Psychology

The qualitative study of unhappiness.

Bell curve

Probably a repeat, but if you tested the opinion on the average person they would believe that there is a bell curve (guassian) distribution of mental health.

Half the people are happy and well adjusted, and half aren’t, the ones needing counseling and therapy.

Well, in fact, it’s an exponential curve There’s maybe one Tasmanian Tiger, happy as Larry sitting on the y axis, and the rest are unhappy, more or less. Which is why psychology exists; it is the study of the head related deficiency between you and the one tiger.

Yes, the one happy bugger makes the rest of them deficient. Human worth is measured by contrast.

If you want to become the tiger, then you’ve got to train yourself to let go of comparing and contrasting to others.

Ironically the tiger’s not very happy either because he makes people unhappy by his very existence. And he’s astute enough to know this.

There’s no escaping the human condition, unless you’re completely bonkers and really don’t care.

In all of this is a clue though. Don’t try to become the tiger. Just cuddle up to one and do what you can to let go of the bulk of the angst of comparative humanness.

Then, rather than tell the world about it, keep a low profile for the sake of others.

That is, ignore false prophets that have all the answers!

The robots are coming

Slavery; the old version was humans as goods and chattels. No rights, could be killed without recourse, etc. Pretty shocking but also very compelling to those on the right side of the equation it seems. They still want it back, if they were honest.

Modern slavery in the West focuses on ownership of intellectual rights and time.

For example, many sport people sign away their rights to pick and choose their employers. They get drafted and they can’t just leave when they want to. Slaves by any other name, but well paid ones.

Many employees in the tech sectors sign away all intellectual rights, plus many of their waking hours, just for the privilege of getting paid. Not so well paid usually, but there is often the lottery of a big payout that rarely occurs. They are gamblers, without knowing it. Gambling their minds and their time for a lottery ticket style return.

If I had it my way, I’d outlaw all forms of partial slavery, while it still matters.

Definition

Bespoke; it ain’t.

My old school crest

He Conquers Who Conquers Himself.

Oddly piquant…

Truth

All politicians are cunts.

Always have been, always will be.

Just ask one.

Book

I’m going to publish this blog as the Wowser Empire.

Joanne

My ex wife blamed everything and everyone for her woes, whatever they were.

She was beautiful, intelligent and loving, and yet she managed to feel hard done by life.

Some suspect a mental illness. I’m not so sure.

Like Jessie in Before Midnight, I loved her despite the fact she was crazy.

Thus I enabled her. And suffered for my pride. And she remained crazy.

The mystery remains to this day; what was her problem? Was it a genuine mental illness or a curable personality defect?

My deeply considered guess is that she’ll never find out. Which is why I’m so much better out of it.

This new life is more fun and better for my health. It’s me doing what’s right for me, rather than what’s wrong for my ex wife.

In any case, what is a mental illness? It’s a crazy that gets to the point that others need to assign an external attribution to the thing. It’s a form of acceptance that the crazy is not going away under its own steam. Which is to say the external attribution is by external people, assuaging their own confusions.

Walls, man

Wit is the enemy of wisdom.

Habits

LinkedIn is full of 7 habits of successful leaders and the like.

It never occurs to people that you can’t cargo cult your way to success.

Or can you?

Maybe we become our habits. Maybe all that matters is how we are perceived by others. Maybe there is no ground truth.

Free thought

You can outlaw certain actions and certain statements, in vilification law for example.

But you can’t practically outlaw what someone thinks, for two reasons.

One, we don’t yet have the technology to reliably detect thoughts, and

Two, we don’t yet have the skills as humans to control or modify our thoughts.

So, enjoy it while you can. You can think anything you want. Fuck ’em all.

Revenge

The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery. It is to be contrasted with the law of compensation, which is the law of loss-based recovery. When a court orders restitution it orders the defendant to give up his/her gains to the claimant. When a court orders compensation it orders the defendant to pay the claimant for his or her loss.

Escheatment

I just gave $5.67 to the state of Delaware. They should drop the ‘s’.