# how to survive Following the [Chet's prompt](https://slightlyeastofnew.com/2021/01/20/had-enough-stress-for-one-day/): > Pandemics. Mutating pandemics. Never ending campaigns followed by never ending counting. Rioting in the streets. Have a great idea for surviving (on our own terms, of course) in these stressful times? I thought I’d host a series of posts I've a mind to be extra succint. And eclectic. ## motivation In order to survive - you want to want to survive. "*13 Reasons Why*" TV series is a good recipe: Baker films the reasons not to survive. Invert this. Make a list of reasons to survive. Keep working on them, make space, turn this into a project. Look for unexpected ideas and inspirations in your past and the present. It might be something you very well know, and something you know nothing about, and things you had no time for or discarded. (p.s. In our experience the social relationships, cherchez la femme and friendship, are among the strongest if sometimes hidden motivations for [independent action](http://pogoarchives.org/m/dni/john_boyd_compendium/destruction_and_creation.pdf), but a strong motivation can also strain a less prepared system, hence mastering motivation is helpful at both the strong and weak winds). ## frame Keep tabs on the enemy. If it's a stress, make a file on it. See how you can exploit it. To give an example, here are some notes on stress: it "[drives all activity](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2KMEFOYDB14Q2/)"; it's a currency in "[affect regulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults#Affect_regulation)"; it can be "[your friend](https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend)"; close encounters with the sources of it [sometimes help](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424/full); "stressors are information" (Taleb); "*leadership with monitoring, rather than C&C, seems to be a better way to cope with the multi-faceted aspects of uncertainty, change, and stress*" (Boyd); it's a "fatigue of the body and mind under load" (Gary 'Smiler' Turner)"; it makes for a "[perfect time for training](https://youtu.be/nIXK-inss34)"; managed, it's [akin to exercise](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-stress.html). In terms of [Deliberate Practice](https://youtu.be/8WARK0aNX88) - we aim at a *richer representation* of the subject. ## goal We started with 13 Reasons Why. Then added some Hows. Now put up a What (or two). Define the positive goal. Make a file on it. Draw it. Film. Find symbols pertaining to it. Keep it in focus. If you don't know the goal, leave a blank page to it. Find a temporary substitute. Work on it even without knowing it yet. Having the goal is pertinent to survival. ## redirect Ask yourself: *How these circumstances can help me towards the goal?* Whether something is construed as good or bad initially, chance is, there is an angle or a sequence that can catch the wind of it and propel you forward. Make some space and time for catching the wind. Level it up to a habit or ritual. ## balance Keep a pace that's right for you. Allow the project to be around when next you need it. File and avoid the roadblocks. Put in the touches that would help you enjoy that work. Or turn it into a game. Look for cross-field opportunities, when another project can help towards your goal, or when working on your goal can help that other project as well.
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Artem Grinblat
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Example unpacking a thought with AI.

8/15/2023
2022-12-11

As the “will” and the “word” are separate words, we would usually think of them as different. But there might be a “sunk” or hidden spectrum connecting the two. Thus repeated patterns would often offload into the basal ganglia habits, kinetic energy of motivation. A word picked by “system two” is picked up then by “system one”. Namely, the words are not just passive thinking implements, but are backed also by the unconscious processes formed around them. As Yeats suggested, this connection between a word and a Force can span past a local brain box and into the patterns shared throughout collective consciousness. This sheds some light onto the surge of power experienced by some at the mention of a powerful name, such as of Jesus Christ.Per Ezra Pound, “A god is an eternal state of mind”, and as such we can compare it with a habit that gained some power through repetition. “We went too far to give up who we are”. Sheldrake suggests that the physical laws are such habits, and so a force of a god can be compared to that of a physical law. This might be what Zelazny was intuiting through the evocation of a Pattern in The Chronicles of Amber.“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places” (John 14:2) we can read as: there is space, in collective consciousness, for the cognitive processes constituting the Kingdom, and the movement into those “dwelling places” hints of the accumulation of such processes.That is, a simple combination of letters, such as the “Jesus Christ”, can be a bookmark or key into entire cluster of minds mingling around it, and into kinetic power bound in such a cluster. But a large power can be a blunt tool. That is, it can cancel itself out. Can be a power of a car wreck. (cf. “Swan, Pike and Crawfish”). Thus the power of the word “Father” includes the power of forces which might oppose each other (words “Jesus” and “Satan”, or “good” and “evil”, are typically seen as such opposites). “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste” (Mat 12:25), and that is the kingdom of Father / Abraxos. Immense and impassive power of a “Not-I” in Chuang Tzu. Or to draw another analogy, Death / Time / Cronus conquers everything: a good and an evil would equally be consumed by it. Like the wise man of Chuang Tzu, Death has a varied taste (Revelation 3:16).

2/5/2023
abundance mindset (or violence)

the Kingdom of Heaven is led by force and the violent are seizing it (Mat 11:12) I think that in 3-74, at the height of despair and fear and grieving I stumbled into the Kingdom, stumbled around for a while and then stumbled back out, none the wiser as to how I got there .. Now I don’t see or understand anything. (Exegesis) Both Dick and a couple of other authors point towards a general personality failure and psychosis being at times instrumental in unlocking shamanic experience. In our case, there was never a problem, and we didn't approach the Kingdom with our hand stretched out, as a beggar, but rather from the position of force, and out of a scientific curiosity about the borders and experiences we'd reach through a combination of hypnosis and magickal beliefs (as opposed to the scientific reductionism we've been familiar with). Our hacker-like persistence in this can be in turn compared with monastic tradition, of achieving spiritual experiences through “goal-directed striving” rather than passively or by accident. But we are likely going much further with this in terms of N-of-1 on-demand reproducibility.

2/5/2023
2022-10-21

“The harvest is the end of the age” (Mat 13:39). It is often the assumption that --- nAI, bible ------- the end of the world will be a final battle, or a grand apocalyptic event. But what if it is a gradual process, like the decline of the empire, or the death of a marriage? What if, instead of a war, there is a process The “age” (αἰῶνός) could be the one of Pisces, or simply of a technological paradigm. --- nAI, bible -------

10/22/2022
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