Last night on my way home from my last class, I contemplated the year that had just passed.
I wanted to focus on the good things, but even saying, “I am grateful…” began to sound like a recitation.
Then I remembered: “Hot dogs and coffee. And watch out for the typhoon.”
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I don’t have much to say right now, so here’s a picture:
Okay, a little negative, and it is New Year’s after all.
One more, then:
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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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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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MONDAY, 17 JUNE 2024
The simple truth: I have said what I wanted to say. Now I do what I need to do to ensure I can enjoy a relatively comfortable retirement in a few years.
TUESDAY, 18 JUNE 2024
Now that we’re on the subject: What will retirement look like in ten or fifteen years?
Will a comfortable but not luxurious lower-middle-class life cost more than it does now or less, relatively speaking?
Will proper healthcare be more expensive or cheaper?
How affordable will domestic robots be? Surely they’ll become both cheaper and more useful, as has been the case with personal computers over the past thirty years.
What about food production? It is already possible for inner-city apartment dwellers to grow a wide variety of vegetables in their living rooms, or in a spare room. How essential will independent food production be for survival in the city in 2030, or 2035, or 2026?
How expensive will it be to travel? Self-driving taxi to the train station where you’ll travel by high-speed train to your destination – more expensive than now or more affordable? Would a person in their sixties or seventies even want to travel to other places with the associated risk if they could stay at home and experience any town, city, mountain or beach in the world with virtual technology?
With fruits and vegetables free of chemicals, plenty of exercise, low crime in high-security communities, affordable healthcare, your average Generation Xer might live longer over the next few decades. The big question: How much money would you need to sustain this retirement?
Another thing: How will money work ten years from now? Paper money and coins will likely be phased out. How much will your Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies be worth in 2035? Will it be replaced by digital currencies managed by a Ministry of Finance or Central Bank? How much influence will these institutions have on political opinion – especially opinions critical of the government on foreign policy, crime control, immigration, and vaccines?
Certainly it deserves a proper discussion, but can democracy work in reality, or is democracy like the old saying goes, “Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner”?
Speaking of wolves and a sheep, what will life on the self-governing island of Taiwan look like in a decade or so? Will America find another lamb to sacrifice for its bloodlust and greed? The Philippines perhaps? South Korea? Japan? How far will China go to make it clear to Imperial America that if Taiwan is going to be a vassal state, it is certainly not going to be one of a crumbling empire in the West?
How physically demanding will retirement be in your sixties or seventies in a decade? Will your body be kept alive artificially with tubes and machines while your mind is on vacation or travelling the world? Of course, the tubes will just keep pumping nutrients into your veins while your credit lasts. The moment your credit reaches zero, your view of the beach, or of the Eiffel Tower, will fade until you hear one final “bleep.”
What about a medical institution that assists you in ending your own life when you reach a certain age? Or when you develop some disease that can be cured, but it will take time and money. Or when your money runs out. How popular will this be for people who cannot afford a comfortable retirement, or for whom something went wrong a few years before they were supposed to retire? How normal will it be ten years from now for doctors and other professionals who work with older people to present it as a “dignified” solution? (Will medical professionals earn a commission for their recommendations?)
Is this going to be a case of people with money living to the ripe old age of 120 or even longer, with freshly printed or developed organs, new teeth, and all sorts of other medical wonders in place of their old parts, and people who by 45 or 50 have failed to achieve financial success, or who haven’t inherited enough from the previous generation, being encouraged to receive state-subsidized euthanasia?
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