Every where is war

War in the East, war in the west, war in the south. Everywhere bullets are dying, children flying. Peace remains elusive ad it has always been. And the naked apes with their weapons made to maim and kill the most number of fellow apes are busy at it.

It is a tragedy when an innocent is killed. But I don’t know whether it is a tragedy when thousands are killed. Because in the death of thousands, there are military honours of valour, and good command.

And because I have nothing to say about the war in Israel and Palestine, may the hostilities come to a close sooner. So many lives have so far been lost on both sides.

And peace to all those who have lost friends, family and loved ones in the ongoing conflict.

I don’t know

Daily writing prompt

What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

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Boethius, when faced with such a misfortune, that is, being a prisoner, stripped of wealth, honours, friends and with death not far away, wrote the consolations of philosophy. In this great work, lady philosophy tells him of vanity of regret for the lost gifts of fortune. I hope, faced with such a scenario, reason shall be my guide and philosophy my consolation. I hope the wisdom of Mahabharata, where Krishna advises Arjuna that victory and defeat are the same, that he should seek detachment; to learn to see with the same a mound of earth and a hip of gold, a cow and a sage, a dog and a man who eats the dog, will be useful in the circumstances.

In short, in all honesty, it will need a giant step in renunciation, and detachment. I am not sure I have this in me now and I don’t want to find out, if i can help it. This is the kind of loss that madness is made of. In the Mysterious stranger by Mark Twain, we actually have almost a similar scenario. He makes a man mad and have him believing he is the king. In all ways, he is the happiest man, freed from all desire and apart from the dead, he is almost immune from being hurt.

So maybe, only death or madness should be preferred in a situation where one loses everything.

Peaceful

Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

But I also almost can’t recall how that life was. For the last 20 years of my life I have used a computer for one thing or another & it has simplified my work a great deal. There was a time back in the day when my desktop computer functioned as my entertainment centre. I had installed a TV card and with the cd drives, I could watch movies and play music.

Computers and Internet connectivity have made life much easier. With Google knowing everything and now combined with LLM and other computer capabilities, we don’t even have to think anymore. We can now outsource thinking to computers.

Computers are ubiquitous in our lives. We have them in our hands, they drive our cars, and so much more. It is possible there are people living without computers and doing well at it, but that’s not me.

Or maybe I need a computer detox.

Sewing

What skill would you like to learn?

I user to know how to knit and sew but because of disuse, I lost the skill. Same thing happened to my sign language skills.

If I could, I would learn lip reading.

I don’t want to say I want to learn to swim because that’s a dead horse already. But it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to do so.

I would also like to learn cornering at high speed. Whenever I am out cycling, I slow down at corners when I am going downhill and lose valuable seconds.

There is rock face climbing that I would love to learn in preparation for getting to the highest peak of mt Kenya.

Academically, I would like to be better at writing essays. Writing better literature reviews, using search engines better to get the material I need.

Finally, I would like to learn to be a better writer.

To stay alive

What’s your #1 priority tomorrow?

And while I can eat, brush my teeth, exercise & include some healthy amount of sex, there’s nothing I can do to stop myself from dying in my sleep. Being alive and healthy opens a lot of opportunities to do good or annoy someone, something you can’t do if you are dead.

I have no outstanding deadlines to meet except those I have set for myself. No mountain is calling at the moment. Or a long distance ride.

Maybe I need a life😭