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How can I put this? 

I'm not very well. 

Perhaps I just need a good nights sleep. I have just the answer to that - sleeping pills. I have one or two left over from treatment years ago. That's what I'll do tonight; I'll take a sleeping pill, and conk myself out. 

To put you in the picture, and for want of some other way of putting it, I'm suicidal. I can't lie. There it is, written out for all to see, and perhaps in the mode of a cry for help. 

I meditated earlier, and for forty minutes. I've realised that my suicidal thoughts are like a cloud, that hovers above my head, and won't go away. 

Then, when I was done meditating, I read some of the MST326 Block 1 book, Unit 2, and I had a glimpse of joy. I transcended all my worries and fears, that I can't understand this text for my life, and realised that I can actually understand it, but that it's going to take a little more effort. 

What does this effort entail? Well, an hour's mathematics, working on a single equation, just for the purposes of coming to grips with a method, could be just the ticket. If it's good enough for Joanne Holford, and other tutors in tutorials, it's good enough for me. Well, I guess for some reason, I feel like this effort is not within my grasp. Then the day turns to this night hour, and I feel... energised... energised to get my head down and work. 

I'm alone. And I have once said, I'm alone but I'm not lonely; I have God for conversation. But I don't have God for conversation; God is quiet - too quiet. I have once said that I believe it is God who wants me to commit suicide. But it's not God, it's the fact that I'm alone. 

But I know a lot of people. I could list them, but I won't, and they'd all be devastated to know I was dead. In some ways, perhaps I need to feel that love. 

My nephews and niece are young children. They're young enough to be able to grow up and not to miss me. Tamsin says I should live for them, if no one else, because they'd want me around. 

Ninety-nine percent of the time, I'm on my own, and I guess it's taking it's toll. They say go on an app. But I think you need a bit of confidence to do that, and you have to expect sex, and you have to have money, and be relatively healthy. 

I don't think I will kill myself. I just don't have it in me to hurt all those people. And I don't feel sad, just frustrated. Writing helps. 

Also, I have schizophrenia. Schizophrenics commit suicide. 

It's an internal pain. 

It's a discomfort. 

It's a sorrow that scratches its fingers down your back, and does it all night and day for weeks on end. 

I haven't played guitar in a while. Perhaps I should. 

Do I want to kill myself? No I don't. I don't know what's after. 

Although, I've heard heaven is five minutes away. 

Should I turn to drugs? That is a thought I am seriously entertaining. I reckon a nice spliff would calm my nerves and make me feel relaxed and happy. It's a thought I'm seriously entertaining. 

In any case, there's no need to quit the fags right now. In fact, they are my best friend. Having said that, it might be conducive to my plight and prerogative to resurrect. 

I could become Christlike. 

I don't actually have a lot to say.  When you're thinking about suicide, it's a depressive thought, a cloud that hangs over your head. 

Perhaps it's the new term? I remember when I fucked it up at university the first time; I tried to commit suicide within the first two months. It was very stressful. 

I don't mean to make people worry. Not that anybody cares. Just another dead schizophrenic. But rather me than someone else. Someone else might beat me to it. 

You know how I'd do it? I have these plastic cable ties. I'd tie one round my neck. I wouldn't cut my wrists; it's too unreliable. Besides, I have special tattoos, that I can't interfere with. 

Dear Lord! Dear Christ! Save me from these thoughts! I love you. 

anyway, that's it. 

Daniel xx

Permalink 3 comments (latest comment by Daniel Frederick Best, Sunday, 20 Nov 2022, 02:48)
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Dream of heaven

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Edited by Daniel Frederick Best, Wednesday, 12 Oct 2022, 05:22

"No sooner had I sent that email, then problem seemed to resolve itself!"

I'm tired. It's four thirty five in the morning, and it's about three hours since I fell asleep. But I'm awake now.

I don't really know what to tell you, other than the ins and outs of this dream I just had, to which a small blog post could never do it justice. 

I think I might kill myself. If I do, know this, there was nothing you or anyone could have done about it, and it was the right thing to do, and it was good. 

I'm not depressed. I'm hardly psychotic, but that's debatable. I'm even happy. I'm happy, and happy to work on my course, and go to the gym, and deal with life on a day to day basis. I'm happy to work on my course, even though it's just transpired that I won't get my degree for at least another two years - even though the good thing is that I'm almost to be shifted over to the OU's Master of Physics degree. I'm happy to go to the gym, even though it's a constant uphill battle to maintain twenty three stone versus the amount that I eat. I even happy to deal with life on a day to day basis, even though it's fraught with strange characters and circumstances, and to be Frank, I'm exhausted. 

I feel like Sisyphus. Pushing a rock up a hill for the rest of eternity. 

I could kill myself. It's not good for people to hear or read; it makes them worried. 

If I kill myself, I'll go straight to Heaven. I'll leave a legacy. People will see what I've done in life, finally. They'll look at my paintings and recognise my genius eye for colour. They'll listen to my albums and music and recognise my genius for melody and structure. They'll read my book and recognise my genius for language and literature. And when they read my book they'll see why I killed myself. I'll finally be recognised. 

"Kill yourself for recognition, kill yourself to never ever stop" - Thom Yorke, Radiohead. 

The dream was set in a house in Stevenage, but more likely my old house at number five. The earliest part I can remember was when I encountered Christine, my dad's auntie, and Brian, my dad's auntie's son-in-law. I've had beef with these people in real life. During the George Floyd situation back in 2020 Christine was posting "White lives matter" memes all over facebook every five minutes, and in the end I called her out. I had a go at her in a public letter, and it was necessary and got twenty or more likes from people who thought the same. But perhaps it caused a rift in the family relationship. I notice now that our little unit is never invited to parties or nights up in Stevenage, where they all live. And Brian, well, I've recently unfriended him on facebook because he keeps posting conspiracy posts. It was all well and good during covid - you half expected it at least from some people. Nevertheless it wound me up, and recently, well, from lack of conspiracies about coronavirus, he was posting flat Earth theory posts. So I unfriended him. It was impulse, really. I kind of regret it. 

So there they are, in dream, coming to the party at number five, surrounded by others from the family, and Christine has come upstairs and stands outside my bedroom with Brian standing there, surrounded by others from my the family. "Christine," I say. "I'm sorry! Forgive me! Peace! Peace!" And a friend of hers says, "Peace!" and Christine recognises the sentiment and shakes my hand. So does Brian, and we embrace and I say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! You're the man! You're the man!"

The party begins in my bedroom. Brian and I are trying to get on facebook, using my various devices, including my Atari, my Commodore 64, my BBC Acorn, and my PC. He links up to the BBC but it's archaic, and nothing comes on the screen except some code nobody understands. I go on my PC and am thwarted from getting on the website by some means or other, then I switch my attention over to putting on some music. 

Smashing Pumpkins are playing on my system, but the speakers are the old ones, and I have to try to switch the cables over to the good speakers, and so I do this, and it sounds good. Some people are enjoying the music, others not so much. There are many people here, including some of the rougher people from Brian and Christine's entourage - a wiry man who appears to be on ecstasy, and some others on the same. Christine's son, a down's syndrome boy, sits there in the corner, gurning away. I don't partake of the recreational drugs. My own family is not there, although perhaps my sister is there, and Camille, and Kerry and Tasha - some of the girls of the family. 

But Lee is here. Lee the writer. Lee is all about truth. 

Somehow or other there is an altercation - a backlash of sorts - and it seems Brian and friends have not taken my apology seriously. Their friends stay looming outside the place - in fact, it seems they've been banished; they can't get in - they can't affect us. 

And Lee has left messages everywhere, on television, on radio, on walls, in books. 

The messages affect people here, including Marius, my cousin, but especially the down's syndrome boy, who seems to have been so affected by Lee's messages that his down's syndrome is cured and he sits there like a normal boy. The boy talks and says of Christine, "She's grotesque." 

People can't accept that Lee has cured this child, and they become very agitated and rile up against Lee, who is very easy going about the whole thing, and has gone ahead and left messages for everybody in the neighbourhood, and the latter have arrived to protect us all. There are Chinese neighbours who muscle in on the protection of those within the party. But it is rather amazing that Lee has cured this child, and it appears that Lee himself is, in fact, the messiah, 

I wake up wanting to kill myself. 

But it's not a sad suicide. No. It's a necessary suicide, from happiness and joy. 

In any case, I don't commit suicide. I come here. I write. 

But now I'm done writing. The dream was golden and heavenly, but it was just a dream. In any case, whatever happens, God loves us. 

Thanks. 

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A Theory of the mind of the other, and consciousness.

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Edited by Daniel Frederick Best, Wednesday, 5 Oct 2022, 00:02

I would like to open this blog post with perhaps a disclaimer, that whereas I myself was once very much largely into philosophy, and loved it greatly, today and these days I cannot say the same. 

But this is not to say that I do not have philosophical thoughts. But I can now say I much prefer physics and mathematics, because these are palatable and tangible endeavours, and as such have graspable answers. With philosophy, I very much have felt that I have not had anything so tangible as an answer. Having said that, and although I have come far from such a disposition, I also once had a very secure worldview about my religious outlook, and was able to explain my views about God and so on, and so forth. 

Now, this blog post has begun for the purpose that I can explain something that has occurred to me, from considerations about consciousness, and objective thoughts, and the inner mental existence of others. That's plainly the subject matter, nothing more, nothing less. But be warned, at present, although I feel I am close to being in a state of worldview similar in strength to that of my prior religious convictions, these thoughts here are being had out loud! 

So, we begin, largely in the vein of Descartes with his 'Meditations', wherein he sought to deny everything he knew and began from a rational "island" on which he built up his philosophy, by stating some basic facts about the mind and consciousness, and about the form of objects around us. 

It is known, and seems largely true, that one of the properties of mind is that it's contents are private. The ideas that we have exist inside our minds, and they are unknown to all others. Also, the mind is inside something. This notion seems to have been outlined at least in part by Hegel, and perhaps it was known to Kant, and certainly was purported around the enlightenment period. Nevertheless, that the contents of mind are personal and private can be gleaned by empirical investigation. Yet, this only applies to subjective ideas. 

It is a mainstay of some philosophy, that in the empirical world of experience, i.e. the physical world, that objects are ideas. That is, the things around us, the ornaments, the tools, the matter, the substances, these are all inherently ideas. Objects are ideas. QED. 

Now, talking as a singular automaton, namely, a person and being in his own right, the above is plainly true - and I certainly believe it. When I have thoughts, and do not express them, I can be certain that nobody else can know of their content. In addition, when I look about my empirical universe, I can be certain that I am surrounded by ideas. These all pertain to my own consciousness, that is, my awareness of my universe.  

But in saying the above, what I have previously not been certain of, speaking as a singular automaton, is the inner mental experience of others. Hitherto, this problem has been conceived naively, by myself at least. That is, I myself have mostly taken it on trust that other people have a defined consciousness, albeit one that I find extremely difficult to imagine for myself. I find, by way of an example, that when I observe others, and I try to place myself in their own position, that is, exchanging my consciousness for theirs, my thinking breaks down. I have failed to see for myself what it is that others glean from being them! 

And in light of this personal failing, I have sought a worldview that makes sense to me. And I think I have a way of putting it so that it can make sense to others, too. 

To recap, I assume that consciousness is private and personal, and I assume that objects are ideas, and I assume there is no way of ascertaining the inner mental experience of others. 

So, subjective ideas are personal. When I think of a dog, there is no way for others to know what dog I am thinking of unless I act on the thought, by explaining it. 

But this breaks down once we consider that objects are ideas. Plainly, this is a concept that must be taught. Our intuition of "objects" is that they have a 'real existence' outside of ourselves. But these objects are ideas! How, then, can I share these ideas with other people? 

How, indeed, can I share these ideas with other people, and hence not consider myself a mind reader, or some such other mage? 

But we do share these ideas. When I show an article (some ornament or other) to a friend, we are sharing an idea. How is this possible? 

But then we realise: We do not have access to the contents of others' minds. Well, isn't that convenient? 

Nevertheless, the object does have reality. 

So, whereas I cannot be sure that others' have an internal mental experience, I can be sure that this property of mind can act as a cover for the fact that, in one or other sense, I know to an extent what is in their mind. I now come to understand that the property of mind that its contents are private, forever hidden, must go some way to explaining the fact that we can have the same idea at the same time, namely, the object in question (the ornament, the environment, the world... our hands and bodies!). 

Perhaps in some way this is a claim that somehow others can project their consciousness onto objects. But how can it be any other way? For somewhere along the line the existence of objective matter gives us more or less direct insight into the contents of others' minds. 

I am saying that whereas others' minds are historically unknowable, the existence of objective material in waking life gives us insight into the reality and existence of others' minds. 

As a caveat, I would also add, that the same cannot be said for dreaming life. When we dream we are exposed to ideas and thoughts entirely distinct from objective experience. In fact, this property is what characterises dreams in themselves! In fact, that is how we fall asleep into dreaming in the first place:- we disconnect from external life, and we drift into subjectivity, and a subjectivity that is completely shielded from waking life. It must be true! That is the difference between dreaming life and waking life. We dream, then when we wake up we know we are in reality, because we are surrounded by all the ideas that have been cultivated by our peers, our friends, our families, our counterparts, our ancestors and all those people we will never know, living or dead. The world into which we wake up is built of the objective ideas that these people have created. This is proof of the inner existence of others' minds! 

Whether all this pertains to the existence of God or not, I cannot say. But what we can ascertain from experience, the existence of God notwithstanding, is that all academic pursuit is, in one way or other, the pursuit of the endeavours of man, i.e. humans. We are the ones that have built civilisation. We are the ones that have designed the infrastructure. We are the ones who create facts - and facts can be created. 

But saying that, I admit, there is nature, and there are physical laws. There is space and time and matter and radiation and gravity. There are planets and moons and suns and stars and black holes and light. Nature, therefore, must be indistinguishable from God. And furthermore, we work in unison with God, creating and designing by his wont. 

But is humanity distinguished from God? We can say it is, by dint of our creative measures. And God would be happy about that, because we can revel in his glory. 

That is all I have to say about the matter. 

Daniel. 

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Colourful dreams and painting dreams

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The night that was last night, and its consequent situation about sleep, consisted of a very mentally dry experience in which it seemed I had been asleep for all eternity. That is, it felt like I was dead, and had ended up resting for the rest of time. 

Then I woke up; it was five thirty in the morning, and I did a few things, had a mince about on the internet, at a cheese sandwich (this was American cheese on 50/50 Kingsmill bread), you know, the usual things. Then at eight thirty am I went back to lie on my bed to read a book (that book? Block 2 of MST326, of course), and I drifted into sleep and consequent dreaming, and the following dream. 

There I was, in my little room, with my sister there, and a painting on the wall. There was a painting on the wall, of which I was particularly proud that I had painted, and then Lee shows up. And my sister is the sister of my childhood, writhing and squishing about in a pre-adolescent condition, and Lee has taken pains to be the judge of my painting, which, now I think of it, was of a man in three colours, brown, green and blue or yellow. And it is a tall painting and takes up the space on the wall of the room. I don't react too kindly when Lee's judgement culminates in his slight and careless retouching of the face of the man in the painting, with his own brush, and I find myself becoming very, very upset by this. I admonish Lee. Meanwhile, my sister, squirming in the glory of her childlike youth, takes a goddess-like phantasmagorical presence, and the dream progresses. 

Lee's retouching of my work, culminating in a mere brushstroke of black paint over the man's face, has caused me such pain, such sorrow, that somehow my painting has improved some-fold. Before I admonish Lee, I can see a version of some of his own work, and the colours are a psychedelic display of vibrant beauty, although the shape of the image is merely a psychedelic pattern, and I'm stunned. I ask Lee, "How did you get those colours?" And he explains, 

"I just mixed these three colours together," and the colours were green, blue and yellow. It is good. He achieves a neon sparkle with hints at a techno festival light display theme. 

Soon we see that the room has opened magnificently into a part of a large two storey house, and one that sits detached from other houses, like an American house from a horror television show. It is not strange that this house, belonging to me myself, contains rooms in which the interior decoration takes the form of pictures and paintings that I have painted - that is, on the walls - and they are all my work. The dream is very much one of those "painting-as-you-go" dreams, but that is not the theme. 

People are arriving for a party, and many faces bring me to this state of feeling very popular. They are the faces of my youth; some are people I haven't seen for years, some are people I have as friends on Facebook, some are Eugene and Lee and Ashley. 

They come to me, these people of my past, and they wonder what is wrong with me. They don't know that I am butthurt about Lee's judgement of my art, and his consequent desecration of said art, but I am - very butthurt, and I spend most of the party in tears, and weeping, and crying. They are all very concerned. 

Meanwhile, the walls of my house are covered in my own art, and Lee also paints several pieces, and I never quite grasp how he gets his brilliant colours. There are messages all over the walls - Lee has left many messages in his art, and this helps me to communicate with my party guests... however, I refrain from employing the use of his every message, being that I feel as if it is disingenuous to do so. I am trying everything in my power to make this a fun party. But I am so butthurt. 

Martin is there, and so is Scott. These are teenage friends. They don't know why I am so upset, crying all the time, weeping, and getting angry. 

Then, suddenly, I figure it out. 

I'm upset because I met God, and went walking with God, and then God forsook me. 

"I met God!" I say to the people, including Tariz and Sharon, and it cheers me up some since I now know why I was so upset. "I miss God," I tell them. 

"Oh, he misses God!" they say. 

Something in the dream is alleviated. The messages in Lee's art are pertinent, and prominent. There is graffiti all over. The art is painting itself. 

We move from the second storey to the balcony, which overlooks the main hall. And then we are in said main hall, and it is dark outside, and the dream slowly comes to an end. The party is over. 

***

Usually, by having these dreams about colours and painting, I wake up wanting to paint. This time, however, I woke up feeling that I was a failed messiah. 

And it's true - in the end, I do miss God. The sentiment served to set me up for confidence in the following day. 

There we have it. 

Daniel

x

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Riffing on a theory

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Now that I'm at the beginning of my final year of studies (Q77), I've been reading through the books for my courses, to get a heads up for the official start of my modules. Today I finished a cursory readthrough of Block One of Mathematical Methods and Fluid Mechanics, and hence began to read the first chapter of Observational Cosmology for The Relativistic Universe. And in doing the latter, I came to find myself reflecting on a physics theory about the Big Bang. 

We ask "Where did the big bang occur?" and we are given various answers: The universe began everywhere, at every point of space and time, etc. We ask, "If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?" and it is suggested that, since the big bang happened at all points of space and time, it is not really expanding into anything; moreover, it is just expanding. We ask, "What happened before the big bang?" and we find that there are various answers - Penrose suggests conformal cyclic cosmology; that the universe is composed of a multitude of previous universes, that somehow information seeps through from past epochs to present epochs and from present epochs to subsequent epochs. I am no expert on the latter theory, but I like it, yet I have to work out the details, etc. But it is also said that there was nothing before the big bang, because that is where the universe began, including matter, radiation, gravity, space and time. That is, the big bang constitutes the beginning of time itself. 

I found myself previously unable to imagine this idea, of time having a beginning. But when we look at that other cosmological idea, black holes, we often hear of those infinite solutions to Einstein's field equations, namely, singularities. These are the objects at the centre of a black hole, and have infinite curvature and infinite mass (I think), and from them nothing (bar Hawking radiation) can escape. 

It is said that the beginning of the universe constitutes such a singularity; that the universe came from this singularity. Now it makes sense to me that this latter notion could be true. 

It is a known fact of physics that time runs slow for moving clocks. That is, in the strength of a gravitational field, observers find clocks run slow. And now time runs slow for moving clocks, consider this: At the beginning of the universe, when all in existence was a singularity, this singularity must, from its infinite curvature, have contained time in its slowest form known, namely, a grinding halt!

That is, if moving clocks run slow, and singularities constitute the required infinite curvature, time at the beginning of the universe, before the big bang, must have been very, very slow. 

So time did exist at the beginning of the universe, but it was at a full stop. This was the beginning of time. 

Now, if that is true, then it is viable to consider that after the big bang happened, and thus time was born, there must have been a period in which time was able to "get up to speed". It so happens that such a period has been suggested, namely, inflation

But could it be possible that all moments from the big bang up until and including now were part of this inflationary period? The big bang is in the distant past, but perhaps we are more related to it than we know? 

Anyway, in short, that's the theory. In the beginning of the universe time was so slow that it was effectively stopped. Somehow, this was disrupted, and there was a period of inflation in which time increased to the pace we feel it today. 

There are other theories, some claiming that lightspeed was faster in the distant past. I feel this accords with this little idea I've been explaining. 

Anyway, it's time for sleep. 
x









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Graduation dreaming

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Hello, 

I've just experienced the most compelling, inspiring and uplifting dream I've had in a while. 

And while there were no extreme visual revelations, no immediately distinct creative representations, as I'm often used to having, that involve images of abstract art, or canvasses made from warehouses and so on, that cause me to wake up with a determination to create, there was a subtle and important theme which I feel is most necessary to my own development as a human being. 

How far back the dream went I could not tell you, but I come to in the old kitchen of number five, my old house, and I have just been at the park where I had an opportunity to engage in some sports. The engagement itself, whilst it may have involved the swinging of a "hammer", like they have in the hammer-throw, was a short opportunity to kick a special type of rugby ball, that looked like a spinning top. The owner of the ball had kicked it my way, and I myself had tried to kick it back, by spinning it on the ground and kicking it that way. Whereas the act itself of kicking the ball was not a very successful one, I felt like I had a purpose - to kick a ball - and that gave me the confidence to go back home and proclaim a new devotion, that of kicking balls, to my father. He was in the vicinity of the kitchen, and so was my mother. 

There we were in the kitchen of number five, and my mother somehow or other got onto the subject of my accolades. In fact, she was going through some old school reports, and one of them had said, "Daniel is a very creative person, but he spends most of his time making googly eyes with Sarah." I said to my mum, "Which Sarah?" and she said, "Sarah Heimann." The Sarah in question was a chubby Jewish girl, and I was indifferent. 

Then we received a visit from a friend of my sister, another girl, whose presence in our lives I was not sure about. She herself was a smart young lady, and happened to be doing a maths course of some kind. She showed me her work; I was nonplussed, and recognised the equations, and was able to say something about it. 

Then I was talking to my mother, who was really admonishing me in her own way, encouraging me to get on with my life, as mothers do, and she reminded me, that not only do I have a place to stay at her house, but I have my own apartment, and not only that, please don't forget, I also have that other apartment in Colindale. Of course!! I have another apartment, and effectively three places to be. 

We went, mother and I, to the spare apartment, which was the one in Grace Close, Edgware now, and we sat and had tea, and watched television, and I checked through the mail. 

And then, as we had tea and watched television, the phone rang. The person on the other line was my one-time care-coordinator Mark, and he had some good news. "Daniel," he began, "You have been with us a number of years, and we're very impressed with your progress." He was referring to my mental illness. 

And I guess that there are a good many reasons why such a representative would be impressed with my progress: I haven't got in trouble for some time, I haven't been hospitalised for ages, I haven't hurt anybody for fifteen years, and I've quit recreational drugs for some two and a half years. 

The care-coordinator, now a black man, referred me to the literature that was on the hallway table, that had come through the post. Mother was keen and interested as I opened the pages of a prospectus and read, 'Now that you have come to the end of your mental illness...' 

And there were a great many opportunities now open to me! Now that I was clear of mental illness, why, I could get a job in a library! I could get a job anywhere I liked! I had graduated my mental illness. 

I had graduated my mental illness! 

I must say, this was a very life-affirming dream. It caused me to wake up early and positively, and I looked at all my achievements: my certificate of higher education, my diploma of higher education. And it caused me to reflect that I am less than a year away from graduating university. That's no mean feat. It's quite impressive. And while there's no reality to the idea of graduating mental illness, there's depth and meaning in the achievements I have made, and am yet to make, and the future is looking good. 

Thank you
Daniel

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A few things on my mind.

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Now, this year's little summer rest has proved such a good break. And I found that leaving the modules behind for the year left me so much appreciating of the time off, that I thought I'd quite like to leave study altogether after the degree is done. And I found myself entertaining thoughts of working through a plasterers course, so I could get my construction tickets, and go back to work. The situation has largely crossed my mind and I've half made plans to actually put this into action. I mean, I may well do! 

Every time I've entertained such a plan it's been because of the dire situation I find myself in regarding my results. It's true, I've enjoyed the course, enjoyed learning about the nature of the universe and nature itself. But I've never achieved amazing results. In the end I'll have worked so hard - and I do work hard here - and I'll only get myself a third-class degree out of it. Will it have been worth it? 

The other day, however, I was recipient to an enticing suggestion via the form of an email, that was from the university, that mind you was only a generated email - something sent by proxy now that I'm reaching the final year of my degree - but nevertheless, it led me to a thoughtful state of mind, and made me wonder about the future. It was from the mathematics department, and suggested that I perhaps try to enter on the mathematics masters. 

Last year I spent a great deal of time going through my options regarding the new physics masters at the OU. The discussions I had with the student services had failed to come to anything certain. But the gist of it was, that should I wish to switch to M06, then I would have to work through another year of extra courses. You know, I don't mind that. And I plan to pursue further communications with student services, when I pick up the course again next term. 

But a mathematics master? The thought is very intriguing. Their requirements are that I get a 2:1 for the degree that I'm on (or a 2:2 for a maths heavy degree - something I'm not doing), or failing that, that I take a test. Well, we'll see how it goes, I imagine. 

Now, there's under two weeks for this resit I'm doing. I feel very prepared - almost as if, were I to have to sit the thing tomorrow, that I'd be prepared. It feels as if the longer it takes, the more I will forget! But I'm not prepared - not fully. I need to brush up on Fourier Transforms. I need to make sure I can answer the first several questions. I need to make sure I understand the diffusion equation, separation of variables and the boundary conditions. I feel like I'm up to scratch with the Lagrangian questions, and I feel confident I can make up the extra two points that I missed out on last time because I was so lazy, complacent and the fact that I rushed through it. 

I'm half-confident. But I'm still nervous. 

So, in a nutshell: Perhaps I'll pursue study after next year, perhaps I'll become a builder. The resit is coming, and I must make sure I pass. 

Thanks all!!
Daniel

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Blog smash to generate motivation

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Well, it's been nearly three months since I took my first two level three exams, MS327 Deterministic and Stochastic Dynamics and SM358 The Quantum World. 

I'm pleased to say that I passed my quantum exam, albeit with terribly low marks - but I'm not unhappy about that, I'm pleased. All I wanted was to pass that course, and I did. 

However, with MS327, things were not so pleasing. I failed. 

Devastating, yes, but not entirely unexpected. I entered the exam with the simple view to merely pass the thing, and whereas last year I tried my utmost to achieve a distinction, and consequently only passed, this view only served me to approach the questions with a diminished capacity. So I failed. 

Nevermind. I now have an opportunity to resit the exam, and so it is now my prerogative to study and revise to the point that I can sufficiently make up the marks that I need to get through this year. And overall, this year, I was just two points off a pass mark. It's all very doable. 

And what makes it doable is the fact that I now have a much, much better idea of how to tackle the Lagrangian questions, thanks to a man called David Evans, who worked on a practice question with me recently. I'm much more confident. 

But again, I must not become complacent. There's every chance that I won't pass this module. And what it that happens? Well, I'll have to redo the thing!! Not good. But I don't want to entertain those thoughts. I know I can pass, and I know I have to do a bit more revision to get there. 

So, in light of that, here's a little run down of things I could do, in order to maximise my chances:-

Firstly, I'm semi-banking on the hope that this resit exam will be similar to the last, albeit with slightly modified variations on questions. I think I found that with my resit of MST125 back in the day. I really hope it will be like this, because then I have the best chance at answering the questions. 

That said, I need to rewrite that last exam over the course of the next two weeks. I need to make perfect use of Sandra's exam script. (Sandra is a woman who achieved a distinction and was kind enough to share her exam answers with me.) 

I need to go through a couple (or three) of the practice exams and past papers. 

I need to rewrite and fully understand the Diffusion equation question (Q9) of the recent exam, and perhaps go over Unit 11 once more. 

I would like a flawless attempt at the Fourier Transform question, hence look for practice at this - which I have done... there are numerous problems online to look at and understand. 

In terms of the questions which I have no worries about - questions one, two, three, etc - I really need to make sure I do know what I'm doing with those. I need to remind myself about the sections in the handbook which can help me, and I need to brush up on these questions. 

What does worry me? The Diffusion equation questions, the Lagrangian equation questions, the Fourier Transform questions, and also questions involving the Continuity equation. This latter involves going through Unit 9 once or twice more, and finding more and more about it online and with the help on the website with David Evans. 

Basically, and on the whole, I need to absorb myself in this work for the next two weeks five days. The exam takes place on the 13th of September, a Tuesday, yes, but I will start to become nervous on the Monday, the very day I intend to start the exam - at twelve midnight. 

On the whole, I do not mind that I have failed that exam, because a resit is not so bad, especially since now, with the extra work that I will put in, I will have a better understanding of the questions and formulas that I need to know. At least I will have a refreshed knowledge of the whole thing, and will not have put the lot to the back of my mind, like I always seem to do with everything I've ever learned at the Open University. 

Anyway, I do not know what more I need to say on this topic. I have mentioned those areas that I need to revise and work on, and I have got them out in the open, and vocalised them, written them down, and dug deep enough to crystallise them. There is no stopping me now. Now, I just need to get it all into practice. 

Anyway, wish me luck. I may need it. 

Blessings. 

Daniel. 




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It's go time!

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Hello all, 

It will soon be exam time for me. I'm really nervous and a little stress and anxious, so I thought I'd smash out a little blog to calm the nerves, boring as it is! 

I'm not 100% ready, I'll be honest. Some subjects I hardly touched. But then others I feel very confident with. I'll get no distinction, but I'll aim for high marks and hope to pass fingers crossed! 

It feels good to write at the moment. It's currently 22:15, and the exam opens at midnight. I'm all prepared, I've had a shower, I've rolled some smokes, I've got my energy drinks ready. It just remains for me to run through a couple of equations, and make some toast at eleven thirty, and I'm good to go! 

I am good to go! 

Some people will get distinctions. I'm sooo jealous! 

I hope we get good questions. 

I don't think I've ever been this nervous for an exam. I wonder if this feeling is preparing me for my other exam on Friday morning? 

I would like to write some more, but the truth is I've nothing left to say. 

Wish me luck! And good luck to you all! 

Daniel 

xx

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I'll be fine

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Edited by Daniel Frederick Best, Sunday, 5 June 2022, 23:52

Hello, and blogging to de-stress. 

I want high marks for these exams, I really do. In reality, though, I'll be happy, nay amazed, if I pass. 

I'm thinking that the Quantum exam will be ten times harder than the mathematics. That's okay - it gets the hard stuff out of the way. 

My God, I cannot wait until it's all over. I cannot wait until next week. My sweet Lord! 

There's things I need to revise. I need to do some spin equations, and do some entanglement equations. The only thing I'm really confident in is the normalization equations. Some of the short questions I'll be alright. But mostly, I think I'm going to have to bullshit through! 

That's fine. I can only do as good as I can. I'm not distinction level. But some students are, and I guess I'm wracked with jealousy about them. But as Lee says, that idea, that people are in some kind of competition about who is the cleverest, is an illusion. 

I wonder if I'll be happy to study next year? The thing is that doing the actual course, doing the TMAs and reading the books, that's fine. When it comes to exams, there's nothing more stressful. 

Do you feel the same? 

In any case, I'm not trying to relate to people. 

I think, in these final few hours, where I have a little time to revise and refresh my mind, that I'm a bit fatigued. In fact, I feel like if I don't know this stuff by now, then I never will. And doing revision right now is making me mad and mentally ill. So I've decided to relax. I've been playing some guitar. I've been meditating. 

What I should really be doing is going through the parts I don't understand. 

I think I'll do that. 

In these final few hours, all I'm going to do is look through some of the past papers, and write down some solutions, and then that's it. 

I'm good to go. 

...

What if I fail? 

Well, I will be embarrassed. I've made a big deal of this course to people. People will be very disappointed. My brother will laugh at my low scores. My friends will laugh, my family will laugh. Anyway, I don't really care about that. But I'd like to pass. 

I just need to look through some old papers, write down some solutions, and I'm good to go. I'm sure the questions will be fine. 

I'll be alright. 

I'll be fine. 

Thanks guys.

Daniel

xxx

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Exams and thoughts about exams.

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I'll be honest with you, I'm kind of scared about the upcoming exams. 

I suppose I'm not alone, and I suppose that such a fear is natural to have. The fear is, exactly, that I have no idea if I'm going to pass or not. I really want to pass. And in fact I really want high marks. For the MS327 exams, so far, doing the practice exams, I haven't been fully successful. The problem is that, in OU exams, you're almost always surprised with a question that you don't know how to answer. The thing is that, with these problems, if I ever get to see the solution, I can easily follow it. My fear is that I won't be able to find a solution. 

What I'll have to do, in the main, is fudge my way through those surprising questions, employing the use of as many valid techniques as I can, even if I don't get the right answer. I think that's the difference between mere passing grades and distinctions. Those who get distinctions will always produce the correct answers. People who pass have often used the right techniques, or shown some insight into the solutions. 

Last night, as I was reading and studying through the books, I stumbled on a thought. It was a very refreshing and illuminating idea that - just as I had realised near the end of my very first year of higher education many years ago, that there is a difference between the uneducated person and the educated one - this level three study over the past year has led me to develop an even higher notion of educational level; that is, I felt like I could visualise the level of a Master of my subject. It was a surprising thought that led me to have a very nice night of dreaming. 

Of course, that idea has all but disappeared today. But the day draws on, and I am coming to my night-time period of study, and in thinking of ways to maximise my academic success, or at least my success in exams, I have asked myself, for example, for what do I want to learn Fourier Transforms? 

I searched Fourier transforms on Wikipedia earlier on, and the depth and complexity of the subject is just astounding. I should even have another look, to crystallise the ideas. But most of it was specialist doctorate level content, which I couldn't understand, to be honest. That's why I consider myself lucky that the OU provide such comprehensive material - that is, the material is consolidated and "basic", in the sense of an introduction. Everything you need to know to get started on a topic is there, and, even if you find the material abstruse or intractable, I find it at least satisfactorily terse, and one can peruse a paragraph several times and still not have got to the essence of the meaning. 

I suppose, that one reason why I would like to learn Fourier transforms, is to put them into practical use with science and so on - they have use, apparently, in quantum mechanics. But also, we use them in signal processing, and I imagine that would be the premise of an engineer, and I have no grounding in that. I hear they help transposing digital signals into analogue signals and vice versa. This might be useful in computer coding, if ever I was able to find talent in that area and music development. I admit, it might be a bit late in the day for me to pursue this avenue of academic research. Nevertheless, that is one practical reason to want to get good at Fourier transforms.  

All this mathematics, in fact, is very, very useful for the science that I want to pursue. Also, in future, I may like to think about electromagnetism as a course of study; I hear it can help you achieve a place on a masters of physics at the OU. Electromagnetism as well as quantum mechanics have uses for Fourier transforms. 

In any case, the techniques are worth knowing. My only bugbear is that I am not good enough at doing them!! I certainly could be, if I put my mind to it over the next two or three days. 

In fact, my plan of action is, over the next week and a day, is the following. 

  1. Work on MS327 past and specimen exam papers until Tuesday or Wednesday (ideally Tuesday), focussing on Fourier series and transforms, the diffusion equation and random walks. There is some content I could do with understanding better there. 
  2. On Wednesday I restart my revision of SM358 The Quantum World. I will do some more past exam paper questions, and glance over the relevant books once again. I need to revise spin, angular momentum, entanglement, ladder operators, and I will review the topics I know well, but concentrate on those I'm less good at. 
  3. From Wednesday to Monday, I will interpose SM358 revision with little bits of MS327 revision, just to keep it fresh, although my first exam is on the Monday night at 12 midnight (or 00:01 Tuesday morning). I will take the exam at this time, for it is peaceful, away from distractions, quiet, and also my mind will be lucid, having studied up and refreshed my knowledge earlier in the evening. I need not be too concerned about being awake at that time. I have been adjusting my sleeping pattern to accommodate this concern. 
  4. Monday night, 12:01 am (Tuesday morning, 00:01), I will take my SM358 exam. I will finish it in good time, having downloaded the appropriate programs needed for combining my scans into a single PDF file, and all will go off without a hitch. Hopefully. 
  5. Tuesday, 6:00 am, I will eat breakfast, and get some sleep, and continue on revision in the evening for MS327, and I will do this until the same time on Wednesday 8th June, and do the same for Thursday. However... 
  6. Thursday 9th June is the day prior to my MS327 exam. It will be made available at midnight (or 00:01 on the morning of Friday 10th June). I hope that the three days of revision leading up to it will be enough to ensure I pass. 

Obviously, I am going for the highest marks I possibly can. But when all is said and done, I will be happy pass. 

I have thought that, sufficient revision providing, the exams will have been designed so that a passing grade will be relatively straightforward to achieve. But to achieve a distinction, well, that would take something a bit more special. I hope I have that special thing. But I can only do my best. 

In any case, good luck to all who are taking exams this next month. May you all get the questions you wanted. May you all get the results you wanted. May you all at least pass your exams, and get onto the next stage of your lives, be that further study, a job, or satisfaction that you have another qualification. 

Best wishes, 
Daniel. 

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Coincidental dream

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Last night I dreamed a strange dream...

I was in the shower and I... there was an obligation... an obligation that I procreate with my brother's wife, in order to reproduce a child, that was a "brother/cousin" to my brother's child, Sia, whom we would call Mia. 

Before that, however, I was reading a book to my sister. The book was like the bible, yet it was a Charles Dickens book, and we accessed parts of it via Alexa, the electrical assistant. I drew in that book, and improved a drawing by fine lines on a the previous picture. It was a very touching moment. 

So, Fiona and I were to reproduce, and whether we did or not is undisclosed, but certainly, there was Kate Burton, with whom I ended up actually having a child with... in the shower. We had a beautiful child, and were married, and on the wedding day, our family had to help my brother, Ryan, to come of age, and all we had to do in this endeavour was, at the penultimate moment, to bring him aware of his own scent, and then Ryan had come of age. 

And then I had my child, and we had a happy life, me and Kate. And things went from strength to strength. The boy grew up, and there were ups and there were downs - with Mia's head coming off at one stage. 

But Mia was to be a success, it being that we were a successful family. We took him, at the right age, into a music studio to make music. And Mia was successful. Yet, he was so lazy - so terribly and unfortunately lazy - that he could never impress his father. It was with stupidity and carelessness that Mia came into all sorts of money, for the most part guaranteed by his father. 

Mia had so much money, by dint of his father's success, that he had accumulated all manner of collections, including a sports card collection so vast that he'd even collected numerous rare combinations of these without even knowing it. 

It was then with regret and humility that father had to break the news to Mia... Mia, he began. You've won the lottery! 

For in his past, Mia was heir to the McFlys, a family who'd travelled in time and accumulated my wealth. 

There were many coincidences in these scenes, many coincidences indeed. But after all these coincidences, there was finally that one solitary coincidence, that one stupid and hapless coincidence, that saved us all. 

In the mire of coincidences, within which nothing could be done to save the laziness and carelessness of Mia McFly, finally there was an electrical rod that was able to pair with another electrical rod of somewhat slightly longer length. 

And the McFlys were saved. 

The end. 

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Some Thoughts About The Situation in Hand

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Hi, how are you? 

I'm blogging to crystallise some concerns I have with the situation about my upcoming exams, which are SM358 The Quantum World (on Tuesday 7 June) and MS327 Deterministic and Stochastic Dynamics (on Friday 10 June). 

Well, what can be said about this? First of all, I think it apt to say that the SM358 exam will be a touch more difficult than MS327. I say this because it seems evident that the questions we will be posed will be more apt to contain the unfamiliar, whereas with MS327 the situation will be more of a case of using the formulas we've learned. 

I have three weeks till the first exam. So my revision, having already begun in some form or other, must continue and continue with a more severe approach to intensity. For SM358 I must sit and complete several past papers, and complete the iCMA medleys, and also have a look at some of the additional exercises. 

My outstanding topics of which I need to study better are all those of book 3. I need to look at entanglement, perturbation theory, angular momentum, many-electron atoms, diatomic molecules, good quantum numbers, and the Linear Combination of Atomic Orbitals method, to name a few. I shall write a list of outstanding topics, and tick them off when I am confident. 

I feel like I can't have a repeat of last year. Although then I did do a lot of revision, I was unable to dig deep enough to get some of the more abstruse topics clear. And now, I have twelve hours a day for at least one week to do something about it. 

This blog should serve as a motivational enterprise. 

There are topics in which I feel I have a good grounding: Normalisation, operators, Schrodinger's equation, the sandwich integral rule, some Dirac notation, some Ehrenfest's theorem, some angular momentum, and some spin. But I should revise these topics nevertheless, and revise them well, by completing past papers. 

My MS327 exam should require at least one week of attempting to complete past papers. There is not a great deal with which I am concerned in this module, but I do need not to be complacent. That week is the week beginning 22nd May. Perhaps I will blog for more motivation closer to the time. But I would definitely be better off just doing the calculations. 

As with last year, my main source of revision should be that which is called "active" - that is, calculations, calculations, calculations! 

There are books I wish to review, however, they should be done in what would otherwise be my spare time, i.e. before bed, and so on. 

There is not much else to say about the matter. Calculation is key. Active study is the way! 

Wish me luck! (and good luck to all others doing exams!). 

Daniel xx

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Hospital in cave on island

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Just blogging real quick about the events that took place last night whilst I was asleep, which happened in my brain, in a dream. 

There was a cave full of mental patients, on some island somewhere. It was some kind of hospital there. 

Then a new patient arrived; a very violent and psychotic man. 

The events in the dream were that - there was a lunchtime meal with burgers, and the psychotic man had bacon with his. There were two or three other characters - one who reminded me of Nigel the old man in Mill Hill, the other, perhaps Nick Warman or someone similar. They had issues with the lunchtime saga and the psychotic man in general. 

The psychotic man goes from strength to strength. He helps the others, who hadn't realised that they had had hope of getting out. 

There's a third man, who's hair the psychotic man shaves off before his tribunal, whilst he was unconscious. 

The psychotic man has gone from strength to strength. He has a deep relationship with his psychiatrist, with whom he discusses the psychiatry books he has read, and gets better. His mother arrives for his final tribunal. The man realises he loves his mother. 

It's a happy ending. Everyone gets out. 

Thanks, 

Daniel 

x

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The New World Order

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Hello, how ya doing? 

I wanted to perhaps talk about some of the things which have been happening in my mind and brain of late. Some of these things are dreams, some of these things are hopes, some of these things are aspirations. All of them have happened in my brain of late. 

I can remember some parts of a dream which played out for me last night. It was about Neil the sparks, and he was a conspiracy theorist. The dream formulated around an alleyway where my father and I were working which, now I think of it, somehow reminds me of The Matrix, that is, the array of binary digits that fill the computer screen. I was helping father with concreting and carpentry, and some electrics, and we switched to a scene that turned out to be Neil's apartment, and Neil the sparks was a conspiracy theorist. 

I can remember being on Neil's bunkbed, and what a coincidence, the whole gang was there too. 

But Neil was a conspiracy theorist, and somehow or other I myself was attempting to convince him of the true conspiracy, that is, the real answer to conspiracy theories, like the New World Order, and so on. 

Now, the New World Order is not a conspiracy theory - not anymore. It's legacy is that it is something that government seemed to want to bring about many years ago, and they say that 9/11 was the fulcrum that did it. "Nine eleven was done to bring about the New World Order," they say, and perhaps that's true, but what's so bad about the New World Order that people think is so terrible? Perhaps it's something to do with freedom, i.e., that our liberty is at stake; that we ourselves are destined to become unthinking and unconscious beings. I'm sure that there are a thousand reasons, but this is our reality. We as automatons seem to wish to be libertarians, and at base level we wish to be closer to nature, and conscious, and free. We wish to live in an utopian society, but there seems to be a conflict. Some people believe there to be a top-down evil; an evil from a higher level. Some people believe this to be the evil of billionaires or politicians and government officials, and they believe we are being kept down, kept from knowing the "truth", and kept from financial, social and moral success. 

I'll be honest with you, I don't think this "top-down evil" exists. But perhaps it does, and perhaps it goes to a deeper spiritual abstraction than would be accessible by anyone not deep into religion or morality, or study, or education. But who am I to talk about education? Although I have studied in various disciplines through my life, I merely have a layman's credentials when it comes to life experiences. Besides the point, maybe, and perhaps I shouldn't allude to the goodness of God, the divinity of Jesus, the morality of Heaven, because perhaps I'm at risk of being disingenuous. It surely makes no difference whether a human is religious or not, for a human may be religious an still not entirely moral, or a human may be moral and yet not religious. I cannot claim to have any special insight into morality, but I do believe in a higher power, and yet I still have faults. At the top, I believe, and top-down is God, or at least goodness, and this is true if you believe in God or not. I believe this because I know myself, and I know at heart I am not a bad person, that any "evil" that exists within me is only sickness, and that I am the same as everybody else. I could even be vulgar about it. But this morning I had breakfast, and at lunch I had a sandwich, and at dinner I had toast. I'm sure high-ranking government people also had to eat through the day: there is no human with superpowers, and those who could be in possession would be good people. Otherwise they'd be sick. 

No, the New World Order is just a political artefact, that happens to ring suspect to the ears of the suspicious. It's happened, in the sense in which a new political and social and financial order has been brought about, many times in the past. And if it has done so, it was from the order of a genuine higher power. But I have no evidence for this, and this is where I fail. But it's not to the detriment of anything! If humans wish to control a population, we must be aware that death is nothing, and in the long run we're not really in control. Population control is just a construct, like freedom or love, set up to convince us to be inspired. God is the only one who has a plan. 

I told my friend Neil the sparks that he had to call out to God. When you do this in dream you can see how much of our intuition about greater power is an illusion. But sometimes the illusion is that powerful that it is undeniable, both evolutionarily and physically. 

I don't know what to say other than that. Perhaps I could type for a further hour or so, but I don't think it would be massively interesting. I'm feeling a little hungry in any case. But perhaps that's thirst. 

I shall seek water now. 

Blessings x

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The truth about Daniel Best

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Maybe it's that you have had enough of me? Maybe now it is my time? Maybe now it is after all about time. 

Last night's dream was a nice one about windmills. I was an engineer working on a windmill just for me and my friends, but the windmill wouldn't work, no matter how much we changed the engineering. It was quite a fascinating dream just to see the nice workings of the mechanics. Nevertheless, I do not remember much else about that there dream of which it was I had. 

I forget a hell of a lot about nuff that goes on in my head at nights. Everybody thinks I'm totally insane. It's a bit lonely sometimes. Maybe I have to jest with them, maybe I must find a celestial eminence, maybe bells are ringing out for Christmas day. The nuance of viagra emails that would stand out is that I'm going back to the good old days. Everybody understands you, what is the Samoan for hiding in the sand dunes? One more hour in bed, ready to spill the things in my head. Her name is Judy, and we will see her again. 

What you find is that people on the internet do not half take the fucking piss. 

Ask yourself, Are you alright? Is Ukraine alright? Why is mother so rude to me? Maybe it's because she's a Londoner, maybe not. 

Maybe I'm not alright, is that okay? You lot seem to think I'm nuts. 

Let me tell you the truth about Daniel Best. 

x

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Complaints of the day...

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Hi.

I just need to blog right now; that is, I felt the need to blog so that I could perhaps get out some of the things that are bothering me. These things are only minor complaints, and whether they have anything to do with my mental illness is another thing. But nevertheless, I'm so frustrated I could cry. 

They happen on a daily basis, these things... these minor upsets, by which life seems driven. If it's not a misguided comment by a friend, it's a lecture, on some topic or other, by someone with whom you disagree entirely. It would not be meet to describe the instances fully, but rest assured they happen on a daily basis. 

I'm sure I could do better than writing other things in this blog than just dreams and complaints, and I suppose this small complaint may seem petty. But nevertheless it's nice to have somewhere to go. 

Now, I'm not a greatly political person. In fact, I would say that my politics aligns with those of the world's best rock stars, for example, Kurt Cobain or Jimmy Hendrix. Perhaps Kurt doesn't massively fit with this appraisal, but certainly Jimmy would not have been as popular were he to have had a political point of view, or at least a more political viewpoint. In fact, I have struggled to find my place in the world of politics. That is, a person in my own position, that is, on social benefits, under the social system, social housing, state wages, with a mental illness entirely subsidised by the NHS and so forth, well, perhaps you would forgive me for a socialist leaning. In fact, having read Marx's Capital (to a degree), I was impressed by some of the sentiments, and by some of the content, in the sense in which it leans towards a fairer society for those with less money, and less education, and so on and so forth. But in the same breath, you have capitalists who say that socialism leads directly to communism, and the latter ideology has a very poor PR on the whole, indeed. You hear that socialism is an extremist ideology, taken up by Russians and Chinese, who live in communist societies, and who have very little freedom. 

So, as much as I have sympathy with the socialist outlook, I feel myself very 'put under' by the opposing team, who tell me that that outlook is more extremist than extremism itself. I would, in that sense, say I am opposed to extremism. That is a given, and that is fair enough to say. But while I have sympathy for socialism on a minor scale, I actually find myself supporting the conservatives. That is, while the whole world seems up in arms about the party-going habits of our leader during lockdown time, I actually still empathise and sympathise with Boris Johnson. People who hate this man say that he is one of the rich elite, who have been Eton educated and born in power, and should be despised for his authoritarian ways. But whenever I see the man, and this is coming from a person for whom that level of expertise and energy can only ever amount to a dream, I feel proud and I feel a connection. When it comes to parties and whatnot, well, I have to say, I do not care. It is about as severe a reprimand as a speeding ticket, and has nothing to do with whether he can run the country or not. And furthermore, when I see the man, I see nothing but competence and humanity. The man himself, despite all the negativity and backlash he has to deal with every day, is in fact, absolutely and positively resilient, and I wouldn't sniff at it were he to be a permanent fixture. People on the left try to muddy his name, but to me it all amounts to petty name calling and so on and so forth. 

So, it seems, much as I should be socialist, and leftist, I have a great deal more empathy with the right. Also, in saying that, I have empathy with Capitalism. That is, and being wholly a part of this university, which to me represents a wholesome and worthwhile institution, I understand that there is a greater entity to which to attain. That is, when I am driving through an area heavily populated with tall company buildings, and enterprise, I see that there is a larger infrastructure to which we should all attain. And what is this infrastructure? It is being able to put your bins out and have them picked up by workers who make that their business. It is being able to go a store and buy your weekly shop knowing there are people who've made the effort enough to make sure the shelves are stocked, with goods that have been produced and regulated by people who've made the effort to make sure they can reach you. It is products, and music, and industry, and money, and yes, there are people at the top who are intelligent enough to ensure these things can get to us. 

Today I had a conversation with someone who is 'one of those' people. That is, an antivaxxer, anti-government, anti-education, anti-capitalist, anti-every-fucking-thing, protest marching person. I mean, he's a nice guy, who has helped me in otherwise difficult situations, but what he was say, I find it to be the case that I can't abide by any of it. At all. 

The situation I'm in, that is, the situation that perhaps caused me to come online and write about these things, is that, I cannot for the life of me explain to some people that there are individuals on planet Earth who are so clever, so intelligent, that it would be hard for people like us to fathom. And not to put too fine a point on it, but I know these people exist, because one way or another I used to be one of them. But that's another story. One way or another, I am aware of the existence of people, and not merely doctors like GPs or what have you, who have extraordinary minds. They are amazing. And the reason I'm writing this now, I suppose, in a nutshell, is because this antivaxxer, as soon as I've tried to explain that we couldn't have this infrastructure without the minds of these men and women, well, he tried to convince me that nobody is that intelligent!!! 

I'm sorry, but this man has not been to college, to university or anything like that, so how would he know. But in short he actually said this to me, he said, "I've met intelligent people and they're not that intelligent." 

The fact is, just because you yourself are not intelligent, doesn't mean that intelligent people don't exist. I mean, I could outline the existence of Einstein, Newton, Bertrand Russel, Gödel, Beethoven, Bach, Steven Hawking, and so on and so forth. 

But my frustration lies in the fact that there is no way of explaining to some people that there exists intelligent people on the planet!!! 

There is intelligence. I know it for a fact. 

People who think that there aren't people who are that intelligent just aren't very intelligent themselves, I'm sorry. 

And therein lies the tale. 

But on this topic of what political persuasion I am, well I think I can at least safely say, I hate antivaxxers. I hate them. I despise them. And I'm sorry if this seems a little negative, but I can't hold it in anymore. And I would go one further and say, those who are antivax persuaded are in fact either (1) Crazy, (2) Not educated, (3) Simple minded, and (4) Top down they think the world is run by evil people. 

I want to say, in a mode in which to put your mind at ease, you have nothing to worry about. There is nothing to fear. The world is a good place, and there is good at the top, be it a good minded man or woman, a moral person, a moral ideology, or perhaps even a God! 

And in fact, I personally do believe in God. And further to that I just wish to add, that I myself will be adding, to my repertoire of spiritual activities such as meditation and relaxation, an hour of quiet prayer to that. And I think that's a good idea, and I wish to proceed as soon as possible. 

Many thanks, 
Daniel. 

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The boss and the employee

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I'm trying to make sense of this dream. It was a peculiar one in which I myself was not present in the dream as myself, but as an employee of a publishing company.

I can't really gauge exactly where it began, but there I am at this warehouse, working on a book. The boss is a rich man, and has written a book himself, and it is my job to read that book and transcribe it into a published form. 

There are other employees here, one old man who seems to be dead. In fact, at one point in the dream, I am in the street and I look up to a tall bridge, and a father's child has fallen from the bridge. The father jumps after the child, and it appears he has saved him - but really they both died. Much of the dream is about people who are dead. 

In fact, the most pertinent thing about this dream is that I myself am not present. I say that I am working for a boss, but really it is this character who is working for his boss. I see things from his perspective - but even saying that is putting too personal a spin on it. I really am not present in this dream. 

So this character has to read his boss's book about business and transcribe it to publishable form. The boss is expecting a large tome. The character's resolve is to take the rough form of the book and re-bind it. And that seems to do the job. 

I'm afraid that's all I can remember. 

Daniel

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My father, and meditation.

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Meditation. 

My father is the zen king. A friend of mine described my dad as 'zen' some years back, and the description has never failed me. 

This even I was in the pub with my father and a friend of his from the old days. I must say, my father is the most moral man. The first thing I learnt when I studied philosophy at university fifteen years ago was that you don't necessarily have to be religious or even spiritual to be moral. My father, Fred, is not religious - at least not outwardly, although he has alluded to a greater sense of spiritual questioning, due to his advancing years. Yet his morality and humility are beyond bounds; he puts everyone else before him, he has such patience, and he gives everything he can, and he'll do anything for anyone, as they say. 

When it comes to my interpersonal relationship with my father, I daresay it is the truth: I do not tend to bring out the best in him. I take this to be for a number of reasons. One, who am I to him? How is he supposed to gauge who I am exactly? Am I his middle aged son, or am I his young child? Am I a world-weary intellectual, or am I a know nothing son of a builder? How is he supposed to gauge who I am? It must be difficult. On the other hand, when my father is talking over a pint to someone he's known for years - his best mate - someone who has striven to advance himself to my father in understanding on his own terms, that is when my father knows more who he is, and who he is talking to. So I saw old Fred in a good light - in a great light - this evening when he was talking to Tony, who is one of his best friends. Yes, Fred was talking fluently and freely about the legal proceedings that are taking place within the family, and was talking about his memories of Samoa, and spoke about these things with authority, and intelligence, and thoughtfulness, and I loved him. 

I don't wish to sour the note by saying that, one-to-one, when Tony was not there, I began to fail to understand the things my father was trying to get at. I don't know why that is. But perhaps it's detrimental to a notion that perhaps I myself am characteristically unsure of myself. But that's another thing. 

I'm quiet these days; I rarely talk. It must seem to people that I have little to say. Several people, though, have said it: I don't know things. I don't know things. That's a saying. It alludes to street-smarts, or even more worldly smarts. But I do know certain things. Unfortunately most people are not interested in hearing about how to solve a differential equation, or what a two-dimensional map is, or how to manipulate a Hessian matrix, or what they are, even. In a standard setting it must be true - I don't know things. So I remain quiet. 

When I arrived home I was stressed out. I have realised that this anxiety I have amounts to a type of panic attack. These panic attacks occur frequently - once or twice a day - and if they happen during the day, I must lie down abed and breath more regularly, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, until my heartbeat has calmed down and reached the pace at which I am breathing. If they happen at night, as just occurred just now, I'm happy to sit quietly and meditate. 

The first few minutes of meditation are relatively awkward, and one wonders if there is a point to it at all. But I sit cross-legged on my bed, facing the window, lights out (other than my salt lamp - an orange glow), and I breath in through the nose, and out through the mouth until I have achieved a steady rhythm. There are two ways, I am given to understand, with which to proceed. One of them is to inwardly focus upon a thought - be it God's warmth, the compassion of Jesus, the expanse of the ego, or the delights of genius. I like to remember this technique to start with, but I rarely follow it. No, I tend to go in for that other way of doing things - to inwardly and actively reject all thoughts. That is, one must tell oneself, that thoughts are none of my business. But it is not just a matter of repeating 'thoughts are none of my business', but you must allow each thought to pass you by. That is, when a thought arises, you must remember that it is none of your business, and proceed. The way I have personally clocked this technique is by looking directly at my thinking - that is, the thinking substance itself. I have found a way to 'get behind' all thoughts by watching this mechanism at work, and allowing those monadic elements that arise upon awareness of them, to fall away. Then I say, 'deeper, deeper', and I go deeper, and I have a notion that is not borne out by the light of consciousness, and it may be something to do with the ego. For example, I realised that one outcome of meditation could be to expand the ego (although, this may seem counter-intuitive - we're supposed to disregard the ego, aren't we?). And tonight I saw that my ego is the full id of my understanding and encapsulates everything I know to be in existence in the world, and that I'll never fully disregard the ego, which I take to be the driving force of my mind and soul, and of which the female's is said to be the anima, so in effect, to enhance the ego is a good thing. 

During meditation I may or may not have on some music, say, some classical symphony or other, and this is a fine thing. Of course, it is peaceful enough to relax with nothing but the sound of silence - that way, we are left with the sound of things arising, and then passing away - arising, and passing away. Yet it is also a good thing to have on some symphony or other. For some symphonies may last an hour, and for one thing it is good to have a gauge of how long you are deep in this state, and to aim to finish with the penultimate finale of the piece. Tonight I had on Rachmaninov, and his is a fine second symphony, for if a symphony is worth its weight, it will map your thinking, enhance your thinking, and all the more give you something to release, when necessary, deeper and deeper. 

Meditation is a type of self-hypnosis. It is always wise to be aware of what it is from which we are dropping attachment. For me, it is always anxiety, and internal stress related pain. And yet, it is said, that in this fast-paced world in which we live, when we finally decided to come out of our meditative state, it is wise to make ourselves aware of the material world we are coming back into. For me it is a decision, that I know when I've done enough, and I listen to the traffic, and I begin to breathe in through the nose, and out through the mouth, and I say, when I open my eyes, I will feel more relaxed and mentally clear than I ever have, and then I gradually open my eyes, and I breathe outwardly, and I am done. I have meditated. 

I'm almost glad sometimes, that I have such panic attacks that meditation is deemed necessary, for otherwise I would not know calm. 

Daniel

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Things I want to do

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Things I want to do: 

  • Play guitar - write some new songs
  • Play Nintendo Switch - Super Smash Bros., Zelda, Mario Odyssey
  • Play piano - learn that little Aria by Bach
  • Study Science, i.e.:-
  • Write my TMAs
  • Read the books, units, chapters - MS327, SM358
  • Do my exam - get high marks, like, rilly high!
  • Learn to code in Python - that is, learn to write text adventures
  • Learn to code in Python - make a website
  • Play a show with my band - Islington Hope and Anchor
  • Finish recording and producing my album - Prefrontal Vortex
  • Lose a little weight
  • Learn to control my smoking better
  • Do my animation
  • Make some music videos for my band
  • Tidy flat
  • Buy a toilet seat
  • Buy that Ed Marlo Card technique book
  • Listen to music and relax
  • Relax and listen to Classical music
  • Meditate
  • Read my course books
  • Pass my course, with high marks
  • Learn to code. 

That's about it, but i'll update if I think ofanything. 

Thanks
Daniel
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Back To The Future remake dream...

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Edited by Daniel Frederick Best, Friday, 21 Jan 2022, 05:36

This dream begins somewhere beneath the ocean, about four hours ago. 

I must frame Meister Kern as a a central character here; it seems fair enough. I am beneath the ocean, with my brother, and Meister Kern has told us about his being commissioned to make a film. We see Lee has done various drawings, and a crab is in a bucket. Ryan has something to do with such a crab. The crab is significant of work and, beneath the ocean, is a symbol of respect. Lee has also done some work with Lego, and we, being beneath the ocean so deep, are also beneath Brent Cross shopping centre. I vow to go into the Lego shop as soon as possible, to purchase some Lego, such that I am inspired enough, and such that I wish also to make some things (films, art) with Lego. Ryan will be alright, for now. 

But it seems that Lee has been commissioned to make a film, and it will be shown at the shopping centre. And I travel up to the shopping centre, and the film being shown is a remake of 'Gremlins'. My sister is in the audience, and thereare two halves to the theatre:- she is on the other side, or in any case, makes her way to the other side. We watch, within the audience, this introduction, and see many strange creatures: Gremlins - and we discuss something about them, and Corina has her thoughts about it, and I have mine, and Corina gets usurped to the other side. And a woman to my left, well, she recognises that I have something to say about the film, and in any case, the film begins. 

We are at Brent Cross, and inside the shopping centre, the Gremlins have taken over. I approach the first doorway from without, and my accomplice is the distinguished gentleman from Third Rock From The Sun; the alien, although he is merely a distinguished gentleman. And we approach the centre, and walk up some flight of stairs, and over the top, and there we are given ham and pancakes, and a gaggle of people are standing in the forecourt area. I think we are told, or are expected to work out, that there are gremlins inside the building. 

I am watching the film with Lee, and we are inside the film. I love Lee, and my brother is there.

We see, beneath the shopping centre, on the outside, well, we see a long stretch of waterway, like a stream, and the film continues. And we travel, this distinguished gentleman and I, over to said waterway, and we are now in the midst of a remake of 'Back To The Future', and now we see the preamble to the film. It seems Meister Kern has been given surplus amounts of footage to work with. In any case, the distinguished gentleman and I have usurped the waterway, and we are filling two of the left and right halves of it with concrete:- that is, Doc is mixing the concrete, and I am washing the waterway with it, to the effect that I am creating two trails of concrete in the water. There is something about this. Soon enough, we have usurped or commandeered, or in any case, created a hidden concrete track upon which we wish to test our DeLorean time machine. 

It is time for a cigarette. And Doc has given me a gun, a silver Colt Peacemaker, and he says, "Light your cigarette with the spark from the shot, or don't have a cigarette!" And so, I aim the gun up at the sky, and I fire, and my cigarette is lit from the sparks of the gun. 

Lee has been doing a great job of remaking Back to the Future, so far, and now we see Doc and Marty testing out their track. On the upper level there is a horse and carriage, or DeLorean, or in any case a faster vehicle, and just below we see Marty running as fast as he can to keep up with Doc. He occasionally bangs into the sides or the walls of tunnels, but he keeps momentum. This goes on, there is lots of excitement. 

Then eventually, as we watch Marty running down the track, we see the environment changes, and like ghosts coming from the ground, there appear people all around - for just a moment. 

I myself, sitting in the theatre, yet near the edge of the action, turn to Lee and say, "Momentum! Marty has kept the momentum!" I have realised, that Eighty-eight miles per hour is just the speed that keeps the momentum of a DeLorean going enough to travel in time, and that Marty's momentum is really what can cause you to travel in time. "Momentum," I say. "Energy, the time-independent Hamiltonian!" And I start to trace out the Schrödinger's equation in the air. Yet the film persists. Yet to my left there is a woman, and she is complaining to me about the silver gun in my hands, and I tell her, "It's just a toy," but she fails to believe in me until I demonstrate the shot - which is the effect of pointing the gun into the air, loaded with a cap, and I fire. I turn back to LEE - he says, "Armando." I'm trying to work out what he means by this, and I turn to the woman, and she transpires to actually be my wife, and I am surrounded by our children: three kids, and then I listen to the woman, and she claims that, in the midst of all this time travelling, the fact that I shot the gun at that particular time some while ago, well, that was in fact bad luck, and had caused the nightmarish effect of the phenomenon of Gremlins back at the Brent Cross shopping centre. I can see her logic. 

I begin to run back to the shopping centre, and the momentum of my run causes me to enter into a time-zone inwhich we see a few zombies, and yet there is more to this time travel. I run faster and faster and I enter into the shopping centre - right into the middle of the centre wherein there is an infestation of gremlins - and I bang right into a red illuminated ball in the centre: This ball then turns me in a Super Mario type character, and I have a small zippo lighter in hand, and every time I strike it, I jump. I strike it three times, and jump higher and higher into the air. This character - this Super Mario character - has the tenacity and power to eradicate the gremlins, and therein the tale ends. 

However, with my zippo lighter, I am able to shave the hair of Doc, and of a black man who stand with their backs to me, and my job of doing that is greatly appreciated. 

Therein lies the tale - I awaken. 

NB:- when I have run back to the shopping centre I have had my attention drawn to the fact of a Blue Peter van, that is a BBC van, and I move along and there it is, the BBC van. 

Daniel. 
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Sentiments of old age and fathers

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My father is a fucking sweetheart, let's make no bones about it. 

I was listening to him today at the dinner table when I had been at my parents house, and this was after dinner, which was eggs, chips and, for me, no-chicken kiev. And I listened to him as he discussed first the Edgware Walker, a man who would walk around the town, hunch-backed, looking through bins, and who died in 2005. Then, once my mother had taken her plate away, dad began to talk about property, and in particular, a property he had recently missed the opportunity to procure, that was on the market. And he told me of lease-holdings and free-holdings, and then the discussion turned to the jobs market, and the fact that Eastern Europeans had taken a part in destroying the workplace, due to their ridiculously low wages. And he spoke about his former employer, Anil Varma, who is a millionaire, who chose to fire some English workers in favour of the Eastern Europeans. And then the discussion went on from there to politics, and Boris Johnson, whom I gather my father has some sympathy towards - and whom, I suppose, I do too. 

We ended up in the garden, smoking roll ups, and the night was freezing. Anyhow, I noticed as I listened to my father talking, that I didn't have to say very much, and part of the time I felt slightly resentful of that. However, my father himself didn't seem to notice that he was doing all the talking. And I take it now, that this is how my father sees conversation between he and his son: as a chance to educate me on certain things. Indeed, and yes, I was slightly resentful, for the fact that I myself have been in higher education for more years than I care to mention, and I have a deep desire to tell my father of these things I have learnt, and show him the complexity of the knowledge I have acquired. 

But overriding all this, I noticed, as I listened to him talking (which, I also noticed, was giving me a slight headache for some reason), was a feeling of deep love and compassion. My father, like many of ours, is not going to be around for ever - although, he is in fact just sixty-seven now, and we have a good few years, health providing - and in any case, perhaps I have nothing of interest to teach my father. In any case, I thought, 'Could I not just sit and listen to my father?'

And that is the prevailing lesson of the day. Is it too much to ask of me to allow my father to at least feel like he is educating his son? I'm not saying he isn't educating me - although much of his lecture was reliant on basic right wing politics; but I do not mind that - I feel like perhaps I am right wing, in many ways. The media, when we are exposed to it, despite its efforts to branch out into perhaps deeper themes of politics and social talk, can be very mainstream, and as a result the basest of social adherents are provided with a point of view, and this is why much of our social media experience is based around navigating through stupid comments and repetitive posts, that say not very much of anything new. But we can't let these things get to us. 

My father is not a difficult man, not really. Some men do not understand their fathers. But I feel like I can understand him well, my father. I often do wish our discussions were more like discussions than one-sided lectures. Nevertheless, I am moral enough and full of ethical love to be able to afford my very father the very things he wishes of our relationship. He is a philosophical man, but not a religious man: I feel like, perhaps he could do with a good reading of the bible, or a visit to church. He is a zen warrior, is my father. He is bald and tan. Today I couldn't help but see him as the hairy one, and I the bald man. 

Hegel, in Philosophy of Mind, talks at times of 'derangement'. Yesterday I was reading about it, in his words, and he has some very lively ways of thinking. Yet there is a sense of racism running though his works, although such as it seems to be a fact of the time he lived in, rather than a matter of his outlook, and in fact, I imagine the Hegel was rather liberal and forward thinking for a German philosopher of the eighteen hundreds - that is, his work is sprinkled with generalisations about national individuals, yet he is not overt. In any case, he spoke about derangement, and one thing which struck me was the notion that psychosis itself (indeed, in his words, derangement) is a phenomenon that happens when the individual has cast away his objective sense, and his dreams and subjective consciousness have been cast into the fore of the mans mind. That is, the deranged are living in a dream world manifest in objective living. 

It makes me think, on the one hand, of the absolute objectivity of the mind, and what is afforded in the educated man's consciousness. That is, as an occasional victim of insanity myself, I recognised the truth of my own psychosis, in that it was in fact a product of dreaming whilst awake, and very much so. I am now fully medicated, and strive to achieve the most pared down and educated existence I possibly can. Although, I am at odds with what this entails in social existence... I have to grow old, and growing old I have to contend with a perpetually extending youth - that is, a youth that continues to extend away from me into the past that is a 'now'. 

This objective reality is part of psychology that comes with maturity and experience. It exists within all of us. The dreaming life of the subjective unconscious is something that leaves us as we get older, and it is why the young are able to rely on us, derangement providing. There are certain boundaries that we learn, that strengthen with age, and upon which we build on a daily basis. We need to be solid, that is, we need to accept the conventional life, and accept a transition into old age. 

I sometimes feel like my parents will never die. There is a time in life when we feel this deeply. But time passes, and one day they will be gone, and that will be their legacy. 

Some people have already lost their parents. I am not ready to lose mine - hence I convince myself that they will live forever; that sixty seven and sixty four are still as young as forty, relatively. In many ways, they are. I am as old as my mother was when I was seventeen, and I thought she was old then. But now I see that she is young. And that she has many years left. 

Also, I have been praying for people I love. It seems that prayer is a good way to formalise positive thoughts about those people, and in a sense paves the way for some people to thrive in life. Well, I know what I mean. It's the same as building a path up a mountain, or building a house. Prayer builds, and people can live in what wehave built. 

I will close now, but I could go on, philosophising etc, yet I have work to do, which is another story. 

best wishes, 
Daniel 
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New blog post

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I had a dream. A little dream. A dream about computer programming. 

I want to try to dig deep here, with the description of this dream, because although the dream was relatively simple, there are subtle elements that I seem to have forgotten, which I feel I could remember if I just laid out the steps. 

Now, the dream did not begin where I start. I start close to the end. I start where I am sitting at a terminal and I am talking on the phone to an operator, who is a friend or old teacher of programming, and I'm asking her about how to get started on a refresher course of computer programming. I have a command prompt page up, and I say (on the phone), "It's B4, isn't it, to start?" and I type "B4" into the prompt, and things start to kick off - the other terminals fire up, and the tutor says, "Oh yes, I think I see what you mean!" I have recently found an old module book which has within it some instruction on how to program, and I tell the tutor this. It is about this time that I wake up with a strange desire to do some coding, and I come to my PC and I fire it up, and I get out my Python Crash Course book, and I have a cup of tea and a roll-up, and look at the screen. I fail to know exactly what I want to code. 

I think I have time to code, during the course of my studies. In fact, I have ample time. I would like to learn how to make websites, but this is further down the line. I need to refresh my mind about basic coding. 

Anyway, the dream started earlier, and a key point about it was the appearance of mathematician Eric Weinstein. We were in some sort of warehouse full of computers. The FBI are involved in some sort of investigation (I'd love to know about what!), and it has to do with technology. In short, Eric is the mastermind of some sort of "conspiracy" in which some files are being sought via the internet and hacking, and it's some sort of hacking scandal. 

There are computers. The computers represent the files. The files are being investigated. Eric is a computer coding genius and the head of the operation, but whether he is helping the FBI or protecting the hackers is not clear. He seems to be doing both. 

The FBI have moved in and they are close to uncovering the conspiracy. A file is opened and investigated; many files are. But the FBI are thwarted in their investigation because the programs are written to protect the information, and they hence parry off any attempts to uncover the information, and the files are closed down, and the system is reset, and we are left with many terminals with plain screens and evident command prompt windows, and Eric is suitably satisfied. 

It's a computer-based dream, and now the Big Bang Theory TV show cast of Sheldon, Leonard and Howard are here working, and there is a woman from the show, and it's a dream so we are allowed to touch her body. Anyway, she gives us all a great wank each. 

Then we are at the end of the dream, where I began. 

There that's it! 

Daniel. 

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How to be a fully conscious human being

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My dream begins way back in the night, and at my folks house, and, at the earliest point I can remember, I am looking for my socks. 

My folks are leaving - for a shopping trip, or for a weekend away - and I am in a hurry to get down to the library. But I have to leave soon, or the door will be closed behind me. I also need to find my jumper. 

My parents have left. I have failed to find my socks in time, and I have not found my jumper. In the living room there is light from cars arriving, and young people begin to arrive for a party that is happening since my parents are going away. Eugene has turned up and there are more people here - girls and ravers. 

I go into the back room, and there is a ravertard talking about physics - in particular, momentum. I say to him (among an audience) that momentum is velocity dependent on mass, and I talk about velocity having a hidden property, and I write down the equation for velocity on the board. That is a section of the dream.

Then Eugene is leaving for some reason or other, and I ask him for a lift to the library; the library which I could easily have got there in a quicker time had I gone alone. Eugene says jump in; we go - he drives backwards, and goes the long way around; I am annoyed about that. Yet it turns out that the long way is in fact a short cut to the library - however, along the way Eugene is pulled over by a cop, and I must leave the car, and consequently do. 

I am in the local park, and I find an alternative path to the library, which involves going past and via a certain underpass, that leads to a supermarket behind which (or, at least, down some secret paths) there is backdoor, and stairs, and, with the help of a young woman, I somehow stumble upon a secret level that has a staircase that leads to an underground and secret entrance into the library. I go in. 

It is closing time at the library. The librarian has given me the grace to search for the book I am wishing to borrow. I go to the appropriate section of the library, and I find the shelf I need. Meanwhile, with the library about to close, the librarian has been expecting me, so that I am asked to spend some time watching a video about myself. The video is played on a small television, and a classroom of children have gathered to watch, and the video is intended to incriminate me on some level. 

The video plays and is a series of scenes in which I have been secretly filmed in incriminating circumstances in different dreams. So for example, there is a scene in which I have been in the park, and have taken a shit in the bushes, and there were a line of people walking by all the time, and the cameraman has been filming me. I can see that I have been caught. And there are several scenes like this, and, once the video has finished, we can see there is a scene within the library in which the class have taken to drama lessons. At once, we see that there is a single member of the class who stands out, whilst the others take to acting, and this person receives a nasty smack on the face, from some chavvy young lady. It turns out the recipient is black, and that the attack was racist, and she goes and cries - that is, she acts like she is crying, yet she is really crying in reality. 

And then Boris Johnson, who is familiar with incrimination on a daily basis, is in the library. There is a short time before closing. He himself stands upon the raised stage area, and I am directed to a letter that has been framed upon the wall. I do not know who has written it, though perhaps Boris. I read the letter. 

Then I wish to find my book, before closing. But the science section is hard to find, and all I can find is the law section, and the legal philosophy books there. It contains books I have already read, but am anxious to start. It is closing time. 

The library closes and I am inside. It then transpires that there is a secret "after-hours" club with several juiced in members dotted around the library. I walk around. I find Tamsin sitting there, and she is nonplussed that I have found her: I never knew she was such a dark horse. She is reading on the floor. I am part of the club now. I think my own sister is here. 

But now it is time to leave. I go into an underground passage, and find myself in the stairwell behind the supermarket from before. The lady from before is there as well, and we are having difficulty finding the right stairs to the right level. But eventually we find the right level. We go home. 

Daniel. 

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at home

Stressed out blethering

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Hello, 

I don't know what I have to say, but the stress is creeping up, and I don't know why. So the best thing to do is to tap some keys and see what happens. 

I must say, my dream last night was really particularly stunning, and I've never experienced anything quite like it. I've told you about it, so there's nothing more to say, but I suppose I would like to have more dreams like it. 

I said that it was a lucid dream, but in fact it wasn't quite lucid - although that doesn't detract from its clarity. I've never seen anything more clear. When I saw those spaceships shooting across the sky... I said to Joan, "I've had dreams like this, but nothing as clear as this!" I thought the dream was real, and God forbid it was a lucid dream!! Actually, I've not had a lucid dream for a very long time. I've forgotten how to access them. #

I'm watching The Sopranos - the final show of series five. There's one more series left to watch. I've enjoyed it. 

I've been recommended to watch Nathan For You, a comedy show. I will watch it - it sounds hilarious. It's about a guy who goes to businesses to offer help, under the guise of being a "help" show! Anyway, that's for next week. 

Charlie's ill. He has some kind of cold or flu. So it means we can't go to our recording session on Sunday...

We've recorded an album. It's called Prefrontal Vortex - by Two Five Burn. It's alternative rock, well, grunge really. Although it's more just hard rock. I sing on it, and play guitar. Actually, I wrote all the songs, and play most of the instruments. Rob played drums on half of it, and Mass played bass on half of it. Thank God for Charlie, who will be playing all of the synthesisers. Anyway, it sounds quite good. We've just got to record the synths and backing vocals and the mix it and master it. I'm paying Rob a hundred quid, provided I can afford it. But I think he deserves it. I'll pay Charlie fifty quid too. I was going to pay Mass fifty quid, but only played half the bass tracks. I'll pay him thirty. I can't wait to release it. We'll have to do a live show. 

Anyway, you're all up to date. I'm still a bit stressed; that didn't really work!

See you later. 

Daniel. 

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