Dec 17.2

 A small note.

Tired. I shuffled downstairs to get more water. Slowly turning over all the things I had been thinking about. Touching on the enormous pile of things I had recently given myself to do in the computer sphere. Realising it was too much. A symptom of an overbright burn ignoring the reality of the low ebb of energy that is typical.

And I grazed past my sadnesses again. Just briefly gently passing my hand over the place where Athena's head would be. There is such a depth of loss in there. For the pair of them. Months turn into years. I miss them dearly. In a flicker of a moment it rises up strangles me, brings me close to tears and I have to steady myself. Breathe. A conscious engaging of self control and zen. Meditation. Not suppression. Not control. Management.

Calm. Water. Moving along.

I shuffled back up the stairs. Not hopelessly sad. Not suffering from nausea. Not feeling terribly ill. Deeply tired. And slow. And low energy. But for me. Relatively even ground. Relatively stable.

And it passed across me.

You could just commit suicide.

It makes sense.

It would be better.

No more pain.

No more ups and downs.

No more narrow window of living.

No more responsibilities. Or bills.

No more ceaseless invisible battles.

The weight of it. It carries such a strong compulsion in it. An inevitability. A correctness. Everything clicks into place and makes sense.

In a better moment even that impulse is still so very strong. I have to actively *actively* push against it. I have to deliberately set it aside. An effort.

And it is also a self re-inforcing phenomenon. How much that costs. How heavy that is. How real. Feeds back on itself. See. See how bad that is. That only makes it more right.

I am aware at times that I can be distracted from it. Keep me distracted. Chatting. Busy. Like a cat chasing a laser pointer. But understand. It is the momentary distraction in the greater arc of reality. It isn't a fix. It isn't a thing. It is a temporary suspension of disbelief. That's all.

There is a meta question there. About whether if you live in that state of distracted suspension for long enough. Whether it becomes the reality. And everything else fades into unreality. You effectively engender a change through repeated behaviour. This is the core of such things as CBT. "Fake it", until the faking becomes real. It isn't quite as stupid or hollow as it sounds. Whilst your various systems do work in the normal configuration, horse before the cart. They also can work the other way around, cart before the horse. Stick a smile on your face. And your brain eventually determines you must be happy. Otherwise why all the smiling. In the same way. Force yourself to breathe slower. Deeper. And your system calms down from a danger state. Otherwise. Why would we be breathing calmly. It must be safe. This is the cornerstone of learning how to meditate, calm, soothe. And one pillar of proper zen.

The whole human physiology is not as simple as neural state -> body state, one way only, deterministic. It can also be body state -> neural state. The feedback and influence goes in both directions. Which feels wrong intuitively. Because we are all so used to being the pilot of the ship. And the ship clearly can't think. Or decide things. Or have an opinion. The pilot is absolutely in control. Except. It's not a pilot of a ship. It's two bits of the ship. With differing levels of awareness of differing things. And only one bit of it gets to talk in a cognitive way. Which doesn't mean it has nothing to say. It just means it doesn't have words. 

They sometimes make reference to the primitive brain in your gut. A secondary brain. This is the enteric nervous system. It has over 100 million neurons kicking their heels down there. Neurons. You know. The thing that makes your brain... your brain. The thinky bit. And somewhere else other than your brain in your skull. There's another source of them ( in fact, there are a few sources of them - your nose being one of them, notable because covid *eats* your brain matter in your nose which kills your sense of smell ( and therefore taste ) at worst, or sometimes does such damage that it ends up rewiring what your sense of smell is picking up - if you like you can think of this as a tiny processing unit, specialise, whos job it is to figure out what you're smelling and a response to forward on, good, back, yuck, or silence - all dead. covid as it turns out likes eating neurons like a ravenous zombie - I know a few people who have had this, my brother for one - it didn't entirely kill his sense of smell and taste, but it came close, and now has forever changed his sense of this for somethings - eggs are now horrible to him for instance ). 

In any case.

IF your brain is your main computer. The gut is like a secondary one.

And they talk to each other via wiring. In a computer this would be your bus - electrical traces in your motherboard. In a human. It's your vagus nerve. ( see also, what happens when your vagus nerve is fucky - your bus on your motherboard is unreliable. see also also, a possible theory that in me my vagus nerve has been snacked on a bit. a little gnawing of the wiring. the same way as a lot of other nerves have been gnawed on in me during my Bullshit Crisis Event )

The interesting bit. That secondary brain. Has a lot to say about how you feel emotionally. As well as controlling a host of autonomic systems.

It doesn't have a voice that you can hear in your head.

But it is there. Non verbal.

All of which is to say.

The bit of you that thinks its in charge. The pilot of the ship. Is just one computer amongst a few. It is the only verbal one. Which is probably why it thinks it's the one in charge. It's easy to be verbally in charge when everyone else can't speak.

And so. Sometimes putting the cart before the horse, works better than you think.

Because your chatty brain. Isn't entirely in charge. 

 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - Wisdom tends to stillness. Which is to say the more you know and the wiser you are, the less you intervene, because the more you understand the true cost and benefit to each action. Until ultimately. Supreme wisdom. Is almost entirely inactive. Just watchful. This also has an interesting parallel to most theological takes of what God(s) do. All powerful. But non interventionist. 

The secondary thought conclusion from that as well is that : As an imaginary benign AI becomes more knowing, it may end up doing less for you. Because not doing, is the better thing for you. See learned helplessness, apathy, deteriation in skills and coping capability when everything is done for you as opposed to learning to do it yourself. See also dependence vs indepedence. Over reliance on support.