Just launched The Long Forum- a monthly post on my writing substack that links all the best long form content from the internet over the last month. This is the best alternative to all the shallow algorithm driven crap on offer. Dig in deep and nourish your mind. https://open.substack.com/pub/haldanebdoyle/p/the-long-forum-march-2024?r=f45kp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

In response to Ran bringing up the Fallout games, I'd like to share two funny links commenting on the franchise. Although they are about 3 and NV respectively, not 4 which is Ran's main focus.

• "Jalyss Dislikes Bethesda". There's a also a sequel of sorts about Skyrim.

• "Rad Squirrel". A plotline from a webcomic. (The in-game character is drawn as a furry since the girl has shape-shifting abilities centred on squirrels in the "reality" of that comic.)

https://www.businessinsider.com/recessions-mortality-degrowth-economy-gdp-unemployment-environment-pollution-2024-3

Ran writes (2024-02-23)

Nobody would ever consciously choose to avoid feeling good, so they must be doing it subconciously, and it must be hard not to.

I'd disagree with this.

I think you are talking from a perspective that could be likened to a generalized extroversion, where instead of being focused on other human minds, craves interaction with the world in general. People with this perspective fear that they would fall into depression if they were unable to find happy thoughts in the world, and incorrectly assume that most actually-depressed people fit that mold.

For those more introverted in the same sense, sometimes thoughts relating to the outside world can be painful even if they "should" be positive. Parts of the mind work harder when maintaining a positive attitude, and those parts may be crying for a rest.

One famous story about being extremely uncomfortable on a meta level with happiness on a shallow level, is the "Happy Happy Joy Joy!" Ren & Stimpy episode.

Another analogy is that often an animal can appear to be starving, yet show no interest in "easy" food, and there are several possible explanations other than "it's crazy". Maybe its teeth hurt. Maybe it is constipated. Maybe something even worse is going wrong with its intestines. Or the animal could be a human with type 1 diabetes, insight into their condition, and no insulin.

In this new year, I'm pushing out two music suggestions for Ran I've been sitting on. None are apropos to anything Ran has said recently, but to a comment long ago trying to explain his love of Argyle Square, where he described it as praise for a geographic locality.

They are both "radio songs", but both are Canadian songs, would be played for Ran much less often than they were on my radio, even if he was listening at the same time.

First is "And If Venice Is Sinking", by Spirit of The West from 1993. A paean to the titular Italian city.

It's not one of my two suggestions, but that band's "Sadness Grows" from the same album is interesting musically. When I first heard the end of it, it seemed quite good. When I later captured the whole song, I noticed that while it was still worthy, the middle of the song was a bit disappointing. Later I realized that it was because the song is a trick -- the ends are sugar coated to trick people into sitting still for some metal.

Second is "Watch Over You", by Hemingway Corner from 1995. Musically, I find this song "so bad it's good" -- it has a discordant quality you normally see in some heavy or electronic music, yet is quite acoustic.

I was thinking about this from the recent blog post:

"Probably, Indigenous Americans thought it was quite strange that white people just bought knives from a general store -- as if knives were interchangeable and their origins unimportant. The further back you go in anthropology, the more art is embedded in (is synonymous with) objects of daily use. In my wife's office, she has little gnomes on her bookshelf that sit there just for fun. A hundred thousand years ago, if someone had three little figurines in their home, they probably had deep spiritual meaning and long histories."

I suppose it's an obvious point that the more things we have the less important each individual thing is to us. In this we lose the fact that the history and relationships an object has with the world and with ourselves can be an enriching element of life. But I think we all have belongings in which we have a similar feeling of an object's history and importance.

For me it's my guitar. I bought a restored 1969 Gretsch hollowbody a decade ago and I played the hell out of it, on stage and in the studio. Nowadays I've been wanting to cut down on possessions but I've realized that there's no way I could sell that thing, even though I barely play it nowadays. To sell it seems almost sacrilegious; it goes beyond mere 'sentimental value'. The experiences that are embedded into it are too numerous and deep. To do it justice, the least I could do is gift it to someone who I know would love it and use it. But in truth, I'm probably stuck with it til the bitter end, because I love it.

I used to live with a hoarder, and I wonder if hoarders simply treat things the way people eons past treated things. Perhaps it’s not that they place too much importance on everyday things, its that they place the correct amount of importance on too many things. The modern habit of accumulation doesn't work well with an intense recognition of the story of all belongings. For us to function, we either have to learn to not care, or be selective about the objects we allow into our lives.