Reading and Writing

Once upon a time, people were used to writing on the Internet rather than posting pictures. That was a long time ago- about 20 years ago at least. Then the Iphone changed everything.

Writing has a place in this world beside photos and videos. Writing and reading is like watching foreign art film, you know that is beautiful in spite of you not knowing what they are talking because it fires the neocortex of your brain- the rational part of your brain. The effect is not instantaneous but if you have patience, the payoff is cathartic. Let us see what photos and videos does to you and how does it differ from reading/writing, and really eventually convincing you that reading and writing is worth your effort.

Writing is not instantaneous. It does not come from the limbic part of your brain where all innate fears and desires reside. That means that it does not immediately satisfies the most primitive part of brain. It requires you to use the neocortex of your brain to edit and to articulate your thoughts into intelligible language. But when you are able to connect the dots from disparate parts of your brain, that is where the satisfaction resides. It means when the brain is firing away, the satisfaction is not like satisfying your hunger or thirst but more of a lingering effect of a aromatic coffee. It is control coupled with desire to form a structure that communicates not just to yourself but others.

You can build empires in your head with writing which is something what videos and photos cannot do. It is because that part of your brain is pure chaos. Dionysius run riot while we watch videos and photos. This is because we satisfying are an hunger, a thirst. It is purely biological. We are satisfying an innate desire for pure emotions, the emotional need to identify with others, to form an social and emotional connection. It is embedded deep down in our primitive limbic brain.

But when engage in reading or writing, we are engaging our neocortex of our brain- which was developed later in our evolution. The rational part of brain. In order to articulate our deep-down desires and fears, we need to engage our rational side to bring structure to our otherwise chaotic and disparate primitive desires and fears and not rational thoughts. 

And when we form structure to our chaos, that is when we are able to connect the dots to these dormant fears and desires. We can discover the "why" question. Why do we fear rats or cockroaches and for myself, heights. Thats when your full brain is firing away. Apollo will bring order to the chaos and thats when that lingering satisfaction occurs 

Thats when an aromatic cup of coffee satisfies the thirst and the brain.

And thats why we should read and write, beside consuming the incessant videos recommended by Facebook and Youtube.

Give to Take more

 It has been more than one year since I have written my last post. Now that I have been married and have my own family now, my creative energies have been placed on the backburner. There re much more different priorities and it set me thinking on one issue and that is: why do we exist?

It is a big question for everyone but I am like everyone else has been evolving everyday. We seek meaning in our lives everyday, everyday that we lived aimlessly is a life lived wasted. So let us talk about what life is about and what does meaning means to everyone of us. Lastly how we can lead a meaningful life.

Let us talk in first person now, life is not just about Maslow's hierarchy of needs where first seek to fulfill our basic needs before seeking self-actualization eventually. Long are the days where our life is " short, brutish and nasty." Though there are of some of us who actually have problems meeting our basic meets, even in the developing world, hunger and thirst are quite rare with rapid production of food to meet the world's food needs. 

What we want in life is life lived in colour and not in black and white. We seek friends and family to catch up. We work in jobs that requires us to expand our mental capacity and not just done in rote. Ultimately what we want in life is a life that is "lived" and not "lived". We live in the now and not in the past or in the future and definitely not vicariously.

Meaning in this sense, means to be social, to be creative and to be in a community. We look for connections and look for feedback on how to live a "good" life. Another loaded word. On what is a good life, is we are at one with the community and the community is at one with you.

For myself, I seek meaning through seeking the truth. I am curious about how the world works and how to crack the code on how to live a "good" life. I am at one with the community because it gives me a feedback on to lead a "good life" and I can contribute to this community further. When the community thrive, I thrive with it as well. Likewise, when I thrive, the community thrives as well because I can contribute and form a virtuous cycle. Meaning comes in the form of all the social bonds that I forged while I work towards this "good life".

The "good life" is not just about giving, it is also about taking. It is about giving so that we can take more. The ego cannot survive without the "ideal/superego" and "infantile desires" working in tandem.

Some see this as a tension, I see this as a virtuous cycle. We wish to have more but we are blunted by our selfless streak. This is not a choice between the two but a counterpoint played against one another to play a piece of beautiful music.

Earlier in the post, I wrote that I can be prescriptive on how to live a meaningful life. I lied and that is the whole point. Had I not enticed you to read on, would you have continued to read on. Now having read this short post, do you know how to lead a meaningful live. I bet you do now.

Merry Christmas.

Eugene