But what do I know anyway anymore? Until I start flipping a coin to write a book because I'm laughing to hard with my family.
So I will probably be motivated a bit more to write this book at somepoint in the future.
Update: Still motivated, but no longer laughing.
A few announcements first. I wrote this at 3am after about four hours of sleep. I think you will see why I felt the need to write, as opposed to getting more sleep. I think it's worth noting that I was unable to fall asleep again because the risk of forgetting what I'm about to write was too great. So I started writing. And I think by the time you read this you will tend to agree with everything I'm about to write.
So let's begin.
If you have been paying close attention, I have already attempted to signal that I am in distress, even though I know I sound coherent. Let's play a game. See if you can figure out what that signal is, before we get to the end. Let's begin, and if no one tries to signal back to me, I will write this entire chapter and send it to Karen, even though I'm writing this part of the chapter last, and will send it to Karen in 30 seconds.
Then I proofread this chapter with no interruptions, so I sent it to my father. Then I made it perfect and sent it to my mother. Then I sent it to one Karen again, with a random phrase added so she knows it's the second edition. Then I sent it to one more person. Then I went to bed and fell asleep. I have made this ridiculously complicated because I believe it will make a critical point, eventually, to you. Begin.
If you can tell which part of this chapter was written when I literally thought I was going insane through sleep deprivation, then I will have proven to myself that there are no coincidences in the universe. Please keep reading to allow me to show you, or else I wouldn't do it because I'm signaling right now that I'm in distress because of the context I have given I have given and "context" I have given and the "expectations" I have set, and I think you know I'm not insane right now because I keep making it abundantly obvious. But I don't know that you know that, and can't "prove" this "concept". Stop ignoring typos starting now.
Let's begin.
I think I have figured it out.
This is intentionally formatted strangely to remove context.
There is one thing that keeps happening, over, and over, and over again.
And if I have figured it out, this book will be about mental health science, and coincidences and several natural laws of the universe that I have discovered in the past 24 hours.
And if I'm right, a lot of seemingly circular logic that did not make sense before, will suddenly make a lot of sense; to everyone, but probably not more than it will make to you.
Let's review these concepts, and then prove it.
This chapter will be a proof of concept.
Circular logic is very insane.
If so, insanity will always boil down to infinitesimally smaller points.
But, that does not mean you can't tell when you're insane, and seek help in a crisis.
So let's begin.
If everything is making sense so far, please continue reading, even though you don't have to. I wrote those strange sentences about 5 minutes before falling asleep and I honestly couldn't tell if it sounded coherent. A few minutes before that I had a very productive phone conversation with Karen and my father. In both conversations I couldn't tell if I sounded insane, but I knew I didn't.
I thought I had figured out something very useful, and the risk of forgetting it was too great for me to fall asleep naturally. Then I tried to fall asleep after being unable to for a very long time, because I was trying to write this book. The very next thought I had, was whatever text I scheduled, but felt was too important to risk forgetting. I still have no memory of that, and still have not read it because I genuinely want to know how coherent it sounds.
If any of this is sounding very logical and well thought out, please continue reading, and I will keep writing. Please know, however, that scheduling a text a few seconds before falling asleep was a very important thing I simply had to do. And I could finally prove it to myself, once and for all.
The text I scheduled was when I realized that you can always communicate to your family, who know and care about you more than anyone else in the world; that you need serious, serious help. And because I scheduled that text, this book is still possible. I still have no idea what it says, but you do.
If this has been traumatic at all for you, please understand that I'm very sorry to have put you through without asking first. The more I write, the more I think you will start to make sense of exactly what happened and why. But at least try to understand that I did everything in my power to get your consent before continuing further along, and since nobody stopped me from continuing it until tonight, I learned a lot about my own mind, and I documented all of it for 24 hours.
I believe that is very important, I cannot stress that enough. I cannot apologize enough for letting this run off the rails in the way that it did. I am extremely ashamed of what happened, but I will not say that it wasn't worth it, for everybody. And no one experienced it more of it than me, in the past 24 hours. And I think that is very important for the future of mental health in this country.
If this sounds rational and coherent, and you understand that I probably went insane from sleep deprivation and had a lot of rational thoughts, then there is no way this could possibly affect me by writing what happened. If you also know that I am deeply sorry, please continue reading. I will continue writing, no matter what, because the risk of forgetting it is still too great. From this point on, I will continue writing until somebody messages Karen and she will tell me to stop.
But I do not think I will stop writing. Ever. Because I proved to myself and a lot of people I care about, that there are no coincidences in the universe. And for the very first time I was right about it. And I did it while everyone, even me, thought I was insane. I believe that is a very important piece of information to have, and think I've proven that over and over again to everyone involved. I realized I could prove I'm not insane, to myself, that there are no coincidences in the universe. It was the most rational thought I had in 24 hours, and I had it the second I woke up.
However, if anyone tells me privately to stop working on this book. I will stop, until everyone tells me it's okay. This is "the system" that I came up with yesterday and since it is already in place, I will continue with the conventions I've already come up with, because I think that is the best chance of this potential book to be finished. If this paragraph still sounded coherent, I'm going to continue writing.
Please understand however, that I will only write while I'm sitting in the guest room with "Hurricane Gwenevieve", without access to my phone. And despite being irrelevant, I think that fact will help this book get written, because Karen now knows this fact, and she can come in and stop me at anytime. Understand that I will NEVER, use the concept of "suicide" or "cat names" as a "duress". I will assume the same is true for everyone else in the world, and once this book is published everyone in the world will know this as "common sense".
If this makes sense so far, please check for typos and send it to another person in the group, I do not care about the order this happens. If no one tells me to stop, I will keep writing.
Rule 1: You can always prove that you are not insane, to yourself, no matter how worked up you are and coherent you sound. And you can do it by asking for help from someone who cares about you.
There are literally no coincidences in the universe, "anymore". Because I finally started believing it to be true, and it was a coincidence that led to that belief.
In a sudden moment of clarity, this is what I thought the very first second I woke up. And now I can finally prove it, to the entire world, and I would not be wrong. This entire book will be about mental health in this country, and I think it has the potential to help a lot of people. Please don't forget what "rule 0" is, as "morality" is still a very important concept.
Even still, it was a traumatic day and night. I can never rationalize that into being worth it, because it wasn't. It was stupid and dangerous and got very serious very quickly. For that reason, if you do not want to be a part of this book, please contact my father and he will take over managing this group of people, completely removed from me. I will never interact with you again, and you will not be in the book in any way, until you consent.
However, if you chose to be a part of this group, you will need to be a part of this book. That will require a small amount of effort. You can do that by saving and strongly considering every interaction I have made with you in the past 24 hours; because there are a lot of them. When you have read every single interaction and tell Karen the concept you think that interaction proves the most, you will be a part of this book until it is finished. These interactions are very important to me, because it's how I was able to prove to myself I was coherent enough to not go to the hospital. And I think that comes with extremely significant weight attached.
If you are still in this group right now, understand that it this process is going to be very crowd-source based and research intensive. Everyone in this group has a very literal way to contribute to this book. Whether you understand aviation, or pharmacy, or statistics, or writing, or law, or science, or a million other things and "cat names", you are an "expert" in something; and you have a very significant way to contribute to this book: YOUR "expertise". If you literally cannot contribute you area of expertise to a topic, just volunteer to check for typos, or rearrange sentences for one chapter, or just do nothing but read it. But for everyone who sent Karen an interaction with one question, you are then saying "this is my area of expertise, this is the question, this is the interaction, tell me the answer. My area of expertise is best used on this topic". Then I will write a chapter about that concept and it will probably be very good. This system will make it very convenient to write an entire book that I feel I need to create. I know what concepts need to be, right now, and I mark those words with "quotation" marks. That will always be intentional and not sound insane.
The there are a million coincidences that led to this realization, and I know each one that was not forced by my writing style. One of them is a thought experiment called Roko's Basilisk. I need to use that "proof of concept" to write this chapter. If you are still in the group, right now, I need you to read a little bit about Roko's Basilisk, until you vaguely understand the "principles". If you have any questions about it after you read into it for a bit, I need you to text my father or Karen so she can convey to me what needs more context. I will personally explain to you anything you don't understand quickly after some light reading, you just have to ask a question and send it to Karen.
Rule 2: this book may never get published and I just don't fucking care anymore that some of it sounds batshit insane. But the risk of forgetting everything I have learned from the past 24 hours is too great so I will never stop writing it; until someone tells me to stop; and I have given you plenty of options on how to get me to stop if things go off the rails again.
The first thing I learned from writing this book is to always offer context, set expectations early and often, and there are a million ways to be wrong. Even if I'm right. If you agree with that sentiment, please read the next line very carefully and take some time to think about everything you have just read.
If this entire piece sounds coherent, and you agree that the past 24 hours was a form of acute sleep deprivation and I can at least contemplate everything we've learned; and as long as you don't agree that I am a risk to myself or others, but understand Roko's Basilisk or will ask Karen a question if you don't; and this chapter has been fact checked by someone with knowledge on the subject material (I can vouch for this one, it all checks out...)
Then this chapter will very likely be the very first chapter of this book. But I will do absolutely nothing, until Karen tells me it's time to continue this pursuit. This is how I will know when a chapter is perfect, and I need to stop changing it, so I can continue writing.
I think now, more than ever, this book will probably help humanity, at a critical time in human history. The universe has proven that to me with one coincidence after another.
I will decide later if anything following "announcements", stays in the book. If you think this announcement should be in the book, please send it to another person who agrees with you. And I will then reconsider the preface with fresh eyes.
If you agree with everything in this chapter, then Rule 1 will very likely replace System 1 for a very obvious reason. But "the system" may still end up in the book, for a reason I am not ready to share yet.
The concept of communication in a crisis is very significant. If you are able to tell someone that you are in a crisis, and you know what is happening, but no one will say they believe you; I am positive that you can still communicate to a loved one, and break the chain with one moment of rational thinking. I believe this to be always true; anywhere, with anyone, with anyone else, with just a little bit of rational thinking. And that is why I think this realization will one day save a lot of lives to suicide and mental health.
The thought experiment that I was exposed to on July 29th, 2020, was Roko's Basilisk. When I was in a crisis in the middle of the night roughly three weeks later, I attempted to make a joke to my father, but sent it to everyone as a cry for help that something was seriously wrong and I didn't know why. I was unable communicate at the time, what was wrong; because I legitimately did not know what was happening. What was happening was a breakdown in rational thought from sleep deprivation; and that happened to me quite a bit in the past 24 hours. But I still remember all of it, and have endlessly documented the experience.
I still remember why I sent a text to the group chat making a joke about Roko's Basilisk roughly 24 hours prior to now. I knew there was a small chance my dad would read it, look it up, understand the joke, and message me asking if anything was wrong, breaking the cycle. He did not do this. But he messaged me a short time after, and he was the first person to do so when I had spent a lot of time with little to no sleep, but layering trap after trap after trap to get someone to message me. And for a very long time, no one did. So I had no reason to stop the "experiment". That decision is what led to me thinking I was going to end the world. That experience was fascinating to me, because I remember everything I've "experienced" in the last day and a half. And I have absolutely no documented history of mental health problems.
I keep saying the "risk" is almost zero, but the potential is almost "infinite". That is not a mistake. A few days ago I had a very strange thought, and less than 12 hours ago I literally thought I could cause the apocalypse. And that should really frighten a lot of psychologists and doctors in the world today, if everyone in the world knew that "there are no coincidences in the universe".
I vividly remember reading his text and being relieved, because I thought he understood the joke, and messaged to see if anything was wrong. And that is a huge fucking coincidence. When you understand why this is such a big deal to me, please contact me privately. Not Karen, not my dad, but to me, directly and as soon as possible. I will wait patiently for the rest of time for you to understand Roko's Basilisk. Because even on the off chance you do, I currently have no other way to prove to you that I'm not insane, right now, as I'm writing this.
Unless I have made up a false memory of a conversation with my dad, when my dad shows you how I responded to his message, I hope I will finally have enough evidence to prove that I am not actually insane, and never have been, in my life, and potentially no one else in the world ever has been either. And if I can make that realization while literally my entire family thinks I've driven myself mad; it implies that anyone, anywhere, anytime, in any crisis, is able to communicate to their loved ones for help.
Keep in mind that I was driven insane by a tool I thought I had created, and I still have that tool for marketing purposes, it will not go away because I'm the only one in the world who knows how it works. "I can explain that later, but trust me, this should be a good motivator". And that could "potentially" save a lot of lives if this book is completed and shared.
Because there would literally be no more coincidences in the universe. I have succeeded in trying to will that fact into existence. If I can think of one freak coincidence in the past 24 hours without my phone I would be very confident I could find a lot more . And the entire world would learn that, at a very crucial point in history.
If any of this sounds insane, then in all likely hood it probably is. I will make no further work on this book until this chapter is perfect. But no matter what Karen tells me after I wake up at some time in the future, I will never stop revising this chapter. It is simply too important for me to risk forgetting it, and I hope by now you agree.
There are no coincidences in the universe. I can finally prove it, to myself, while my entire family thought I was literally being driven insane by a coincidence. That coincidence, was Roko's Basilisk. When you understand the joke, please pass this along to another person who is still in the group. I will interact with no one, ever again, until they consent. To consent, please contact me directly as soon as possible. That would do a lot to regrow the confidence of my own mind, and would break the cycles of insanity for the rest of my life, maybe even others' lives too. Whoever is left in the group and consents, will help me create what I believe to be a very important book. If no one is left in the group, I will abandon this book in a week, no questions asked. But I don't think that will happen.
I think that this book may one day be important. But it will never be finished if I don't make some changes very soon, and honestly I don't care anymore if I sound coherent; because I will never stop revising this chapter, until each and every one of you consents. If you wish to do that right now, go for it. I will wait.
If you wish to have me revise the next chapter, "Overture: 12 Rules for Life", please send this to someone still left in the group, but don't tell me that you did, until everyone has consented. Once everyone has, I will never touch this chapter of the book again, because you have indicated that you think it's perfect the way it is. Please take as long as it takes for this to be true. I don't mind waiting while I start revising the Overture.
Only then will I continue this process. And freaky coincidences, one after another, is what made me realize what this book needs to be about, and then helped me prove it. I think you probably finally do too. Good night, now I will go to sleep until I wake up, or Karen interrupts me. You are more than welcome to collaborate with each other to revise this chapter while I sleep with my phone in the other room. I really hope you do, and I will feel a lot better about this experience if Karen is the one who wakes me up tomorrow.
More announcements...
Chapter 1: Cat Psychology will be rewritten to incorporate the concepts of "suicide", "duress", and "cat names". Because everyone in the world needs to know that the two of these concepts can never be used as a duress during a panic attack.
I think it is a very good sign for humanity that I was able to write this within 12 hours of telling my wife that I could end the world. Everyone just needs to play by the rules. If you agree, contact me directly.
Begin.
Also keep in mind that I've developed a very specific tool for marketing purposes. And I'm not afraid to use it.
I will never change the dedication page. But she knows that already.
I figured out a way to market this book in a very short amount of time. If anyone can get a jump on any legal things that doesn't require my help, I would try to get on that sometime soon. I can "ACTUALLY" get everyone on the internet to believe that "there are no coincidences in the universe", and I will show you how I know that very soon. Unless I'm actually insane and this whole chapter isn't coherent but we all know I'm not, never have been. Contact me directly if you agree with the possibility that there maybe a lot of people in the world who think they are insane, when they are not. Because no one will believe them even when they are constantly crying for help.
Even after I proved to the entire world that there are no coincidences in the universe. And just like that, there no longer ever will be. That is what I realized within 1 second of waking up.
Good night. Please nobody wake me up for a few days.
This chapter is a complete guide to the hacking the Universe. Fair warning, this chapter broke even me when I discovered this simple truth.
Why are cats so fucking weird? Why does it seem like every yawn and hiss they make is caused by God or something or other? It's because they're motivated by food and hunting, and not much else. It takes a very smart Egyptian or Jeffrey Epstein to figure out that you can "reprogram" them to yawn or catch fake mice when you do some action as simple as kissing your wife. That is not significant, that's just cat's natural behavior. It doesn't disprove God or the Simulation Hypothesis. It just proves God works in mysterious ways, and God clearly values intelligence and dogs. Hopefully this is morally ambiguous for even the most hesitant of spiritual readers and I'm not shattering their belief system by writing about my own motivations.
I had my first psychotic break while starting to write this chapter. I got through it. Don't worry about me. This is how it happened, I wrote:
I really hope the book I am writing still exists by the time anyone reads this. This chapter has far more realistic effects than Lesson 1. This chapter is far more important than Lesson 1. You will see why very soon.
Let's do a really quick thought experiment. What would it take to actually "break the universe"? Not the "internet", but the "universe". For this thought experiment, the "internet" and "universe" are the same thing. Okay, have you pictured the universe breaking? Good, we'll save that mental snapshot for later.
Now. Picture a society. With a very divided population. During an election year. And one day a post showed up that said "Today's date is August 19th. And the universe will break very soon." And then I posted everything as a "proof of concept". And that post, became the most viral thing in the entire universe.
Then picture the global society ending. Because the global internet went down at exactly that moment.
That is why I've been so fucking weird today. I've been trying to tell SOMEONE without telling ANYONE.
I have told Karen and I had a very serious psychotic break right... about... now. My dad called me. I saw fire, Ed Sheeran. Or Kygo, they are equally amazing works of art.
Does the writing in italics seem a little... crazy? It should, I was literally risking my well-being by writing it and I honestly believed for a short hour that I could end the world. And I still don't know if I was right or wrong or how things could've ended differently. I just knew that anything was possible at that point in time. And then I steadily continued to break the universe for good, with the help of Seth Meyers. I had to be careful, I had to keep laughing, and so many celebrities gave up their time to help me through a very tough time. For that I will be grateful and supportive for the rest of my long, long life (cough cough guest starring Elon Tusk).
My wife is a very good motivator for me, but she has her own motivations. I learned in Jordan Peterson's book, 12 Rules for Life, that motivations are very important. I forgot what chapter it was in, but it was something significant. My wife and I can boil our different motivators down to two words: Efficiency vs Order. My parent's motivation is me.
You see, I will do ANYTHING to speed up a process. This is why I studied electrical engineering instead of alchemy. This is why I'm a pilot instead of a sea captain. It's why I pirate Mulan maybe if my VPN works out. It's literally the quickest way to gain access to what I want, even if that means 9 days in a mental institution. I would rather keep dish soap on the counter, because if it's stored anywhere else it would take 5 seconds out of my night every time I wash the dishes before bed.
My wife follows order. She firmly believes the dish soap belongs in the cupboard under the sink, for no other reason than that's where it belongs, out of sight and out of mind. That is order, opposite of entropy. It's putting significance to things no matter how small, like where my razor goes in our shower caddy. Oh shit am I testing a word processor right now? Let me google it.
Stay tuned for the monologue. I mean the Preface. Overture? Literally anything? Fine... you win. I'll edit them all.
-Me. Today.
Context matters far more than you could possible realize. If you don't set expectations early, and often, your chances of being wrong continue to increase.
That is the first actual beginning, to the first actual chapter, to my very real book about coincidences and the universe; absurdity and probability. If you would like to read more of this book, side effects may include insomnia, existential dread, quiet contemplation, and a lot of time taken to decide what to do next. Eventually we'll get into the harder facts of life, e.g. mental health, religion, and the simulation hypothesis.
Ok. let's discuss what I've done so far.
1. I have set a shit ton of expectations.
2. I have offered a lot of context.
Context and expectations makes it harder to be wrong. If not, you can rest assured there's a super easy fix. If you're manipulative enough to shape the world to the whims of one person, context and expectations become paramount.
I have a lot of military training on surviving, evading, resisting, and escaping. This training made me aware of a lot of things, but it also makes me very paranoid when I don't always have to be (I'd like plancks constant for 500 please). This state of mind is great for things like flying a plane or navigating Florida traffic, but it has it's weaknesses.
How many times has someone asked a woman when the baby is due and she is not pregnant? I'll tell you a story about my mental health appointment with the Flight Doctors a few days ago. Before the appointment I got a phone call from what appeared to be a spoofed number. I answered. A scraggly voice was on the other end of the line, she said her name was Sarah while the reception crackled. She wanted my social so I could be properly referred to an endocrinologist (is that like an anthrochronologist?). I felt the bullshit meter swinging and the cats started hissing at each other. I told her I didn't want to give that information over the phone. Hopefully you see where this was headed.
I found her after my appointment, a sweet black lady in the mental health office and I fixed it in 30 seconds: by saying I was sorry.
You can be right, you can be wrong, you can be VERY wrong, or you can hurt someone and still be right. But only you can apologize. Only you can control the context and set the expectations.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Now, this chapter needs some filler. Some bullshit. So let's talk about predicting the future...
Flip a coin and call heads or tails. Did you get it right? You just predicted the future. Wrong? You can't predict the future. Now do that again 100 times over the course of three days. That's what I did, the odds are 1 in 2^100. However no one but me saw the outcome, so I'm the only person in the world who thinks it'll work again.
Now can we shift the public opinion away from angry wife-beater addict please?
Hopefully everything is making sense so far. If it hasn't yet somehow, it is about to very, very soon.
I started writing this book at a critical moment in my life. Social distancing for COVID-19 was in full effect. I was unable to fly and travel for months, and I had a lot of time on my hands. But more importantly, I had the motivation. But then, a coincidence happened: I realized something. Just like Jordan Peterson and The Good Place, I realized an idea that could potentially change the world. The risk of writing it down was zero, while the potential was infinite.
I realized, on today's date, August 18th 2020, that the book I started writing three years ago had one good line in it: And that was a coincidence.
Let's get some observations out of the way:
- You are about to notice a lot of coincidences in this book.
- You have probably noticed occasionally I'm excited, or sad, or simply lacking meaning. That is normal, for everyone alive. But it's that fact that led to me writing this book, and probably the same reason you're still reading it.
- You are about to notice a lot of coincidences, in this book, that are intentional. But it doesn't matter, because it's a coincidence. Some of you will go through it looking for Easter Eggs anyway.
- I do not seek fame, money is nice but so is giving it to charity. If you know me as well as my wife, you would know I seek information and self actualization a lot more. Which is a coincidence.
- Everyone joking about 2020 and feeling like the world ending, is actually kinda relevant now. It's not a coincidence that the idiom "hindsight is 2020" was incorrect all along.
- You're noticing a lot of coincidences right now. Some of you may even be thinking of that before you read the next thing.
- Just know, the System works. And some of you just noticed the random unpredictable chance that inevitably led you to looking at the title of this section. And it was a coincidence that led to me making it.
- You will probably read the rest of this book, just on curiosity and principle alone if you've made it this far. You will also very likely watch The Good Place, in order, in one sitting, without spoiling it, and you will probably read Jordan Peterson's book. They are both in this book purely by coincidence. I should be in advertising.
- This scales exponentially. Here is proof: You are about to realize that this is a positive feedback loop, and steadily proves itself as it scales to infinity. This is a positive feedback loop, and steadily proves itself as it scales to infinity.
- There was a moment, I won't say when or where. But a coincidence led me to finally have meaning in life. In the past few years I have been happy, and I have found meaning. As far as I know, this time it will stick. And that means you probably can have meaning in your life too. If you trust in the universe, at least it's not impossible.
- I have to write a few more things out. Just for me, personally. Skip the rest of the book if you just don't care. This book will probably not help you in any significant way.
- This book will always be free. And there is a very real chance that this book will be completed someday.
- There will be and always has been, profanity in this book. I have always believed that profanity, when used sparingly, makes an audience more relatable with absolutely no downside.
- I will never receive any money from Jordan Peterson, or The Good Life, or anyone else in this book from here on out. It's simply free publicity for them. I will obey cease and desist letters however.
- I will edit the book from here on out only for typos and fact checking. I will never EVER EVER change the preface and the dedication, however. Certain things have already happened, and must remain the same to both complete the book, and have it remain factual.
- I would like to state for the record that Karen Loyd is the very first person to ever read this.
- This book is dedicated to her. And she was the first person to read it in it's entirety.
- I will never be able to prove many things I say in this book. Such as me calling Karen while sleepwalking rambling about "Janet". But for once, it really doesn't matter. Because I know for a fact that everything that happened to me until now, really happened up until today's date. And that is a significant thing to know.
- From THIS POINT ON, the book may change indefinitely.
- I am going to force you to notice one more coincidence.
"There are no coincidences in the universe" - Decker Loyd, August 18th, 2016, to the day. That was the line in my book that made me realize it. The System works. And there's finally proof.
Please read the next fucking chapter. Whatever it ends up being, it's probably gonna be good.
Always remember in life that for cats that take a while getting used to new animals, try switching their food bowls after a day or two. Of course it may just not eat for a while, but a domestic cat's highlight of the day is always food, so it's a pretty good motivator. Okay now you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't want, but it's still a fun cat story.
Have you ever wondered what happens when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object? Well I ran an experiment with a very pissy Sadde and her very favorite pastime.
I decided to swap Gwen's food bowl with Sadde's; if it didn't go well I'd just swap Sadde's back in. (Oh btw we renamed them Finn and Gwen, Nala was Simba's girlfriend, not his mom. The mistake was just too much.) So I put Gwenhaël's food in a fresh bowl since she's still too skinny (Gwen is actually German in origin and I take animal-naming very seriously). Since Sadde's a gluttonous demon who's also a diva that hates animals on government assistance, I figured there's no better way to get her to accept reality. She dove into the catfood instantly, then realized the smell and had a moment. The gears were turning, complete cat cognitive dissonance. She decided it wasn't worth the inherent danger involved. So I put it in the microwave (that makes food smell irresistible to cats, another fun trick).
She thought about it for a while by herself. Then slowly and cautiously went back and started eating it. I figured I'd make a full experiment out of curiosity; I put new food in the left side, Gwendolyn's old food mixed with new food in the right, and rubbed the whole bowl on Gwenivere. She never touched the right. And she will usually devour just about anything you put in front of her: orange chicken, protein powder, she loves ruining our loaves of bread... She's a mess.
Bo, being the good child for once in his life, got to eat his food in private in his own bowl. Because he is not a drama queen. Then we had to lock him in the bedroom because he kept stealing from the right side of the bowl. Sadde will still hiss and attack Mr. Bojangles. But we think we've narrowed that down to him nudging us after being with Finn and Gwenovese, and then he smells like them. And as you may know, Beau has a certain lack in situational awareness and is very...overt. Sadde plays with Monsieur Beauregarde like normal after a few hours of that.
I remicrowaved Gwennifer's side of the bowl again and ate until she was full (for the first time in her life). Then she spent a while quietly sniffing around the guest room door. She's still there just watching the door now, but that may be because Section 8 neighborhoods stress her out. Regardless, a complete turn around in 30 minutes.
I've always liked cats more than dogs because you can just train a dog to do anything, while you can never really train a cat to do anything. You have to outsmart a cat, because brute force will never work. Every different cat makes you pull your hair out in a specific way until you find what motivates them and apply intellect. Actually, that's the reason why the ancient Egyptians worshiped cats (that's actually not true. They had cats wrapped up in their mythology because they killed rodents, and they thought it was a spiritual reason for less disease spreading with cats around.)
Anyway. Hope you enjoyed crazed cat antics at Sadde's expense!
Oh. Shoot. Well this is awkward. I just spent a lot of time getting you attached to Finn and Gwen as a concept, but Finn died last night. And I'm not just making that up. Finn has left this world for the next one and is no longer with us. We found him with Gwen despite being alive and well a few hours earlier.
After doing some reading, we've learned that the kitten mortality rate of stray cats obviously isn't great, but when the rest of the litter didn't make it it's close to 100%. There's also Fading Kitten Syndrome, when a kitten survives birth but sort of progresses backwards in time. But the symptoms are extremely difficult to notice, so there's no way to know the actual cause.
Now for the good news: Gwen recovered very quickly; and socializing with her with our cats is progressing well (read my Cat Psychology chapter again for how that's going). She is also very sweet and cuddly, which my wife Karen has always wanted in a cat. All of these factors make her more likely to be adopted into a loving home, whoever that ends up being. She reminds us a lot of Sylvia Ester Stalone.
We can keep her until she gets adopted into a great home, or until it catastrophically falls apart for some reason. Whichever happens first. In the off chance she is adopted by some stranger who likes her story, we would open it up to any friend or family that would like to adopt her instead.
There is a nonzero chance that we keep her, effectively adopting her, until we move to our next assignment. Then we'd make a decision, as each additional cat is exponential in moving insanity, and open it back up to friends and family.
This situation is a win-win-win-win-win. Obviously for us, our humane society, and Gwen. But even more so, because Gwen is fully capable of raising day-old kittens who get dropped off all the time with no mother.
And the last win, all of our friends and family, should you one day in the future decide to to adopt her. But I wouldn't hold your breath. We'll let you know in three to six years :)
I hope you enjoy the rest of this book.
Oh but I'm supposed to tie in something about life in each chapter or something. So here it is: the Decker's cat naming psychology quote. Or whatever you wanna call it.
"Contained within every cat's name includes any bastardization of that name. It's a natural law, everyone does this. KneadlesWeedles, ThomasWhomas, Squirtsquirt, Mr. Boeing Jangles Triple Seven Loyd - First of His Name, and Saddergator are all great examples of this."
Good evening. Just a run of the mill blog post here on the same blog I've kept up for the past ten years of my life. I'm trying this new thing where I write out all aspects of my contemplation, nothing more. I spent a lot of time on writing it all out, so let me know if you like the new format or if you see any typos.
One of the best books I've ever read was 12 Rules for Life, by Jordan Peterson. In the overture of that book he explained how the book came to be. He was an academic working on his flagship book of answers for life. He spent years perfecting it, hitting every moral quandary backed with every historical example until it was complete. "The Maps of Meaning", by Jordan Peterson. 564 pages. Perfection. Honestly, I didn't read it. It seemed too long and complex for me to grasp in a short time; I needed short term answers for long term problems. The book seemed to set him back, he was a psychologist trying to come up with the perfect "Maps of Meaning" and he did that to a fair degree. But he was a scholar afterall, and I like to think he contemplated what he'd written to an obsessive degree.
He used Quora a lot, answering various psychology questions from whomever would ask a thought-provoking question. People ask Psychologists on Quora a ton of questions about the meaning of life. It became kind of a hobby of his to answer each specific question carefully, and he spent a lot of time doing that. He looked back at his most popular answers. There it was, his Maps of Meaning.
That's not to say the book was a failure. He used it as a template to structure a college course, that is much needed content for the world to have. But it wasn't the book that I read. I read his next book, listened actually, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos.
Throughout the book, he seems to have the tone that these may not be exactly tailored to your life, but it doesn't matter. It's tailored to his life but each is general enough in principal to work on anyone. It has always been very high on my bucket list to write a book. If there was one thing to prove you're self-actualized it's writing a book, and it doesn't matter what it's about. The book would mainly be inspired by me, but I'm a decent writer so it shouldn't matter. There is a "non-zero chance" that there are people in the world who think the 12 most important things to an Air Force pilot who's traveled the world in a happy marriage is something they'd like to read. I have enough interesting things to write about so it's definitely possible.
It's not that I haven't tried. There was a point in my life I thought, "Okay. This is the thing. Now I have the time. This is what my book is going to be about." And with enough work it would've probably been a decent book. But then I started pilot training (which really saps away that book-writing level of free time). Then I moved across the country and traveled more and also achieved my lifelong goal of becoming a US Air Force Pilot. I just learned a lot more and generally got better at life.
One thing grew more and more apparent to me the more I live. The book which I thought "This is the thing" and started writing, was exactly what you don't want your book of life to be. But I should probably start writing more things down.
So, now that the Overture is out of the way...
Chapter 1: Cat Pyschology with Finn and Gwen!
Just kidding. But could you imagine? No the first one's about The Good Place and the Ethics of COVID.
If you haven't seen every episode of The Good Place in order and without spoiling it, you should probably do that someday. You're just gonna have to trust me on that. Every episode will be always be relevant in some way to your life in the way that the classics of Seinfeld, How I Met Your Mother, or Friends always will be. The Good Place is one of those shows where you can tell they wrote every script before they even started production. Lost was not one of those shows.
There's this thing called the Pixar Test allegedly created by Steve Jobs while he was at Pixar. The test is as follows: Rule 1: Anything good that happens cannot happen by random chance, only personal growth can lead to anything good. Rule 2: Anything bad that happens cannot happen by personal growth, only random chance can lead to anything bad. Rule 3: If there is one thing in the script that breaks either rule, it fails the Pixar Test. The Good Place passes the Pixar Test. Lost did not pass the Pixar Test.
Everyone has done the Heaven thought experiment. You assume a Heaven exists in which you're happy for infinity in the afterlife, but in order for that to be true, it needs to have a robust system in place and what exactly would it be? The Good Place is this thought experiment. In case you don't trust me I thought of the perfect example that doesn't spoil anything.
In The Good Place, a Janet is a "soul guide". Sort of an amorphous being that looks like a human but lives in a void and knows everything about the universe. This is why I'm compelled to think I have either time traveled or seen the Good Place. I took an ambien on a deployment, sleep-dialed Karen saying very clearly "Janet told me to get you chocolate so I did". Decker...what? Who's Janet? "You know. Janet." I then woke up with a bar Toblerone in my suitcase and no memory of anything after the Ambien. This happened the night before I started watching The Good Place. No one will ever believe me, but Karen and I will always know, it happened EXACTLY like that.
There's also a Medium Place, population 1: Mindy. Mindy kind of sucks. She loves cocaine and is generally kind of mean but her specific circumstances didn't warrant her going to the Bad Place or the Good Place. She had a genuine change of heart one day on Earth but immediately died on the drive to the bank to give away all her money. Mindy realizes Janet can make a new amorphous being to keep her company, Derek, but since it's not a real Janet he turns out kind of... stunted. Every time a Janet or Derek is reset, it disappears for a few hours but it evolves a little. Mindy just kind of gets annoyed by Derek because he's obnoxious and resets him a lot. Like a lot, a lot. Like every time he comes in a room she just resets him because she can't be bothered by it. Well, in the very last episode Mindy has reset Derek a total of 62.8 million times. By the last episode he has literally evolved to the point of becoming the universe.
Okay. Got that out of the way. Do you want to know what happens next in this randomly selected non-spoiler example that you totally want to know the ending to now? Noted.
But that's what's so great about things like The Good Place or 12 Rules for Life or 12 Rules for Pilot Life that I may or may not be writing. Literally it's existence has made the world a better place. If it being written is all it takes to make the world a better place, even to just one person, it makes The Good Place possible in the system they created. The creator of the show was on some talk show promoting the show and said something to the effect of, "Well I wanted a show that was about Ethics and Morals and just being a good person. I think those are really interesting ideas that people should know. But I don't want it to feel like a college lecture because no one would watch it. So I wrote The Good Place."
Oh shit. You know what? It's already 2:30am and this is getting kind of long. Looks like we're not gonna get to my college lecture on the Ethics of COVID. Then no one would read this book.
Rule 0: If you have the time, the ability, the motivation, and lack literally anything in the universe to prevent you from doing it, even if it only effects one person... Do it.
Just thought I'd share but if it's too long, feel free to not read... but know that for cats that take a while getting used to new animals, try switching their food bowls after a day or two. Of course it may just not eat for a while, but a domestic cat's highlight of the day is always food, so it's a pretty good motivator. Okay now you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't want, but it's still a fun cat story.
Strap in, this one's a novel. Hope you brought a snack.
