Death Is Bad

When younger I often longed for the ability to use The Force (ala Star Wars). If only I could flick that light-switch from a distance! With time I realized I could, at a distance of ~2.5 feet (the length of my arm). All I had to do was think about it, and expend a tiny bit of energy. From what I saw of Star Wars, it took me far less energy to do it this way than it would have taken by concentrating and using The Force. It didn’t look as cool, since anyone could do it, but it kinda was a form of magic.

This led to my observation that Industry is much like powerful Ritual Magic.

Lately I’ve been renovating an old, trashed house. At times this can get very tedious. But thinking of myself as a wizard really helps the process along. And I don’t mean one of these new-fangled wizards, that just waves a wand around and says a few words and gets exactly what he wants. Kids these days are lazy and spoiled! Back in my day (of AD&D 2^nd Ed) you had to do some work to get your magic! You had material components to carry around, which were consumed upon casting, and physical actions that had to be correctly performed, some of which got rather complex. Plus we walked to and from school, through six feet of snow, uphill both ways.

But doing anything that manipulates the physical world isn’t that different. To paint these kitchen cabinets I gathered my material components (gallons of paint of the desired color), my wand-substitutes (paintbrush and roller), and repeated the somatic components (hand moving back and forth inches from the surface to be altered, occasionally returning to the paint container) for a long period of time. This particular spell didn’t have any verbal components. Eventually the Change Color of Surface spell was completed, and now the kitchen looks quite a bit different. I have the power!

The downside of this particular spell is that it’s slow, and can take hours to cast on large areas. On the plus side – it works. It’s hard to overstate how useful that is.

I mentioned previously some of the effects of going from unattractive to moderately attractive. One that I didn’t mention before, but that I am reminded of all the freaking time…

People touch you. A lot.

I’ve always been really bad with physical touch. I don’t particularly like it, particularly from those I’m not intimately familiar with. So I noticed almost immediately when people started touching me. It didn’t used to be a thing. I mean, handshakes of course, and the glancing brush when maneuvering in tight quarters. But never did anyone intentionally reach out and touch me just in casual conversation. Somewhere between three years ago and now people started touching me. Claps on the shoulder, touches on the upper arm, a pat on the knee. Playful whaps and such. Coworkers, friends-of-friends, people I’ve just met that night. Men and women, and generally without any overt sexual connotation. Except, of course, we’re all primates, so it’s always sexual, even when it isn’t. Right?

I’m getting more used to it. I’ve gone out of my way to start hugging people a lot, especially friends. A sort of aversion therapy. It seems to be working, and I get the feeling people like it. I got so into it that I recently hugged someone out of reflex as she was saying “I have a thing where I don’t like touch,” and felt like a complete jackass for it right after. :(

Every time someone touches me I have a feeling of regret right after. Regret that I’m not in better shape, fear that they touched some soft fatty part. I wish I was iron throughout. It’s a great motivator to keep working out. Yeah, I know it’s not rational, and I know it’s like the least bad problem of all problems to have.

But man, touching. This social-bonding stuff is weird.

During my alcoholic phase I had a pretty major blackout. Not as bad as some I’ve heard of, but my worst – I found a party boring, so I left at about 9pm. When I woke up the next morning I couldn’t find my car. I asked my roommate where it was, and he informed me that I was wrong about the previous evening. I found the party boring, so I figured drinking a lot would make it more interesting. I was a complete ass for hours, until my roommate finally drove me home at 2am. I remembered nothing of that. Hearing the previous night’s details recounted was like my own personal The Hangover.

And it occurred to me – from my point-of-view, last night might as well never have happened. In my timeline that night was erased, and replaced with sleeping. What was the point of even having lived through those events?

I’ve always had a bad episodic memory. I have a hard time remembering a lot of my life. Years go by and I look back and think “What the hell happened? Where was I during that time? What was the point of living through that crap?” Years of not-drunkenness, to be clear. Years of playing video games, and reading, and surfing the net. Years that might as well have not existed.

In a desperate attempt to be relevant, to do anything of value, I started the HPMoR podcast. Because I believe in Eliezer’s vision of what humanity can be, and this seemed like a non-offensive and very fun way to help spread that, just a little. And it’s worked… not too long from now the podcast will be complete, and there will be a new thing in the world, a thing that wouldn’t have been here otherwise. I have something to look back on and say “There. That thing is a result of my living.”

That’s just the most drastic example, of course. Soon I will have a house that has been turned from a smoked-out dump to a nice place to live! Every time I work out I consider it a step toward building a body that is a nice body to live inside. I can look at old pictures, and look in the mirror, and say “I have changed a thing for the better.”

And of course now I’m starting to write as well. All this crap is hard, and I don’t spend all my time on it. I still play games or read or drink a bit, to rest and relax and recharge. But now those things are rest stops on the way to being productive. And being productive is no longer a chore, no longer work I have to trudge through until I can play again. Now it is what I do so that I matter, and play is a way to get back to doing that well. I don’t want to lose years of my life without anything to show for it again. If I go all my years and never accomplish anything, then why did I even bother living in the first place? Might as well have skipped right to the end with a jump out a window and saved myself a lot of trouble. The time for doing things is now.

Like pretty much all geeks everyone, I am a huge Alexander the Great fan. Except for the story of The Gordian Knot. When I got to that part of his legend I was sorely disappointed. Here’s one of the smartest badasses ever, presented with an intellectual challenge of epic proportions, and what does he do? The same thing any thug with a sharp hunk of metal could do. No finesse, no show of genius. It reminded me of what the mouth-breathing jocks I despised would do.

But lately I’ve had a change of heart. Allow me to digress.

Alone, when commenting on The Milgram Experiment, noted that even the supposedly “good” people only refused to shock the test victim. Not a single one kicked over a chair, tore a fluorescent bulb out of the ceiling, smashed it on the floor, and then swung the jagged remains around like a lightsaber demanding that the torture victim in the other room be freed or by god the blood of evil-doers would be spilled!! (Alone can get dramatic in his blog posts sometimes). Which, upon relfection, is a good fucking point.

Likewise, in a lot of fairy tales, heroes are presented by the villain with a test they must pass. Recently I read the story (ok, listened to) of a heroine who must match the remembered heartbeat of her lover against dozens of variably-ticking clocks. If she truly loves him and knows his heartbeat, she’ll be able to pick the matching clock, and the witch will return her lover. In these stories, the hero/ine always goes through with the test. They never grab the witch, put a knife to her throat, and say “Fuck you and fuck your stupid test. Give me my lover or I will skin you alive.” Which is really the best course of action. First, you shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists out of principle. And second, this person has already proven themselves to be evil, why would you trust them to keep their word if you do pass their test?

These characters have lost sight of their true goals. Originally their goal was “Rescue my lover,” and when they were told that passing this test would return their lover to them, they immediately shifted to the instrumental goal of “pass this test” without thinking about whether that best fulfills their terminal goal. It’s a wonderful trick, and it seems to be extremely easy to pull on most people (and is probably what the bulk of politics is about).

One could speculate that, confronted by orders to harm others, the participants in the Milgram experiment lost track of their “do not let evil prevail” terminal goal in their agonizing focus on “do not personally do evil” goal, which should rightly be only a subset of the former.

All that being said – my problem was that I had taken my eyes from Alexander’s true goal. I saw the Gordian Knot as a test, an opportunity to show off his superior intellect and wits. A chance to dazzle all those who admire him, and perturb all who would oppose him. I would have tried to untangle the knot. Alexander never lost sight of his true goal, which was to rule the world. The Gordian Knot was an obstacle, and he swept it aside in the most expedient and least risky way possible.

It’s only recently that I realized this. I’ve come to respect this focus on brutal problem solving much more lately. Looking good in front of others is still very useful, and can be of utility in pursuing your other goals. But if it doesn’t solve the problem, your effort is probably being wasted. Stop being the witch’s toy, and start cutting your way to your goal.