Author: Brand Smit

Old, small, powerless, and useless

WEDNESDAY, 19 MARCH 2025

I dreamt last night that I had to stand in for a teacher at a high school. I found myself surrounded by hundreds of teenagers.

After a few minutes, I was scammed out of my cell phone. For some reason, I was also persuaded to take off my shoes. The shoes promptly disappeared.

Next thing I was walking around in my socks asking about my cell phone. I said that I needed to contact my family in South Africa, and how could I do that if I didn’t have my phone.

I was ignored, and every now and then laughed at by groups of teenagers standing around everywhere.

After a confusing hour of wandering around among what now felt like thousands of teenagers, someone helped me find my phone. All the phone numbers and WhatsApp messages and so on had been deleted.

I still couldn’t find my shoes.

Two young ladies who were responsible for the disappearance of my phone tried to explain that their lives were not easy either.

Not only did I have no sympathy for them, but I had a strong desire to wish them an early death. (Note that I did not consciously think these thoughts. Nevertheless, the full thought was that I wanted to wish the teenagers not just an early death, but a painful early death.)

I woke up with a headache, thinking: What a nightmare.

The feeling that pressed even after I had lifted my head from the pillow was that I was old, and small, and powerless, and useless.

(Roll the drums for a Grok-created image of a happy, smiling, bald, middle-aged man.)

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A meaningful snippet of knowledge

TUESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2024

I frantically started taking notes in 1994. It was as if I sensed a calling to report on my life. For the past thirty years, I have reported on and off, sometimes every day and sometimes just a few paragraphs in one calendar year.

The point is still to say: Here I am. This is how I experience life.

* * *

Thirty years ago, I wanted to make money because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I didn’t want people barking orders and expecting me to jump. I wanted to have money so I could travel and study (seriously, I was 23 years old, and I wanted to study).

Twenty years ago, I seriously wanted to improve my income because I wanted to create a better life for myself, and for the young woman I would later marry. I wanted to travel more, and I wanted to visit my family in South Africa more often.

Today I want to improve my income because I want to strengthen my financial security, especially considering that in perhaps two decades I will no longer feel like working, or may no longer be able to do everything I want to do.

Different desires, but the same path that leads to fulfilment. One difference is that I know what twenty and thirty years feel like under the soles of my feet, and I know how they slip through my fingers. And I know that twenty or thirty years from now – if I last that long – I will be officially old. Not necessarily decrepit, but definitely elderly. This meaningful snippet of knowledge was not part of my experience of existence twenty or thirty years ago.

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Possibilities of the nature of our reality (and who’s in control)

FRIDAY, 23 AUGUST 2024

One: The world naturally came into being through explosions and cosmic expansion, and evolution. Political leaders are people who have risen to positions of power through a combination of personality, chance, and social pressure. Most of them are corrupt; some try their best to serve and uplift their communities. Then they die or are voted out or recalled, and someone else takes their place. Another version of this is that the strings in America are pulled by a conspiracy of Big Oil, Intelligence, and Wall Street (see Mike Benz on X). One could certainly assume that each country has its own version of such large and powerful interests making decisions behind the scenes.

Two: The world naturally came into being through explosions and cosmic expansion and evolution. Political leaders are puppets of the Vatican, who pull all the important strings behind the scenes. Why? The Roman Catholic Church ruled Europe for almost a thousand years. The common assumption is that they slowly but surely lost power and influence over the next five centuries. This assumption is either wrong, or they succeeded in placing supporters back in positions of power.

Three: The world came into being naturally through explosions and cosmic expansion and evolution. Political leaders are puppets of a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world for their own benefit. Why? Jewish conspiracy leaders believe in the superiority of Jews, and believe that it is God’s will that Jews rule the world.

Four: The world came into being naturally through explosions and cosmic expansion and evolution. At some point, effective control of the world was taken over by reptilian beings from outer space who worship demons. Political leaders are Satanic paedophiles who are puppets of these reptilian beings who rule the world through manipulation for their own benefit.

Five: We and the world of which we are sensibly aware are part of a computer simulation – what we experience as reality is in fact a super-realistic, advanced computer simulation. What is the argument for this? At some point, humanity will develop the technological skills and resources to create a powerful computer simulation of their ancestors. Chances are they will create many such simulations. Chances are the simulated inhabitants of these worlds will have consciousness. What are the chances then that the person who is conscious of himself is part of the generation that originally created such simulations, and not one of possibly thousands of simulations?

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