Gary > Recent Status Updates

Pretty enraging deportment by the Chinese government, especially towards the Uyghur communities in the west. Now I understand why my Chinese friends say “Uyghurs are benevolently given free university!”, they probably think their WeChat app is listening…

Interesting book, doesn't seem to be much of a plot. Just the happenings of a not so interesting little family...

Not really sure when the story starts but it’s a cute family dynamic lol

First half of the book is kind of a memoir and grievances on the American political system, as a Canadian J don’t really care, US is singular in its political system. Last half is possible solutions to endemic social problems (Medicare, education, labour etc.) as a Labour Party counsel member I found this very useful.

Feel like I got roped into reading a memoir but the actual facts about congress that Sanders shares are infuriating (and he drops names!)

I watch a lot of the Gilmore girls and the grandma character and her mother in law remind me of the pretentious characters in this story. Glad I was born in a normal era (normal by whose standards? …)

Doooom

A really eye opening book about the realities of climate change. 2nd chapter talks about how companies like Exxon have some of the best climate research models around that clearly say humans are causing global warming, but the companies bury under a veneer of uncertainty. Glad I’m not having any kids 😅

Thought this was supposed to be a horror story lol. The monster is but a child learning to see the world in all its beauty but was deprived of any of it. It makes me grateful to live in such a world and to be able to be a part of it. I’ve read in other reviews that Frankenstein himself is the monster. It made me think of one musing I have that god is the monster for creating us in this world of war and desperation.

So far so good! Mary Shelley so seems to be ahead of her time. The trial of poor Justine who was coerced into a confession. The rise of creations without the considerations of ethics (AI anyone?)

Chose this at random off my shelf (I liked the description when I found it on a used book shelf years ago) and so far find it strangely salient for the situation we find ourselves in today. Where our liberties are slowly being eroded because we have become complacent in peacetimes. Compared to the 1500s an average person in the west lives like a king would in those days. We don’t realize how far we’ve come…

I really like this book so far, it’s a nice blend of artistic thought and philosophy. Way better than most “self-help” books. Understanding others and connecting with nature (but not is a stupid spiritual way lol). If I were to write a non-fiction book this would probably be it…

The author talks about “exercises in attention” and I fully agree with her here. If you are stressed out take a walk in nature and actually notice things, not just the greenery but the different ecologies, the balance between the species that inhabit it.

I’ve always liked the moniker “artist of life”, it sounds poetic in my mind. Odell, an art teacher, so far, writes about things such as non-compliance in the form of union protests and non-conformance in art. I have a few viewpoints which have very closely been touched on in this book which I think is kind of cool.

The author talks about his LSD use the whole way through the book and seems to cite his understanding primarily from that and perhaps the books he reads (Jung, Freud, etc.) as well as a lot of self help quotes and pop cultural references. I understand that these drugs and some books on psychology can help some people like they helped him but I don’t think this is a universal one size fits all.

The author is desperately clinging to a priori reasoning. He seems to belief all anxiety is a result of childhood trauma. I admit his anecdotal evidence is convincing but he doesn’t seem to elaborate with any cold hard science…

What is going on with pop psychology! Well accredited people are taking common sense facts and writing books around those ideas with speculation and anecdote. Waste of my ****ing time! Lol

Author says his favourite book is Eat, Pray, Love and endeavours to write a book like that. As well as being a physician (calls himself an allopathic doctor which has homeopathic enthusiast vibes (puke), he is a yoga teacher and meditation teacher. He talks about energy pathways... This has Deepak Chopra vibes all over it… outlook dim… lol

I am already skeptical because I agree with most of the authors premises: modern psychiatry is failing the everyday man (but they are a godsend for the truly mentally ill!) and “if people could change their perception they wouldn’t need a prescription.” (Paraphrased)

“This book provides basic, detailed information you need about your trait, data that exists nowhere else.”

Sounds kind of culty, “only I know the way!”

Interesting tidbits about the plasticity of truth in “facts” and “language”. Words are used to justify other words, which don’t necessarily have to be based on truth.

I detect the author has a left wing bent as she has mostly spoken against Donald Trump and Alex Jones (understandable since these 2 are veterans in spreading false rhetoric), agree with everything she claims but hope will become less biased.

[After finding his crew speculating confidentially that the Endurance was equal to any pressure] “Shackleton said there once was a mouse that lived in a tavern. One night the mouse found a leaky barrel of beer, and he drank all he could hold. When the mouse had finished, he sat up, twirled his whiskers, and looked around arrogantly. ‘Now,’ he said ‘where is that damned cat?’”

Neat parable…

Last quarter of the book is getting into corporate humanities desire to destroy the sea floor for profit and I am reminded why I hate people and refuse to have kids lol.

“The late geomicrobiologist Katrina Edwards, who studied life within the oceans crust, put it directly: ‘we’re so biased to light because that’s where we live. But in fact, most of the biosphere exists in the dark.’”

Very humbling observation lol

“What is leave?—A pause that only makes after it so much worse.” Great line and I know exactly the feeling when my vacation is nearing its end lol.

It’s interesting to learn about the oil and bitumen industry in Alberta, Canada. In chapter 5 the author is starting to anthropomorphize fire, its aspiration to “rise up” and “attain freedom by any means necessary!” (the gasses the ignite fire lay dormant in almost everything) which is somewhat entertaining.

In chapter 7 the authors use statistics to correlate gen z social media and internet use to depression. But I can’t help but think that depression is just becoming a less taboo and more mainstream (in my day if you said you were depressed most people would tell to quit whining and do something about it lol). So I’m hesitant to correlate the two even though I hate social media and am happy to point fingers at it.