goldfish

Latest posts from Goldfish

• Infinite pain

  Jan 18

  In Only Lovers Left Alive, there is a scene where Eva needs to leave. She started to pack books into her tiny suitcase, and before everything, she picked Infinite Jest. I never read it, and I knew I have to read it. Years later M gave me the first chapter of Infinite Jest. He decided to translate it, and this was his first attempt. I was honored and happy that he chose me to read it. But I couldn't finish it. It was too hard to read. The translation was good, but the story itself was hard to follow. So I never gave him my opinion; I felt bad. It was the end of summer and there was a meteor shower. I was the only one with a car, so I picked up M, and we drove to an ancient place outside the city to stay the night. It was the middle of Covid, and everyone wore a mask. I played Maggot Brain in the car and we sat in silence. It was amazing to sit and listen without worrying if the other one was enjoying it. I know he enjoyed it. This year I saw the book published. That is five years of his life, priced at €7, 1500 pages. I bought it. I didn't have the courage to start it again. I started it anyway and already passed the pages he gave me before. I don't know if he is killed or alive. I will finish it and tell him I read it. I owe him this.

• F is missing

  Jan 02

  My problem with the work is that the fun is missing. I completely forgot that and immersed myself so deep into the work that I ignored not only that but most basic human needs. All because my monster brain needs some hobby to be entertained, it needs its toys. But it all started with fun. Programming the Commodore 64 to draw shapes was pure fun. Then creating websites and blogs, then creating apps for people's needs. The last time I had that kind of fun was 7 years ago. Still have fun, a different kind, but it's rare. Learning is fun, but exploring a new world by creating a product is something else. I think the problem starts when I called it "a product." I don't want to work on a product. I don't care about products. I need to find that fun again, to explore and to create.

  

• Zed's dead baby

  Dec 24

  I just discovered leaflet and the AT protocol of bluesky. Very similar to what I described yesteray to have a small community of people reading and writing on open web without the influence of social media evil algorithms. But it striked me: the time for that is passed, we had a golden era and that was it. Trying to resurrecte that blogging experience is a deadend. If the need is still there then a new experience should be created. Something that we never experienced before.

  

• Do you write without readers?

  Dec 23 ⎯ ❤️1

  There are two sides to publishing platforms: writing and reading. There are things I like about writing in Fika. It has a proofreading feature, it is clean, and it is not bloated with useless features, and so on. In short, the first side, writing, is fine. The reader side is missing. I write these mostly for myself. I am not a professional writer, nor am I seriously seeking user interaction like in the blogging era, but there should be a difference between this and my private notebook. The bad solution today is social media. Everything from everyone is put into one endless feed, sorted by God knows what, and the purpose is to keep me there for as long as possible, as long as I am not bored. I can still randomly discover interesting souls, but everything is designed to make me scroll endlessly. It is too shallow. There are rare posts or ideas that go deep, either through self-writing or a good conversation. At the same time, I need a follow feature—to follow what people do. I like how Adam thinks; I am also interested in seeing what he is reading or writing. I like to know what people think about my post or idea. There should be a better way to create that cozy corner of the web for weirdos to talk and show what they think, and to be seen by like-minded people. This is not meant to be a huge social media platform, but rather a non-industrial, simple Twitter-like space for posts within small to medium-sized groups of people. And, obviously, it should be open on the internet for everyone to join.

  

• Creation queue and more on agency

  Dec 22

  Speaking of different queues my brain uses to burn calories, I missed an important one: the creation queue. Creating something nonexistent, a code, a photograph, or a piece of writing. And one thing about this queue is different: it creates more leads/ideas than others. It's a self-inserting mechanism; the more time you spend here, the longer the queue gets with more items/ideas. Like the idea of queues generated when I started to write here, which then led to the agency idea because I was thinking which queue could generate more agency. So on the topic of agency, I have some ideas to answer how to reinforce it: Embrace being stuck. This is the sign you are at the end of the track; time to change. Instead of running from being stuck, run to it. Clear thinking. Get ideas out of the mind by writing or talking about them with your people. Break it down. Imagine a ruler and ask where am I. Then ask how to go from 3 to 4. Aspiration. Find people you admire. Study them. Some of this comes from here, and being stuck is an idea from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

  

• What is the origin of agency?

  Dec 21

  What I admire in people is agency. The confidence to not accept the norm and have the courage to change. This is a different matter than confidence or self-doubt. Agency means you know this is not right and act on it. You know there should be a better way. You know you cannot wait for others to fix it. Along the way you have doubt, but not about the original "this is wrong," but about the methods and answers. You know you must start the change and you do it. The question is how can one improve agency? How can I buy it, like from a shelf of human capabilities at a supermarket?