Mahjong Solitaire Adventure/Avenger, two Taylor Swift metrics, Meta's llama3: reflections in a speckled teet.

Tormented deputy Tate Smith left a note, dejected and deep down with the "inner anxiety", saying something, almost a Dear John, the modern Dear John that is, "by the time you read this..."

"my young king, I'll be more awesome still, by the time you read this.  Also, Levin is practicing his English language skills.  Dwight is slaying on Mahjong Solitaire Adventure."

"Or is it Mahjong Solitaire Avenger?  One never quite square gets the frame of these things, I fear:the appropriate context."

Picked-over and put upon, that Tate Smith, in the back forty telling the cows dirges of the "struggle", and the "inner anxiety", and, as mentioned prior, the snow cone, the gaping paper cone like a hungry mouth on the beach sand.

*In one day, total Spotify streamings of Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets album roughly equaled the all-time number of streamings for Roberta Flack's hit single "Killing Me Softly With His Song".

In five day's Taylor Swift's song "Fortnight" has been streamed over 60 million times on Spotify, compared to 37 million all-time Spotify streams of Bob Dylan's version of "All Along The Watchtower".

*Meta pocketed 13B$ in pure profit Q1 2024, but investors squirmed at talk of increased costs in Q2.  "Fortune favors the brave", it seems, is a saying that only favors hedge-fund rapists and gold speculators, the fair weather frat boys of the investing ecosystem.

As posted here, I've "chatted" with the llama3 AI on the Meta platform, and it seems, no matter what we discuss, it always seems to come back to something of "resilience": as I might say, "push on, young king."

A mixed bag.  Accordingly, Whatsapp Business("you've come a long way, baby") has added more to the bottom line of Meta, but Meta anticipates spending more on AI infrastructure....

Look at this up here.  I was looking at book one of Sun Tzu over the weekend, and he was caterwauling about compartmentalizing, subdividing vast armies into various smaller and smaller units, until finally, a Murtaugh and Riggs: battle buddies.  Like weeks into days, into hours in minutes, seconds, flecks of an eye lash.

Subdividing little sushi of a bit, there, young king.  Radial, and all, gravitational around central points, and all: nuclei, and the ultimately the super-gravitational monsters Jupiter and the Sun, to piecemeal the thing into "manageable bits"--why it almost makes me think of Dwight, again.

Like the proverbial "fat dude with the candy", Tate getting played-off in public because, "ha ha, she care!!".  "Fat dude with the candy" is the government housing version of "the White Man from Town", of course, and the "dandy with the book-learning".  Tate just has those feelings about feelings, things in heart, folding intricately like the finest origami, but still scarcely having any significant bearing on reality.

Until she records an album, that is.

"Put it to it, young king.  Ain't that girl fubar, young king?"  Traded a handful of her inner anxieties for so many millions--a fair trade a wot for the one who is willing.  It's almost like sports betting, but more oriented to the self-absorbed, those feelings on top of feelings--feelings about feelings, and perpetually consumed by her love life.

Not a criticism, but an observation--indeed, what is art but to make us feel something?

Treats for the eats and the Intellectual Autobahn of the Dirty South: what we earn and what we get.

*You might say, "one handful of dirt from a naysayer is nothing; let them do it, and see if I care or bother over it."  But what if all the naysayers lined-up together, each to throw his or her own handful of dirt on you?  You would realize the power of a little negativity here and there, and the idle words of a careless person become a shovelful of earth on a grave.  And such is part of what we call the daily frisson of an "indifferent universe".

*We suffer so much more inside our own thoughts than in reality(Lucius Seneca); the sling and arrows of such imaginary rabble that cause us to fiddle-faddle and fail to take advantage of the present hour.  Why--its as if we work with so much of our energy to dig our own life-grave in the familiar soils, and eternity be   damned, we work so earnestly and diligently that the onlooker might think we actually enjoy that dissipation.

We have enough to worry about; we dissipate daily: "why constipate yourself?"(Sadhguru)

*Its not about getting what we deserve, but instead thriving with what we get......

...why, do they not grab at pieces of others, dangling body parts and such, to the point of enriching themselves at the knell of that most precious coin of all--life, not for life, but life for enjoyment.  To masticate out of demented impulse, rather than an otherwise obvious impetus towards survival; to that extent, instinct is a dried root appearing like a bleached leather thong or a snakeskin?

We have to embrace some form of capacity, something elapses with nature, and not against, something that does not strive against itself--as of the warrior that uses the least resource to nudge his opponent just at the right time, causing a fall: smarter, not harder, or better still, smarter and harder--

--capacity.

How many of my snowcones have I seen in the sand on the beach?  My 75 cents plunked, and a good word for the vendor, from the vendor--then a kerplunk, a flangdamble.

Why--life and life more abundantly--is not the goal in dissipation?  Is it not the goal to lead the flows of life overtake one?  Why, the Aurelius reader knows to let himself be carried along willingly, almost limply, like an Oak leaf in the crick, neither striving in vain nor in particular perturbation.  Why--does the true sage break himself striving against the world?

Blackberry snowcone.

Indeed, thriving on what you get--thriving on what you already have--that is a true intelligence, then the capacity for the intake of life and not the bitter trudge of acquiring tools and skill--making do with what one already has and sparing our constipation for our social cobungaphelp.

Is it ever about what we deserve?  I had this conversation once--that few people really know that he himself is bad--and the other end disagreed("they know they bad!"), and I was astonished at the lack of perspective, a person being a gaping crater, not a void that takes material unto it, but just an emptiness--and I thought then, that was a person maximized on what was closest to them, and discounting entirely what was farthest.  Therefore from the ignorant, we can glean a lesson, too.

What do we deserve?

There are moments of consternation--seeing my snowcone in the beachsand--but then not, then quite the opposite--I remember my donuts, that muffled sound of the box landing in the trashcan, and all that, people tossing, hourly management, and my own consternation rising to overtake me--myself lost in my own perception--why, what we deserves?!?--we could not ever truly answer for the past, I wot and only hope the future becomes a kind of response to the things, that I have something else cold in my hand in days coming, and I don't become depressed or overly wrought over the memories of so many snow cones seen in the beach sand.

The Dark Theological Irrationality of the Soul: a musing on time and mindset in various phases.

There was the darkness--too utterly blank to be called gloomy or foreboding; indeed there was something peaceful or restful about it--and me too absorbed in looking about, I had not noticed there was a strange glow--

and it was me: I had handily road-mapped my own demarcations and turnabouts on the thoroughfare and service road of the Dark Night of the Soul; and all that taken as second nature in embers and eminations of my own nitre putrescence--something of not the systemically rational and some modicum semblance of rational mathematics that breaks too un-spirited for a theology of the irrational.

I was not dead, nor sought by the authorities, and beyond that I was in particular neither pleasing nor perturbing anyone, in particular; I was watching Wings and Just Shoot Me.

There was the darkness, and without contrast, in a frame of reference to establish perspective, the world would then be merely a dark gradient, and myself, some kind of Rudolph the Red Nose Ju-ju-bee, that transmits his random nonsense into posterity like some kind of motivated, irrational beacon:

--we call this the spirit of a person.

--the elements so mixed in him
that all of nature might stand up
and say, "this was a man!"--
(Edgar Lee Masters)


--too absorbed in looking about, his 12 would be better still if it was 15--his two day movie would better yet become a 5 day movie--his huggerboo would scream for continual embrace and a protracted, long-throated "boooo!".

Not dead, of course, but as the fictional Blizzard Branch Ponefish sits on the creek bed and waits for dying insects to float by, so too does the soul providentially leave its mawl agape, hoping to catch hold and take-up whatever--and the 12 seeming like it would be so much better as a 15--the 32 ounces become regular, and the yearning spirit venturing to either 42 or 48 ounces.  Posterity: some great toilet waiting placidly for the next exhalation.

--we call this the great restroom of eternity.

--"too un-spirited for a theology of the irrational", lacking substantial arrays and polygons for any form of design, hurtling "dead-stick" through the ether, all the charm of an electric eel repelling an enemy and that schizoid irrational glow betraying the magic hour Esperanto of inspiration.

Even as we know Christmas will come again at the end of the year, and then next year, too, does inspiration put its boots under our bed now and then--and its up to posterity to take the measurements, the metrics, the statistics that comprise and form a theology of the irrational in retrospect.
 

Recondite word: Prolixity. And NC sports betting...

Prolixity(noun): the quality of being overly "wordy", long-winded or verbose--profuse in usage of words compared to the normal mode.

A prolix(polyglot) person demonstrates his prolixity(verbiage) by speaking on and on, at length on any randomly-given subject.....

A polymath demonstrates his knowledge by speaking knowledgeably on many different subjects....

I was seeing a quote, "not all that is gold shimmers" or something, as opposed to "not all that glitters is gold", while trying to dig-up "not all who wonder are lost"......  such as the old story of the journeyman, who looking for perspective, stopped by the wayside and posed his question to a stranger sitting beneath a tree.  The stranger spoke.  After the stranger finished speaking, and the journeyman had rested a while, he continued on his way, neither understanding what the stranger had said, nor where he himself was going.  And upon further reflection, he discovered he had no idea what his own question meant, anyway.

I was seeing from WBTV that the gaming commission in North Carolina reported some 600M + dollars in bets between March 11, 2024 and March 31, 2024.  200M or so was promotional credits, while 400M + came from the pockets of North Carolina gamblers.

I think of one of my own quotes from an old essay about gambling: "Don't we have a responsibility to take care of the weak-minded?"

The good book says similarly, "the strong ought bear the infirmities of the weak."

Meanwhile, the modern frisson is for the government to generate its tax dollars as it may, with moralists hardly seeming to bump heads with the more libertarian elements of government--especially when enticed by the prospect of so much potential tax revenue.  Similarly, the old story of some churches doing recreational gambling activities for the sake of fund-raising or simply entertaining the crowds, not so far removed from some of today's "growth-oriented" religious institutions.

...a prolix(polyglot) person demonstrates his prolixity(verbiage) by speaking on and on, at length on any randomly-given subject.....

"That blog which makes its point while saying the least, is best to read."  -nobody

We take that long, misbegotten path around the base of the tree, as of the light-hearted cadence of skipping children around the mulberry.....

Trump Hush Money playlist.

(Playlist I made in light of the "Trump Hush Money" trail.)

Twentieth Century Fox fanfare -(version from the How Green Was My Valley original soundtrack)

Should've Known Better - Richard Marx

Running On Empty-Jackson Browne

96 Tears-Question Mark and the Mysterians

Um Um Um Um-Major Lance

Beast of Burden-The Rolling Stones

Strutter 78-Kiss

Islands in the Stream-Kenny Rogers/Dolly Parton

Takin' Care Of Business- Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Popcorn-Hot Butter

By The Time I Get To Phoenix -Isaac Hayes

Criminal-Fiona Apple

The End Of The Innocence-Don Henley

Pennies From Heaven - Louis Prima

Queen Of My Double Wide Trailer -Sammy Kershaw

#1 Crush - Garbage

Don't Speak - No Doubt

Tornado Of Souls - Megadeth

Frankl and Camus and Aurelius and Bassmaster Paul: conversation with an AI.

It was a common thing for people of old to carry wooden buckets that contained their drinking and washing water.  As of the fishing and farming references in the old Bible, Lao Tze spoke to sort of a commonality of the people of his time.

Lao Tze pointed out that everyone wanted a full bucket of water, and yet, they could also lament such, because the full bucket was more difficult to carry than any lesser amount.  After mentioning this to the AI, it points out that nature is something like "slow but sure", from the part 27 of the Tao Te Ching.  My example was part 8 or 9.

I noted the endless necessity of the chore and thought of Sisyphus from the Camus writing, endlessly trying to push a boulder up a steep hill.  That was his life, and so much, be it a few moments or hours, people of old carried their water in buckets, everyday.

The generative AI stated that these chores are "futile" and "absurd", but can, paradoxically, aid us in finding purpose in our lives--to which I point out that the necessity of maintaining at least a basic survival, I suppose, is cause enough.

The output then is something that leads up the hierarchy of needs from basic survival and a trivial sort of joy, all the way to gratitude, of a kind of(what might be) a machine-generated panentheism.

To which the AI asked if I had any thoughts on the subject, which jumpstarted dovetailing from Camus and Lao Tse, through Victor Frankl, and the Frankl is almost a Wikipedia entry in the text of the conversation.

I interject a paraphrase of Marcus Aurelius:  "I am merely a spit of flesh."

One has his self-same buck of water, all in all, and to the larger point, whether God is real and loving and merciful, designer and controller of the heavens and the earth, or whether God is an ecumenical fiction among so many people.

The inevitable destination, between myself and the AI, that is was something of the "commonality of the human experience".

I think to myself, too, the one that writes of the Tao can talk about an experience near it, but can't envelope the very vapor of the thing--meanwhile the AI is talking about joy and meaning, to which I point out "awe", a sense of "awe".  The response then is something about that sense of awe making one grateful for life(he must have forgot the bucket and the boulder).

Of the smoke, one cant write but an impression of the odor of that smoke, or something of the partially clear appearance of that self-same thing, rather than say, something like stereo instructions or C++ code.  To wit, the Tao one can bloviate about on a blog is not the true Tao, or the Tao in the meme is not the true--the true Tao is something of which we have but a residue--a type and shadow, and then merely that, in our sieve of frame of reference, for which we are lucky to have anything in particular at all.

And of the "lower forms", we are in the good book assured that the meek are blessed, the down-hearted are comforted and so on, and the Thoreau mendicant sort of Buddhist proto-Western "mindfulness", dismissed as idle loafing and meaningless word salad, there is something yet of the experience, something yet of the very baseline of life itself, that, quatrapuncted and discombobulated, makes of itself, not struggle or futility or absurdity, but the very fundamental of life, sans adjectives and adverbs.

April 13. "You might think I'm lying, but..."

"...we strip the very screw [that] we want to turn..."  -Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way.

*MLB's Joe Girardi has in the past attended a NASCAR race at Rockingham, NC at North Carolina Motor Speedway.  In fact, his first NASCAR event was at the historic track.  The track, known as "the Rock", remains one of the most beloved venues of NASCAR's "small market" heritage.

*According to Google, "spirituality" was among the most searched terms during the April 8 solar eclipse.  In addition, on regular days, searches for spirituality peak in the United States around 3 a.m. in the morning, along with searches for "ear" and "dreams".

The generic "bible" search, at its daily peak, still eclipses searches for "spirituality"(in the United States).

*The Federal Income Tax was first partially instituted during the Civil War, but repealed soon thereafter, and later re-enacted, cascading in its adoption on a state-by-state basis.

Also, the IRS has made available a free E-file tool for simple income tax filings.

"He went ahead to prepare a place for you."

In our lives here in the natural, we "prepare a place" in the headspace between our eyes....  the province of reason, contemplation....

"Sometimes a problem needs less of you..."  -Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way.

"At some point, you get tired of not being number one." -Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson

"Number Two tries harder." -AVIS Rental Cars.