but to dust ourselves and get on with it. Honestly, I would have liked to have that time to fail fast and fail early, just to have those skills and psychological framework for working through things. Perhaps this is why I tend to over-analyse these kinds of things to the point of becoming the ramblings of a madman?

So it would seem that "life after and including 30", which I intend as much offence as possible with that particular wording, truly is more disastrous as I think, and we're only at the start of this slow-motion car crash. Figure out the series of small steps you want to take, rather than a monolithic giga-goal. After all, if you goals are smaller, your failures too should be smaller... at least when you apply a different kind of thinking. Is that kind of thinking for us? I've got a feeling we have no choice but to embrace it, because the inevitable truth still stands before us: There's time ahead literally waiting to be spent.

'Til next time, young padawan.

Sometimes following the dream leads to making your own hit album with "D-Boyz" just because it happened to be part of life's road map... And to think that would be considered one of the good old days eventually.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

Maybe the days really aren't that -- Okay, it is really that bad...

I'll let you in on a little secret here: We're getting older. Well, not a secret per se, but for those in the know, you'd know what I'm referring to specifically. I suppose for the general audience out there, if one still exists, you might have noticed me looking tired and/or sadder than usual. Don't be alarmed, it's nothing like that. But I do wonder whether I can truly hold onto the ideals of yesteryear, to continue goofing around "while we were young".

One might suppose it's rare to to be this introspective during one of those life stage shifts. Granted, we haven't really cared too much about making it to the next level in one piece, but this time, things are different and more than in just the usual ways. Namely: Cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, paying for various life expenses, looking after one's own health, getting private health insurance, and the works. I mean, I didn't sign up for this malarkey! If I put on my tinfoil hat, I might as well say that a certain someone has been throwing me under the bus all this time. Or, more probably, I just didn't care enough to prepare for this tectonic shift.

For some reason, I'm reminded of these poetic lines from yonder:

Everything stays right where you left it Everything stays But it still changes Ever so slightly, daily and nightly In little ways, when everything stays

And perhaps that's the way it goes: Things changing to some small, possibly even irrelevant degree. But adding up the total change over time, and you've got a transition into a new era. Is it possible to keep up with the times such that this shouldn't be a surprise? If only we'd been more risky in the sense of pursuing change (to even "seek discomfort", as one might put it), things might have turned out differently. And even now, taking a risk of that extent is now too costly. Suffice to say, you've done goofed, bucko.

Okay, so we've donked up big time, not only making the least of our "youth" but also managing to mess up every major opportunity so far. We've barely any real life skills, our finances are going down the drain just trying to stay alive these days and this is allegedly the peak of "adulthood". Well, it's only downhill from here... The optimist would always say that there's ample opportunity to get right, even when it might seem to late. I would rather think that my own unhappiness being the backbone of everyone else's joy is the only thing that's keeping the midnight oil burning these days. Of course, that could be an outright delusion of me projecting my failings onto others, but would you know any better?

Then suppose a change of heart is possible, even this late in the game: Of what value is pursuing this change? For the result would be sub-optimal compared if such an initiative were pursued earlier on, so are the gains truly worth it? Madly scrambling for one's happiness seems like such a middle-age thing to do. Almost as if we were destined to go down this long road that leads nowhere.

Not to mention, we can always double down on our poor life decisions, knowing full well we're living the sub-optimal life but always being content knowing "that's just the way it's going to be, little darlin'". To be fair, we did give that a chance (as evident on this blog, I suppose) and look where it got us: nowhere. To that end, pursuing for the things one has regrettably passed over, knowing full well that the end result will be a sub-optimal gain as well as the fact that odds are progressively stacked up against this endeavour, may very well be our saving grace in this dog-eat-dog world.

So maybe there is some hope for us after all? Don't get too optimistic, you know what we're like when it comes to actioning crucial life-changing measures (i.e. negligent).

'Til next time, young padawan.

Not surprisingly, change is amplified the older you get. So, in theory, staging all changes until the end is bound to produce the largest (positive and negative) gains, right?

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

The be-all and end-all of the end game

Recently, I can't help but think "We won't get got, we gonna get" without even realizing that we've already been "got" years prior. It's as though time truly is running out, but this time faced with the full-on fact that there's nothing one can do to halt the ravages of time.

I rarely go on a spiel about the direction oft his blog in a blog post itself, but given the house of cards dealt to oneself, we may be reaching the tail end of mad ramblings I've to bestow to the Internet. If that be the case, I'm fairly certain nobody would lose anything of value. Even Someguy2 seems to have fallen off the grid... But enough about random speculation, what do we do about the real problem: Knowing full well that we've become some kind of a... hunchback of sorts. Basically, someone who's achieved nothing, has nobody and isn't a great person in terms of character. Not to be confused with Quasimodo, he does not fulfill the last highlighted condition.

So is it time to accept our final destiny, that we must become the villain to everyone's story? Perhaps we never really had much of a choice to begin with. Yet people keep telling me that the future is ours to decide... said by people who are more or less better off than I am. At the same time, we've seen the tragedy of men who allegedly seemed to be great as per the standards of society, but are nothing more than lonesome scrooges. Having walked the path of a miser before, it still makes me wonder if there is truly a better way out, even if destiny demands that I fall into the pitfall of the ages.

In the end, it would seem that nobody cares about our happiness. Nobody cares about our feelings. Nobody cares about what we want to achieve or where we want to be, because the only thing that matters is getting a result. Essentially, the end justifies the means, and if our own selves become collateral damage, so be it. Of course, pushing for one's own motivations and aspirations isn't exactly a walk in the park either. For the powers that be are always willing and able to quash said ambitions such that you end up heartlessly achieving whatever results were expected of you anyway.

Recently, I read through the rather niche romance novella called "Tender Wings of Desire" by Harland Sanders. It's an interesting story, for what it's worth, though it's only real selling point is that it features the Colonel as an admittedly convincing love interest. Anyway, I bring this up because one of the ongoing themes in said tale is the idea of risking it all and being willing to throw away the life before us for a gamble at finding happiness. Now, we all know we're pessimists here, no doubt about that. But there's always something... compelling about that core question: If you're only 60% happy, would you risk it all for a chance at being 90% happy?

Most people would assume that in the age of one's youth, that's the time to figure out what truly makes us tick. To understand the self before the self has begun to live, as it were. In my case, that was a major missed opportunity based on irredeemable goals and flat-out lies about what we truly wanted from it all. And now, we lurch into the next quarter, only to do what must be done. Duty-bound, as a peon slaves away while everyone else enjoys life to the full. For that is the true destiny for oneself? After all, nobody else will be dang bothered to complete the list of things to do in the everyday.

Perhaps those of you reading this paragraph have become disappointed, in that we've surrendered to a life of obligation into the foreseeable future. And maybe that is something we will have to force ourselves to enjoy, never quite taking that risk for 90% or more happiness. It's no wonder why John wants to leave it all behind and move to another country, to start anew and bury the past insofar as one's strength allows them to. But someone's got to manage that graveyard and make sure everyone else sleeps easy without the fear of rampant zombies and/or ghouls. And to nobody's surprise, that person happens to be your's truly, by default.

Will people ever realize the work that goes into the menial tasks that compose the next stage of life? Improbably. Is it even possible to find a compromise between the duty-bound pact of adulthood and the tender wings of desire? Perhaps, in a different emotional context. But nothing changes the fact that there are things that must be done, with or without your happiness being considered. And to not do these things is to somehow invoke the entire nation's rage against oneself. So unless you'd be willing to face a storm full of fists (or a fistful of storms?), we better know our place. Otherwise, people will make it painfully obvious to us where our place is.

'Til next time, young padawan.

"You're actively worsening society as a whole with your degeneracy" - Yep, sounds about right.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

It is not in fact Friday in California

Between us, it's just dawned on me just how little I care about anything these days. Granted, this means I don't have to spend much brainpower fretting over every egg. But also, it means nothing quite hits us the same anymore as that feeling of finding a shiny Pokémon in the most unexpected circumstances.

Perhaps the question on one's mind might be: "When did everything fall by the wayside?" To which, the response would be fairly simple: New temporary interests come up, pushing out other beloved interests... if I were a better man. Unfortunately, the truth would more accurately be that our activity now consists of 80 - 90% doing things that simply have to get done, either because nobody will darn well do them or because that is the mandate of adult life. Is the end really coming up this soon? The end being when we are just peons of a modern age, slaving away to get by for the sole motivation of getting by. What really happens when one loses all their hobbies, even the temporary ones?

In a worst case scenario, we may as well just lie on our beds and stare aimlessly at the ceiling, much like the tail end of the HSC story arc. To which we never truly solved the puzzle of ages past, that is: What do we truly care about? This is not so much a question of what to do next, but more so what specific goals have one's actions lined up towards such that the plan is in motion. Put another way, one's hobbies and interests should be geared towards a specific dream in mind. Whether that dream is attainable within the lifespan one is allotted is a very different question, but the pursuit is always towards making that vision a reality.

So what is the current vision then? Is there one at all? To be brutally honest, the "dream" that was punched into oneself at youth is to get a nice, comfy and most importantly prestigious job that parents can use as their ultimate trump card against other parents about showing how great their bloodline is. In that sense you could, to a certain skewed extent, claim that we're "living the dream", even if it's a dream that one did not want to pursue with full heartiness from the get-go.

How to find the vision that we truly want to pursue, and care about? Micro-goals are an interesting short-term solution to this, where the way forward is made of little stepping stones that don't particularly have a specific direction, but just something that might being about serendipity through an unusual opportunity. This is to essentially imply that luck has a massive, if not singular, responsibility for providing the true way forward. As someone who prefers something with a bit more substance in terms of certainty, surely there must be a better way through?

And perhaps that's the solution upon itself: To simply try a bunch of things, see what works and what doesn't, and to build upon the things that did work until something useful comes out of it. For some reason, I like to compare such a hero's journey to the invention of Dom Mazzetti. Y'see, Mike and Gian only found this character to be a hit success after trying a number of different approaches, of which they articulated what people were interested in which eventually gravitated towards the lovable meathead we know today.

Likewise, perhaps the lack of caring or even ambition is a partial result from not having tried enough things. Find a new approach, see what happens when it gets taken to the limit. Because if you don't, someone else is going to hand you a plate of sticky rice dumplings and tell you to eat it.

'Til next time, young padawan.

If there's anyone who knows the value of different and sometimes unconventional approaches to life, it's The Legendary Soldier himself.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

Nothing like a selfless act hidden behind vested interests

To be honest, I wasn't really planning on a blog post this week. But with "John" returning soon, it'd be strange to have a reflection on how we've become a better person (cue laugh track) over the last month and a half, as it were. As no surprise to all of you, there were a bunch of low points of which I'm not even sure if we're in the clear yet. But life is always full of dangers, some more menacing than others, and even now one should expect the unexpected at every turn of the corner.

I suppose one thing to somewhat acknowledge is the fact that one really does have a mechanical black-and-white style outlook on things. I've heard that others too possess this odd mindset where they can be really good at problem solving, and not so great with the emotional or grayish areas in life. Is this a reassurance that we can continue down through the dark door? Who can be sure any way is the right way these days. But one thing I am reminded of is that we must find that edge that everyone overlooks or deliberately forgets to look at. And what to do when we spot a problem that seemingly nobody recognizes as such? Well, one can either try to address it through the skills, knowledge and experience allotted by the powers that be, or consider ourselves as extremists. Lawless gangs. Madmen. In short, it might only be a problem is we were in the wrong.

Which perhaps brings us to a second enlightenment: Pace yourself before you waste yourself. After all, you can be dead wrong by thinking you know better, or you can be wrong also after deliberation in a given thought pattern. The point being, there are more ways to be wrong than there are being right in a given context. At the same time, considering a scenario carefully slightly reduces the off-chance that one may be outright wrong, since there's some breathing space to consider options more carefully and select a potentially better course of action. This is not to say it's universally applicable, but our intuition certainly needs a good upgrade to pick out these prompts within reality as they come up.

So is that it? Some newfangled way for self-betterment all over again? Evolution, at least in the sense of keeping up with the times, was always a requirement from the start. Why else do we see the same dinosaurs always rubbing us the wrong way? They're from a different era, and unfortunately we too will become fossils like them either because we've inherited their "mindset" or we too stop updating ourselves. Of course, this is not a mandate to get on social media and staying hip. But one may as well be obliged to keep that card on the table, as it might have to be done with or without our own volition in these trying times.

This is not even considering that we're staying up to date with the correct things! Like what was mentioned earlier, being wrong is incredibly easy, sometimes to our own chagrin. The only logical option forwards is to embrace a micro-evolution mindset, in that any positive change is recursively composed of smaller positive changes. Wouldn't this just result in an infinite loop of recursion? At some point, the change necessary would be an atomic activity. Something like "Take out the trash" or "Eat a piece of fruit". You know, something that doesn't necessarily rely on another action. And from there, the prerequisites for larger, more powerful changes are met and percolate to the thing you wanted to achieve in the first place. Likewise, not all situations lend themselves nicely to this way of thinking and it's up to our admittedly haphazard intuition to tell us when and where to apply such an approach.

All in all, it's was a rocky road. Not the chocolate snack necessarily. But, as much as I lament positive thinking, hopefully things take a turn for the better this time around. Even if it requires blood, sweat, tears and other bodily fluids. But hold on... We're actually going to *gasp* put effort into manifesting change? —æ»Ciªs¾~”"S6õ¾ë¢nmëÃ— Uh... I don't really remember what my train of thought was, having being distracted by A CERTAIN SOMEONE who demanded I start cooking some rice. But I'm going to wildly assume that it was coherent enough that I've (successfully?) delivered on this post.

'Til next time, young padawan.

If a pig can prove its salt as an artist, then perhaps we too have a chance at redemption as humans...

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

"I can't say goodbye", among other things...

I feel that I should start things off with a minor rant about how nobody has seemed to make a joke about "pawn chips" on the publicly accessible Internet so far. I'd like to think this blog, of all places, is the catalyst for such change. Do you know that feeling when you're breaking off the chains of some morally dubious stranglehold and finding something to fill that deep, empty void? Me neither, or at least not to the extent where it's painfully obvious to everyone that this would be the case.

Change: The one thing that we can never escape, regardless of how successful or failing we might be. It's all a constant game of stayin' alive, feeling the city breaking and everybody shaking. But every time, there's always that pivot point - the stage in which change takes place, with or without you on board. For those times, I'd like to think I've been on the winning end, even if it means short term loss. On the other extreme, we have an unchanging heart. One which not only refuses to acknowledge the times, but doubles down on the existing ways. After all, why adjust what's worked for so long all this time?

Which I suppose brings us to the idea of the goals in a given stage of life. For those that know, I'm getting to that age where we have to decide for ourselves which wars will be worth fighting for. Not for money, not for oil and not for what we're told is right. This is to say, at least for the first time with some level of seriousness, we have to find something we believe in and pursue it. What worse tragedy is a life lived without a sense of purpose, of just bumbling around and following the signs of the times? A naturalist might say that it's always been human tendency for such a simple way of things. Sadly, it wouldn't be entirely correct to still think that's the way things are in this economy.

Of course, this is not even considering the fact that said pursuits will even hold for the next few years. Goals change, with some accordance with one's personal views and experiences as well as input from the powers that be. Perhaps even something novel you might have eaten (not necessarily a literal novel) could change your outlook on things. The point being that one may need to start assessing the things in life like a business. What are the operating costs? Is there enough cash flow to provide sustainable profits? Any new opportunities and threats in the market? While this is a very mechanical way of thinking things through, one has never been the kind of person to take kindly to the grey areas of life.

Surely, we would also need to consider regressions too? After all, the past more often than not dies harder than we'd like to prefer. And perhaps that's the sort of mindset we too must take on for things to move forward: Get on board or get out of the way. Maybe this is why "he" has barely changed even after 20 years?

And where to from here, once we've boarded the "change train"? As much as I don't like to admit it, we'll have to start being more vigilant for things that could go wrong as well as hops one may need to make to stay on the train. I suppose the fact that we're not so heavily engaged in video games and social media is a but of a tip-off in that direction, although this is not to dismiss either of the two as being necessarily harmful in the overall sense. But rather, have we already been making the shift without us knowing it ourselves? As we navigate this strange time, of unloading and taking up the burdens of the mighty (I would like to think), our intuition might just be our saving grace in a stage when the only thing that makes sense is that nothing makes sense.

The next time we are reminded of the "good old days" or the times when we "felt alive", we should also be reminded that we can't always stay in the stage of life that we've grown so fondly accustomed to. After all, if life were really that simple, then why isn't the road to greatness any smoother? So for my esteemed colleagues(?) reading this, get out there and make some noise. Metaphorically speaking. Do the thing you wanted to do, and find out what has to be done in this next stage of life. Because everyone enters the New World at some point, and things once more will be disorienting, scary and disappointing... At least, until we think we can make sense of the madness before us.

'Til next time, young padawan.

Maybe there's something out there that brings greater joy than a well-baked cookie?

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

Jacked up and good to go: The nuances of the readied self

Once again, we're about to spend an entire week goofing around and avoiding life's unanswered questions like the plague. So it's no surprise that they keep coming back repeatedly, similar to a plague. Is this how it's going to be for the next stage of life: Always avoiding those decisions without a retractable impact?

It's always been a preference to achieve idempotence in any decision, if practically possible. Which is to say, a decision which can be reversed and and another option selected. After all, who wants to live with their own mistakes, let alone admit that one was made in the first place? Of course, one would not know they've even made the wrong choice until some enlightenment has been revealed to them, or someone told them it was incorrect. The point being, you could be reading this sentence without even knowing you've made a grave blunder years ago which nobody has picked up on, and yet here you are on this sad blog.

The inverse approach could work equally well for fooling the self: Assume that every decision will be sub-optimal, and therefore one does not need to think about critical decisions because either "it'll all work out" or said decisions never amount to anything in the grand scheme of things. Or so that's the thinking. Consequently, this can be abused as a fallacious motivation for all kinds of questionable behaviour, such that one may as well double down into the dubious. Which is not what we want, for a sound mind requires a sound lifestyle.

So we live life, not really knowing whether we're making the best decisions and knowing even less about our options to adjust the sub-optimal choices when they're already made. But what now? It's worth pointing out that optimal performance does not always correlate to optimal happiness, yet how can that be? There's an optimal way for a reason. But that reason may not always be in one's best interests, or put another way, your life build is not gearing towards such a skill distribution. Is this to say that there are questionable choices to be made which turn out to emphasise one's current life build for an overall net positive gain? Such things always have a cost, whether it's now or years down the track.

Unsurprisingly, there are the "boomers" out there who still think we're young enough to make mistakes and learn from them, and thereby inform us on how to make better life choices in the future. Yet, we think that's not within our best interests, despite having no real evidence for such thinking other than a "gut feeling". Is that even logical? As nonsensical as it sounds, it's the theory that we believe in our darkest hours. That we'll "manage things as they come up" and "we'll handle that later". It's not to dismiss the importance of short term gains, but draws back to the original dilemma: How does one know their choice is a sub-optimal one?

Any bad choice is only really revealed with correlated data and derived conclusions. Which is to say, proactively determining a bad choice is near impossible by human standards. And so the next best thing is to fail fast and quickly evaluate a decision quickly after it's taken. In doing so, we get insight about our decisions AND we are still making the decisions we want to make according to our life builds. It's the penultimate solution! Or is it?

Perhaps as a principle, any data driven approach to a given decision, despite the mechanical nature of such a mindset, provides some background insight that would otherwise have not been obtained, had a pseudo-random choice been selected. And whether we even draw the correct conclusion is affected by a slew of other variables, including our own bias towards being capable of making good decisions. Not only that, but we may very well forget the critical data gathered from such an experience that we repeat the same mistakes again! I suppose that's how we can tell where our formulaic weaknesses are, and where an attacked could force our hand in a particular context...

So, with all that said, do we really need idempotent or reversible decisions? If it can be guaranteed, that'd be nice. But in the heat of the moment or the coldness of the ages, this is usually not the case. So pick a path, cross your fingers and hope that it really was the right thing to do. Because some paths only really make themselves known during the proverbial monsoon.

'Til next time, young padawan.

That face when you realise that you can never really make a "good decision", because you'll never know for certain what the true optimal choice was, given the infinite nature of a problem's possible solutions and side-effects.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

When there is nothing to do, what is the right thing to do?

Admittedly, I've been trying to make an effort not to do more of my day jorb during my off-hours. Though finding something to fill in the time that isn't some morally dubious venture is becoming more and more difficult. Largely, because the last decade or so has only been dedicated to the single-minded cause of getting ensuring full-time work at some respectable company. So what does one have left when the time for building character has departed?

Of course, this is not to say one has been idling for an eternity while waiting for that golden epiphany. Things were tried -- the other blog being a prime example -- albeit with varying levels of success. I suppose at the end of the day, it's really about finding something you enjoy. And rediscovering what one "enjoys" seems to be the struggle, at least given the constraint that it shan't be something questionable and ideally is something that has some output of relevant usefulness. At the same time, those playthings can only be interesting for so long. Projects get completed, creative juices run out, external forces prevent you from enjoying what once was entertaining. Perhaps that's the first lesson: Have a toolbox of hobbies so that one can take another's place when the time is right.

Another option is to pursue a lifelong mission, like a vigilante of sorts. Though this would really be no different to undertaking a project but for an indefinitely longer time frame, and doesn't quite account for the situation where said mission is somehow achieved or becomes unnecessary in a world of changing variables. So one should pursue a multitude of lifelong missions? And what happens when none of them are truly "achieved"? If you think about it long enough, a lifelong mission isn't so much concerned about an outcome, but more so concerned about the meaning behind the mission or the effects of undertaking said mission, of which I'm reminded of that memorable Senator Armstrong quote that you might find on various places on the Internet:

"I have a dream." That one day, every person in this nation will control their OWN destiny... A nation of ACTION, not words. Ruled by STRENGTH, not committee. Where the law changes to suit the individual, not the other way around. Where power and justice are back where they belong: in the hands of the people!

And that's not even thinking about the possibility that said mission is even in everyone's best interests throughout the duration of its execution. And then you become a tyrant, living long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Even with that in mind, could one just "take on more responsibilities" and effectively become their own NPC in their own world? While it certainly doesn't sound ideal, that's the way that some people operate these days. After all, if you got time to lean, you got time to clean. This might work for a while, but as with all physical endeavors, you very much won't be doing said tasks for the rest of one's life. And keeping on with the labor would only get one so far, as the bodily limitations become more and more painfully obvious.

So it seems lots of hobbies is the way to go? Well, it's certainly a trend that I've noticed among many people, which I'd like to think inherently works in most cases. But there is no guarantee that there will always be at least one hobby which will be available at all times? No, there is not, but one would hope that this happens far less often that it should. Also, if you're anything like me, understanding the appeal of the more popular endeavors like *puts on old-timey reading glasses* browsing TikTok, reading Reddit posts, socializing with people, casual cooking and physical exercise *takes off old-timey reading glasses* is never quite something one can get into. So, as to nobody's real surprise, finding the right hobbies requires a lot of feeling around for something that clicks. And no, the morally dubious ones are still out of the picture.

What do we then make of the things that are no longer enjoyable? Is it even worth considering getting back into them, if we have found a better use of our time doing other things? Not speaking from experience, this would depend on the reason for leaving in the first place. Out of boredom? Makes sense to get that ol' nostalgia flowing through the veins. Bad memories? Probably best to stay away forevermore. After all, if there's something to do, you may have to search in some rather unusual places to consider it. Even if the path to get there is boarded up by ancestors past... To which, was the cost really worth paying?

'Til next time, young padawan.

Now there's something for the more adventurous and/or financially flippant: Eating chicken schnitzels shaped like continents.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

Goofing around like there's no tomorrow...

Week three of feeling marginally better than last week, although I should preface the sorry souls who have to deal with my presence that I may or may not suddenly curl into a ball in pain. Kind of makes you think that you should have taken far better care of the physical body in the days of old... Nah, we'd probably still be in this confounded situation regardless.

In the midst of this seemingly endless spiral of health degradation, is this one of those things that one has to inevitably live with? You know, having your life suddenly flip itself over and be as painful as possible for you? I'm starting to think this is a recurring pattern, where as the years go on, the severity of these "random" happenings is increasing with a proportional likelihood of them being negative. Of course, a fighter would do what they can within their power to oppose the ravages of time. Eat healthier, get more exercise and fresh air. Perhaps it would do wonders to delay what would have been a swift end.

The allure of all things like medication seems to have a certain allure to them. Not only as a quick-fix for the ailments that be, but also respite from the horrors of turning 30. Perhaps there's still hope to turn things around within the next few years? Or maybe we're too far gone, destined for the garbage heap. Admittedly, that may as well be the greatest fear: that one day, we will have to live ourselves, ailments and all, and it'll all be considered normal. What a shocker. The alternative is to double-down on one's oldness, that ailments are a strength in some unknown form. It'd almost be a sarcastic attempt to justify our lifelong poor decision making and leadership skills, making the statement that we knew we knew what we were doing and one's current position is in fact a carefully calculated plan that allegedly paid off in its own due time. Yeah, keep telling yourself that...

As we continue watching this car crash in slow motion, it's equally worth thinking if we truly did learn anything along the way. Sure, mistakes were made, but at least they were made then and there as opposed to when we're 40 or 50, when the going really starts to get tough. But we all know how we loathe learning from the past. Ugh, what a pain! So here we are, if you will: Neither enjoying nor hating what we are because we both keep repeating the same mistakes of the past whilst managing to learn from others. And perhaps that's the way it's always going to be: Not completely fixed but still broken enough that life can throw its problems at us at a whim.

So the days go on, and the good old days become fewer and fewer. Better brace for impact, because there's no ride quite like what we're about to storm through. And perhaps that's the advice for the ages: Brace for impact, because something will always give way. And that describes adulthood basically? You tell me, reader. After all, what else has the last few years taught us, other than the hopes and dreams of yesteryear are no further from reality than your favourite internet Waifu? As always, the bill is due, either now or years down the track. Which is to say, there's a price to be paid, whether or not the right decision was made anyway.

So what now? How can we truly break free of this time loop? Perhaps, as haphazard as it sounds, one just needs to feel their way through it, guided by the powers that be. After all, we've seen just how hopeless our own strength can take us, so we need to go beyond, and then further than that. How far that actually is can be up to you, but know that it will always be a rocky road, no matter how prepared you might be.

'Til next time, young padawan.

Can you imagine Locke throwing a red shell at our good man Descartes? It's just like old times. Almost.

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

The light-headed truth about responsibilities?

Week two of strange gut-wrenching pain, an obvious ill omen of the times to come once we hit 30. The things we have to do to stay alive... But I suppose this is it then: The end of the line, as we know it. Life filled to the brim with unwanted responsibilities, topped up with cares we'd rather not have to deal with. Perhaps this reveals the true allure of all things morally dubious.

Is this the day of defeat, wherein we simply "give up" and become one of those boomers that do nothing but maintain the household and occasionally post bad memes on the Internet? It may very well be the case. But how would one know when they're hit the "Anti-Fun Equation", which is to say, life plateaus in such a way that all one is doing is the social obligations mandated by today's standards. You might have also experienced this yourself, going for years on end not really achieving anything other than the maintenance of taxes, career and minimal physical health requirements. A "dead-end" life, if you will.

You might also be expecting to hear some optimistic counter, where things definitively do get better eventually. We've yet to see that happen, and perhaps looking to other people isn't the best example for once. Why? There are so many variables that can contribute to the "Anti-Fun Equation", that simply observing the output wouldn't be enough to replicate the same results in one's own life, especially at the point in which it was observed. No, a different approach would be needed. Is this something that can be trialed & error-ed? The only issue with that is the fact that the cost of failure increases over time, so there comes a threshold in which taking risks is not longer a viable option, even for the purposes of exploration. Which is why people sometimes take risky moves or leaps of faith just to find greener pastures, for the cost that had been avoided thus far becomes a far greater toll for even the simple things.

Surely, this cost can still be paid down? After all, its finite nature is always implied to be achievable, given sufficient time. One of the hard truths one has had to learn over the years is that the same strategy won't work forever. There comes a time when Ol' Reliable doesn't stack up against the new era that we live in. Instead, one must constantly keep aware of the surroundings, adapting where relevant. This isn't to say that there aren't timeless aspects of said strategy, such as moral upstanding, but rather the environment change with or without your input, and you can end up paying the price with or without having attempted to resolve it thus far.

What does this all have to do with the "Anti-Fun Equation"? The load of responsibilities is a very low cost activity to maintain with somewhat bearable end results. After all, most people want to maintain a stable career and moderately good health, and with good intentions. And with stability like that, why take a risk that puts that security into jeopardy? Of course, there will always be people who are still taking those high-risk high-reward choices, and making it out in one piece some of the time. To which, I would neither condone nor condemn such behaviour. But rather, to pose the question: When did we stop doing that thing we loved?

That in itself has some obvious reasons: Lack of interest, not physically capable anymore, high financial cost. And some things are very much out of an individual's scope of control. For instance, almost everyone cannot control their physical body from aging. True, one might be able to slow down the process, but it doesn't solve the core problem. And perhaps we stop doing the things we love because of that risk factor, under the justification of one or more of these plausible reasons. And "getting back into the game" has its own risks, one of which is the health implications of doing so with an aged body.

So, is that the conclusion then? That, knowing full well the things we used to enjoy and stop doing, we must only choose the low-risk maintenance tasks of life just to preserve what "good" we have left? If nothing is done, then that may as well be the default path. And the alternate flip-side being to go and take all those risks, for some of them to fail with such consequence that it affects one's life thereafter? It's well understood that people regret the things they didn't do more so than the things they did, so the gamble presents itself to all who are willing to consider it.

As for you, reader? Perhaps the truth of having to "move on", as it were, hasn't quite sunk in yet. So we still chase the butterflies and the bees, hoping to reclaim that lost innocence but destined never to find it. Is surrendering to the bland responsibilities of life really that bad? When you're as unfeeling and emotionally dead as oneself, it really doesn't matter that much anymore. And so the risks taken is a form of verbal incommunicado, that we're still alive somewhat in that regard. Does it work? Your mileage will very much vary. But in any case, one might think of it as doing the work that nobody else is willing to do, such that others may be able to live in such a way that is enjoyable yet unknowing of the sacrifices made by one such trooper.

To that end, changing one's strategy isn't always a terribly dark deal. Of course, one must be able to assess the current times and see to it that said strategy is fit for the context in which one pursues it. And perhaps that's the true issue of today's average person: They lack the diversity of strategy to know when to apply certain principles in the various stages of life. Am I finally recommending that you take risks outside your comfort zone? If you see it as a beneficial strategy, then it makes sense. Even without that foresight, one would always know what something isn't quite right, although the sad truth is that most people deem this as tolerable enough to take to the grave. Perhaps in the midst of the dull responsibilities loaded onto us, we may need to secretly work overtime to understand the ebbs and flows of how to navigate these tricky times, and finally reclaim that edge that we had lost since 2014.

'Til next time, young padawan.

Strategy is like all those obscure flavours of chips you never tried: Dare you take the plunge and potentially discover an all-new flavour to remember for the ages? Or settle down with the usual, averting the risk of another lamington-flavoured chips debacle?

[theblognobodyfoundlastyear]

It just isn't what it used to be...

You know those days when you've got some idyllic albeit ill-conceived plan, but all that gets thrown out the window because something in you (such as your guts) says otherwise? And then you try going ahead with it anyway, only for said bodily forces to oppose you even more? Probably not. But I certainly do, and so this blog post is hopefully a remedial attempt at escaping such pains, though I have my doubts it's ever worked in a long, long time.

So what is troubling us, friend? Well, if I must say, being in your soon-to-be-30's-before-you-know-it, one is finally paying down the debts accrued over the last couple of decades. You know, the standard stuff: Years of bodily neglect, unhealthy eating habits, irregular sleep patterns and days without Vitamin D. It's always something to do with Vitamin D. To be fair, or more accurately "justifying one's own poor decision making", this probably would've happened anyway. And in this sorry state, how is one paying down the costs of life? Through the experiencing of pain and disappointment, of course! Similar to the Kaio-ken, you can only press on with unsurpassed power for so long before the toll becomes too high to bear. And once that happens, you'd be at the mercy of all the forces, be it illness, financial downturn or taxes.

Assuming one recovers from all this, surely this would warrant a more careful approach to the various aspects of life? A part of oneself wants to reject that idea, that to scrape every last "good" opportunity before the "dirty thirties". *shudder* One can only imagine how far one can fall from there. Yet, it's more than inevitable that one will reach that point anyway. After all, who can truly stop the ravages of time? Only one man, and you know His name. Anywho, the imaginary optimists around these parts say that the next stage of life has enjoyment proportional to the amount of effort put in at this current stage to promote a good lifestyle that is both sustainable and satisfying. To which I've fallen for that scam more than once, though admittedly under the pretense of moving from high school into university.

But at the same time, one can equally double-down on short-term decisions and poorly informed choices leading to an even worse outcome in the foreseeable future. So should one do everything in their power to avoid such a fate, or should destiny have its own way as it always has? In truth, there's a fine line of best fit somewhere, so disregarding the feasibility of locating such a sweet spot, it all boils down to what is the goal for that next stage, in which nobody can really give you a clear cut answer as in times past. To which it becomes painfully obvious that you, much like your caveman ancestors, are bound to make the same mistakes because one simply doesn't have that hindsight and experience to navigate the new spaces of life.

So what is the plan? Or is a plan even necessary, if the goal does not entail or even require one? In the short term, at least, one's plan is to pay down the debts and minimize them going forwards. Of course, this is strictly not referring to just finances, but to other areas of life. But being more conservative and careful is a double-edged sword: On one hand, there's hope to avoid the pitfalls currently experienced by purely going for shortsighted goals, but on the other hand, there's that risk of never really making the most of life until that stage is near completion. If we're being completely honest with ourselves, we've always held the belief that it's "hip to be square" largely because it's the most predictable and therefore unsurprising path to take. Constantly being aware of one's surroundings and having a fluid environment where every 5 minutes, the rules of the game change - it's never been something we could stomach completely. At the same time, sometimes we do take risks, or at least largely calculated ones. And perhaps that's something that will never truly change, because of the powers that be... and our own bodily forces.

In that regard, we are just to accept that our path is, for lack of a better term, "predestined" according to factors both in and out of our control? Be that as it may, and be our guest to try and change that. But time and time again, the inevitable always wins out in one way or another, although it would be worth mentioning that destiny itself is never truly fixed, and this is more referring to the milestones in life. And what does that mean for our so-called "plans for the next stage"? Admittedly, they still have some residual value in the sense that they can be pursued given that the opposition is bearable or non-existent.

Thus, the general advice seems to be: Keep a careful eye on the opposition to your plans, and the debts they may produce. It's common knowledge that one will not know these in great detail until the deed has been done, in which case, the only way forward is to act than over-analyse. Which also is included in the encyclopedia of common knowledge. Should one also prioritize the paying down of proverbial debts in these trying times as well? It helps to keep a steadier play-through, if that's the intent of the question. But nobody wants to willingly accrue debt these days, and for good reason. At the same time, people aren't aware or often underestimate the debts that some actions will produce, especially in the long-term. For those, it all boils down to making the right decisions at the right times so that both you and your gut can agree on something which isn't food-related for once.

'Til next time, young padawan.

Good gravy, I can see myself years from now with a gut like that. The man's like a prophecy waiting to manifest.