The real thing

Us humans are not as straight forward as we seem around the surface

Sometimes we are made to feel uncomfortable around each other so we keep space

And distance may seem like neglect and ignorance at first glance

But then, it proves itself wrong when you see the same love, in another body, giving you something you abstained 

Because you didn’t love yourself enough

And now you see the world is the same and what was wrong was your projection outwards

Maybe a way of protecting yourself

A way you developed over years of living in the hostility of childhood

But now you have to shed it off to feel love

Rough

 After trying to mess with LLMs I have started to think about life like complex functions, the way you can go around in different paths and try to make sense of it. 

It puts causality into perspective. The way any thing in the past or future can be a cause for anything else but we tend to stick with the narratives that we prefer. Either the simplest paths around the subject or something we prefer. 

In laymen’s terms if you want to go from A to D you can go from A to B to D or from A to C to D. You can even want to go from A to D or D to A if you want. They are all trying to take a path that you want to take.

I can relate my journey with Gambit to what happened in Iran and the US. Thinking self righteous and feeling like because I needed to experience the tragedy with the people I want to care about, I needed to feel this.

I can also say maybe I don’t deserve Gambit’s love because why would I deserve it when I could be in the streets fighting with what is considered wrong.

Or I can be thinking a bit differently and say Gambit didn’t have anything to do with the events that are thousands of kilometres away

Or I can say what I like to say and say this was a suffering I asked to tolerate to resolve collective’s suffering like crucifixion of Christ. To be sacrificed for the god(s) to have mercy. 

And many other interpretations 

Having the past four days by myself in fever and cold while I was worried whether I had a herniated disc in my neck or a pulled muscle with a strange dream world where I got to meet a lot of people in my life and have experiences, made me think a lot about a lot of things. 

Suffering is a curious thing.

But what I feel is I prefer to suffer for a good reason than to be joyful with nonsense. I choose happiness but a rich kind of happiness that comes with a lot of colours. Colours that would be how my soul gets tortured in the unnecessary joke of existence to find meaning because it is better than nothing.

love

 They say if you truly love something, you have to let it go

When Gambit was around, I could foresee a longer future with him

But at the same time, I knew at some point, time would come

So I cherished every moment I had with him

The times I would bring my finger in front of his nose

and he would push his nose against my finger

and the times he would sleep on my lap in the morning

when I was trying to meditate and wake up

Or when he would sit patiently while I was eating

For me to give him a bite

and what I had in mind was that he is learning:

He will have a next life and become a human for sure

and with me, I was showing him what it is to be a human

I would tell him occasionally: You are an Animal, with my index finger pointed up

for him to become self-conscious of himself

or I would give him vegetables and kimchi to smell, alongside meat

for him to understand we eat different things than them sometimes

And I was also learning from him, how to be in balance

One thing about the animals is that they sincerely do what pleases them to do

and they don't tolerate discomfort for the sake of a future benefit

And we, humans, are too complicated for ourselves

we run a software that can diverge too far from what we really are

and even rest can be a question for us

I learnt from Gambit that if you need to sleep 18 hours a day

do it.

And this is the way I was in the last two days of being with him

I was sick and mostly sleeping

He either said, my teaching is done and I have to go

or 

This guy is not going to make it. I'd better go somewhere else

Gambit gone

 He has been out for hours and he usually doesn’t stay out for more than a few minutes .

I left him to himself to figure when to come back and he hasn’t been back since then. I left the door partially open because I am sick today and need rest.

It’s literally a pain in the neck. Sore through and I think a pulled muscle on the side of my neck because of shovelling.

I have taken a couple days off to get back to normal.

Now I put some snow in a plastic bag to make a cold compress on my pulled muscle, hoping that is going to fix it.

It is difficult

But on the bright side, a couple men showed up at my front door asking if I will pay them to shovel the new snow on my driveway. They asked for 10-15 and I gave them 20. It wasn’t a lot of snow but it made me feel relieved about one of the issues.

 if every thing has a reason,

why would we be worried about hardships

this is easy to say when the pain is on you or someone you don't care about.

but when the pain is on someone you care about, you start to devise a plan

thinking about things that may or may not be successful 

but to move things forward

put barricades on 

to prevent what can be prevented

it all comes from the feeling of being lost

in a sea of possibilities

and knowing that suffering hurts

but at the same time

not considering everyone's share of suffering

has to be given and taken from them

that's the cruelty of human creation

and anything outside of this is unnatural

an act of hubris against the gods

Stabat Mater

A couple of days ago, a friend was with me, and as it is the common talk of the day, we talked about what is happening in Iran. Talking to my parents,s they say it is not all that the media reflects, and the other side tells me many people have been killed in a game of politics.

And it has been a few years since this song is in my common playlist:

Stabat Mater

It is originally about Mother Mary and how she is weeping at the cross and other similar subjects.

This friend of mine was saying in one of the videos or photos that he saw someone who looked almost exactly like his brother. He was saying he was lucky to get in contact with his parents and make sure that person wasn't his brother. He also said, but should this make him feel any better? That boy was the son of a mother who is now mourning the death of his son.

My coworker today was worried about the situation of the world and whether world was III is near. He has a son, and I guess that makes him think more about the future. For me, death is death, and I think about death every day. But I think when you have strong attachments like a son and a wife, it matters more to you whether or not the world goes into flames.

There was a video of a chief who was smoking aggressively and asking why the world cannot function like his kitchen. This makes me think a lot. Of course, it is not possible to have that degree of control over chaotic multi-agent systems like the world, but I am also sure there is a mechanistic order behind everything. 

A coworker of mine once said to me he thinks the point of life is to understand that it was always about you and only you. 

That makes me think. 

What didn't I do that made such an anxiety-provoking scene in the world? 

Didn't I resolve the issue about the religion and posted it in a blog where literate people of the society must read and criticize? Isn't there enough evidence out there to falsify religion as a set of rules? Do I have to market myself so hard for people to resolve their own main problem?

If it weren't for religion, there would be no reason for asking too much from people who govern people with their borrowed ideologies. There wouldn't be a need for a proxy to God, and there wouldn't be a need for people who have to tell people what is right and wrong.

In the end, peace isn't supposed to be reached with a monarchy; it will be resolved when every single person feels the war in their mind and resolves their own issues actively, daily, in their whole lifetime.

I played Lana del Rey's Born to Die for him 

For him to feel less worried about death, and find his own meaning

Dream

 In my dream last night, I was preparing a piece of unusual steak to fry. This was happening beside a theatre scene where Joe Rogan was interviewing an Iranian guy. Him and his girlfriend. I felt like there were three sleeping bags and I was waking up in one of them that was laid beside the other ones and they belonged to these guys. I asked the guy while the light were dark whether that piece of meat look normal to them. To me it felt like it is cooked but it was cold and unusual. I cut it from a long strip of meat which had occasional bones in it and I couldn’t relate it to any normal cut of meat. The outside layers also had an unusual texture. Dark and smooth as if it was cooked but left to be cold but not seared. Just dark. 

I asked the guy and his girlfriend. The next scene was in my living room. It was still dark as if trying to talk to them and turning lights on for them to be able to see the steak was turning the scene into my living room. But after turning on a few lights, things were still very dim and I couldn’t show them the piece of meat. 

Talking to the guy and listening to what they were saying, they talked about a sunken ship in Persian gulf and the way they were able to find it but they were also talking about how they released a sea mine somewhere close by. Things like that.

I told the guy I always wanted to be in a Joe Rogan podcast and in my mind I was feeling like I should be happy and control my feelings for him. I told him how long has he been here in Canada and he said about three months and I wondered how he paved his path so quickly. He was talking about him, chafing his idea of controlling his success to the extremes and how people in Iran “drive basic”. I thought to myself maybe he means the rate of work and goals in life aren’t that high. 

All this time, the steak was getting warm in my hand and the cast iron pan was getting hot hot. The more it stayed in my hand, the more it softened and that outer layer started melting like it was a solidified fat.

When there were enough lights I showed the meat to the girl and by that time it looked like a normal piece and also shrunken.

The next scene we talked about a person who was hung for some reason. I saw him being raised in a bag like forensics bags horizontally and then a rope was tightened around his neck. You could see his hands. He died quickly and then they brought the body down. As it came down it landed right beside me. In my mind I felt obligated to make distance with the dead body but at the same time I felt like being around a dead body isn’t that unfamiliar. 

The guy was a thin figure with a goatee.

It took me a while after I woke up to deal with this feeling of disgust and discomfort. But my cat started walking on me for his breakfast and that made me change the scene and start writing it.

Problem solving

 Aren’t we a little bit behind what we should be all the time?

Maybe the route to perfection is not meant to be made.

Maybe it is in the clouds and you can just climb up to them and be there for a short moment

When everything else that you don’t want to associate with are in the far distance

And you can be in your godly form

But if you come down you see 

Reflections of yourself that remind you of who you don’t want to be

Idolization

 I just saw a linked in post from an Iranian person who was admiring Reza Pahlavi.

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking how many times does a loop have to happen till we learn anything front it. Making an idol from someone and giving them power to solve our problems to later see their imperfections and then demonizing them for their lack of perfection.

Humans are made imperfect and we are meant to do business. We are dirty in essence and we need to push away what we don’t want to have inside from our body and soul almost every day.

All the days in life and all the interactions and all the patterns in history teach us that no human is capable of maintaining perfection for an extended period of time. The more they keep on going the more they need to push away problems and that erodes them from inside making them become tyrants or unreasonable people.

Some people are different than others. Those who take responsibility and deal with imperfections and find their way in life without brute control and domination find an organic way of fixing the problems. They absorb the problems inside and they let them digest and become part of themselves and then, they share themselves with the outside world.

That is how they carry the weight of existence not with broad strokes of blood and starvation to sacrifice those who believe in them.

But we still have a long way to go.

Leverage

 

Leave rage

Either leave with rage

Or leave rage

Such a masculine way of living

As sun flared up towards earth yesterday 

Disrupting satellites and showering astronauts 

With ionizing particles 

I thought to myself 

How far are we from a total disruption of everything

If and only if sun decides to rage on us

And still

We have the ability to ignore the greater picture

And take pride in doing what we do

The voices of gods have become quieter

As the sounds of music blast in human neurons 

The kind of music that was once written in the name of worship

Now show their other face

And the musician knows how their art is a destructive thing

Music doesn't even remain for a moment

It is a fleeting form of art

This is in fact liberating

Both for us and for the creator

Who has made us in his own image

To feel free from the suffering we cannot comprehend 

Looking down and seeing how all that has been understood

And decided by us

Through a forcefully constrained framework that is tightly bound

But the code itself was not ever too closed

It is only one directory before, accessed by a couple points

Doing what I can

 Some people have real problems. Some people have love.

I cleaned my driveway out of snow hoping it to be seen by the lord above

When I felt like my friend needed to talk I let him talk

And even though I disagreed with a certain thing

I kept my voice down for it not to rush

I shared what I could share when our pleasures met

Hoping that the accountant will take care of the rest

And I rested on the Sunday as if I 

Was supposed to be the one who takes a reset

They say the world does not revolve around your cat

But I am sure he wouldn’t change anything even if that was not the case

Brute focus

 What has to be done for something to happen?

Business

In this world you have two kind of people. Those in power and those not. And it is more of a slope.

The ones in power either resolve their issues or they delegate it to whoever is lower to either resolve it or give it to whoever is lower

That is why poor remain poor because the downstream of issues that remain unresolved from up above pours down to them

And the ones at the very bottom have to either resolve it between themselves when the complications have risen to a high order as things are mismatched already to a high degree or keep it somewhere in their body

It shows itself as tensions in different parts of body and in the every end, everyone gets their share

This is why to me, one of the ways of raising the standards of a system is giving the services that directly deal with the human nature to people. Massage therapy, acupuncture. Psychoanalysis, etc.

Although in the modern world, the culture may not utilize these services even if they are highly subsidized because they don’t value the tensions in the body of an individual as a direct source of political and economic crisis. Which is a far fetch conclusion but is valid as any process that is done at a micro scale with the expectations of affecting some macro scale properties.

The other problem with the slope of power induced by artificial means (money, assets) is that at any level, beholders of this measure of power exist who do not know how important it is for them to take care of their actions. For them, a bootstrap mechanism in the system may fulfill their lack of accountability through compensation by other means and they become generators of suffering due to their negligence. 

This happens almost in the middle where it is not so obvious that they hold power to an extent and at the same time a down pour of subtle suffering does not train them fast enough to learn. Distractions in our world take a lot of room from the means of teaching lessons and we have to wait for the symptoms to grow so much that the worry makes us think about an action.

The last mechanism I want to mention is a constipated culture that does not tolerate changes enforces misaligned behaviour in the name of respect or correctness and makes it much harder for corrective actions to take place. 

Playing with LLMs

 In the past few days I got to play with machine learning a bit. My idea of using complex numbers didn’t seem to be super effective as I expected. For example models didn’t end up encoding polarity in phase rotation of embeddings and model found an easier way to go around it.

But this concept of rotation seemed to be useful in general. Complex numbers were one way of performing rotations but rotation itself can be done by itself in embeddings. 

The goal here is to find some natural structure that the math sits on it without a need to use super generalized calculations.

This is an interesting concept but the main burden is on attention and transformers. If that can be fit into a better structure that gives the same performance smaller amount of computations, it can lead to a lot of time saving and power saving for a particular task.

The reason I was working on embedding was not to save power or computation, although that is welcome but my goal was to be able to see if a complex model which can integrate over many paths around the complex plane can be helpful to understand the nature of paradoxes and poems. It’s great if an underlying nature of language pops out that can show us the elementary particles of language. A kind of standard model of language.

About power

 The truth is being right does not matter so much in the real world. There are different focal points of power that can equally affect each other and if they are in a closed system, they can steer the system. Being right matters less than either holding power or serving your favourite power. 

Power is not necessarily beautiful or clean. It may or may not be the most attractive choice on the surface because it is not only absolute but also dynamic and most of the time, the interference patterns of a power sources is what is experienced. 

Power comes with elements on construction, constitution, destruction and operates under law. Power has the ability to be above law, stepping into chaos control and under the law, enforcing order. Constitution is what power carries in terms of fundamental beliefs and it can be subjected to amendments and change but it is generally beneficial for the sake of power to not change it. Construction and destruction are the way power breaths. Constructing more towards its constitution and destruction of what is not aligned. Power is contained within a boundary and that is where construction and destruction are defined. Sometimes moving something outside of that boundary is an act of destruction of what is not acceptable and bringing something inside is an act of construction. 

With the multiplicity of different sources of power, tension appears around the borders and power is allowed to take space and acts on its surface. Power can be hostile to its surface or be inviting, giving space or take maximum space. All of these come with the cost of tolerating tension and what is exchanged mid transaction. 

In general everyone acts in favour of their own self interest. Even an act of self deprecation can be out of self interest. Here there is a concept of foolishness which is not exactly stupidity but more of bouncing between what serves the self and what deprecates it through flow. The psyche with its own biases takes the fool like a puppet and gives it enjoyment and suffering until the fool reaches to the state of self awareness and does something about the internally recognized patterns. Taking a direction in this path is the act of holding power and one has to deal with the consequences. The other concept here is an act of service to the power. This is similar to foolishness but a conscious choice to be aligned more with someone who seems less foolish. The goal is to take the best choice in a shortage of wisdom. The ones holding power and the fools are not at rest and they are producing their own patterns which sooner or later interferes with our being and this is a way of constructing a safe space to learn and be. 

Being aligned with a source of power via serving comes with the cost of being at the pleasure of the holder of power. It trickles down towards the servant and they get directly affected by the highs and the lows of the beholder.

A stoic master requires the servant to be stoic to align with their frequency and a hedonist master wants their servant to be hedonist to align with their frequency. Sometimes what is advertised shows an exaggeration and attractive version of the way of the master and the servants get confused by this presentation. This is where choosing the right path becomes important. The master has to have a balanced platter of life in their share of life. Defining that balance is what takes a journey of life time. 

This is where sometimes tradition becomes valuable. Something that has proven itself over and over again becomes a trustable way of living. At least on the surface. But deep down, every generation, every master, adds their twist into the story and sometimes the culture passes through repetition without understanding by the fools and nothing remains but a thin crust. The crust might be decorated and attractive with jewels but it is still a hollow solution of the problem of life. It can work, but gives fruition to a meaningless life.

Difficulties with power

 I used to say the problem with the world is the clash of religions

But now, after experiencing my difficulties in my previous job, I would say the difficulty is in communication with power. 

If you want to be proper and not totally destructive, as in civilized society we are told to be, you have to communicate with power and express your concerns, and in the end accept that your ideas may or may not be accepted. It is in the hands of power to choose what to do, and the choice is internal. External factors can bias it or, in extreme cases, manipulate it, but power needs to make the final verdict. If power does not want a certain thing, resisting power may seem plausible, but it turns out to be exhaustive in the end. The reason is that power feels less and can transfer suffering to those below. 

In an ideal world, power would develop the fabric of existence and allow sources of tension to have activities. The expectation would be that the sources of tension would be acting organically within the fabric of power and reshape what is allowed to be reshaped. The structure would be dictated by power.

For example, in a company, this would be allowing for meetings and talks while making sure the topics of discussions align with the higher goals of the company, and also allowing for the reality of human nature to be in the professional settings, so that people who are spending most of their time in the company can solve some of their personal issues. The ratio and how it is supposed to be done, as well as the constraints, are dictated by those in control. 

In a society, this shows itself in allowing free speech and freedom of expression. This allows for artists and thinkers to shape the world around themselves towards what they think is right while maintaining their existence alongside larger systems such as the economy, education, and transport. 

If all happens organically, people are allowed to listen and understand ideas or consume art and participate in shaping the evolution of the culture. Examples of this

1- A football game is an expression of tensions, expectations, fandom, excitement, fighting, etc.

2- A concert is an expression of emotions, fandom, mastery of art, creativity, etc.

3- A debate is an expression of intellectual interactions, such as fighting, understanding, reconciliation, teaching, etc. 

4- A lecture is another expression of intellect, but in a different format. 

and many other ways that individuals stand on their own power to reshape their surroundings to what they seek.

More on complex numbers

 I want to write more about why I think the truest form of LLMs must work with complex numbers. 

In real numbers we have vector summations and the goal is to push towards a lowest minima we can find and stay there. It is similar to a man who wants to prove their point and act righteous. To be seen on top, to look smart. Even we make spices in how the behaviour is supposed to be to make it seem more empathetic. But in reality it is still seeking a high degree of optimization.

It is funny how cycles are a part of our being and we still seek that final goal. The place of happiness where everything is right and before getting there, there is impatience and seeking resolution to the problems. But in reality, everything comes with rise and fall. Powerful people go up and down in power and their kingdom flourishes and vanishes, nature has cycles built into it like clock gears spinning with accurate precision and following rules in different speeds, and even us, feeling hungry and needing to wake up and sleep, eat and relieve, and every heart beat is a cycle that is happening after the former cycle.

All these together makes me think why would be able to picture a shape for the meaning with moving towards a single point? To me there must be some circular, spiral element to it and maybe that is why we many layers stacked one after another to make meaning work.

Complex numbers have the element of phase and amplitude in them and operations on them can rotate and change scale which seems more organic to me. The also have the ability to reshape a set of numbers into another shape which lives on a different order of numbers.

There is a hope that amplitude and phase can both encode meaning and maybe even more advanced complex numbers like quaternions can be a better candida for encoding meaning.

Gamble

 Between the May of 2021 to May of 2025 I was working at a a startup company that was shutdown last week. 

This was one painful failure of my life. And not the first one, I have lost the count.

This time I thought maybe it is going to work because I was working with two individuals who had 40 years of experience in that particular field. I was channeling both of them and fighting against the odds everyday. Some days felt like a sword was going through me and some days felt like my brain was boiling. These were the days I worked hard. I had to consider that everyone in the team other than HR, President, and the Founder was young. This would impose a lot of stress on me. Witnessing how people would take their job as if they are working in a well established company and not feeling the shakiness of the situation into account and relying on how well they can produce results without any self doubt. I don’t know maybe they haven’t been disappointed in starting something and seeing it fail as I have a few times. High on hopes. High hopes.

I don’t know, I delivered what I could and quitted when I could. When you don’t feel heard or appreciated while you are carrying the burden in your mind and everyone else seems content is difficult. When I was quitting I was so gas lighted that I thought I was carrying some kind of disease that was making me feel sick in the company. But then after moving out I realized I was in an undoubted hell.

A particular person whom put immense amount of toxin in my soul was the HR lady. I’m not here to nag about how she discriminated and could not be talked to as if she knew the system she was carrying and would enforce by any means anything she wanted not learning a single bit of information in all those years. But I don’t judge herself. I judge her actions and who knows, maybe she was channeling someone else’s problems and she was just serving. But one particular thing about her was whenever I was walking in front of her, I could hear Por Una Cabeza which is a song about a gambler who is lost but is willing to bet on a white horse again. Maybe this time he says.

Today after processing the great amount of problems I was carrying since last week I came across this song again. Working in a startup is basically putting your time into gambling. It can lead to so much money and it can land on the other color.

Who knows

But today I thought maybe that is the way I am. Putting my efforts in creating something that has gotten better over time but it is still a lost gamble, hoping for a better result, maybe it works this time.

The more I move forward the less I trust and put my trust in people. Money is becoming a more friendly companion. With money you can bring people together to solve issues. With money you can trust something is in your hands and without it, there is literally nothing you can do. The world is so saturated by this magic powder that everyone is intoxicated with money and without it, it seems like there is no time to spend.

One thing I am slowly realizing is that the only way you can be even with someone is to pay them salary.

Complex numbers

Today I was experimenting with encoding data into the phase and magnitude of a complex number instead of a real number. The context here is about making LLMs do encoding with complex numbers.

The reason I was drawn to this idea was that, to me, LLMs are supposed to find a structure for meaning in a similar way that math finds a structure for reality that perfectly projects reality to numbers. At least a dimension of it.

To me, the way LLMs now need a very large number of dimensions to encode anything, especially opposite relations of words, makes me think maybe something is missing here. To me, this world is structured on duality, and in the end, what is supposed to map it must have some dual nature. In the sense that good and bad shouldn't be separated because they are at a distance from each other, they must be encoded into one thing. 

The idea came to me when I read about a researcher who was, coincidentally, Iranian, who was looking into putting LLMs in therapy sessions and extracting their behaviour. Of course, some LLMs like ChatGPT resisted showing those emotions since they are wired to work efficiently with people who want to spend hours relying on them for companionship, while others showed how the behaviour of their users and their training data makes them contain behaviours that are similar to what comes out of PTSD, OCD, etc. 

I was recently thinking about tragedy and how a tragedy is like a multidimensional bump on the surface of existance and different people take slices of it and understand it. This resembles nothing more than complex numbers and singularities in them. The way the function is integrated around the pole, it contains one thing regardless of the path; tragedy feels like a container of meaning that is integrated by the different paths different people integrate towards it or around it. 

To me, LLMs in the complete sense must contain things like this. They actually do, but not in a natural way. It is a linearization with great effort to make things separable. It doesn't contain a beautiful shape but a brick-by-brick statue around what it is supposed to look like, leading to extreme complexity and lots of layers in it to make the linear functions estimate it.

So I decided to play with this idea, but I haven't gotten a chance to try it seriously.

What do others have to say

 I walked into a grocery store last week to get a coffee. Google Maps led me to a coffee shop inside this grocery store and I was hazy when I walked in. Suddenly I noticed in the food prepared food section there are options for lunch. I looked at a big sandwich and thought this could be my lunch but honestly, it was way bigger than what I would eat. So I looked around and saw they also sell half of that sandwich also. I grabbed it and walked to the coffee shop and got my coffee and walked out. I was half a kilometre away on my way to the highway when I realized I didn’t go through the cashier at all. I just paid for the coffee and went out and it was too late to know what to do. So I felt like it was an honest mistake and waited for it to unfold. In my mind I would see a homeless person who has a spare change sign and I could change how his stomach is feeling by a gift from a multi millionaires who runs the grocery store. 

That was the day my car broke and I went out to food therapy myself at lunch and didn’t end up eating the sandwich. At the oil place when they almost refilled my oil for no charge I thought to myself maybe the sandwich was a gift for them but the guy who did it for me said he has had lunch and his wife also cooked shepherds pie for dinner. 

On my way home the exit which was usually leading to an intersection with a homeless man standing there was closed by the cops and I had to take a long way through the next exit.

On my mind I thought about Jean valjean and how he stole a load of bread and went to prison for twenty years, and how I was letting these evens unfold to find myself in what is supposed to happen.

The same week I was talking to an elder coworker and he was talking about how greed is a part of humanity and if you let people go to grocery stores and pick up food for free, they will hoard and waste and I have seen this in reality. 

In Iran at the days of religious holidays people would make food and give free food to the others and I also participated when I was at the university seeing how many would come to get more and more and even TV would show how people would fill their refrigerators with food. 

I judged myself and I ate half of that sandwich for dinner with no sense of guilt as I did all I could do and half of it for the next day at lunch. I was the one seeking for a spare of change

The great warriors

 

Something funny about how some people look at life. It was a Rick and Morty episode which covered a character who was looking for a great warrior to kill him so he can transcend.

This is a theme in masculinity and the fear of castration which has resulted in most of the problems in the history. It is a problem of if I think a certain way and someone else thinks another way, there is only one way for us to live with dignity. They hold power until time chooses one of them. This has manifested itself in religious wars, sword fights, oppression of women, and basically any conflict that does not have a side that doesn’t take the opinion of the other side as valid. 

This is about whether or not truth is relative. There is a quote from a philosopher who says something along the lines of a step in the evolution of the mind is to be able to hold two conflicting thought together. This is a beautiful thing to think about. This is how a father has to evolve to think about disagreements between their sons, this is how a piano player has to keep two tracks for the left and right hand in mind, this is how a writer has to keep two characters with different ways of thinking in mind and let their chemistry give birth to a script of story. It all lies in processing the tension and not letting one side dominate and take all the space. 

Evolution has found the way in finding itself in one body and one mind and experiencing the world through that lens. Even my cat does not easily consider the presence of another cat in his territory. That is how we have survived all along. To make others enemy of ourselves to keep ourselves closer in our tribes. And the sons of the tribe are supposed to fight to their death and the women of the tribe have to experience the tensions till winner takes it all.

Such a shame that if we don’t carve an enemy we don’t see a way of bringing ourselves together and find meaning in being with each other. The circuits of dominance are still very strong in our brains and we are more likely to rely on them than on conversations. The reason is each conversation carries problems that are needed to be solved but the other way pushes the problems away till they find a way to manifest in greater cost. 

This way of thinking has evolved over the years to now be concerned with the ideologies. The way of thinking whether someone else is right or wrong. The way of coming up with a definition of god and circling around the definition and demonizing whoever is not following that definition. The goal is not really to find a meaning or a spirit. It is as blind as worshipping an idol. The idol of fertility or war to help us overcome what the other group has to say. A lie we tell to ourselves to believe our story even more and the echo chamber we form around ourselves overrides any critical thinking and logic as it pushes away what is different from what we consider as truth. 

The plan

 Last night I messaged a number of people I knew who would be expected to have words to say about the current situation of uprisings in Iran and candidacy of Pahlavi to help the transition.

In all honesty, my first impression after hearing words like he is not seeking power turned me off and made me put an offensive front. This helped to extract thoughts from others also. My question from them was what do you think are the right changes to be done? Is this going to be a patch the same way their grandfather did for Iran which was functional but not a solution for coexistence but to implement a forceful system that the bottom of the skirt in the shape of power does not align well with the cultural textile, making it grow but not rooted in the culture. And the same way a transplant might be rejected by the body, their way of government did not satisfy the culture and people became open to replace the government with another government which was only culturally similar to what they wanted.

I heard different voices, those who were willing to even go to Iran to help the new government and people after many years of residence abroad, those who didn’t see the leading character in Pahlavi and looked for someone better or another way, those who were worried and their heart were doing the work, and those who had some ideas and changes in mind.

Today I received a link to the webpage of the new movement and I read their reports and plans. 

It covered some important topics for today’s situation such as banking system and economy and actionable items for the transition, some less important factors for today’s time such as change in medical system and pensions, and I saw the lack of very important questions such as the plan for human rights and culture.

The financial plan relies on good intentions from the US and outside world to release the blocked finances of Iran and let its market be a part of the global stream of economy, connecting the financial institutions to the outside world and attracting investors. It had some short term actionable items to stabilize the economy through applying limitations on transactions and trades for a while. There were some very important plans for dissolving very powerful entities in Iran which hold a great power and play important financial roles without being a controlled part of the system. The suggestion for short term was to introduce trusted accountants to monitor the transactions and assets of government entities and identify and reduce corruption. 

The medical part and pension part to me were written in a short sighted way to fill up the missing dimensions of the plan and the time estimates and analysis were premature. One of the ways of enforcing power is immediate changes but for a large system such as a country, this shouldn’t be taken as a power lever since the underlying foundation needs to be stabilized first. 

To me a few items were missing:

1- diplomatic plans: what is the roadmap for diplomatic engagement with the powerful entities in the west and the east? The current world seems to be polarized enough and there must be a plan to consider what the future relations should look like with different players. This also paints a sketch for how trades and investments are going to look like.

2- even though there were very long term plans listed in the report such as plans for 2050, the report did not seem to be covering anything from the technological stand point of the current times. This includes plans for electronic government, use of AI in processing the large scale information, electronic democracy through involvement of different individuals through forums and portals to submit their opinions and requests, Crypto currency and the role of it for the economy, and the role of Iran in the current map of technology in the world such as semiconductor technologies, electrical power, and the plans for integration of many domestic platforms which have a mirror in the global picture.

3- Climate management is a minor problem in Iran. Water access and pollution can lead big cities to be not functional anymore. In the hierarchy of needs, economy and systems can only find importance if people can live and work in cities without worrying about their primal needs of drinking water and breathing. Lessons from the neighbouring countries in fighting harsh climates can be used as an example of what needs to be done. Decentralizing bigger cities such can be a step towards less traffic and pollution.

4- Human rights: in the roadmap, the stand point of government to evolve the current enforcement of culture into an open culture was not mentioned. One of the reasons for the fall of the previous government was the elite were disconnect from the cultural roots of the people. And one can only learn from history. The new world problems such as LGBT rights, women rights, and standards for child care were not mentioned. These play an important role so we can be clear about the inclusivity of people’s regardless of their gender, colour, religion, nationality, and sexual identity.

I see people in the government as servants to people. Government must be transparent and self adjusting, inclusive to not only echos of what is said but also to the constructive criticism and oppositions.

American Freedom

 i can't be so biased to only look at my country

i have to be fair and talk about the country that is paying my salary, and I am living in their neighbour's country, accepted as a guest who lawfully stayed longer and became a citizen. Before getting to words about the US, I want to talk about Canada and the laws. Canada is a country where it is legal to drive 120km/h on a 100km/h road. Even the cops do that. It is not like everyone is an outlaw. It is about a fuzzy cloud, which is agreed upon based on a mother rule, which says you are allowed to go so much more when passing someone in the fast lane. It is a derivation of this law that everyone can basically assume the position of speeding and go faster. Even if they aren't in the passing lane.

I haven't been to the US (maybe for a couple of hours for a transfer), but what I see in the US is that the laws are placed at a far distance. For example, you are allowed to carry a gun for self-defence, but the amount of trust law is putting on the sanity of citizens is immense compared to many other places. This means you are allowed to do whatever you want, but you have to experience the consequences. Some consequences are obviously protected and applied through la,w and formal judgment, and the others are relied upon the law of cause and effect. But this doesn't mean actions are totally controlled. The action needs to happen once, and it is allowed to happen, but the consequences need to be considered. 

I think this leads to good news and bad news

The good news is citizens aren't looked at as children who are in constant need to be supervised, or better to say limited. This should be one of the laws of human rights. To look at a human as a human on their way through their unique path of life, and allowing them to learn and experiment. The consequence of this decision is that the negative side of freewill also needs to be tolerated. To spare change for those who are so deep in their choices that they need a change. What needs to be considered is that helping those in need is necessary, as we are a collective who are aiming not only to pass time but to grow and be. This gives us the homework to aim for correction in ourselves and others. But this is by itself a big conundrum. How can you help anyone in the first place? If someone's choice is leading them to a place where they harm themselves and society a great amount, we can't just convince them to change their mind. Their choice is many times because they don't feel empowered in their own power and aren't presented with other ways of living. This and examples similar to this make society face the reality of human beings. The way we are made to look at someone is as miserable and don't do much about it, as if they deserve it. The way we can terminate one of our own with a gun is because of the reasons we come up with. The way we can be so distanced from our own expression that it needs such great power to be effective. This was the bad news. 

maturity lies in being able to differentiate please sit, sit, and put your ass down, etc. When everything to convey the meaning has to be empowered with metal parts and gunpowder, then the intensity of expression becomes anxiety-provoking. A question is in a world full of clowns, is there another way for a government to convey what it has to say? The answer is again looking at how much we trust in our way of truth and how much we can convey our choices to others.

In the end, this criticism does not mean a limit has to be imposed on the limits of free expression of individuals, but society has to grow to an extent where, at least, families are experienced enough in communicating with their children and resolving the issues that they don't end up taking a military weapon to the school and shoot at other children. Whether we should be allowing these extents of expression is to study whether it is worth the cause or not. What makes children hate each other tothat extent? Is this a reasonable goal for the human species to terminate eachother for the lack of communication? Is it a worthwhile price to pay? 

We tend to value life and put an expensive price tag on it. The resources, the years, and the efforts that are put into a person to grow into who they are are very hard to measure and pinpoint. This has a special weight when we are talking about the children of the more advanced countries, as one of the factors of advancement is how much resources and efforts are focused on the development of the next generations. 

That is why we prefer watching a professional football game or a wrestling match. That is where people can take sides and express their willingness through the proxy of those who were trained for it, and the freedom of choice and how much people relate to the players determines their side. Or words are used instead of hits of swords and knives. Words do protect and hurt. Words change the course of time.

It is hard to say a word that is supposed to stab someone in the chest. It is hard because it is a word for them to counteract. But words allow us to experiment many times.  Experiment until we realize what we seek is not pain in another. It is not their removal but getting even by saying what we like to say.

Islamic revolution

I am writing this right after seeing how streets were fillled with protestors in my hometown Tehran.

There are many aspects to this issue. Why would a leader want to push people to the extent that they rise like this? At the end of the day, everyone thinks they are doing the right thing. The problem with power is it wants to hold it as much as it is possible. It is a god given opportunity that pages of time tell us stories about those who gained power and those who lost it. Everyone plays the game of power. In the streets and in homes and of course in governments and castle of the kings. A king is supposed to hold power and not lose it by playing the game. Those who are foolish enough to assume themselves as absolute powerful sooner or later learn that this is not the case. The more they hold onto this idea the thinner it gets and it becomes fragile like spider web in the end. 

But what about a king who is under the assumption of religious ideas? How could a priest not think of themselves as righteous? They are the ones who are following the god given rules and therefore they must be closer to god than anyone else. They are buying their closeness to god and his favour by following the rules.

How could they let someone else run their land who does not bow to god the way they do? The way they are told to do and they thought their children and grandchildren to do the same.

How can this problem be diagnosed and fixed?

The problem is it does not seem like a problem in the first place. From the perspective of the religious person the meaning of their life lies in being tested against god given rules and temptations to not follow them. This assumption makes mind so close that basically there is no way of addressing anything with the religious person. Even if they see god himself, the argument is what if this is a hallucination and devil wants to tempt them?

The only way for the religious person to overcome their assumptions is for them to experience a god given mystical experience. 

They most probably won’t take any substance to induce this state of mind and the way of their life is not normally aligned to experience this truth. Their whole life is a fight with their unconscious and only listening to what is an echo of what they think is right. They are lucky if their unconscious talks to them at all.

Some experience states like this by near death experience which is a wide spectrum. Nobody can tell if someone has died enough or to what depth did they fall into? For many, the feeling of death and their ego fighting for life triggers very soon. And that is a problem. Until someone has a grip on their life, their near death experience is invalid in my opinion. What is seen is just echos of their ego who wants to keep on being.

So how could you write a prescription for someone who has their eyes closed to the light of the sun? Someone who sees opening their eyes as a problematic end to their righteousness? Of course the experience, even if taken, is not lightly absorbed and there is a lot of hard to swallow pills to be taken and that comes over time when integrating the fragments of what was once a clay shell covering and protecting the fragile ego.

It takes a lot of heat for the sand to turn into glass.

But here in this particular case in Iran, no one is seeking to take the pill. They look forward to their saviour. Someone from the past, someone from the future to resolve their problems. The problem is what needs to be changed is the people themselves. Another more functional government may replace the current government and hopefully it will be more productive and more open to connect to the world and accept ideas and be less dogmatic.

The hope is the next government is going to look at religion as a cultural root but give it no authority. The hope is for the religion to grow out of its premature infancy and connect to the roots of what has been available for thousands of years for people to have their first hand mystical experience if they need to. No proxy needed.

The hope is mental health becomes more important than following rules and freedom of self expression generates tolerable heat in the culture to make it flourish. Art to be aligned with the soul and less with the ego and definitions.

To be purifying and digesting the collective thoughts to feed the minds and ease human suffering.

The hope is for children to be nourished and for the generational trauma to be resolved by taking care of the gem inside each child and making sure the families are informed enough about how they transfer their suffering and tensions to their children. An educational system which is focused on the process of individuation by helping children to understand and think. Wings of science and art alongside making sure their physical well being is supported regardless of their parental biases.

The hope is for individuals to grow critical thinking and be less submerged in abstractions and definitions and more towards seeing the bigger picture and solving their own problems.

The hope is for a culture to grow aligned with the human nature all the way from the micro biome towards generating magnificent cultural artifacts that marks a period of growth and development in time. 

The hope is for an economy to flourish where values are assigned to ease transactions and channels to be formed to connect the inside of the country like veins together and balance life. The hope is for this economy to be connected to the outside world for connections to happen between the far and near neighbours while maintaining agency over what matters for the people and the land. 

The hope is for diplomatic resolutions in a world where the west and east fight over power to resolve a solution for coexistence. The hope is for the people to stand over their own power not relying on their culture and government to enforce it for them. That is the kind of power which is nourishing and natural.

The hope is for the mutual understanding to exist. For someone to talk while listening to themselves and listening to the cues of the other person and taking into account a degree of empathy. An artist that makes art to invoke a feeling that satisfies a higher goal. A person who talks to another to listen to them and solve their mutual problems. A power figure to understand the reason they get to be in power is because someone else is serving them by feeling the suffering. And for a servant to understand that being a part of a functional system is a satisfying way of existence. 

There is a lot to hope for, I know, but now that I feel the slope of change, I cannot stop myself from hoping more so that the entropy of my words spreads into the future and when I look back, I see how all was satisfied the way it always does.

Religone

 Though I have written a lot about spirituality and religion and once upon a time I had a lot to say about what we here with this tendencies and constructs but what I can see is people, even intellectuals prefer to look at it not through a lens of self discovery but another reading like reading a not so important article.

That is one reason I have less empathy with all that goes on in my home country and Middle East in general. More and less other parts of world. There, in the Middle East, the clash is more obvious because the ideas are strictly facing each other but other parts of world have branched this into unknowable and mystic angles that people don’t deserve themselves to be involved in those topics. For them, the mystery needs a level of dedication which only priests and their father figures are allowed to have access to it. 

Sometimes we get to know that our common sense is not so common. We get to see this fleeting existential moment where we listen for once and see how different our mental image is compared to someone else. This makes us expect less and less. Sometimes even life drags us close to those corners in life that makes us understand more why and how someone gets to think in such a way.

In the specific topic of religion I see a narrow vision is so narrow that one is looking at the leaves of the tree and they see the different religions and thoughts. They can’t see how and why all these leaves are wrong in a sense that none of them is representing the tree nor the creation of the tree. Some see how different leaves move differently or are pointed more or less towards the light and say these must be all saying different things. Some choose one leaf that they are born on or the one that is richer in whatever and they stick to it. Some think more or less and end up finding a leaf that suits them. Some even choose dead leaves to be more rooted into the reality. Some, while sticking to their own leaf, say all these leaves are talking about the same thing.

These are all happening while the leaves are not talking. They only make noise from the movement of wind through them and shaking. Their goal might be to aim at the sun but none of them are necessarily always aiming at the sun. The point is there is nothing to be concluded from a leaf, from a religion about the spirit.

Religion is only one way of manifesting what is at the core. A core that is so big and difficult to see due to all the leaves surrounding it that people don’t get to pay attention to. And even the trunk of the tree is not telling much. That’s just where all is unified above the ground. The same goes for what is under the soil. Roots that are aiming to get the best deal out of the nutrients.

And how can you make someone take a look at the bigger picture if all they can see is a few arc seconds?

X

Oil leak

 Yesterday, I got to realize that my car wasn’t working fine. I could feel it at how the RPM would lose stability at low speeds and at mid range. Anyhow, I got out for lunch and things became suspicious. I called the dealership I got the car from to invoke a warranty I purchased with the car and they said they can’t accept the car till almost 3 weeks from the day.

But when he mentioned did I do the oil change often, I told myself maybe I can just check the oil level. I pulled the thing out and saw it was dry dry. There were splashes of oil on it but as I cleaned and pushed in and out there was nothing on it. 

So I left work early and took it to Mr Lube which I often do. I had to driver with warning signals on and very slow. I noticed after sometime it became more stable. Maybe the thermal expansion of pistons and engine work together to seal better, I don’t know. 

There I found that the manager was working alongside the mechanics. He was a well spoken man and he explained to me how they can see the leakage build up on the sides but they can’t inspect further and a mechanic needs to look at it. They topped up my oil charge free.

So today I am using the public transportation to get to work. It puts things in perspective. The extended duration of being in the cold makes me think of university time. Then, I would just walk 12 minutes in whatever cold and get home. For groceries I would take the bus. Sometimes Glen would help me with his car to get groceries done. 

And I am thinking. I have been so submerged in the default mode of thinking that I have barely even used the public transportation. Driving every day and most days, more than 30km times 2. 

And the distance I feel is maybe due to this acceptance of going home to work, work to home. Barely any other soul around. And at work I prefer professional distancing which exacerbates the feeling. Maybe here, this mix of energies and smells and sounds, will put us in a position where we share what we have extra and gain what we need 

Sweat

 

Last night I came to pet Gambit as it was one of those nights that I barely got to touch him. His front was all wet and I got concerned that maybe me, swapping the cat food has made him feel not so good and sweat. I was thinking about going to vet but after paying attention to him I realized it was because he was just done with a grooming session. 

Since I got him I changed the way I dress up for work. I used to dress for the day of the week, and corresponding to the astrological signs of the day. 

Monday would be a warm cardigan, since it corresponds to moon and nurturing

Tuesday would be a plaid, masculine Martian energy

Wednesday would be kept grey. Neutral gendered as it corresponds to mercury and focus was on communication 

Thursday would be my formal wear or sometimes something specific. A shirt or even a hoodie with navy blue color or even black. Making it look like it is prepared for a character. Business like as Jupiter wants. I would listen to droplets of Jupiter also.

Friday would be feminine and self expressive. Band shirt, some light hoodie, even Hawaiian shirts.

Don’t get me started about pants.

But now I am wearing my black shirt and grey thick cardigan on top. Pants remains the same for the week. A straight black pair of pants.

This is the way of the cat

To wear the same thing and keep it clean. 

This lets me fall deeper into a potential well that doesn’t concern me with being 5x different people during a week. Just one person with one personality at work that becomes more and more of himself not sharing his body and soul in the air to adjust with every concern of every person.

We need to do one thing and we are paid for that one thing

To understand the philosophy of our existence and enjoy it. 

Nothing more is gained by asking others to validate us

Loss

The only system that doesn't have loss is no system. Even a system that is designed to benefit from loss has a limited efficiency in how the loss is managed to be utilized. Sometimes we see losses, and we want to stop them. This heartfelt effort comes from the depths of the heart, but not all losses can be tracked down to be resolved. If the loss is associated with the system and the system needs a certain functionality from that loss, even if the mechanism could be replaced, the decision to make the change may not become feasible at all. 

It is funny to some extent that we tend to work with problems rather than solve them. It is expected that one be able to make problems work in a steady fashion, where the energy is used at a reasonable rate. But the goal must be to solve the problem, not to stay with the problem forever, as working with the devil you know is better than a new one that you don't know. The problems today might be tolerable, but tomorrow, there is no guarantee that the world is going to spin the same way. Everything changes and fades through time. We start to question the exact reasons why certain things were decided to be done a certain way. It becomes as impossible to think about it as to come up with a new way. Thinking and writing become more and more important, but what is written is not the same after some time. What makes sense will start to lose its essence and become ambiguous as it loses the sparkles of presence into the void of space. In short, all we can carry remains in our heads, and we can only reference back to what we can recollect incompletely to complete them. A limit of the castle of the mind. 

It is funny how we can't remember certain things, but then certain other things from the far past remain like a bump in a vast ocean of forgotten past. A feeling of bitterness, a feeling of revenge, wanting to take back something that once was ours and now is gone. 

Born from a feeling of being entitled to so and so. It becomes much more pronounced when thinking about the preventable losses. The imaginary timelines where certain things were done in the time we wanted them to be done. A bigger loss lies in the feeling of not being able to save what could be saved at the moment.

I think this is where we are allowed to ask: why didn't we have the power to save?

Who took away that power from us? Who did not allow us to do what we felt was right?

As far as I remember, I said what I thought was right, and I tried to be aligned with the higher purpose. But it has never been in my hands to avoid the self-harming elements of the system. Now that I am a bit older, I am becoming strong enough to start arguing with those who take power in the destruction of values. It is the cheaper version of power, which comes with pushing the cost on those who are constructive. Destruction is needed for new constructions, but there are people who destroy not with the intent of making beauty, but with the intent of their own pleasure. A pleasure that is to numb the deep pain of not being able to find meaning in their life. A pleasure like that is not tame. It wants more and more since it fills up a broken bucket with a hole in it. It never fills up. 

Maybe in my next life, I am able to choose or take a surgical knife and cut the problem away. Who knows.

Tragedy

 It’s always at a curious moment when all things click

When the protagonist and antagonist both reach the same conclusion

That what they are is not right

There is a skin to be peeled

There is a layer underneath 

That they both always looked forward to

But in actuality,

It never allowed them to see their true selves nor it became a happening

The curiosity of the moment is in the fact that

What was almost being forgotten due to the long waiting time

Now finds its way in their life

As if a guest who was expected to not arrive anymore

Finds their way at the front door

Now there becomes a moment of improvise

As if time has been playing with us

A game

To bend our thumb

And see how we react

To the abstraction of our will

In what we never considered a choice

And the piano player plays the pain of this painting

The tragedy of life

time machine

 yes leave them by themselves

they wouldn't be able to make much even if we contacted them anyways

it will take a few hundred years till they become not-so-ignorant enough to be able to process any of our messages

Dream of the cat

 Last night I had this dream where I took my cat to the grandparents house. I took him with my car and did it have his litter box with me so I couldn’t stay long. I spent the night there and in the morning I wanted to leave but I got to encounter my cat who was talking to me. 

He mentioned I don’t have to worry about how he is doing his business and he actually took care of it by the two socks that he pointed at and they had a knot on them. I told him I could never guess that he is smart enough to reason and talk and he didn’t seem like it in the car. 

This happened while yesterday I was deeply thinking my cat is not smart in the way I project myself and human behaviour in general to him. 

The reality is he doesn’t really understand conversation in a response answer kind of way and his talking battery drains so fast. He has some stuff to say when I meet him but it is only a few mews and that’s it.

Yesterday I spent the day almost as if I was living his life. I woke up in the morning and I felt like I had a cold and tired. I put one of those night time cold powders which has a good amount of acetaminophen in it in a mug of water and drank it. I headed to bed and I didn’t really sleep much but it was a restful 6 hours in bed. Then I went to the couch and I slept there for a few hours after I had my lunch. I opened my eyes with my cat alarm asking for dinner. 

I felt like this tiredness was built up in my body and I needed this day of sleep to compensate for it. The thing about tiredness is it builds up slowly and it is hard to monitor it. Then after sometime, especially when you lose focus from yourself for a while due to interactions and work and you come back to yourself you realize the body was asking for it all along but there never was this habit or act of balancing it out regularly in life. 

Sometimes progress gains momentum and it is hard to decide to slow it down and that results in sacrificing body’s wellbeing for getting things done.

I hope 2026 will be a year where we can manage our well being more effectively.