hamilton.likes.to.draw...

If you don't follow Max Landis on youtube, you should. He is an interestingly polarizing figure in pop culture today, and he makes videos that talk about screen writing and the screen writing process. He is a suddenly prolific writer. Go check his credits on IMDB. I bet you've seen one of the movies he's touched, and didn't even know it. Now, one of his continual points in his youtube is to never judge a movie by his name, because his script got chosen, even if the movie didn't follow it. But I tend to like the movies he's done. In terms of script.

That's a side topic though. I want to touch on his thought in the above youtube video. Never tell anyone your plans. If you started watching and stopped, go back and watch it through, it's less than 2 minutes. His most important thoughts come after the preamble. He says don't tell people your plans, until they're finalized. Don't wag your mouth about meetings and the things you're working on.

Don't follow his advice, and withhold your exciting developments, because people might judge you. You shouldn't care too much how people judge you. Follow his advice because of how it might end up making you feel. Bad. Don't put yourself in a situation of hyping up something that hasn't been confirmed, only to have to explain to someone later that it didn't happen. Not because they'll be disappointed, but because you will be.

I'm generally awful at following this advice. I have plans all the time. I want to do more art. I want to write. I want to play music. I want to practice my spanish. I need to practice my mandarin. I should clean my house. I'll work on an app this weekend. I'll exercise every morning. I'm going to eat better. All of these thoughts are fine in your head. But when you start telling people them, they put anxiety into your head space.

Now maybe you thrive on anxiety. Maybe you need the social pressure of failure to do great things. I can get behind that. But for me, I end up feeling like it doesn't help. It just makes me feel bad every time I'm not doing the thing.

I've been using a phrase more often in my life. "An appropriate amount of selfishness". I think selfishness gets a bad rap sometimes, because we are told we should care for others more than ourselves. But I am of the opinion that you can't care for anyone else, until you care for yourself more. I think you need to have an appropriate amount of selfish pride, selfish secrets, selfish joy, selfish time, and selfish gain. Care for yourself enough to give yourself the things you need. Be selfish enough not to hurt yourself for the pride of others.

I'm trying to live my life better and improve.

... ah shit, I just did it again, didn't I?

A friend asked on facebook recently if people could ever truly change. I think we change all the time, but I think not everyone is actively trying to change all the time. But the fact that our world view could possibly shift any second means that we CAN change any time.

But do people change? It's up to every person. Some people don't want to change. They don't want to be changed. They want comfort, and there's nothing inherently wrong with comfort. With normality. With schedule. But at any moment, you could get in an accident and need healthcare. You could find a puppy and decide you're a dog person. Someone could hand you a million dollars, and you could suddenly decide to be responsible with it. Any tiny shift in our existence can shift our world view drastically. Everything is changing around us constantly and it's up to each of us to be open to possibilities and to dare ourselves to improve.

But do people ever really change? I'm talking really. Is an asshole an asshole forever? I don't think anyone is anything forever. Because I am not what I was before. I was reading back through some of my old blog posts here. This journal starts in 2001. And that's just this journal. I should pull out some of my older content from the wayback machine some day. Here's a thing for you. This blog wasn't originally my personal website blog, it was on livejournal. I used that for a while. Eventually I ended up pulling that content into a wordpress journal on my server. And when Wordpress started to give me problems, I made my own journal software, and pulled the old content into there.

This seventeen year old journal keeps me grounded in a way few things can. I think one of the main reasons people don't feel like they change, or don't feel like others change, is because they don't see their thoughts laid out over two decades. In some ways, I haven't changed, because in some ways I don't want to change. Certain things I want to always be me about me. I hope those are more or less good qualities, but everything else I try to change. Maybe some people just don't look at themselves enough. Does that mean they can't change? No. it just means they're not trying.

I started a conversation with friends the other day about 4th and 5th dimensional beings. There's two possibilities in my mind. Beings that exist in multiple realities at once, and beings that exist in multiple times at once. I asked people which one they thought was the 4th or 5th dimension.

Most humans can't immediately comprehend the concept of multiple realities, because they've never seen them. We can comprehend multiple times, because movies and pictures have been able to store a memory of times. This caused, in my mind, almost all people to immediately answer that time was the 4th dimension.

But the fact of the matter is, you exist in multiple realities all the time. Dreams are another reality. Memories are another reality. VR is ACTUALLY another reality. And you exist in both this reality and that other when you are experiencing one of the others. Your consciousness goes to another reality while your physical self continues to exist here in our tangible reality (since all of those others are intangible).

So here's the thing. Are we 3rd dimensional beings? Or 4th dimensional beings? Are you already a 4th dimensional being? I think so. And that would make time the 5th, not 4th, dimension.

And I believe this is necessary for the meat of my conversation.

A God that could: know all, be everywhere, and do anything, is responsible for everything.

A one-dimensional thing is a point. Not a line, not a circle, a single point. It is simply a position.

A two-dimensional thing is a line. Not a line on a paper. A line of measurement. It is simply a distance.

A three-dimensional being exists in many points at once, with distances between them, going in any number of three different directions: x, y, z. This being might not always access the same points in space. They might not even be the same shape all the time. But they always exist in more than one point at a time. They exist in many points at once.

A fourth-dimensional being, I believe, must exist in multiple realities before they can exist in multiple times. And the reason I believe this, is because we already do. Imagine that in the morning you put on your socks. And you existed all at the same time with green socks on both feet, and you also chose brown socks, and you also chose red socks, and you only ever had one pair of socks on. You exist, in some way and form, in all of those close changes to the physical visible reality you see. You are... at the least aware of all of them. Would one of those existences of you make different choices based on their reality of brown or red or green socks? Who knows.

When we move our arms they exist in multiple dimensions at once. But not always the same, and not always the same shape. Closing our fingers changes the fundamental shape of our bodies in the three dimensions. When our shoulder moves, however, our arm moves with it, or else it gets severed and we lose contact with it.

In my mind this must be the way a true fourth-dimensional being must exist. Making choices and existing in multiple realities, but if one existence goes too far afield the being would lose contact with that particular vestigial consciousness.

A fifth-dimensional being must exist in multiple times. And this is where we get back to the concept of God. The judeo-christian god is described as being all-knowing, existing in all places at once, and able to do anything. Now I put them in that order because I believe that is the order of possibility for the hypothesis of that god. Can do anything is an imaginary concept and should be thrown out immediately for the purposes of science. But let's not.

If a being could be a truly purposely fourth-dimensional being, they could potentially exist big enough so that they could see everything possible. I'll bite on that. I can imagine it. Of course, to truly see ALL things, they would have to exist outside of what we consider standard time. Because in order to peer into the future they would have to be somewhat fifth-dimensional. But time is a measurement of movement not an existence, and so truly being able to see all times would necessitate a sight of all realities as well. Being able to see only one reality wouldn't be much of an omniscient. We just infinitely increased this being's knowledge threshold. They know all things. Because they are there.

It's this way that we get to omnipresent. Forget the idea that they know all thoughts. Let's just presume they know all existential things. They see it all. Let's stick with that. This being sees everything. But not just everything. They see all the possibilities. They see the blue, the brown, the wet, and dry socks. They see it all.

This must surely be a passive creature. If they could do anything they would, wouldn't they. Wouldn't they change things. Maybe they do. Does this creature exist at once in all those places? What are we even talking about anymore? This isn't a being. It doesn't exist physically. How could it? Surely it could only manifest itself. It wouldn't matter at that point what it looks like. It looks like everything. Because any time it manifests itself it is also not manifesting itself. Any time it looks like a dog to lead the dogs in their revolution, it also is a man killing your daughter.

Not everything needs to be explained. Not everything needs to have a reason to happen. And most certainly nothing needs to be explained for you. The search for a rationale for anything that has happened is often as useless as worrying about the things that haven't happened yet.

Spend less of your time trying to figure out a culprit and move forward with your day. Don't worry about things you can't change, and instead make sure to notice the things in which you can affect a change.

Be a rational realist optimist.

Examine and dissect and question and study. Accept nothing except everything.

Look at the world as it is, not as you wish it to be. Revel in the strengths that you have, instead of pining for the rewards of the strengths of others. Enjoy the moment whenever you can, and this takes practice.

Hope.

Whenever you are walking down the street with someone else, and you think about how beautiful a tree or a building or a woman or a puppy is, say it out loud. Include the world around you in your moment of joy. Don't be selfish with your pleasant outlook on life. Smile at someone.

Stretch.

Give when you can, and hoard until you don't need to. Be open to fun nights. Tell people "no" every once in a while, but don't dissemble about why. Take a night for yourself. Be honest with yourself more than anyone else. Stop calling them cheat days. Do what you want, and if you want to change DO IT.

If you want to change do it. It doesn't have to happen all at once. Set a date and stick to it. Start small and work your way up. Practice takes time and you have to practice this change. Baby steps. Do a little every day. Clean one corner of one room every day. Do 5 push-ups every morning.

Love yourself enough to be appropriately selfish, and then give the rest to others.