On being human

If you fear that machines are going to kick you off your tiny spot under the sun, think again – maybe you deserve it.

You’re human. You can do what no machine will ever be able to do, but that’s what you never do, because you’re too busy doing what machines will earlier or later outperform you at. So why are you surprised about being treated like a machine? Soon, you’ll be treated even worse, and then worse and worse still, as machines will perform better and better. Ironic, isn’t it?  First, machines were designed as substitutes for human labor, and now humans are clinging to the role of inferior substitutes for machines, so that they’d be worth at least existing.

If only I could…

Life is a game, and if I could set its rules, the rule number one would be “I always win.”

But would that game be interesting then?

There are things you’re unable to do, and this is why being able to do something else makes sense.

Why I rarely comment

1. For some, their blog is like an art gallery: things that are shown are expected to be either accepted as a whole, with everything they contain, or not accepted at all, even if they contain something a visitor doesn’t agree with or approve of. But it’s not even quite like the traditional type of art gallery. The main idea is, you let a piece of the author’s mind inside yours. You don’t interpret it. You don’t adjust it to yourself. You don’t process it in any way that could alter it. Needless to say, any side thoughts don’t do much help in this case.

2. Often, a post is intended as a finished thought, and thus any comment can be an insult, since it accuses the author of not fulfilling the main objective: the very fact means someone still has something to add to it.

There’s something only a single mind can do

In the creative field, being good enough is not all it takes to survive the competition, and survival is not all it takes to live.

What makes you an accomplished creative worker is something that can’t be measured, it’s something that can’t be defined, it’s something that can’t be arranged as an algorithm or processed by technology. Of course, it sucks to depend on something that uncertain, but it’s only thanks to this an individual can compete with the industry: there’s something only a single mind can do, and when it matters the most, it doesn’t matter how much more technique and resources there is at the industry’s side.

Random thoughts on working

1. One thing about confidence: it shouldn’t be confused with carelessness. These things aren’t even on the same plane. When speaking of confidence, we mean no excess restraining thoughts or emotions. When speaking of carelessness, we mean absence of necessary restraining thoughts or emotions (such as safety considerations, for instance.) As you become more and more skilled, the latter will be more and more likely to occur in your working habits, but: never think you’re too good to respect what you’re doing.

Woe from Wit

I’m desperate, and I’m grasping at straws trying to find an opportunity to stop being a loser. Year by year, the chances are slimmer and slimmer, and the slimmer the chances are, the harder I try. I get to know more and more, I understand more and more and the more I understand, the worse I get at dealing with things. Seems paradoxical, eh? But acting stupid doesn’t help, either.

Once I got fed up with the insanity of it all and decided to switch my brain off for a while just to see what would happen. Took some pills and washed them down with strong wine, then repeated this until I’d had enough. One thing I’ve learned from that: not that I don’t have the nerve to live a life of a mindless jackass, but it just doesn’t suit my style, and style is everything for me.

Sometimes you have to stop training in order to continue progressing

Those transitional moments in the progress are the hardest to get through, when the extent to which you’re more skilled now is enough to notice errors you unknowingly made before, but yet is not enough to correct them.

Wrong is sometimes right

In the past, I used to think, “I’ve done nothing wrong, and I’m still failing, what in this world is the problem?”

The problem was that I did nothing wrong. This realization struck me when I figured out that to be constantly moving forward, I had to make a step back from time to time.

Life isn’t static. It’s about progress. Progress from hostility to friendship; from disregard to admiration; from nonexistence to life; and the other way round.

All that matters is…

I’ve been on the road for so long that I don’t remember what my home looked like.

I don’t know where I’m from, and I don’t know where I’m going to. All that matters is what I’m passing by, here and now.

Success and self-criticism

Before you give up on something because you think you’re not “talented enough”, think about what it means to be talented again. Are you sure your notion of talent is correct? Are you sure your notion of being “talented enough” is correct? Are you sure that it’s necessary to be talented to be successful? Are you sure that it’s necessary to be talented to do something others will enjoy?

Talent is first and foremost conscious effort. But who says you always need to act consciously? Your conscious critic.