The Jack of all trades

The purpose of this blog is to share information I've found practical/ useful in each post, I might share other info I found interesting or fun. Some posts will be in Spanish/ algunos posts estarán en español.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

The parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Berserk. Is Griffith’s dream a fool’s errand?

Griffith and Guts in the Golden Age Arc.

*note: this post was incomplete when I first uploaded it, a lot of text was not copied correctly (it's corrected now).

Intro.

This post will be a bit different from my other posts, it’s for people who have watched, read, or are interested in Berserk or in myths in general.

Berserk, is one of the stories that has been more impactful and important for me, it is as important as for other people were the myths of their cultures, as the Bible is for some people (maybe not to that degree, but I’ll explain my point).

Many people don’t think about the old myths from our cultures or about the stories in religions much, I believe this is because we have too many new stories that occupy that need we have for tales, as Carl Jung said, myths and stories are of a therapeutic nature, that’s perhaps the reason we create and consume so many stories over and over in the form of movies, series, books, comics, music, and so on. They serve many purposes, the main one could be that we identify ourselves as a hero from the story, we learn things, and at least temporarily we feel empowered and are distracted from our daily lives that can be overwhelming at times. There can be many other uses for stories, for example, comedy can help us feel better, it’s proven that laughing often is good for health overall (I’m getting off track here, just making a point).

There are many things to be learned from Berserk, as there are many things to be learned from any good story, but Berserk is particularly impactful and important for many people. I’ve read online about a bunch of people who said they had depression and that reading Berserk helped them to fight their depression and feel better, same with other manga like Vagabond or Vinland Saga. Another example are the people who are going through bad times and find meaning and strength to go on in stories from the Bible (as mentioned earlier, stories can have a therapeutic nature and use. I remember a friend was told by his therapist he should watch and analyze the movie Batman Begins, it blew my mind, because for me that’s a movie that has many insightful teachings, best Batman movie IMO).

A Summerian representation of Gilgamesh (or believed to be so).

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The parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Berserk.

The brand of sacrifice from Berserk looks just like the cuneiform symbol that Sumerians used (image taken from Wikipedia, it seems that symbol can mean something like heaven, sky, or something related to the gods). Kentaro Miura was greatly inspired (in part) by Sumerian myths and culture for the creation of Berserk.

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The parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Berserk.

Recently I listened to a couple podcasts about the Epic of Gilgamesh (read it on Wikipedia), that same night and the following days I realized how similar the story and relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu was to Griffith and Guts (at least during the Golden Age Arc), this was intriguing to me. It’s well known that the author, Kentaro Miura was inspired by Japanese, American, European, and more stories and comics, as well as in myths and in many different cultures, he was also inspired by different philosophers like Nietzsche and Carl Jung. Anyhow, he knew a bunch of things and did massive research before and during the writing of Berserk.

I would say that he was directly inspired by Epic of Gilgamesh when creating the relationship between Griffith and Guts, I don’t think this was unconscious, there are too many parallels between the 2 characters that are not seen in many stories or myths in that same way, but I also believe in the possibility that he did this unconsciously after studying Sumerian and other myths, and as he created the characters and worked the story details, he drew a lot of inspiration from that specific myth without realizing it (the brand of sacrifice is obviously inspired by Sumerians).

Art created for the soundtrack of the 1997 Berserk series adaptation.

Similarities I found:

· When Guts meets Griffith, they have a duel, Griffith beats Guts and earns his respect, Guts joins Griffith’s mercenary band (same as Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Griffith being parallel to Gilgamesh, Guts to Enkidu).

· They become friends, and not just friends, Guts is the only person that ever mattered to Griffith, the rest of the people for Griffith were just means to an end (it’s my interpretation that Griffith first admired Guts and saw his potential to be his equal, at least in fighting, and then Guts became his friend. Because he was his only friend and the only person he was close to, Guts became essential to him), Enkidu was the only friend and considered his equal by Gilgamesh.

· Griffith changes after he meets Guts, he actually starts caring about someone (perhaps for the first time in his life), and even if he uses him to achieve his goals, he worries about Guts, he risks his life twice for him, and in one very interesting scene, Griffith asks Guts if he believes he’s vile, something he probably wouldn’t have even thought had he not met Guts. Gilgamesh becomes more humble after meeting Enkidu, and after learning new things from their adventures together, and then, his adventure alone (that happened because of the death of Enkidu).

Griffith asking Guts if he finds him vile after having him commit murder and killing more people in his way.

· Griffith and Guts battle together in the search for glory (the glory Griffith searched, just like Gilgamesh), and not only they fought together, similar to Gilgamesh and Enkidu, they fight a monster together, Zodd (Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight against Humbaba the ogre giant and against the Bull of Heaven).

· When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is completely devastated, he holds Enkidu’s body for days until it starts to rot, and then he rips off his own clothes and hair and goes away from the city he ruled to become a vagabond. When Guts leaves Griffith’s side, Griffith has a tremendous breakdown, he never did anything dumb in the whole story until that moment, he commits something incredibly stupid because of what he was feeling that brings an end to his plan that he’d been working for years, he seduces the king’s daughter and has intercouse with her without the king’s consent, he’s then incarcerated and tortured for a whole year, to the point where he won’t be able to walk, talk or use his arms anymore, ever (later he agrees on a pact with evil gods to sacrifice his whole mercenary band and be reborn as a god himself).

Griffith after Guts leaves The Band of the Hawk.

Is Griffith’s dream a fool’s errand?

This last parallel is just my point of view (and my guess to the ending of Beserk), it’s not literally a fool’s errand, but it could be seen that way, we’ll see.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, after Gilgamesh becomes a vagabond for some time, he decides he will go and search for the man who became immortal, Utnapishtim (Enkidu suggested for him to do this before dying). Shamash, one of the gods that helped/ guided Gilgamesh, tells him he should go back to rule his city because this task could result dangerous and a fruitless, he’s told he might not find what he’s looking for, but he doesn’t listen and goes searching for Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh has some dangerous adventures, meets some people and monsters in the way, in the end he finds Utnapishtim, and finds out that there is no way that he can become immortal too, Utnapishtim had become immortal due to very specific circumstances that were not going to be repeated. Gilgamesh is told a few times in the Epic that he should go back to his city and live his life as a human, after all, he’s not an immortal being, and looking for immortality was after all an impossible quest (it turns out his quest wasn’t completely pointless because he learned many things in the way, and became a better ruler because of that).

Now, Griffith’s dream was to have his own kingdom eventually, he started a mercenary band, then he did so well that he was hired by an important king, and he was even made a nobleman, then he messed up his entire plan because Guts left him. Later on, he was reborn as a god, then he was reborn again in the human world, became the king of the demons that inhabited earth (to put simply), he became the savior of many people (a plan orchestrated by himself), and then he actually got his own kingdom, now it seems he’s on a quest to rule the whole world (Guts said that Griffith would not stop, having his own kingdom wasn’t enough).

For Griffith to achieve his dream, he had to kill thousands of people, endure awful things, sacrifice all of his mercenary band, lose his only friend, and for what? He will get killed at the end of Berserk, not only his sole friend wants to kill him now, everyone who’s not on his side want to kill him (I know Berserk’s events happen because of causality, almost all events are being manipulated by a¿the greater god of Berserk, but that’s beyond the point I’m making here).

Griffith’s greatest inner demon was probably having a dream that’s way too big. Even after having achieved it, he wasn’t satisfied, and he won’t be happy even if he controls the whole world. I can guess dissatisfaction is another recurrent touble in Griffith’s mind (as it is for people according to Buddhists, they say this is something we must fight, and learn to feel satisfied with what we have). If he doesn’t get killed at the end of Berserk, he will just be a forever miserable god-king with no friends (unless he has some sort of revelation that changes him, but that won’t happen in this story).

Falconia, Griffith’s kingdom.

Conclusion.

Gilgamesh learned his lesson when the tale ends, he became a better person, and a better ruler for his kingdom. Most of the time, we must leave our comfort zone, have new experiences and fail miserably in order to learn, that’s in big part how we learn things, as long as we dare to try again with the new knowledge we have acquired. But sometimes it’s too late, for Griffith, it is too late, he can’t take back what he did or apologize, he’s doomed. His dream was so huge, it had to involve hurting too many people and himself in order to achieve it, and, it will have a tragic ending (as many workaholics do too, they end up with high levels of stress, disease, and an early death).

This is why I believe it’s better to take small steps towards any kind of dream or goal, and we can stop if we see it’s not a good idea to keep pushing in that direction (I’ve stopped trying to learn Japanese for now, I do too many things and it was stressing me out a bunch). Griffith could have stayed happy having become a nobleman and live and enjoy the rest of his life with an important amount of peace and with his friend, perhaps even making new friends and doing whatever else instead of chasing something much worse than a fool’s errand that will only end badly for him.

I think many can learn and try and enjoy present life more and stop thinking so much about certain goals and pushing themselves too hard, after all, we won’t be here forever, we’re not like Utnapishtim.

Berserk is not all about tragic events (as many people seem to believe, perhaps they believe so because of the ending of the 1997 anime, or because of all the tragedy in the story), the main character Guts is a great tool that teaches us to keep fighting and not giving up, no matter what.

Thanks for reading 😊

Links.

I found a podcast on Spotify named Mythology by Spotify that makes an incredible work, there’s where I heard the Epic of Gilgamesh, highly recommended.

If you’re interested on Berserk, the 1997 series is on Netflix, it’s a great intro to Berserk. The manga is available online, it won’t be hard to find.

xoxo

[thejackofalltrades42069]

Sharing this great post I recent read from Gurwinder.

The only feedback I'd give, I disagree with the way people usually throw the "porn is bad" and "video games are bad" logical fallacies in their podcasts or posts, other from that, it's a great read. This might lead me to write a post about the positive sides and usage of porn and video games.

Why Everything is Becoming a Game

All the better to control you

[pallidprincess]

tiktok is such an awful app, it's almost designed to feed you misinformation and expose you to insane discourse. unlike beloved tumblr, the app that feeds me misinformation and exposes me to insane discourse

[pallidprincess]

[lierdumoa]

No, no, no, you see on tiktok an algorithm feeds you misinformation. On Tumblr I feed myself misinformation from my charcuterie board of hand-selected unhinged mutuals.

[lierdumoa]

None of that mass market junk. Only artisanal, small batch, sustainably cultivated, fair trade horseshit.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

The importance of stories and our capacity for good.

Intro.

Akira Toriyama passed away recently, I’ll pay homage to him by writing about his most known work, Dragon Ball, about the impact it had, and the importance it has.

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Reason for stories.

Since humans exist, we tell each other stories, our lives are stories, each civilization had their own myth that they used (and still use) as a tool for teaching through telling those fantastic tales to each other. Our brains are wired to learn from stories, that’s the reason humans are obsessed with stories (we create and consume stories through books, comics, music, movies, series, videogames, etc.)

The reason I have come to understand that all myths and many stories contain fantastic elements is because they serve a specific purpose, it’s a tool to more easily explain certain aspects of the stories, the exaggeration helps clarify the teachings or events in stories. Even in stories with no fantastic elements in them, there is some fiction and exaggerated elements that help clarify and make emphasis so that the story is clearer.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest known works of literature, it contains similar elements to the Bible, like a great flood. 

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Dragon Ball.

Akira Toriyama published Dragon Ball for the first time in 1984 in a manga (Japanese comic), the animated series came out later on 1986. In the 90’s, Dragon Ball had become huge around the globe, it was and still is huge in pop culture, many kids from that time like me watched it on TV, and many of their kids are watching Dragon Ball because of their parents, and because the manga and the series still continue to come out, there are even new videogames still coming out often.

Now to the point, why is Dragon Ball so important? As many myths from the past and present, Dragon Ball has and teaches many values that are great for anyone, but perhaps particularly for kids and young people because they have a lot to learn, they have more time, and they can have fun watching that story and learn essential things that will help them be better people.

What are some of the values in Dragon Ball?

Fighting for what is right, for justice, against evil.

Self-improvement, courage, and perseverance; never giving up, no matter what.

The importance of friendship.

Forgiveness and redemption (this happens greatly as Son Goku forgives Piccolo and Vegeta, and how they find redemption from their wrongdoings later as they are exposed to friendly and good people. They later become friends and fight together to protect the people they care about and to fight against evil).

Hope. Hope is a fundamental aspect of human existence, it’s constantly present though the whole series.

Humor and lightheartedness, perhaps this emphasis on humor reinforces the idea that life should be enjoyed, even in the midst of challenges.

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Conclusion.

I believe my life is better because I watched Dragon Ball, I unconsciously learned those values. It also lead me to better appreciate, understand, and enjoy other works (other manga, anime, and videogames).

Akira Toriyama had a huge impact in people, culture, and he inspired numerous other artists, he made the world a better place.

[k-eke]

Animated Sarah Andersen's comic page about treasure :>

Link

[thejackofalltrades42069]

So funny.

[secondlina]

New Crow Time 🐦‍⬛🦊🌟

[thejackofalltrades42069]

I like this.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

Improve your social media and life experience.

I’ll share a few insights from podcast Modern Wisdom, a talk with Gurwinder Bhogal named “Psychology lessons to understand people better” and add my personal twist.

Mostly that podcast is about social media and how people in social media tend to act.

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1. Your social media feed can be hell.

Most posts in social media come from people being impulsive, usually people aren’t thinking about what they post, we just think of something or take a picture and upload it right away. This makes most people’s social media feed awful (we’re mostly seeing people arguing, complaining, people wishing for possessions or vacations, for money, senseless memes, and so on).

Because we tend to behave like others, and to do things that people around us are doing, in social media we can easily be seen as idiots, and we can consider that most people we follow are idiots because of what they post (especially when we don’t know the people we’re following), this happens because most posts are just unplanned impulsive posts. We’re creating ourselves an awful daily bias when we keep seeing random news feed on our cellphones and computers.

Social media can lead to an awful mindset and overall unsatisfaction.

How to avoid this?

We can easily filter all social media choosing whose posts we want to see and whose posts we don’t want to see (you can keep people as friends even after muting them, your best friend’s posts might be awful even if you like them). The algorithm was created to show things we want to see, but if we can identify things as completely useless, and as damaging for our mental health, it’s always a good idea to start filtering out many people’s posts.

Try to have a vision of the bigger picture, though.

This can however lead us to just seeing the same information always and creating a negative thing, a constant confirmation bias, it can be countered by changing the algorithm on purpose, check sources you’d never check, there are some ways to do this; searching for people, videos, books, or podcasts that we believe we’re going to dislike, and checking them out, seeing those videos, listening to those podcasts, or reading news from completely new places, there are apps that give you random news daily. Other way I think of this is asking acquaintances (mostly the ones we tend to disagree with) to suggest a video or someone they follow on social media and checking out new different information we believe we’re going to disagree with, it’s likely we’ll find useful and new stuff out there (different perspectives to bias ourselves from different sources), this could even be done with movies, watch a movie you think you’ll dislike from time to time, you’ll be surprised.

This could be applied outside of social media, hanging out and talking with people we don't talk to often, or ever.

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2. If you have a talk or debate, agree on the definitions first.

Ever had a talk or argument about something where it seems you’re talking about something completely different from the other person? It’s vital to learn the definitions and to agree on them in order to have a useful talk with someone else, if this is not done, you and the other person can be thinking about completely different things and having a strange conversation that leads nowhere.

When you want to have a meaningful talk, it’s useful to do this too, agree first about definitions, say what you think something means, hear the other person, understand each other, then move forward with the conversation.

Additionally to this, it’s always good to really try to understand definitions, we sometimes are not very sure what we ourselves are talking about, and it’s hard to express our ideas unto others.

Try to always understand and agree on definitions.

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3. Happiness.

Triple check that your happiness doesn’t depend on things you buy or things you will buy, possessions will only make people happy temporarily, believing that possessions and things like traveling will make you happy will only make you be more unsatisfied and less happy overtime.

We have the tendency to always want more, but perhaps it’s much better to find happiness in the little things and trying to enjoy the present more, without always trying to think how happy you’ll be in the future because of “x” or “y” thing is going to happen, or because you’re buying this or that thing. The present is what matters the most (for sure, plan for a better future too, make sacrifices to achieve things).

It’s great to have small goals that we can achieve overtime, like learning a language, or why not, saving money to buy a new car (because of its usefulness, not only because it’s a new car).

Extra note here, we shouldn’t spend too much time dwelling in the past, or thinking how things could’ve been. When we spend too much time in social media we tend to bias ourselves into thinking about this, and about the future, because that bias makes us want to have things that other people are sharing (because we’re constantly being reminded about it from other people’s posts).

To avoid this we can try to get busy with work/ studies and doing hobbies or things we enjoy. Using less social media must always be an objective too (IMO).

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4. The solutions we’re used to might not be the best.

Ever had pain in the wrist from using the keyboard and mouse too much? Well, the usual mouse and the usual keyboard most people use aren’t ergonomic at all; there are some good options out there people don’t even know exist like using a pen tablet instead of a mouse, or a vertical or trackball mouse.

I personally use a pen tablet as a mouse 50% of the time, it's much more ergonomic for the wrist.

This idea can thought about or be applied in infinite ways.

For problem solving, it’s good to do some research about solutions to problems we have or to things we do daily that we didn’t know even existed. For example, buying something easy to use like an air fryer for cooking, or cooking more using the microwave or a toaster oven (a toaster oven can be used to cook meat with no effort).

As far as new gadgets go, personally I believe that the invention of electronic ink readers is completely amazing, instead of having 50 books that you don’t even know where to store anymore, you can just have a tiny device like a Kindle with thousands of books in it.

An example some people never thought about, if they don’t want to be distracted by their phone at work, then can use “do not disturb” mode so it only rings with phone calls, tell their friends and family to only call them in case of emergencies, and put the phone in a drawer away from them, or even better, in a different room, or have a colleague at work keep it away from them.

Last example, for people like me who often want to take notes on the go, there are apps where we can dictate whatever and have the voice convert into text, this might seem like a silly simple thing, but it’s amazing, and it saves time and effort.

Better solutions can be found all the time, and for anything, sometimes we just need to invest some time into researching and having better time and resources management.

Learning new things and from different sources makes us more creative and better at problem-solving.

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Conclusion (summary).

Stop having a hellish awful bias from your social media, improve it or just stop using them and do something better with that time and energy.

Agree on definitions, know what you’re talking about, make sure others do too.

Don’t rely on possessions and money to be happy.

Take the time to improve different aspects of your life, one by one.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

Avoiding having a random life.

I’m back. I promise I’ll write a shorter post someday, in my mind this post was like 4 times shorter.

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Intro.

I had been thinking for some time about how contradictory we are, a lot of times we think something, or have some sort of “philosophy”, but when it comes to actually doing things, we often do things that are completely opposite to what we preach or completely different from what we believe are our values or our philosophies.

To a certain degree this is completely normal and we could even say it’s intrinsic to human beings, BUT, this could be pretty bad if it’s done too much because, if for example I’m thinking in a certain way and then acting the opposite way all the time, maybe I’m acting unconsciously too much, and that’s not good (because I’m messing up my own plans all the time).

Maybe I have an objective like saving money, I suggest other people to save money, and I say I’m saving money, but I end up going out every weekend and spending it all in fancy dinners, alcohol, and ordering things online.

As Rachel said in Batman Begins, “But it’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you”, this is completely true, you can think of things you believe and things you value, but if you don’t act accordingly, then, you’re just behaving randomly.

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Ideas to fight this.

Perhaps a lot of times it’s not enough to just be aware of things, to read things, to talk to a therapist or other people, because even if we are skilled or know certain information, as humans, we have certain tendencies, and we’re biased by our environment way too much, so we end up doing what people around us (and in social media) are doing.

As Rah’s al Ghul said in Batman Begins, “The training is nothing, will is everything, the will to act.” If we don’t take action with our lives, we’re not doing much, we’re just existing (that’s not necessarily a bad thing for everyone), even if we’re knowledgeable or if we’re trained, it’s easy to remain in “inaction”.

It’s completely necessary to take practical measures to change our biases in a positive way so we can improve ourselves and stop behaving randomly as our emotions dictate in that moment, if we always act as our emotions dictate at the time being, we take many bad decisions very often (like buying a bunch of stuff online that we don’t need, like behaving in a shitty way to a friend).

Perhaps a good place to start with is learning information, but that information needs to be taken to practice, and it needs to be followed up, by reading more, and by applying it to our lives and sticking to doing it at least for a month so a habit can be created. After that, we need to always give some sort of follow up, by consuming useful information, and by forcing us to make some practical changes.

Example: we can do a schedule for activities, and really do them, say you want to exercise because you sit on your butt all day, find the best time in the day, force yourself to exercise even if it’s just 30 minutes. Use sticky notes or whatever, wake up earlier, or force yourself to do it right after work or school

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Don’t do random stuff all your life.

These ideas lead to my next topic I’ve been thinking a lot recently; most people just do random actions all their lives until they die (not that there’s something wrong about it, but I can’t live like that myself).

To clarify and give examples:

When people don’t have a clear objective about what they want in life, they end up doing a bunch of senseless and random things like having a completely awful job for years and keep working there because they think they’re making a lot of money and they think they need to have a certain lifestyle, but, that could lead to a totally stressful and meaningless life.

Another example is how many people don’t have a clear idea of how a love relationship should function in the long term, some don’t even know what to expect from a relationship. Others have wild unrealistic ideas of how relationships should be, so most people end up breaking up all the time because they have a very poor management or unrealistic expectations of the relationship. This info needs to be learned, not just through experience, but also, through books, podcasts, through other people like therapists, friends, and so on.

A lot of other examples come to mind, like how so many people just spend all weekends getting drunk and being hangover, or how they spend the little money they have in fancy meals and in fancy clothes. We tend to do what others around us do, but, is that really what you want to be doing? Do you really enjoy that? Is there any meaning or future in doing that? Asking many questions like these can help find an answer, the answer will be different for everyone.

Anyhow, the way I think we can counter this random lifestyle is, knowing what we want (something realistic), and with baby steps, walking toward that goal.

If you don’t really know what you want out of life, you can start with small goals, achieving one, then the next, for example, you want to continue learning Spanish but you don’t have a lot of time, well, set a schedule and get an easy app for language learning like Busuu or Duolingo, find the best time to do it 15 minutes, and really do it, and, don’t worry if you skip a day or two, but be consistent, avoid other social media so you have the energy, take the time to do it even more in your holidays.

To provide a real example for a larger goal:

When I was 18 I was taking a French class, a guy asked another guy how come he was taking a full time French class and not working, he replied that he saved money, he said that since he was a lot younger, when his parents gave him money, he would put away some of that money, when he worked he always put away money, by the time he was taking the class he could quit for some months because he had a bunch of money saved (not the case for everyone I know, but a lot of people who can save money just spend it however they can). After I heard that guy I thought that was real smart, when I started working I would always save money, just in case I wanted to quit or in case I wanted to buy whatever or travel, over the years I accumulated a bunch of money and I thought, “huh, I could buy a house eventually”, I kept saving money for about other 5 years with that house in mind, and after about a total of 10 years guess what, I just bought a house with my girlfriend a couple months ago, thanks to my savings it’s a nice location, a nice hose, and a small mortgage (now I’m very poor, though).

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Conclusion.

My goal changed through the years, but the fact remains that I achieved a great thing because I kept saving money, it would be the same case with other goals, we just need to take small steps toward those goals, learn useful information that can guide us, do some trial and error, and so on. Even if our main goal in life changes, it’s a lot easier when we have a solid foundation of knowledge and practical skills, it’s always good to keep learning a few things here and there and taking action (beware of being too passive, but do things progressively, don’t go insane).

And, as a personal note, don’t overwork yourself and don’t try to have huge and unlikely goals, many people end up very badly when they want to achieve something that’s too great (perhaps I’ll write about this next).

[thejackofalltrades42069]

"Agent Cooper's nen beast".

I was playing with Midjourney the other day, this came up inspired from Twin Peaks, Francis Bacon and Gremlins. I did a quick edit, and this is the result, reminds me of Hunter x Hunter nen beasts, it would be a great crossover.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

Doing things you don’t want to do (a useful stoic approach).

Here's a stoicism picture I created with Midjourney (pretty awesome imo).

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Intro.

Stoicism has a lot of useful information and practices to do daily or often, there are many great habits to take from that philosophy, I’ll share just this one idea that can be very useful for doing things you must do in daily life and find exhausting, stressful or tedious to do.

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Explanation and examples.

These responsibilities or things we must do sometimes can be wearing or even traumatic if we have an approach of resistance to doing them. Here are some examples:

Having to go to work at the office some days instead of always doing home office.

Dentist or doctor appointments.

Cleaning and chores.

Exercise.

Legal obligations.

Studying or continuing education.

Home repairs or maintenance.

Etc.

If we think these activities as awful, we will have stressful experiences when doing them and take longer time to do them because of procrastination, if in our mind things are a lot worse than they really are, the end result might not be the best, and we will always be stressed and anxious when we need to do this stuff.

What’s a good mindset and approach to doing these?

The best way I’ve found to approach any activity you don’t want to do but must or should do is to first try and think of what are the positive outcomes from doing it, then, think how you can somehow take advantage or take something out of doing that activity. You should also always see it as an opportunity to become better at doing it, so that it’s easier to do in the future.

Usually when an activity is stressful, but we keep doing it over and over again, and have the correct mindset, it eventually stops being stressful because we get used to it, here are a few examples:

Public speaking. First time anyone does this, they feel anxious and stressed, they forget what they have to say, but with preparation and doing it over and over, it becomes piece of cake.

Driving. First few times driving can be really stressful. Then it becomes like walking.

Taking exams or interviews. We’ve all been there; it becomes very easy overtime (if we’re prepared of course).

Learning how to use new technology. It can be really tough and stressful to learn how to use new technology for many people, but with patience and practice, we can just get used to having to learn many new technologies all the time.

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Examples for using this approach.

I’ll give 2 examples to clarify how we can apply this in real situations.

I’ll mention the situation or activity, then, again, we must see everything as an opportunity for getting better at it, we must find positive outcomes, what we can learn, and how to take advantage of it.

When you find having to go work at an office stressful or weary (instead of doing home office daily).

How could we take advantage of this? Perhaps by doing the following:

A lot of people usually prepare breakfast and lunch, we might find it tedious, but we can take this as an opportunity to make healthy meals for every day we go to the office, there are many advantages of eating healthy, feeling better in general, living longer with greater health, etc. There are many resources online that teach to do easy and healthy meals.

Working on our soft/ social skills, and networking.

It’s always good to have the best possible soft and social skills when interacting with other people, when we go to our workplace, we must interact with other people, we can practice talking and dealing with others, and try to become a bit better every time. We can take that skill we are using at work for any time we have to talk or deal with other people, if we believe we’re not good at it, we can see some online videos about having better interactions and practice a bit at a time. We could transfer that skill to, for example, if someone wants to start dating people, they will have a lot of social interaction practice from work that they can use when talking to someone they are dating (and for example, avoiding having too many awkward moments, and avoiding saying something the other person could take the wrong way). We can also create a good network of acquaintances and perhaps a couple friends, it’s always good to know people, sometimes they can help us get promotions at work, or perhaps they can help meet someone we could date, or they can give you the phone of a good plumber.

Fulfilling our social interaction needs.

Almost all of us have social interaction needs, when we are alone for too long, we can feel stressed, sometimes this is not the ideal social interaction that people want to have, but we can try and using it to cover that need, then we can go and be alone at our homes and enjoy that moment of being alone more than we usually do.

Walking more.

Moving or exercising in any possible way daily is essential for having a good health in the long term, when we go to our workplace, we can walk more than we do when we work from home. We not only have to walk to get to our work spot, but we can take a few breaks to take extra steps, we could even take 15 minutes from our lunch to take a short walk and cover a bit more of that need that we have to exercise.

Getting more sunlight.

A lot of people don’t get enough sunlight exposure, even if the sun doesn’t hit us directly for long, seeing the sunlight early is great because it boosts our mood, it helps regulate our circadian rhythm (daily cycle of biological processes like sleep-wake patterns), taking some sun provides us with vitamin D and we also produce serotonin (which is good). When we go to our workplace we can try to take more advantage of being outside for seeing and taking some sun.

These are a few things I can think about; perhaps you can think of more.

2. Procrastination and stress from avoiding dentist/doctor appointments.

Here, we can think of the most obvious, if we go to the dentist when we need to, we can have better dental health and longer lasting teeth, if we avoid going, we might end up losing our teeth at a younger age, or dealing with pain that we could heal by visiting the dentist. If we simply think about this and realize it’s the best we can do by far, we can convince ourselves of going when we need to, if we don’t, we might end up having to invest more money in teeth prosthesis/ implants and other expensive treatments.

Many medical conditions and injuries can worsen overtime if we don’t treat them, this is non-negotiable. If we understand this and understand that if we don’t treat ourselves the way we should, we can end up having to spend a lot of money in urgency treatments, or we could even die at a young age for not treating some medical conditions early. Here, perhaps we can try and think that we should take care of ourselves as if we were someone else that we cared for, we can try and take a look at ourselves from the outside, or as if we were our own children, or perhaps, our own pets that we care so much about, we should treat ourselves with that perspective if it helps.

We can think of many more advantages like, overall feeling better daily, enhanced quality of life, better mental health, better sleep, less stress, improved longevity, etc. There’s nothing better in life than having all these.

We could also think about new useful information we’re learning from our doctors or dentists. In my case, I learned a lot of useful information about physical rehabilitation and a bunch of useful exercises from my physiotherapist; I even improved my posture a lot with some exercises thanks to taking that time to do the therapy to rehab my shoulder.

We could think of many more examples like how we can take advantage of going to therapy (with a psychologist) to learn more from ourselves and improve many aspects of our daily lives, how we can take advantage of exercising for a greater well-being, why eating healthy meals we don’t like is good for our dopamine system (our reward-energy-motivation system), how we can get some physical activity and a mind relaxing activity when doing cleaning and chores, and so on.  

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Conclusion.

Keep thinking about seeing opportunities where you didn’t see them before (always when there’s something you don’t want to do!), about getting better at things, and about how to take advantage of everything you have to do.

If all that’s good not enough, just think about how doing an activity more and more with the correct mindset will eventually make it be a lot less stressful, it will eventually be a piece of cake (or pie).

[thejackofalltrades42069]

Get great at what you do (you’re already spending hours doing it).

Image taken from “Vagabond” by Takehiko Inoue.

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Intro.

A few months ago, I was talking to a friend and thought about why you should always do a good job at work or at school/ university (in the case of people studying). I guess it’s not a bad idea to make a post about it 😊

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Explanation.

Most people spend most of their time working or studying. Many people do the bare minimum work for whatever reason, some are too immature to realize what’s good for them, some are distracted a lot of time on social media an internet, others are talking too much with their colleagues, some are doing many other things like shopping online, cooking/ doing whatever at home while they should be working (when working from home), some didn’t sleep enough and have no energy for work, some are all of those together. 

If we’re spending most time at work and if we’re doing the bare minimum, we’re not getting good at what we do most of the time. After work, most people are also not trying to get good at a specific task or learning things.

If we’re being lazy or too distracted with other things at work, it’s most likely we’re not good at doing other things either because we’re developing a habit of doing the bare minimum and being distracted all the time.

What I believe is best for anyone is to try and do a good job and create good habits while working. If we don’t do this, it’s likely we will become a bunch of incompetents overtime. I mean, we’re already spending 7 or more hours at work, even if someone doesn’t like their job, they can try and do a good job, get good at doing things overall, then change jobs. Many skills are universal, if someone learns to do a good job at a company, it’s likely they’ll be better for a different job at a different company because many skills and habits transfer from doing one thing to doing another thing.

In short, we can get very skilled at what we do, we just need to focus and work hard for about 3-4 hours daily, then take it easy the rest of the day (still working of course). It’s not so easy to change our habits to achieve this, but it’s worth the shot, being great at what we do is a great reward from working hard and at the very least it’s useful to get other opportunities like jobs, or to have our own businesses or projects. While doing this, we also develop an ease for learning new things.

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What are some habits to achieve this?

Sleep early, have energy in the morning, create habits that help sleep early.

Don’t use your cellphone before work, since it’s an addiction, opening social media, chats, or other internet sites will only make us want to continue using it. Try to use it only during long breaks and after work. Same applies if we’re on a computer opening social media or other internet sites. We can turn off the sound and vibration and put it inside a drawer to avoid wanting to use it.

Try to get the hardest work done early. If we do a good amount of work during the first 4 hours, we’ll already have worked more than many people at many jobs. We can take it easy after that.

Take short breaks (5-15 minutes) before being too tired (perhaps every 60 or 90 minutes), this helps with productivity, laying down or taking a walk for 5 to 15 mins are both very helpful for resting, then getting back to work (don’t use the cellphone during short breaks, this will only keep draining energy).

Don’t think about the huge amount of work that you have, just do it one thing at a time. Make a list if it’s necessary, prioritize the list, and do the tasks in order.

Try to have better management and do a good planning for your meals. Just eating anything isn’t the best idea, eating healthy is best for feeling better and staying more productive.

Avoid listening to music while working (especially, early in the day), perhaps leave music only for the second part of the day when tired/ weary, and try to just listen to low volume music with no lyrics. Music makes us feel good because we’re releasing dopamine when we listen to it, but it can make us dependent to that good feeling, and, listening to too much music will make us feel tired later the same or next day.

You don’t have to work hard daily, if you’re really tired or if there’s not a lot of work that day, take longer breaks, relax, try to get a good night’s sleep.

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Conclusion.

I don’t mean with this that we should always be working hard, but, since there’s a lot of time being invested at work or studying, we can try to get great at what we’re doing, we can learn a lot from different situations and from other people, and it results in many more benefits and advantages than disadvantages.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

A few notes about creativity.

Intro.

I listened to an interview with Rick Rubin, link at the end, I'll just share a few notes I took about creativity.

Tried to do a Rothko - Pollock collabotarion with an AI here.

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Creativity notes.

When creating something (a book, a song, a videogame, etc.), limit your options, work with those options only, don't have way too many options. Too many options can be overwhelming, and can lead to not really ever doing anything (just a brainstorming session after another brainstorming session and so on).

Know how you feel, do it the way it feels right for you at the beginning, you can change some or many things later on. 

Novelty is interesting and attracts people to things, perhaps we can't create a completely new thing, but we can present preexisting ideas in a different and unique way, perhaps also playing with presenting things from a different perspective.

Find a thread, go from there.

Collect seeds all the time (ideas, learn new things that interest you, even if they don't seem to be related with your current or future proyect).

Self doubt can be used as a balancing tool. Question what you're doing and make changes, but not too much, not too little.

If you have a proyect you're working on, set an internal deadline that only you or people involved know (not super long infinite deadline, it can be bad because you can spend way too much time on something that needs finishing). Set that deadline and don't have a public deadline yet.

All people who are famous creatives work hard, talent isn't enough, they may have had some crazy things happen in their life, but they're experts because they are constant hard workers. Don't believe that only people who are extremely talented can create great things, anyone can do it if they really try.

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Conclusion.

That's it! I wanted to do a shorter different post, enjoy.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

Become the hero (updated! version 2.0).

Image taken from the amazing TV series "Ping Pong the Animation".

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Intro.

This idea came to me mainly from watching Ping Pong the Animation (a short animated series), also from reading The Book of Five Rings.

One of the main themes’ in Ping Pong the Animation is about characters overcoming hard circumstances, finding meaning in life, and achieving things at the same time (this is just my personal interpretation for this post).

I'll talk about a way I thought that helps me overcome many things and stay motivated to keep working hard to achieve different things in life.

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*Note, the first time I wrote this post, I was thinking it was okay wanting to achieve too many things, BUT, at least for me, I found out it's not okay, because it's exhausting, I had stopped doing things that were more important for my health and for enjoying life in general.

Here's the updated post (:

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Context and example.

There are many moments in many people's lives where we think that life's way too hard and complicated, or when we think that achieving certain goal is impossible (like buying our own house or having a relationship that we like, that is functional, and that works in the long term). Most people are never able to overcome many difficult situations, they just stay in their comfort zone, other times, they simply don't have the means.

An example, many people's comfort zones include many addictions like consuming different stimulants through the day and on weekends, they consume them so much, that it affects their health in a negative way in the short and long term (things like medicine they don't need, supplements that are not needed either, alcohol, cannabis, other drugs, way too much caffeine, etc.).

Some other addictions and comfort zones include using social networks all day without much interaction with real people, some other addictions can range from someone's who's addicted to exercising and having a balanced diet (this can become a problem and an addiction too! I've experienced it) to some other people who just watch TV shows or play videogames way too much daily.

I'm not judging anyone, people can do whatever they want, the tendency of mankind is to do things that are easy and to stay in comfort, and we only live once. The problem about addictions is that we lose too much energy to those addictions that prevents us from having the energy to do other things.

Sometimes people are way too tired daily because they aren't sleeping well, they are using their cellphone too much, they have a really bad management of everything in general and waste a lot of time and energy, they have terrible diets, they're dehydrated, they don't exercise at all, they're spending all their energy on social media, they're addicted to drugs that end up consuming their energy (including alcohol), etc. It is important to solve these one by one (IMO), one step at a time if we want to achieve other things. We need to change our habits, and that is really hard.

For a specific example, in some moments of my life, I've had a really hard time sleeping, I know many people who do too, but instead of really trying to figure out the problem and finding long term solutions, most people look for the easy and fast way out, consuming a medicament or drug that will put them to sleep. Some others simply embrace the fact that they're going to be sleeping 4-6 hours every night and that's it, they just drink a bunch of coffee and stimulants during the day to be able to be somewhat functional. Both the easy way out with taking medicine and just sleeping less daily are not long term solutions and can be bad for health in the long term (unless of course, the medicine is diagnosed and needed).

If I have a couple of bad night's sleep, I can't really accomplish everything that I want to do on a daily basis because I'm tired, so I needed to fix that problem, it is always hard and it was really hard, but there's always a way to solve problems. I needed to change many of my habits and change things from my environment to have a better sleep, and for that I had to do a ton of reading, researching, and trial and error. I now know what I need to do to have a good night's sleep, it took me years to truly be able to achieve that, it was a lot of learning and experimentation (I won't go into detail, this is just an example, but I had to change many of my habits, my diet, my exercise, zero drugs, seeing sunlight early, no screens 30 minutes before sleeping, etc. I even made an appointment with a psychiatrist to see if the root of my sleep problem lies somewhere else, we'll see, but good habits help me sleep much better).

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How to become the hero.

When this idea about "becoming the hero" came to me, I was lying in bed having a hard time falling asleep, I was also thinking about the huge burden that my life has become with so many responsibilities and so many things that I want to do during my spare time (these include the relationship I have with my girlfriend, my new job, owning a small business besides my job, continue with the plan I've had for years to buy a house, the need to exercise, to have a healthy diet, wanting to learn new things, wanting to become good at my new job, wanting time to watch TV shows and play videogames, wanting to spend time with my friends, etc.).

I thought, how am I going to achieve all that? *note: I recently realized that wanting and trying to do all these things mentioned above is not realistic and it was making me feel stressed, I decided to quit wanting to do some things and take it easy with other things, just focusing on the most important and trying to have more chill and fun afternoons and weekends.

In perhaps what is a dumb and too optimistic way I remembered about Ping Pong the Animation and thought, "I need to become the hero", I must sleep well, exercise regularly, have a good management of many things in my life, have energy, stop wasting time on my cellphone, and do everything I need and want to do. This thought that I needed to become the hero gave me a lot of motivation and energy, and a good reason to keep doing everything that I do (of course, shortening and taking it easy with the list of things I mentioned earlier).

I noticed that I've spent about the last 8 years of my life learning new things on purpose that specifically have helped me have a better understanding about everything in general (things like psychology, philosophy and science), I've also been improving my habits and leaving many addictions behind, of course that I'm not perfect and I sometimes use social networks more than I would like to, sometimes I eat too much food for supper, or watch a TV show too late, and can't sleep well, but with the knowledge that I've acquired, I feel that I can overcome almost anything.

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Circling back to the beginning of the post, when a difficult situation appears, I suggest we try to solve it for good, we have a lot of information available, we can learn that information, we can do trial and error, we can always save some energy to learn new things and overcome anything (one tiny step at a time, I insist). And I don't mean this in a dumb and optimistic way, we can't always overcome cancer for example, but if we really try, if we find the right motivation and do things progressively, we can become the hero and overcome difficult situations, land on our feet, and become great at things.

Musashi wrote in his Book of Five Rings, and I completely agree that even if we "are not talented", we can work hard, and we will learn and become good at anything (we can't always become the best, but we can become great), we just need to find the correct way to do it, and do it progressively. In my case, I can say that in a lot of moments in my life I've met people that seem to be incredible talented at something, or really smart and knowledgeable. After working hard and learning more and more, I've noticed that I can be like that too, I can achieve that too, I just need to constantly work hard. After all, we are all just humans, and most of us really have the same capacity, but we're using it in different ways (many times in my opinion, we're wasting our capacity by spending a lot of time on TikTok, or spending too many hours on entertainment).

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Motivation and inspiration.

Staying motivated is a must, so find something that keeps you motivated and interested, if we just work hard always, our lives can lose meaning. No joke.

In my case, I've found that stories keep me going, they keep me interested and inspired (and I learn a lot from them), stories can come from TV shows, books, comic books, video games, so on. Practicing a sport is also a great thing that keeps me inspired, I've been playing ping pong often lately, it's great.

Going out and talking to friends or people I meet is also a great activity for this purpose.

My suggestion is to find something, and activity, a hobby that keeps you interested in life and that motivates you to do things that are hard (like work). That's up to you to find. But, limit the time you dedicate to whatever keeps you inspired, it's really easy to be addicted and to spend way too much time doing that activity, it will drain all your energy, even if you have time left daily to do things, you won't have any energy left.

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A few last notes

When we don't like our jobs and don't accept that we have to do certain things and just keep procrastinating certain tasks, we create stress and anxiety upon ourselves, becoming the hero includes accepting that you have to do whatever you need to do, and doing it without distractions that drain your energy (if a job is too awful, it's a good idea to switch jobs of course). Doing this during your job and finding satisfaction by doing certain tasks at the job is good for our dopamine system which is tied to our motivation and energy. What is terrible for example is, when we keep looking at our cellphones often or during short breaks, we completely ruin this dopamine/ energy system and just lose a lot of energy for the rest of the day (familiar with the social media burnout?).

One habit that's really important is our energy management, really learning what consumes our energy, and not wasting energy on things that at the end of the day will be pointless.

Another habit that's related to everything in general is to learn better management, for example, not consuming too much time cooking daily, finding a way to eat healthy, not spending too much money on food, and perhaps cooking 2 days a week and freezing food in food containers for different days of the week.

Another management tip is to stop trying to solve issues as they show up, we should take a note and make time to solve them later.

Making lists helps, for example, when we run out of some food from our kitchen, making a note, and then having a list for the sole day of the week we're going to the supermarket (or for the day that we're ordering it online), avoiding going twice a week to the supermarket and to other places we don't need to go saves a lot of time, going to the supermarket early during the weekend can also save a lot of time (no people).

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Conclusion.

Learning, practicing, working hard, making good habits, dropping bad habits, becoming more versatile, limiting ourselves with stimulants, drugs, and leisure activities, having a hobby that keeps us interested in life, learning to like and accept or change our jobs, and so on, these are all the things that together mean "become the hero" (for the use of this post lol).

It's a really hard thing to accomplish, there are way too many limitations, distractions, addictions in life that will get in the way, but, we can try.

Achieving just a part of our goals is better than nothing at all, it's completely fine if we don't achieve everything we want to achieve. It's okay to take things easy, actually that's best, but work progressivly toward your goals.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

Jealousy.

Intro.

I've been reading The Book of Five Rings, there's a section named "To Become the Enemy". A few things are said here. I quote "To become the enemy means to think yourself in the enemy's position." The author mentions how you should see things in the perspective of the enemy and understand that the enemy isn't as strong as one might think they are, he says if you're strong or you have strong soldiers in a war, you have nothing to worry about. He also mentions that you shouldn't think that the enemy is a master of strategy, I believe that's because you'll overestimate the enemy and underestimate yourself, hence, your morale will be lower and you will bias yourself negatively.

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"Become the enemy."

Anyways, the part that made me think about this post was to think of yourself in the enemy's place. I started thinking if there was someone that didn't like me or that I didn't like so I could try to see things in their perspective. A guy from my previous job came to my mind, he avoided me and wasn't friendly at all, he just seemed upset when I was around.

I started thinking and researching why he could have been annoyed by my presence, and the most logical things are:

-Jealousy. -Upset that I could be his competition for future promotions in the company. -Insecurity. -Because my ideology, values are very different from his and he didn't want to be seen as if he were associated with someone like me. -A prejudice or bias about a stereotype that I appeared to be. -A lack of interest (or even disgust) of meeting new individuals. -etc.

I'll talk more about my findings about jealousy, the other possibilities will be irrelevant for now.

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Reasons.

Jealousy in general is a bit complex because it can exist for different reasons, and it happens to every person, depending on the context (cultural background, experiences, biology, etc.) a lot of people can feel jealous for pretty simple or "dumb" reasons, it can happen to anyone, though.

Here are a few reasons:

Beauty (attractiveness) blinds:

People can feel emotional attachment with someone else just because they find them attractive. People can believe someone is smarter just because that someone is attractive. We usually give more attention and give a higher social status to people we find attractive. This can happen even with someone that we just met. Yes, we can feel emotional attachment with someone we just met just because they are attractive. How is this related to jealousy? People sometimes feel the need of being dominant or possessive when they're jealous about a person they know, usually, to a person they are attracted to. For our example, if a new guy starts working somewhere and makes friend with a woman, it's likely other men will feel jealous. The same thing can happen with new women making friends with men, making other women jealous. This can happen to anyone, the new guy could even feel jealous about a woman he just met 1 day ago when he sees other guy is talking to her.

Emotional attachment can happen with anyone who is a friend, or someone we see often, not necessarily someone that's found attractive. This can also be a source of jealousy.

Insecurity or fear of rejection:

Sometimes people feel jealous because they lack confidence and feel threatened by a new person arriving to their workplace (or to their lives somehow). Fear of rejection can happen when someone hasn't expressed his feelings to for example, someone they like, a lot of time this fear happens because of previous bad experiences (but if we don't try, we won't ever achieve anything).

Social and cultural expectations:

We are all biased because of this, but most people are very biased and just act like everyone else in their environment, in many societies, both men and women are expected to protect or be dominant towars "their territory", feeling jealous, and acting accordingly when someone new shows up. Many nowadays societies have a bunch of individualistic values, which make people aggresive against others they don't really know. They don't want them to "get in their way".

I mentioned possessiveness earlier, this is something we can also take note of, if we feel a connection with someone else, we could be jealous and start acting as if we were competing to get more attention from that person.

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Conclusion.

I'll leave this post short. This is at least something that could be interesting to think about.

Suggestions? Just try to be more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions, and let's try to be more considerate and nice to each other.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

What can AI's say about female friendship.

I've heard many times that women have a harder time making friends with other women and mantaining that relationship.

I had no idea where to research or who to ask about this, so I asked Chat GPT and Google Bard, got very similar responses, pretty interesting stuff, there will be no input from me here (just my questions), I'll just copy and paste the questions and responses.

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Question 1:

Why does it seem is it more difficult for women to make friends and mantain that relationship with other women?

There are many reasons why it can be difficult for women to make and maintain friendships with other women. Some of these reasons include:

Competition: Women are often socialized to compete with each other, even in friendships. This can lead to feelings of insecurity and jealousy, which can make it difficult to build trust and intimacy.

Comparison: Women are often compared to each other, both by society and by other women. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, which can make it difficult to feel good about ourselves and our friendships.

Communication styles: Women and men often communicate in different ways. Women tend to be more indirect and cooperative, while men tend to be more direct and competitive. This can lead to misunderstandings and conflict, which can make it difficult to maintain friendships.

Time constraints: Women often have more responsibilities than men, such as taking care of children, working, and running a household. This can make it difficult to find time to connect with friends.

Fear of rejection: Women may be afraid of being rejected by other women, especially if they have had negative experiences in the past. This fear can prevent them from taking risks and putting themselves out there, which can make it difficult to make friends.

Question 2:

Are there studies or information that may show that in some countries women can form better friendships than in other countries?

Yes, there are some studies that suggest that women in some countries may be more likely to form close friendships than women in other countries. For example, a study published in the journal "Social Networks" found that women in Sweden were more likely to report having close friends than women in the United States. The researchers believe that this may be due to the fact that Swedish culture places a strong emphasis on equality and social justice, which may make it easier for women to feel comfortable forming close relationships with other women.

Another study, published in the journal "Psychology of Women Quarterly," found that women in collectivist cultures, such as China and Japan, were more likely to report having close friends than women in individualistic cultures, such as the United States. The researchers believe that this may be because collectivist cultures value interdependence and cooperation, which may make it easier for women to form close relationships with other women.

However, it is important to note that these studies are just two examples, and there is still much research to be done on this topic. It is also important to remember that there is a great deal of variation within each country, and not all women in any given country will have the same experience of forming close friendships.

Here are some additional factors that may influence the ease with which women form close friendships in different countries:

The level of gender equality in a country: Countries with higher levels of gender equality may be more conducive to close female friendships, as women may feel more free to express themselves and connect with other women without fear of judgment or discrimination.

The cultural emphasis on friendship: In some cultures, friendship is seen as more important than in others. Countries where friendship is highly valued may be more conducive to close female friendships, as women may feel more motivated to invest in their relationships with other women.

The availability of social support: Women who have access to strong social support networks may be more likely to form close friendships. This is because social support can provide women with the emotional resources they need to build and maintain close relationships.

Overall, it is clear that there are a number of factors that may influence the ease with which women form close friendships in different countries. However, more research is needed to fully understand the complex relationship between culture, gender, and friendship.

Question 3:

Could it be that perhaps in male chauvinism dominant countries, women have a harder time forming relationships and mantaining them with other women?

It is possible that women in male chauvinism dominant countries may have a harder time forming and maintaining relationships with other women. This is because male chauvinism can create an environment where women are constantly compared to each other, and where they are not seen as equals. This can make it difficult for women to feel comfortable and safe around other women, and it can make it difficult to build trust and intimacy.

In addition, male chauvinism can lead to a culture of competition between women. This can make it difficult for women to collaborate and support each other, and it can make it difficult to build strong relationships.

Here are some of the challenges that women in male chauvinism dominant countries may face when forming and maintaining relationships with other women:

Feeling judged: Women in male chauvinism dominant countries may feel judged by other women, especially if they do not conform to traditional gender roles. This can make it difficult to feel comfortable and safe around other women.

Feeling like they have to compete: Women in male chauvinism dominant countries may feel like they have to compete with other women for attention, resources, and opportunities. This can make it difficult to collaborate and support each other.

Feeling like they are not seen as equals: Women in male chauvinism dominant countries may feel like they are not seen as equals by other women. This can make it difficult to build trust and intimacy.

Despite these challenges, it is important for women in male chauvinism dominant countries to have strong friendships with other women. Female friendships can provide women with emotional support, companionship, and a sense of belonging. They can also help women to feel stronger, more confident, and more capable.

If you are a woman living in a male chauvinism dominant country, and you are struggling to form or maintain friendships with other women, there are a few things you can do:

Be open and honest with yourself about your fears and insecurities. Once you understand why you are having difficulty making friends, you can start to address those issues.

Be willing to take risks. Put yourself out there and try to connect with other women. Even if you don't always succeed, the more you try, the easier it will become.

Be patient. It takes time to build strong friendships. Don't expect to become best friends with someone overnight.

Be supportive and understanding. Be there for your friends when they need you. Listen to them, offer advice, and be a shoulder to cry on.

Be forgiving. Everyone makes mistakes. If your friend does something to hurt you, be willing to forgive them.

Making and maintaining friendships with other women can be challenging, but it is worth it. Female friendships can provide us with so much support, love, and laughter. If you are looking for ways to strengthen your female friendships, try some of the tips above.

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Thought I'd share this. Again, I didn't write any of this, just copied and posted it.

[thejackofalltrades42069]

"Shadowboxing".

Image taken from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill.

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In this post I'll explain "shadowboxing" (biasing yourself towards something) and provide a couple examples of how people can use shadowboxing to their advantage, and of how people often use it to their disadvantage.

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Intro.

When I was reading The Book of Five Rings for the 3rd time, I couldn't avoid remembering and thinking about a quote from a comic book, "You see, when you begin shadowboxing, sometimes the shadows become real. Isn't that odd."

This quote is said (in the comic) by James Moriarty who had been appointed by the British secret intelligence to be a director of military intelligence, but also, to act as a crime-lord so that he could control and monitor the underworld (criminal neighborhoods and other criminals). After acting as a crime lord for so long, he became biased towards it, he developed an strong affinity for it; it changed his thinking, his behavior, and his perception of the world. After acting as a crime lord for so long, he became a crime lord, and by the time the comic book takes place, he acted as a criminal and not as the director of military intelligence he was meant to be.

This is of course an example in fiction, but these shadows that become real when you do too much "shadowboxing" can happen to anyone when they engage in any particular activity repeatedly.

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Examples of how to use shadowboxing to your advantage.

If someone dedicates a significant amount of time to train martial arts, let's say, Kung Fu. They will become more disciplined, it will be easier for them to focus on other tasks, and they will overall feel more confident. The skills acquired during constant training will influence that person's behavior and decision-making in other areas of their life too.

Another example, someone dedicates 20 to 45 minutes daily into reading or listening to podcasts about specific subjects like science, psychology, philosophy, nutrition, etc. And from time to time they also read novels or other books. While doing these activities, the cellphone is put in silent mode inside a drawer to avoid distraction. This will lead to a few things; a more structured and objective thinking and decision-making, a developed skill to concentrate easier, a faster understanding for everything in general.

These examples are not detailed, I just want to explain this idea overall. This idea can be used to do things like develop a great relationship with your partner, to learn a language, to overcome an addiction, to learn reasoning to become less biased, etc.

Examples of how we use shadowboxing to our disadvantage.

Gut-brain axis example:

It is known that the gut microbiome can affect people's mental health in a positive or negative way. When a person has an unhealthy diet, there's a proliferation of harmful bacteria and reduction of beneficial bacteria, this leads to a dysregulation in naurotransmitter production and function which lead to mood disorders, such as an increased anxiety, stress, and sometimes it can even lead to depression (the gut microbiota is involved in the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter known to regulate mood). In short, a bad diet can bias you to things like having more negative thoughts during the day because you're more stressed. As a specific example, any alcohol consumed is a big part of the equation in a bad diet, it is terrible for gut health. It is very easy to have an awful diet nowadays or to think "I have a great diet" and for that not to be the case, a lot of research and consulting other people can be useful for this specific example. Aditionally, the gut health interacts with the immune system, imbalances can cause a chronic inflammation in the body that can lead to disease or higher levels of stress.

As another regular theme of my blog, here are a couple of disadvantages you can become biased towards if you use social media and the internet too much:

Social media addiction: spending time on social networks can lead to addiction-like behaviors. People will experience difficulty in controlling their usage, feel anxious when unable to access social media, neglect real-life activities, and prioritize online interactions over offline relationships (many times these are not conscious behaviors). Reduced face-to-face social interaction: a lot of times, usage of social networks leads to a decrease in face-to-face social interactions. Spending more time online will reduce opportunities for real-world connections and affect the quality of relationships, leading to feelings of isolation or loneliness. This will be a result not only because social media is used too much, but because it drains people's energy (dopamine), and they won't want to go out or do other activities. Comparison and self-esteem issues: constant exposure to carefully curated content on social media (by the algorithms any social media platform have) can lead to unhealthy social comparisons. Many people will compare their lives, appearance, achievements, and relationships to others (even if it's unconsciously), which will negatively impact their self-confidence and contribute to feelings of inadequacy. Needless to say, this results in many unwanted behaviors people have, like feeling uncomfortable, angry, or sad when someone else talks about another person who's attractive or rich.

ADHD (attention deficit disorder) and being exhausted: using social media, the cellphone, and internet a lot is known to cause fatigue, more so if it's being used at the same time we're working or doing anything else, it's bad for our mental health, it's detrimental even. People claim to have attention deficit when they're spending 4+ hours on their cellphone daily, they also feel exhausted and can't do many demanding activities during the day, they also have a hard time sleeping, these are all outcomes from using cellphone and social media too much (this is all studied, the information is available online, most of us are addicted to cellphones, it's best to put them on silent mode and hide them while doing other activities).

These are just some examples, there are many activities we can engage in that lead to negative outcomes overtime, some of those activities can be related to our ideologies and values, coming next.

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Some of the psychology to further explain this.

Having specific political/ social values also bias people toward activities and trains of thought that are completely biased and that are impractical (full of logical fallacies), I'd advise to learn more reasoning and trying not to have a specific social or political ideology (like considering yourself a conservative or liberal for example). We can try to take what's useful from different views or ideologies and create our own practical philosophy, relying more on reason and on what works and on what doesn't work.

To further explain, ideologies usually have socio-political agendas (the agenda being for things to work out for the people with those agendas, not to look for any sort of solution at all), most of us are victims of those ideologies since we're kids, from our family or from society, that's transfered to us, whether we like it or not. It's hard to think that the world can work otherwise from the way someone with a specific set of values sees it, but actually, it does, and it works completely different, there are so many things that we misunderstand and misinterpret daily because of our biases and lack of knowledge.

Many people take refugee of their actions and ideas in ideology, some people justify their cheating on their partner with an ideology, others justify being completely irrational with "science facts" (cherry picked or misunderstood science facts), some justify their failed attempts to do things, their addictions, and so on. We're not perfect and we screw up a lot of times, but, we can learn to be more rational and find solutions to existing problems. Finding that versatility together with finding things that work is best.

To give an example, most people have many failed attempts to do many things, like, having a long term relationship with someone else, in big part this is because people are expecting things to happen in a very specific way. Things never happen in that specific way, so, those people don't look for solutions, they don't really talk to their partner about what's going on, and they break up and look for someone else (even after 10 years and with kids, perhaps the problem isn't your partner, perhaps it is, we can't know if we don't really understand the problem, and really try to solve it), the solution most of the time is to be more open for things to work differently, and, to work hard on the relationship always, and of course, many partners are not good partners, but sometimes it's just because they just don't know how to be good partners and are also expecting things that are not realistic (or, they're just thinking about something else that you're not thinking, you're not really talking, and you're not really understanding what each other needs, at the same time, some needs can be unrealistic), usually we just have to talk things out, really understand each other, and figure out solutions, if we're closed to really doing that, no relationship will ever work out.

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Conclusion.

My point here is, you can and should bias yourself toward somewhere you want to be or toward a goal you want to achieve, and you don't need to be really uptight about it, you just need to do useful activities daily or often (reading, practicing a sport, talking with other people, not using social media too much).

I would highly advise not to bias yourself toward becoming someone you don't want to be, or toward doing many activities you don't want to do, so be careful about the activities you do often, the content you consume, and the people you spend time with, because all that will bias you to have a certain identity, to certain values, and all that will change your overall perspective/ biases.

In short, the activities we often engage in will completely change ourselves in a positive or negative way.

xoxo

[thejackofalltrades42069]

The Book of Five Rings. Part 1.

Image credits: Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue.

The Ground Book. Part 1.

I'm making a series of short posts about The Book of Five Rings, written by Miyamoto Musashi in around 1645.

The posts will be about me trying to explain how to think about and how to use this philisophy practically. This is probably one of the most important books I've read, and I tend to favor this way of thinking and doing things (not literally nor uptightly). Musashi called this, "the Way of Strategy" or just "the Way".

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In this post I'll mention some quotes from the first part of the book, The Ground Book, and try to explain how they can be thought of and used in a practical way.

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The Book of Five Rings is divided into 5 parts or 5 books, the first one is The Ground Book, it lays the foundations for the study of "the Way of Strategy".

The Ground Book (Part 1).

"The true value of swordfencing cannot be seen within the confines of sword-fencing technique."

Musashi wrote something like this a few times, "from one thing, know ten thousand things". For me this means: nothing works isolated from other things, things aren't isolated from each other.

Example, he said that the value of swordfencing isn't reduced to just the technique you learn, this can mean many things, such as, practicing swordfencing (or any sport) will result in health benefits, improved cognitive function, coordination, discipline, etc. The result won't only be improving your sowrdfencing (or any sport) technique.

Do not see things as if they were isolated, they are always connected, are affected, and affect other things.

This doesn't mean that you have to think about ten thousand things all the time, it means that if you know those ten thousand things, you will better understand everything.

"The strategist makes small things into big things, like building a great Buddha from a one foot model. I cannot write in detail how this is done. The principle of strategy is having one thing, to know ten thousand things."

Things in general; concepts, objects, ideologies, people, etc., can't always be explained in detail, one must train their mind and body, and study different subjects in order to be able to have a better understanding of the world. Nowadays there's a lot of information from extremely good sources, from science podcasts to psychological analysis of characters from TV series in YouTube. It is easy to find good sources of information to learn from and understand things on a deeper level than just the surface.

"They speak of "This Dojo" and "That Dojo". They are looking for profit. Someone once said "Immature strategy is the cause of grief". That was a true saying."

In this part of the book, it is mentioned that people are looking for results fast, and forgetting about the things that come before the results (such as training/ studying hard). When one looks for fast results and doesn't prepare enough, it is very likely one will fail in whatever task one's doing or wants to do.

It is also mentioned that people speak specifically about a Dojo or another Dojo and say a technique is much better than other techniques. That is not the Way. The Way is versatile and doesn't have preferences over weapons or techniques, and one is meant to study and work hard in order to get results.

How can we maybe convert this into practical information? Here's an idea, instead of different techniques from different Dojo's, think about different ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, neoliberalism, marxism, etc.).

Many people have strict ideologies (even if they aren't aware of that) and have a very biased and wrong trains of thought a lot of times, their ideas contain many logical fallacies and they aren't able to even start to listen or read about ideas that go against their ideology.

It would be better to really understand problems first, and to take ideas and practices that actually work from different ideologies, or from different trains of thought. It is wrong to just have an ideology and limit yourself to that train of thought, that is not the Way.

"The foreman should take into account the abilities and limitations of his men, circulating among them and asking nothing unreasonable."

Musashi compares the construction workers to the Way. He talks about management, about how the boss of a construction must know how the construction work is done from zero, and what everyone working for him is doing exactly. This can be thought of in a very straightforward way, a boss of a company must take this into account, and not just superficially, but, thoroughly. A company must have good management in order for things to turn out well for themselves, for their profits. They must not be unreasonable with their employees, nor with the results they want.

I won't go into management details here, learn management, study hard, and practice a lot. From one thing, know ten thousand things.

"By Wind I mean old traditions, present-day traditions, and family traditions of strategy. Thus I clearly explain the strategies of the world. This is tradition. It is difficult to know yourself if you do not know others. To all Ways there are side-tracks. If you study a Way daily, and your spirit diverges, you may think you are obeying a good Way but objectively it is not the true Way.

It is important to know traditions and other ways to do things, in our practical case we could also talk about other philosophies, ideologies, or religions. But, one should not learn way too much about something else that can bias oneself into following an unwanted path.

There are many things to talk about this quote that I won't mention in this post, some should be obvious from gound I've covered so far.

An example of a way you can diverge from a goal that you have, and not achieving it really; let's say you want to learn the Japanese language, so you start using Duolingo, it's way too hard that way, so you buy an interactive book online, you start to progress, then you go into a Japanese class, and you stop using the book you bought in exchange for the class, then a friend tells you about these amazing YouTube classes, and you stop going to the classes you started going to and start watching the YouTube classes because you think they're better (and you don't even need to commute), then you start to watch different people on YouTube teaching Japanese, then you kinda feel overwhelmed because you didn't stuck to a method and haven't really learned much, then you say that learning Japanese is too hard and drop it (*note: learning from different methods can be very useful, but not moving from one to the other so much).

When one doesn't stick to 1 thing at a time and starts to diverge into different methods or different activities, the goal in mind is not achievable, or it takes much longer to attain that goal.

It is the same with, a quick example, someone who's a scientist and who biases themselves too much with learning in their free time about subjective and not proven pseudosciences, trying his best to find evidence for it. It is likely that scientist will find evidence that isn't real for his studies, evidence that's too biased because he was spending too much time learning about something that biased them.

It is the same with everything, learning about recency biases could be an important subject to study here.

"If you hold the sword with both hands, it is difficult to wield it freely to left and right, so my method is to carry the sword in one hand."

Musashi's main technique of combat was using a sword (katana) in one hand, and a companion sword (short sword) in the other hand. Even if he teaches a specific way of fighting, he gives a lot of value to versatility, he preferred using both swords because he was using all his available weapons to fight. Using always a sword with both hands was unconfortable in many contexts, he mentions though, that it can be difficult to cut down an enemy down with one hand, so two hands had to be used with the sword sometimes.

He talks about in what context is it better to use what sword, also about other weapons, when to use them, and their pros and cons. In short, the objective is always to win, no matter if you're using a long or short weapon.

He also mentions that one shouldn't have a favorite weapon, but should know all weapons sufficiently well, that one shouldn't copy others, but use the weapons one can use properly. Commanders and troopers shouldn't have likes or dislikes (no preferences).

These principes can be though about in different contexts. For our practical example, it's a good idea not to have strong preferences about food, ideologies, or about very specific traits to look for in a partner, having strong preferences will blind and stop us from obtaining or trying many things, like learning that we actually can like more kinds of foods that are healthy for us, finding useful information about other philosophies, finding a partner who isn't crazy, etc.

It is also mentioned that one should use weapons that one can use properly. It is important to try different things yes, but to also get good at something that you can be good at, and find your own Way. In my case, for example, I've never been good for lifting heavy weight at the gym, but I exercise regularly and balance the weight lifting and cardio and feel great, I'm much better at things like playing Ping Pong (I don't do that enough).

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This is the end of the part 1 of The Ground Book, part 2 will also cover more about The Ground Book (the 9 principles).

Hope you enjoyed this.