Barry (eternity boy)
@TheGrandBlooms
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complex systems & nonsense - here for the infinite friendship :) See the things I make here: https://t.co/3RxARHpvkJ
Joined March 2013
The Barry highlight reel, starting with the Poet-tree:
For a couple of months my girlfriend and I have been writing poems on strips of sari silk and tying them to a madrona tree in Washington - we call it the Poet-Tree :-). DM me your favorite lines and I'll add them
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My chess strategy is to make a bunch of erratic moves at the beginning to throw my opponent off, & then lose the game.
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I am at this hacker festival and it is basically the most elaborate, effortful parody of society, maybe ever. There's a fake phone company that ran phone lines and telecom infrastructure throughout the entire festival. There's a parody currency with working credit cards and accts.
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Wild how often you meet a stranger and they launch into a story where, if you're paying attention, shows you their core shame or sadness.
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All of mathematics is taught like someone explaining the rules of a board game that you're not playing yet.
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Some things I have learned:. When I most resist going on a walk, that's when I most need a walk. When I'm the most convinced my problems are mental, that's when they're most likely to be physiological. When I decide food doesn't really matter, I should cook a love-filled meal.
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One unfortunate leitmotif of life is when you have some profound, extremely simple insight, and your first thought is "why didn't anybody tell me about this?" And then you try to tell people and watch in horror as the most insane gibberish comes out of your mouth.
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Feels like I am in star wars walking around the marketplace where they scrap and fix old droids. I watched a very legit lady tune an old CRT tv while swapping the psu on an old Atari while flawlessly describing how degaussing coils work - lotta that goin on.
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Also just. So many old electronics, somehow working. All in the middle of nowhere
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There's working TV and radio stations. There's a parody of ID systems where you have to wait in line at the beerocracy tent.
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Growing up I remember having a lot of social anxiety around strangers and feeling awful about it, it was a personal failure, something was wrong with me - just very shy. then I tried phenibut when I was 19 and it instantly *fixed it*.
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Old computers, teletype machines, computers with symbolics cards rendering graphics
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Also infosec people are incredible degenerates and everyone is fucked up.
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The root of a lot of social anxiety seems to be the feeling that you need to control the perceptions of others in order to carve out a place in the world, or to be worthy of existence.
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In the morning I hungoverly organize my stickers
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One of my favorite tropes in media is when "super legit person recognizes another super legit person through the subtle patterns in the way they distort the fabric of the world" - RRR has this right before the bridge scene.
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Measuring the length of a coastline is a famously hard problem - do you measure every inlet? Every tidepool? What about every rock? Do you measure at high tide or low? How much does it change from yr/yr? Etc. I get the feeling most real things are like this.
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My ideal path:. Watching someone solve real problems and copying them step-for-step.Getting a couple simple problems to apply the same steps, immediately getting solutions if you're confused.then abstracting/showing the formula.learning what you just did is called.
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That's when it really hit me how much of consciousness + personality is chemical, and things that we take as facts about who/what we are can kind of have nothing to do with us?. There was *no* *way* I could have thought myself out of that anxiety.
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Something I think about a lot: the way things grow is along their boundaries. E.g a tree grows it's leaves and roots by stretching out beyond its ambits, its limits - but it only does this out from where it currently is.
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@nearcyan The sci-fi novel writes itself. hackers change the bot code to radicalize millions of unhinged trolls who have been heaven-banned, the hacker turns out to be a shady government proxy, the protagonist tries to chase it down but their family/friends all turn against them.
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Current paradigm:. -Start with incomprehensible name.-Symbols and formula you don't understand.-abstract examples you gaze at through glossy eyes.~Time passes~.-a quiz that shows you you have no idea what is happening.-a test you have to pass or you hate yourself.-even worse test.
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Whenever I work with node-based systems for a while I get into a kind of mystical state where I start to see the whole world this way. Folding laundry, doing dishes, getting water - strange to visualize how your day would look if you organized it as a process flow
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I used Midjourney V5 to reimagine Lord of the Rings characters as Moebius Illustrations - here's Saruman
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@RaleighC I've thought about that, if a zombie apocalypse happened right now the timing would be absolutely perfect.
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That's gotta be what they mean by hermetic truth and gnosis, it's not that people haven't tried to share wisdom - they try constantly, but "the lips of wisdom are closed but for the ear of understanding" - people don't know what you're talking about unless they already know.
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Some more finds, an analog computer, X ray machine, & this line printer making some very legitimate and real documents
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You actually want it to be easy to learn things - making it easy to learn is good. I wonder how much of this is educators unconsciously passing on trauma (for lack of a better word) from their own education - "learning this was hard for me - it should be hard for you too".
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@visakanv Spotting and avoiding scams and viruses is a crucial skill that extends to every part of life.
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I guess that's a bid for coregulation - people want help with their problems, & they wanna know if you're down for that relational dynamic.
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Find the saddest, darkest, loneliest part of your psyche. Look straight at it. Listen to it, thank it, give it more love than it needs.
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Where's the technological tipping point where the world starts to feel abundant and people can just chill?.
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"When people show you who they are, believe them" & all that - just fascinating how much congruence there is in most people's whole vibe.
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Thinking about it actually made it *worse*. Meditating didn't help either, not directly - in retrospect, meditation only helped me realize how little meditation can do to change my anxiety, & to feel less resistance about other solutions.
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Specifically, the main thing I found was getting enough cardio - 30-60 mins/day - in order to start to feel the kind of ease that I wanted in life. Other stuff I tried:.- diet.- time in nature.- lots of vitamins.- sunlight.- meditation.- more rest.- weight training.
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A large part of how people allocate status, responsibility, and power is basically through proof of effort - if someone overcomes something with lots of resistance, we think they must be powerful. And that of course has all kinds of implications.
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In high-trust environments, what you say often matters less than what you're trying to say. In low-trust environments it's usually the opposite.
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I also notice Alcohol impacts this circuit (GABA system) & I think that's why phenibut and alcohol have similar withdrawal symptoms. Just looked it up, and Nicotine also appears to affect this. Which makes it seem like most of addiction is people self-medicating their anxiety.
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Phenibut also cured my insomnia - what the hell? I would get into bed, turn off the lights, and fall asleep? Very clear that those things were connected. I started thinking much more deeply about other things that impacted my brain chemistry (diet, exercise, etc).
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@nearcyan the protagonist falls into paranoid obscurity, begins questioning their sanity, the reader starts to question the protagonist's sanity, then a whistleblower from inside offers to meet them in a shady alleyway, but it's a plant. .
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all I want from my career is to dedicate myself to a simple, timeless and beautiful craft which I lovingly create over and over, continuously perfecting into a symbol of true love and beauty which I cast like raindrops that ripple forever in the pool of the world.
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This is one of those things that has felt more and more clear the more I work through my own stuff. Being able to hear what people are telling you.
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New favorite form of to-do list:. 1. Write down the things I already know would be good to do.2. Write down all the fears those things bring up.3. Write a list of concrete actions that help move me through those fears.
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You probably need to update your beliefs about what you can accomplish.
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Honestly, something to be said for hearing all that stuff up-front - it's like a prop warning - good to know what you're signing up for.
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What's the most complicated thing you can fully explain?.
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My stance on all this now is basically:.- My body speaks a language of substance/motion & it only responds to my intentions when communicated in terms it understands.
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If you were born 25000 years ago but you had all the same medical problems you've had throughout your life, would you have been dead by now or would you still be alive?.
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Cardio also never *fixed it* in the same way - where phenibut felt like a 100% solution, cardio was never more than about 65%. Still a huge, huge deal! Phenibut is not something you can take every day, you really shouldn't take it more than every week or two.
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- I am not my anxiety (or depression, etc) those are almost always largely chemical, the rationalization & identification is sort of a sticker on top.- this is probably how it is for lots of people & I probably won't be able to rationalize others out of chemical dynamics.
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What is the main insight that made you who you are today?.
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I think the great irony is that usually when you loosen the impulse to control people or control the way you come across, people feel more at-ease around you and you tend to come across better.
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The idea that humans are artificial & separate from nature is a fundamental, crippling wound in our relationship to the universe+everything. I've never really laid this bare before, but it's something I've been thinking about pretty consistently for ~15 years.
"what are you up to today?". "uniting the organic and the modern" . you can just wake up and decide to do this, there are no rules to what it means to be alive in society🤯. from @TheGrandBlooms
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*Bursts through the door, breathless* OKAY, SO IN 1991 THERE WAS A LENINGRAD-TV LORD OF THE RINGS MINISERIES that aired JUST ONCE in the LAST DAYS OF THE SOVIET UNION, there's scenes with TOM BOMBADIL, Gandalf RIDES AN EAGLE, the INSCRIPTION on the RING is in CYRILLIC
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IFS stands for internal forest systems, the theory goes that inside everyone is a complex ecosystem of trees and flowers and animals that interact and influence one-another, they grow together, the sun shines on them and the breeze blows through them, rain seeps into the ground.
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Key to this trope is when those people are playing the game on another level entirely, and correctly identify the signs long before anybody else, because real recognize real.
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When the world seems bleakest and most hopeless, that's when I should open myself to it.
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- your GABA system is delicate & you should mess with it in moderation, probably less than once/week, try to give it time to recover & reach baseline for a bit between drugs/drinks/etc.
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If you have anxiety/insomnia/depression you may find cardio/diet/pharmacology more effective than thinking really hard about it, & you may be surprised how much shame/identity is wrapped up in some of these things that can go away, sometimes overnight.
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The best example I can think of might be from legend of the galactic heroes, when the commanders identify/feel each-others presence long before meeting, from separate spaceships, in separate armadas.
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When we're able to let go of control, we become able to see all the ways that the world actually wants us here and takes care of us.
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I think the best way I've found to develop my model of reality is to make simulations of nature. You learn the roots that create complex phenomenon, but also an appreciation for all the little things around us that we don't understand
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For people who've done lsd, what's a profound insight that changed how you think about life but feels impossible to explain to others in a way where they *get it* ?.
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Every person kinda has to rediscover what it means to be a person, and every step of that path is something extremely obvious and universal that you rediscover in a personal way.
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The places where I feel the most shame and rejection are the places where I need my love the most.
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When I feel overwhelmed by everything, that's when I should make time to sit with the details.
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There's a clear and simple dichotomy that I am thinking carefully about how to put into words: the more you reject your own nature, the more you try to control yourself and others.
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How many of you knew that the reason "animals with glowing red eyes" is such a universal trope is because if you're around a campfire and an animal looks at you, the campfire gets reflected in it's eyes and they glow red?.
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@nearcyan The arc is complicated by the protagonist's failing marriage and abuse of {substance} to self-medicate depression, insomnia, and ADHD.
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I think one sign that you're truly going deeply into life is that people from far away begin to identify and orient around your subtle presence.
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Pausing to take a moment to contemplate how insane it is that my coding workflow is now mostly just me talking with an artificial intelligence.
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Or even simpler, "to how many decimal places does nature calculate pi before it decides to make an imperfect bubble?" (Buckminster quote).
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Rick Rubin is proof that being really, really pleasant to be around is enough to create a great life, career, and legacy.
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Coding in a hammock in an overgrown green-house in the rain is my vibe now
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What makes that rivalry dynamic so interesting is it happens in love too - I remember getting that feeling of gravity around a person and then years later having a crazy strong & deep connection.
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Okay I guess I need to get ahead of something and say explicitly that I'm not saying "wow, hey everyone, go try phenibut" and if that's your takeaway here, you should not take phenibut. I am highlighting how much our experience of life+ourselves is tied to our body/chemistry.
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GPT4 is a great generalized recommendation algorithm - put in a list of your favorite [things] and ask it to recommend more that align with your tastes
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What's the boundary between self and not-self? What about just and unjust? Happiness and sadness? We're surrounded by these infinitely complicated & shifting shores.
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I think this is talked about somewhat in eastern mysticism, in traveling far to seek out a teacher by following the subtle clues and signs - but you have to be ready, eg playing the real game, or else they're invisible - you won't know how to identify them.
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@nearcyan Fortunately the protagonist outsmarts them in a clever twist, gets a lead on their operations, infiltrates the offices and changes the script to topple the whole damn house of cards.
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Put another way, all resistance is self-resistance - "a knowing sage can live well in hell".
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@nearcyan the story ends on a jaded tone, critical of techno-capitalism, but the protagonist finds a clever position of tentative immunity and slow systemic change.
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The most healthy, normal thing I can do in any situation is just relax a ton, get super grounded, love and trust myself, appreciate & feel things, let them in, & generally just make peace with the time as it passes.
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OTOH the more you accept your nature, the more you feel a sense of belonging, the less you feel in competition or contention with society or nature.
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The word "phone" or "smartphone" is dumb for what it is, feels like a big understatement - we should call them like "hand portals" or "infinity mirrors" or something else that drives home the magnitude of having one.
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The way I think about work now is not "ah damn I gotta do x, y, & z tomorrow" it's "Hmm I gotta drink this tea at this time, go outside, take these vitamins, sleep this amount, then my mind and body will solve problems for me" & my stress has basically vanished.
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Anxiety for me often feels a bit like being pulled in 50 different directions, deciding on none of them, and then feeling bad because *doing nothing* doesn't exactly feel genuine either.
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Complexity is often used in social systems as a "soft cage" to stochastically influence behavior. We're all familiar with this in "trying to cancel x subscription" pipelines but this also shows up in legal courts, incentive structures, political rhetoric - manipulation generally.
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As you play realer and realer games you get better at spotting signs, you can spot players from further and further away until eventually you can feel them with you always.
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