Homo Deus -- Excerpts

By Yuval Noah Harari

This piece began by me wanting to write a book review. Then I decided no, I would just write down some notes for my own reflection. It is said that the average person only remembers about 1 percent of a book. I painstakingly typed out the excerpts below to give myself a better chance of remembering what I had read. I’m one of those who read to remember, not read to forget. I now share this effort with those who may not get around to reading this excellent book.

Harari is an atheist. I am Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR) aka Spiritual But Not Affiliated (SBNA). I believe in energy that does not die, the soul, and afterlives. Hence, I disagree with those parts of the book that cover these subjects. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RpbveVC_4

The prologue says, “I encourage all of us, whatever our beliefs, to question the basic narratives of our world, to connect past developments with present concerns, and not to be afraid of controversial issues.” – Dr. Yuval Noah Harari

The book is full of questions:

P 3: What are we going to do with ourselves?

What will we do with all that power?

Excerpts:

P 3/5: Misfortune or stupidity on the collective level resulted in mass famines. Mass famines still strike some areas from time to time, but they are exceptional, and they are almost always caused by human politics rather than by natural catastrophes.

P 5: Though hundreds of millions still go hungry almost every day,  in most countries very few people actually starve to death.

P 6: For the first time in its recorded history China is now free from famine.

P 14: Incidentally cancer and heart disease are of course not new illnesses – they go back to antiquity. In previous eras, however, relatively few people lived long enough to die from them.

P 16:  It is therefore likely that major epidemics will continue to endanger humankind in the future only if humankind itself creates them, in the service of some ruthless ideology.

P 17: Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder.

Today the main source of wealth is knowledge.

P 19: Cyber warfare may destabilize the world by giving even small countries and no-state actors the ability to fight superpowers effectively.

Though cyber warfare introduces new means of destruction, it doesn’t necessarily add new incentives to use them.

P 20: Throughout history, if kings and emperors acquired some new weapon, sooner or later they were tempted to use it.

P 21: Coca-Cola poses a far deadlier threat than al-Qaeda.

If the Jungle Law comes back into force, it will not be the fault of terrorists.

P 22: History does not tolerate a vacuum.

P 23: When the moment comes to choose between economic growth and ecological stability, politicians, CEOs and voters almost always prefer growth.

Humans are rarely satisfied with what they already have.

P 24: Humanity’s next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity.

We are constantly reminded that human life is the most sacred thing in the universe.

P 25: Because Christianity, Islam and Hinduism insisted that the meaning of our existence depended on our fate in the afterlife, they viewed death as a vital and positive part of the world.

Just try to imagine Christianity, Islam or Hinduism in a world without death – which is also a world without heaven, hell or reincarnation.

P 28: If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500, the answer is yes.

Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel has recently confessed that he aims to live forever.

P 29: But if you believe you can live forever, you would be crazy to gamble on infinity like that.

P 30: But life is generally divided into a learning period followed by a working period.

P 31: In truth, so far modern medicine hasn’t extended our natural life span by a single year.

P 32: A relentless war against death seems to be inevitable.

As long as people die of something, we will strive to overcome it.

P 34: For who would like to live forever in eternal misery?

P 38: The rate of suicide in the developed world is also much higher than in traditional societies.

P 40: Achieving real happiness is not going to be much easier than overcoming old age and death.

Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations.

John Stuart Mill, explained that happiness is nothing but pleasure and freedom from pain.

P 41: According to the life sciences, happiness and suffering are nothing but different balances of bodily sensations.

P 44: Perhaps the key to happiness is neither the race nor the gold medal, but rather combining the right doses of excitement and tranquillity.

P 45: In order to raise global happiness levels, we need to manipulate human biochemistry. And this is exactly what we have begun doing over the last few decades.

People have been quarreling about education methods for thousands of years.

P 46: The biochemical pursuit of happiness is also the number one cause of crime in the world.

P 47: The state hopes to regulate the biochemical pursuit of happiness, separating ‘bad’ manipulations from ‘good’ ones.

In research labs experts are already working on more sophisticated ways of manipulating human biochemistry, such as sending direct electrical stimuli to appropriate spots in the brain, or genetically engineering the blueprints of our bodies.

P 48: To attain real happiness, humans need to slow down the pursuit of pleasant sensations, not accelerate it.

This Buddhist view of happiness has a lot in common with the biochemical view.

P 49: For what is the point of running after something that disappears as fast as it arises?

With each passing year our tolerance for unpleasant sensations decreases, and our cravings for pleasant sensations increases.

You may debate whether it is good or bad, but it seems that the second great project of the twenty-first century – to ensure global happiness – will involve re-engineering Homo sapiens so that it can enjoy everlasting pleasure.

P 50: Up till now increasing human power relied mainly on upgrading our external tools. In the future it may rely more on upgrading the human body and mind, or on merging directly with our tools.

P 52: Breaking out of the organic realm could also enable life to finally break out of planet Earth. Not even the toughest bacteria can survive on Mars.  A non-organic artificial intelligence, in contrast, will find it far easier to colonise alien planets.

Technologies for upgrading humans pose a completely different kind of challenge.

P 53: Many scholars try to predict how the world will look in the year 2100 or 2200. Any worthwhile prediction must take into account the ability to re-engineer human minds, and this is impossible.

(Mena note: Why impossible? Because the mind is a part of the soul factor?)

P 56: In pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human.

P 65: What is the point of making predictions if they cannot change anything?

The more we know, the less we can predict.

For what is the use of new knowledge if it doesn’t lead to novel behaviours?

P 67: Knowledge that does not change behavior is useless.

P 68: Historians study the past not in order to repeat it, but in order to be liberated from it.

P 75: If you start with a flawed ideal, you often appreciate its defects only when the ideal is close to realization.

P 76: Homo sapiens does its best to forget the fact, but it is an animal.   

P 97: The twenty-first century will be dominated by algorithms. ‘Algorithm’ is arguably the single most important concept in our world. If we want to understand our life and our future, we should make every effort to understand what an algorithm is, and how algorithms are connected with emotions.

An algorithm is a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions. An algorithm isn’t a particular calculation, but the method followed when making the calculation.

P 99: The algorithms controlling humans work through sensations, emotions and thoughts.

P 100: What we call sensations and emotions are in fact algorithms.

P 101: 99% of our decisions -- including the most important life choices concerning spouses, careers and habitats -- are made by the highly refined algorithms we call sensations, emotions and desires.

P 118/9: The traditional monotheist answer is that only Sapiens have eternal souls. Since pigs and other animals have no soul, they live only for a few years, and then die and fade into nothingness. The belief that humans have eternal souls whereas animals are just evanescent bodies is a central pillar of our legal, political and economic system. It explains why, for example, it is perfectly okay for humans to kill animals for food, or even just for the fun of it. There is zero scientific evidence that in contrast to pigs (animals), Sapiens have souls.

P 124: The most up to date theories also maintain that sensations and emotions are biochemical data processing algorithms.

P 125: We won’t be able to grasp the full implications of novel technologies such as artificial intelligence if we don’t know what minds are.

(Mena note: Minds are a part of the soul factor.)

To be frank, science knows surprisingly little about mind and consciousness.

P 128: One of the wonderful things about science is that when scientists don’t know something, they can try out all kinds of theories and conjunctures, but in the end they can just admit their ignorance.

P 129: The better we understand the brain, the more redundant the mind seems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RpbveVC_4&fbclid=IwAR32pnjdedWbJOlLEWPNcj7XX6XfIAmLUAGFpRDmpj5d6GuDLsySDEHgZYg

(Mena note: This video begs to differ. There is a section where it's shared that people are found with very little brain matter and they live normal lives.)

P 134: As private individuals, many biologists and doctors may go on believing in souls. Yet they never write about them in serious scientific journals.

P 136: Some scientists concede that consciousness is real and may actually have great moral and political value, but that it fulfills no biological function whatsoever.

P 139: Since there is only one real world, whereas the number of potential virtual worlds is infinite, the probability that you happen to inhabit the sole real world is almost zero.

P 169: The value of money is not the only thing that might evaporate once people stop believing in it. The same can happen to laws, gods and even entire empires.

P 170: Yet we don’t want to accept that our God, our nation or our values are mere fictions, because these are the things that give meaning to our lives. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another. Meaning is created when many people weave together a common network of stories.

P 171: Each round of mutual confirmation tightens the web of meaning further, until you have little choice but to believe  what everyone else believes.

P 174: Nobody in twelfth-century England knew what human rights were.

P 177: Hence if we want to understand our future, cracking genomes and crunching numbers is hardly enough. We must also decipher the fictions that give meaning to the world.

P 181: Animals live in a dual reality. Sapiens, in contrast, live in triple-layered reality.

P 187: We encountered the term 'algorithm' when we tried to understand what emotions are and how brains function, and defined it as a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions.

P 195: As bureaucracies accumulate power they become immune to their own mistakes. Instead of changing their stories to fit reality, they can change reality to fit their stories.

P 198: In practice, the power of human cooperation networks depends on a delicate balance between truth and fiction. You cannot organize masses of people effectively without relying on some fictional myths. So if you stick to unalloyed reality, without mixing any fiction with it, few people will follow you.

P 199: Really powerful human organizations are not necessarily clear-sighted.

P 201: Even when scriptures mislead people about the true nature of reality, they can nevertheless retain their authority for thousands of years.

P 205: History isn’t a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.

P 206: Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; why do we find ourselves sacrificing our lives in their service?

P 207: In the twenty-first century we will create more powerful fictions and more totalitarian religions than in any previous era. Being able to distinguish fiction from reality and religion from science will therefore become more difficult but more vital than ever before.

P 209: Thanks to computers and bioengineering, the difference between fiction and reality will blur, as people reshape reality to match their pet fictions.

P 210: How does modern science relate to religion?

P 214: Just as the gap between religion and science is narrower than we commonly think, so the gap between religion and spirituality is much wider. Religion is a deal, whereas spirituality is a journey.

P 215: Spiritual journeys are nothing like that. They usually take people in mysterious ways towards unknown destinations.

P 218: From an historical perspective, the spiritual journey is always tragic, for it is a lonely path fit only for individuals rather than for entire societies.

P 219: Science always needs religious assistance in order to create viable human institutions. Scientists study how the world functions, but there is no scientific method for determining how humans ought to behave.

P 220: Science studies facts, religion speaks about values, and never the twain shall meet.

P 229: We have no scientific definition or measurement of happiness.

P 231: The uncompromising quest for truth is a spiritual journey, which can seldom remain within the confines of either religious or scientific establishments.

P 255: Modernity accordingly inspired people to want more, and dismantled the age-old disciplines that curbed greed.

P 257: Humankind was salvaged not by the law of supply and demand, but rather by the rise of a revolutionary new religion --  humanism.

P 258: The modern deal  offers us power, on condition that we renounce our belief in a great cosmic plan that gives meaning to life. Yet when you examine the deal closely, you will find a cunning escape clause.

This escape clause has been the salvation of modern society, for it is impossible to sustain order without meaning.

Throughout history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan, all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who continue to believe in God and His all-encompassing plans.

P 259: The humanist religion worships humanity and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism.

Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe.

This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world.

P 260: Meaning and authority always go hand in hand. Whoever determines the meaning of our actions – whether they are good or evil, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly – also gains the authority to tell us what to think and how to behave.

P 261: For centuries humanism has been convincing us that we are the ultimate source of meaning, and that our free will is therefore the highest authority of all.

P 262: The DSM diagnoses the ailments of life, not the meaning of life. Most psychologists believe that only human feelings are authorized to determine the true meaning of human actions.

P 272: As the source of meaning and authority relocated from the sky to human feelings, the nature of the entire cosmos changed.

Angels and demons were transformed from real entities roaming the forests and deserts of the world into inner forces within our own psyche.

You experience hell every time you ignite the fires of anger and hatred within your heart; and you enjoy heavenly bliss every time you forgive your enemies, repent your own misdeeds and share your wealth with the poor.

P 275: In the Middle Ages, without a god I had no source of political, moral and aesthetic authority. I could not tell what was right, good or beautiful. Who could live like that? Today, in contrast, it is very easy not to believe in God, because I pay no price for my unbelief. I can be a complete atheist and still derive a very rich mixture of political, moral and aesthetic values from my inner experience.

P 278: Experiences and sensitivity build up one another in a never-ending cycle. I cannot experience anything if I have no sensitivity, and I cannot develop sensitivity unless I undergo a variety of experiences.

P 279: We aren’t born with a ready-made conscience. If we pay attention, our moral sensitivity sharpens, and these experiences become a source of valuable ethical knowledge about what is good, what is right and who I really am.

P 288: If you want to understand war, don’t look up at the general on the hilltop, or at angels in the sky. Instead, look straight into the eyes of the common soldiers.

P 311: The entire twentieth century looks like a big mistake.

P 315: History is often shaped by small groups of forward-looking innovators rather than by the backward-looking masses.

P 319: In the early twenty-first century the train of progress is again pulling out of the station – and this will probably be the last train ever to leave the station called Homo sapiens. Those who miss this train will never get a second chance.

In the twenty-first century, those who ride the train of progress will acquire divine abilities of creation and destruction, while those left behind will face extinction.

P 321: Ask yourself: what was the most influential discovery, invention or creation of the twentieth century? Now ask yourself: what was the most influential discovery, invention or creation of traditional religions such as Islam and Christianity in the twentieth century?

P 323: If the whole universe is pegged to the human experience, what will happen once the human experience becomes just another designable product, no different in essence from any other item in the supermarket?

P 342: Most experiments have indicated that there is no single self taking any of these decisions. Rather, they result from a tug of war between different and often conflicting inner entities.

(Mena note: Many lives, many identities?)

P 348: The important thing is that we always retain the feeling that we have a single unchanging identity from birth to death (and perhaps even beyond).

(Mena note: Again, the soul factor?)

P 349: Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the more tenaciously we hold on to it, because we desperately want to give meaning to these sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused.

P 351: It is much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering.

P 380: The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms.

P 386: So if you wish to obey the old adage and know thyself, you should not waste your time on philosophy, meditation or psychoanalysis, but rather you should systematically collect biometric data and allow algorithms to analyse them for you and tell you who you are and what you should do. The movement’s motto is ‘Self-knowledge through numbers’.

(Mena note: Cue Astrology, Numerology, etc. as algorithms.)

P 402: If we are not careful the result might be an Orwellian police state that constantly monitors and controls not only all our actions, but even what happens inside our bodies and our brains.

In the twenty-first century the individual is more likely to disintegrate gently from within than to be brutally crushed from without.

P 411: Just as the spectrum of light and sound are far broader than what we humans can see and hear, so the spectrum of mental states is far larger than what the average human perceives.

P 414: Different socio-economic realities and daily routines nurtured different states of consciousness.

(Mena note: Why rich people think differently from poor people, for example.)

P 423: Humanism always emphasized that it is not easy to identify our authentic will.

Many people take great care not to probe themselves too deeply.

P 424: Technological progress has a very different agenda. It doesn’t want to listen to our inner voices. It wants to control them.

P 427: The most interesting emerging religion is Dataism, which venerates neither gods nor man – it worships data.

P 428: Dataism declares that the universe consists of data flows.

P 429: The work of processing data should therefore be entrusted to electronic algorithms, whose capacity far exceeds that of the human brain. In practice, this means that Dataists are skeptical about human knowledge and wisdom, and prefer to put their trust in Big Data and computer algorithms.

P 439: Mixing godlike technology with megalomaniacal politics is a recipe for disaster.

Politicians find it convenient to believe that the reason they don’t understand the world is that they don’t need to understand it.

P 443: If humankind is indeed a single data-processing system, what is its output? Dataists would say that its output will be the creation of a new and even more efficient data-processing system, called the Internet-of-All-Things. Once this mission is accomplished, Homo sapiens will vanish.

P 444: Humans are merely tools for creating the Internet-of-All-Things, which may eventually spread out from planet Earth to pervade the whole galaxy and even the whole universe. This cosmic data-processing system would be like God. It will be everywhere and will control everything, and humans are destined to merge into it.

Homo sapiens is an obsolete algorithm.

P 445: Remember that according to current biological dogma, emotions and intelligence are just algorithms.

Like other successful religions, Dataism is also missionary. Its second commandment is to link everything to the system, including heretics who don’t want to be plugged in.

We mustn’t leave any part of the universe disconnected from the great web of life. Conversely, the greatest sin would be to block the dataflow. What is death, if not a condition in which information doesn’t flow? Hence Dataism upholds the freedom of information as the greatest good of all.

(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)

P 446: Dataism is the first movement since 1789 that created a genuinely novel value: freedom of information. This novel value may impinge on humans’ traditional freedom of expression, by privileging the right of information to circulate freely over the right of humans to own data and to restrict its movement.

(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)

P 447: Dataists believe all good things – including economic growth – depend on the freedom of information. So if we want to create a better world, the key is to set the data free.

(Mena note: A point for Wikileaks?)

P 449: Just as free-market capitalists believe in the invisible hand of the market, so Dataists believe in the invisible hand of the dataflow.

Humans want to merge into the dataflow because when you are part of the dataflow you are part of something much bigger than yourself.

Human experiences have been the most efficient data processing algorithms in the universe.

P 454: All truly important revolutions are practical. Ideas change the world only when they change our behavior.

P 456: After Darwin, biologists began explaining that feelings are complex algorithms honed by evolution to help animals make correct decisions. When you listen to your feelings, you follow an algorithm that evolution has developed for millions of years. Your feelings are the voice of millions of ancestors, each of whom managed to survive and reproduce in an unforgiving environment.

For millions upon millions of years, feelings were the best algorithms in the world.

P 457: Dataism now commands: ‘Listen to the algorithms! They know how you feel.’

But where do these great algorithms come from? This is the mystery of Dataism.

P 458: The seed algorithm may initially be developed by humans, but as it grows its own path, going where no human has gone before – and where no human can follow.

At present we have no idea how or why dataflows could produce consciousness and subjective experiences. But maybe we’ll discover that organisms aren’t algorithms after all.

P 459: Is there perhaps something in the universe that cannot be reduced to data?

If Dataism succeeds in conquering the world, what will happen to us humans?

P 460: Dataism thereby threatens to do to Homo sapiens what Homo sapiens has done to all other animals.

P 461: We cannot really predict the future, because technology is not deterministic.

P 462: In the twenty-first century censorship works by flooding people with irrelevant information. Today having power means knowing what to ignore.

Parts I question:

P 119: Yet the life sciences doubt the existence of soul not just due to lack of evidence, but rather because the very idea of soul contradicts the most fundamental principles of evolution.

P 120: If you really understand the theory of evolution, you understand that there is no soul.

P 121: The theory of evolution rejects the idea that my true self is some indivisible, immutable and potentially eternal essence. According to the theory of evolution, all biological entities are composed of smaller and simpler parts that ceaselessly combine and separate. Something that cannot be divided or changed cannot have come into existence through natural selection.

(Mena note: The soul is energy and energy can be transformed.)

P 122: That’s why the theory of evolution cannot accept the idea of souls, at least if by ‘soul’ we mean something indivisible, immutable and potentially eternal. Such an entity cannot possibly result from a step-by-step evolution.

But the soul has no parts.

(Mena note: Metaphysicians would disagree.)

P 123: Hence the existence of souls cannot be squared with the theory of evolution. Evolution means change, and is incapable of producing everlasting entities.

This terrifies large numbers of people, who prefer to reject the theory of evolution rather than give up their souls.

P 329: To the best of our scientific understanding, determinism and randomness have divided the entire cake between them, leaving not even a crumb for ‘freedom’. Free will exists only in the imaginary stories we humans have invented. Just as evolution cannot be squared with eternal souls, neither can it swallow the idea of free will. For if humans are free, how could natural selection have shaped them?

P 330: If by ‘free will’ we mean the ability to act according to our desires – then yes, humans have free will, and so do chimpanzees, dogs and parrots. But the million-dollar question is not whether parrots and humans can act upon their inner desires – the question is whether they can choose their desires in the first place.

P 332: However, once we accept that there is no soul and that humans have no inner essence called ‘the self’, it no longer makes sense to ask, ‘How does the self choose its desires?’ In reality, there is only a stream of consciousness, and desires arise and pass away within this stream, but there is no permanent self that owns the desires, hence it is meaningless to ask whether I choose my desires deterministically, randomly or freely.

Doubting free will is not just a philosophical exercise. It has practical implications.

P 338: Science undermines not only the liberal belief in free will, but also the belief in individualism. The single authentic self is as real as the eternal soul, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Prebirth Contract, You Say?

Those who believe in the Prebirth Contract theory say we all choose the lives we have. Some of them say it’s not a belief, opinion or theory; they say they have reproducible evidence from recorded hypnotherapy sessions and from interviews with disembodied spirits via mediums. Giving this theory (it is a theory to me) the benefit of the doubt, assuming it’s how they say it is — we choose the horrible, traumatic, circumstances/experiences/events in our lives so that we fulfill a prebirth wish/desire/agenda for the purpose of soul evolution — I need to ask:

1. How do souls make use of the “lessons” in a particular lifetime in the afterlife and/or in-between lifetimes? If we can’t remember our previous lifetimes (unless we submit to soul regression therapy), how do we apply the lessons learned from previous lifetimes? How do souls (energy/consciousness) benefit from such painful/traumatic experiences?

2. Do animals also choose the circumstances, experiences, events in their lives? I just saw a video of a homeless man being forcibly removed from the curb by a group of policemen answering a call complaining about a vagrant and his dog. The dog was understandably agitated when the police started to manhandle his owner. One of the police officers put his knee on the dog and promptly shot it in the head. On seeing this, the owner became hysterical and had to be subdued by no less than 6 police officers. The dog continued to wag its tail until he passed. This happened in Barcelona, Spain. The video was posted by the dog rescuer who happened to witness the event. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR0TcV0uj7o)

3. Are we to believe that everyone (animals included) involved in every situation on the planet is sticking to the script of the prebirth contract? If we believe in free will, does it not suggest that some players in any given script can and will go slightly off-script at a whim or even go completely off on a tangent? At what point in the script does anyone get to say, “Stop! I know what I agreed to in the prebirth contract but now I’m here and about to do this horrible thing and I’m making a free will decision that I’m changing my mind. I don’t want to do this.” That one person’s free will decision — “no, I’m not going to do this awful thing” — will alter others’ prebirth contracts’ scripts and ripple through many lives and lifetimes. So how do we know when it’s a prebirth contract playing out tightly by the script and when is it a case of free will altering the course of destiny and/or fate?

4. It has taken me a lifetime to learn the major lessons in my life. I won’t be able to benefit from these lessons with the time I have left of this lifetime. I’m wondering how these lessons in my life will serve me (my energy/consciousness/spirit) in the afterlife and in-between lifetimes? I’m guessing that if we meet the challenges lifetime after lifetime without diminishing the quality of our souls, we actually increase the sum total of our energy. And then, what? I’m hoping it means we get to choose to enjoy the quality of our consciousness on a different plane instead of having to learn lessons ad infinitum.

5. Imagine the situation in a court of law when criminals think to plead not guilty citing the prebirth contract as a defense. Mind-boggling stuff. They are pleading insanity as a defense, why not this?

Recommended viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRLDdw8UzhQ&list=WL&t=2612s&index=7

I welcome insights. Thank you.

Happiness As A Default State?

Recently, I read a Facebook post quoting Will Smith, the celebrity, sharing his opinion about happiness. He said, no one is responsible for our happiness. He said he told his beloved wife that he is “retired from making her happy.” He said they both had a good laugh over that. They were able to laugh is because they were secure in knowing that they had each other’s love and devotion. Do you think his wife would be laughing if he told her he is in love with another woman? Would he be laughing if his wife told him she is leaving him for another man? It’s easy for people with everything going for them to say, “We are responsible for our own happiness.”

Some people dislike the Law of Attraction because it says we attract what we are. Successful people like the LoA because they like the idea that they are "driving their kar-ma." People who see themselves as losers in the game of life might not like what the LoA is saying to them—that they are responsible for not being good enough, whatever "good enough" means to them. In my opinion, if we say we are responsible for our own happiness and if we are not in a happy place, it just serves to make us feel more desperately out of control. Like, what is wrong with us? As if we need to feel worse than we already do. I understand that if we blame others for our situations in life, we are giving our personal power away. I understand we have to reclaim our power and that we achieve this by assuming full responsibility for ourselves and for our lives.

Yet, it seems to me, our safety and well being depend on the actions of other people we come into contact with. A lot of our happiness depends on our environment. On the larger scale, we get depressed knowing what drives the politics and corporatocracy in our world. We feel desperate at times knowing that vaccines are not safe for humans and animals. That doctors who speak out against the conventional treatments “commit suicide” by the hundreds. Then, there are the victims of narcissism on the spectrum. How can children be responsible for their own happiness when one or both parents are narcissistic? The parents have so much power over their lives and happiness for the first twenty years at the least. Even when they get to leave their narcissistic childhood behind, they carry a lot of that baggage into their adulthood.

Such victims usually (if not all of them) attract spouses/partners/others who are also narcissistic on the spectrum and maybe NPDs or NSPs. (Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Narcissists, Sociopaths, Psychopaths.) My research yielded that some children inherit narcissistic traits from their experiences growing up in such traumatic environments. In my opinion, only the empaths are spared this inheritance. Barely. Even empaths are known to become nasty co-dependents as they struggle to cope and deal with their reality. Not every narc victim/empath ends up being a life coach. That is to say, not every victim is able to turn the disadvantages around and make them work productively for them instead. Most victims end up in a sorrowful way. Even those who have succeeded to be life coaches continue to struggle with their backstory narc issues on a regular basis. It becomes a lifelong challenge to be happy.

Some of the “baggage” humans carry can even be traced back to past lives experiences and the energy imprints we all bring to the present life. Not all “baggage” has to do with our experiences in this present lifetime. Though, in my opinion, souls will have more conscious intent to exercise the energy signatures in a given lifetime rather than from past lifetimes. Some people say, souls that are to take more than to give, are likely to be born males because our society encourages and allows more such expression of intent by the males. Females are generally raised/conditioned to be more nurturing and giving. There are exceptions of course. In both genders, the personality is heavily influenced by the events in the course of a life.

A narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath’s intent will be different from that of an empath’s. An empath’s baggage will not be the same as the narcopath's. (Narcopath is a catch-all term that includes all the cluster B personality disorders— narcissists/sociopaths/psychopaths on the spectrum.) An empath’s baggage is likely to do with the fact that he/she has a history of not listening to their intuition. They were trained by the NPD’s/NSP’s in their lives to ignore the signs and signals and to dismiss their inherent powers of discernment. This can develop into a pattern which is why they say winning and losing becomes a habit.

Even the former victims of narc abuse who have succeeded to uplevel with quantum tools and who have managed to become coaches, teachers, and guides, carry a lifetime of baggage even as they keep on moving forward with their evolution of consciousness. I understand that happiness can be a default state of mind just as misery can be a default state. When happiness is the default state, we as the Chinese say, “use the sky as a blanket if it should fall on us.” People with happiness as a default state find ways to focus on what works. Regardless of what is happening in their lives, they are able to distance themselves from it all and be on the outside looking in. The opposite would be the miserable default state where the people keep complaining about their lot even though they may enjoy more abundance and good fortune than the average person.

That default state aside, how can victims be wholly responsible for their own happiness? The rape victim, for example, is usually traumatized for a lifetime. I say if society at large is responsible for causing such distress to the souls involved, society has to come to the rescue of the victims. Who is this “society?” Each and every one of us is responsible for someone’s happiness or misery regardless of the default state. Everyone has to be kinder, gentler, more thoughtful and more helpful.  I understand that we get to take charge of ourselves at some point in our lives. We get to say “that’s enough, I’m too conscious to let this toxicity or madness continue.” Yet, just because we get conscious and want to stop the toxicity or madness, it doesn’t mean others around us will cooperate. We only get to create our own reality if we are the only ones in it. If the reality involves other people, we need to get them on board. We don’t live in a vacuum. Our actions affect other people and vice versa. To counter Will Smith’s philosophy, how about I share a quote?: If there is something we can do to make someone happy, we should. The world needs more of that. Or how about: If we can’t help someone to be happy, let’s not do anything to contribute to their unhappiness?

Studies have shown that depressed people get a lift when they are helped with something to make their lives easier and more bearable. Sometimes, it’s a job/income stream, other times, housing, friends, pets, anything that adds value to their lives. Every time I leave the safety of my house, I depend on other road users not to endanger my life. Just a case in point: The place where I play my Taiji is now infested with fire ants and I have to find another place to play. An occupant of one of the houses was badly bitten by the fire ants around the fences and she started spraying chemicals to kill them. So the ants were driven further up from where they originally were. I’m not saying this lady was not right to protect herself from the fire ants. I’m saying we are all inter-connected. Our decisions affect other people. Decisions have a “domino” or a “ripple” effect. How can we say everyone creates our own happiness when in reality, each of us is much affected by the actions of our fellow humans? We multiply the happiness in the world when we share our good fortune and abundance and we divide grief and suffering when we have people who are present to share them with us.

Many people in my old neighborhood are unhappy because when they bought their landed properties, they were unaware of the developers’ future plans to build condos literally in their backyards. In this situation, Will Smith and his wife can move away and buy new property where it suits them but most people are stuck with their mortgages. There are many things in our lives that affect our happiness level. People who say they are in full control of their happiness either have so much money that they can literally buy their way out of some unhappiness, pay for the happy experiences or they haven’t suffered the experience of some kind of personal loss and/or tragedy. Like the lady in Penang who lost her four children to the tsunami of 2004. The best she could do to cope and deal in the aftermath was to turn to a life of charity (as receiver and giver) after ten years of depression. I have had to take myself to the fifth dimension via my Taiji explorations and then, stay there for as long as I can and learn to take everything with me to the fifth. I find the 3-4 dimension on the planet depressing. As Einstein said, I paraphrase: I love humanity; it’s humans I don’t like. Add the EFAW to the equation and I need my daily fix of the fifth dimension. Mama mia!

They say, whatever happens, we should not take it personally. The other day, while at the seaside, I was looking at a wedding photo shoot going on to my right and a funeral going on to my left. I was playing Taiji in the middle; what was going on was not personal to me but it was personal to the people on my right and left. It was personal to their individual timeline. When my beloved Sharpei died, I was a wreck. Who knew? I watched the grieving family throw the ashes of their beloved into the sea with white flower petals. The family left soon after but I stayed back to observe the currents and watched as the white flower petals were carried by the waves into the far distance. I thought it was a poetic way to be sent off from one dream to the next. I started to plan to have my own ashes dispersed into the sea when my time came, in front of where I play my Taiji and suddenly, the impersonal became personal. Nowadays, I play my Taiji surrealistically aware that one day, I will most likely be in the sea in front of where I now play my Taiji.

When I’m Taiji-ing and passers-by walk past inches from me, that becomes personal. They are encroaching on my personal space. I can smell their body odor, perfume, cologne, whatever and I can hear their conversations, feel their energy, etc. They affect my happiness level when they do not know how to allow me my personal space. I’m not a celebrity/rich person who can play Taiji on my own private property or swim in my own private pool. The public will affect my happiness depending on how they behave. Unconscious humans with their lack of mindfulness and concern for others will have an effect on the happiness of others on the planet whether they are aware or not, whether they agree with Will Smith or not.

Where Does An Influence End?

I’m taking guitar classes. Again. This is my third teacher.

When I was fourteen, a male friend, Johnny, tried to teach me to play a song for a talent competition. (This male friend was two years older and he was to die at age twenty in a motor accident. This sort of interrupted my entry into the music industry. This would also happen again further up the road influencing me to think that the music industry was perhaps not what I had signed up for in the pre-birth theory.) There were only four chords to the song that Johnny selected for me for the talent event—C, AM, F, G—and I couldn’t manage it. So I just focused on vocals and at sixteen, I delivered the vocals of a more complicated song with the accompaniment of a whole band. Johnny had a band too but ‘The City Burners’ was not the band contracted to accompany singers in that competition. I was placed runner-up in the statewide singing competition.

Following that competition, there were ample opportunities for me to learn the guitar before I turned thirty. My boyfriends when I was sixteen and nineteen could play the guitar well. I didn’t take to the guitar then as I found the metal strings hurt my fingers too much. Around that time, I purchased a second-hand 12-strings classical guitar hoping that the nylon strings would not hurt my fingers and that I would be able to master the instrument. I found the 12-strings harder to play than the 6-strings so I gave it away to someone who would put the guitar to good use. I did not touch a guitar again until I was 30-ish. 

A housemate who was an accomplished guitarist died in a freak motor accident (TG was thirty-one) and I was left to dispose of his belongings as his older sibling had cancer and didn’t want to bother with them. I gave everything away but kept his seasoned Kapok guitar, songbooks, record player, vinyl records and cassette tapes. Over the next few years, I would listen to TG’s massive collection of music taste—Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Beatles, Elton John, AC/DC, and the other popular rock/blues musicians of the 70’s and 80’s. I would teach myself to play TG’s Kapok using the songbooks which had the chords and lyrics to the covers. It was a great way to learn the guitar I thought although it was Eric Clapton and Beatles songs that I was mostly learning. Mama mia! I discovered to my amazement and pleasure that I could actually play and sing some of the covers as long as I had those songbooks to look at. This became a habit and until today, I struggle to play a song by memory; even one of my own.

Around that time, I had my ‘outer space experience’ which I share in my published books and began to write my own songs. A friend who knew the guitar belonged to TG joked that he must be channeling the songs through me. I laughed at the idea at the time but later seriously considered the possibility. I finally dismissed the idea when I found I couldn’t master the guitar despite wanting to very much. If TG was channeling the songs through me, wouldn’t I be a better guitarist since he was an expert? As well, the songs I was writing was not TG’s kind of material. He was Blues/Rock/Reggae. I was developing Folk/Country/Ballads stuff. Still, there is such a thing as energy imprints and energy signatures that dead people leave behind with their beloved properties. Who knows how much of my songwriting was influenced by my dead friend? I then decided to give all of TG’s stuff away including the Kapok and bought myself a new Kapok to see if it would affect my songwriting. I continued to write my songs.

The few years after my ‘outer space experience’ were the most creative years of my life. During that time, I began my three books—Changing Orbits, The Dance of the Chi and Different Realities. I invented a board game and began several card games before getting distracted by life. I also wrote about a hundred songs and poems. I stopped the creative projects when I got involved with dog rescue for the next twenty years. Only now am I revisiting those projects to complete them literally, before I go. Before I Go was the original title for my memoirs, Changing Orbits.

Proper guitar classes began during this intensely creative period. I didn’t know it at the time but I was in a 20-year relationship with my hybrid version of an NPD—NSP. (Narcissistic Personality Disorder—Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath.) In my case, he had a Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde personality so it wasn’t all bad and negative. I was able to take some positives from the relationship. Still, it was crazy making and the madness spilled into all areas of my life. Put it this way, my judgment, discernment, plans, decisions, wishes, heart’s desires and personal boundaries would be interfered with. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I see now this relationship was/is karmic and fated. The one thing that got me through those times was the thought “it could be worse.” No matter what I was going through, it could always be worse. I still use this line today. No matter what I experience, it could always be worse. When I wrote the first edition of Changing Orbits, I thought my story was one-of-a-kind. Since then, I discovered the terms Empath/NPD/NSP and realized these conditions are widespread. Only the details are unique.

In spite of all the crazy-making drama, I managed to learn how to basically pluck, strum, and play the scales—Do re mi fa so la di to—in order to aid in tuning the guitar. That was when we had to tune the guitar by ear. Nowadays, I use a digital tuner like most if not all musicians. My then teacher identified my style as similar to the following artists (even though I had not heard most of their material at the time—I was listening to TG’s collection):

• -        Suzanne Vega
• -        Joni Mitchell
• -        Joan Baez
• -        Joan Armatrading
• -        Tracy Chapman
• -        Jim Croce
• -        James Taylor
• -        Neil Young
• -        Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
• -        John Denver
• -        Dave Loggins
• -        Bob Dylan
• -        Lee Ritenour

I wasn’t familiar with them except for those in italics. Recently, I used YouTube to catch up with the music of the rest on the list above. Mind you, my teacher didn’t say I could one day play like them, just that my songwriting style was similar.

I was taught basic music notations—semibreve, minims, crochets, quavers, semi-quavers, demi-semi quavers—time values and transpositions with notes. I was also taught what a keynote was and how that was different from a key signature. My notebook from that period tells me I also learned about the Simple Duple, Simple Triple and Simple Quadruple. Not that all this learning serves me today. Today, I cannot remember what I had learned more than twenty years ago. I read that stress destroys brain cells and impairs the memory. Not to mention (but I will, anyway), I am getting old. See this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlVEwIHGlOc&feature=youtu.be

My current teacher is a self-taught performing artist.  The others were formal music teachers. As such, her style of teaching is different from the others. I’ve only taken two classes and this is what was covered:

• The guitar should be the proper size to fit the body and the guitar has to accommodate the body, not the other way around. (So I was ready and happy to sell my oversized Yamaha in favor of using my second self-purchased Kapok acoustic that is the right fit for me.) 
• Unless the chair is low, my right knee needs to be pivoted with a footstool or brick to get the guitar to sit comfortably on the thigh.
• The head moves left to right by pivoting the chin, not the neck.
• The correct wrist position when holding the chords and when strumming. (I had developed a number of bad habits both as a singer and a guitarist.)
• Whenever possible, the thumb should bend to mute the E string.
• She taught me how to play the G chord in a new way which leaves me a bit flustered and clumsy but I’m getting the hang of it.
• This teacher is of the digital age so, with my smartphone, I was shown how to use the free downloaded metronome instead of my old table metronome.
• I’m also encouraged to upgrade my digital guitar tuner. I have two but she says they are not good enough to tune the guitar to a professional level.
• I’m told that if I continue with the weekly guitar classes I should be able to put my songs on YouTube in about three months’ time.

This is an extremely busy phase for me. I don’t know if I can manage the next three months of guitar classes as I have Different Realities to publish, Taiji practice, and my last two rescues to care for. My current teacher sees a pattern and is thinking that I will quit these classes too. Freelance and performing artists teachers are hard to come by and suitable ones are a rarity where I am. I would like to stay the course if I can. However, there is this nagging thought: If this was meant to be, wouldn’t I have mastered the guitar by now? 

(Copy and paste will load the link if clicking does not.) http://www.openculture.com/2017/04/the-tone-circle-john-coltrane-drew-to-illustrate-the-theory-behind-his-most-famous-compositions-1967.html )

This link clues me to the answer. I was not good at Maths in school. "Musician and blogger Roel Hollander notes, “Thelonious Monk once said ‘All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.’ Musicians like John Coltrane though have been very much aware of the mathematics of music and consciously applied it to his works.”

My current teacher doesn’t think this has anything to do with my lack of musicality. She says she’s “horrible” with maths too and that it all boils down to the determination, right practice and the interest to explore in music. She agrees the diagram in the link looks similar to the "circle of fifth" and that music is quite like maths in many ways especially when it comes to the counts. She says we’re not playing jazz or fusion music so it’s basically elementary maths.

Sooner or later, we all have to face our mortality, don’t we? Reflecting on my own, I asked myself what I wanted my life to be defined by. The process of becoming  Mena Koo, author of The Dance of the Chi, Different Realities and Changing Orbits was/is therapeutic and meaningful for me as I feel these books cover how I put my s*it together and survived all the challenges of being a victim. I did not want my life to be defined by victimhood so I used the knowledge of metaphysics and the power of intention to rewrite my narrative from victim to survivor. I believe my books can make a difference to some who are attracted to read them. However, I’m not sure that Mena Koo, poet/songwriter is that helpful in the scheme of my lessons learned and my legacy. Not to sound pompous with the use of the word “legacy” here, I think we all should think about our legacies—what energy imprints are we leaving behind?

I mean that in the way that I’ve benefitted from reading certain books but I wouldn’t say my life has been impacted in any major way by a poem or a song. Music can be fun and de-stressing but in retrospect, those twenty-something years that I gave up my creative projects and Taiji for the dogs were the most meaningful in my timeline. Were they the most productive years? No. Were they the most practical things I have done in terms of my personal survival, growth, and evolution? I don’t think so. They were some of the craziest, hardest, suicidal, times in my life. Yet, because they were about the dogs and others; because they were not about what I wanted/needed, made them the standout, special, times. Could I do it all again today? No. I just don’t have it in me anymore.  

If I were to die tomorrow, I would be proudest of those times when I was able to give and not expect anything in return. The joy and fulfillment were in knowing I was making a difference in the lives of those I rescued. In asking myself how I would want my life to be defined I would have to say I want to be remembered for being a kind, thoughtful, compassionate, insightful, sensitive, human. Someone who did her best to play well, the cards that were dealt. Someone who “walked through the fires” as best as anyone could. They say the victims of NPDs/NSPs pick up narcissistic traits in their battle to cope with all the narcissism around them. Hence the world is so messy as wounded people go on to wound others down the line. Those of us who are conscious of this must put a stop to the sickness and begin the healing process. 

The Reviews For The Dance Of The Chi

Today, I heard from a reader of The Dance of the Chi.  

“I must confess that I am struggling with the book. This is to say that I am not at a  stage where I am capable of understanding many of these matters. Much you write about is way outside my terms of reference to start with, but also the journal form of the book, by its nature, skips from one deep topic to another, which makes it hard for me to deal with. I really don't want to put other, more able (sic), readers off and I do find much of it fascinating, so no need to publish this. Just saying, that's all.”

I replied:

“Thanks for the feedback. It is what it is. :)
Everyone holds a space in the jigsaw of life. Feedback is feedback.

The Optometrist who happens to be of the Christian faith and who impressed me with his personality and intelligence got a free copy.

The way he looks at me and talks to me after reading the book tells me he thinks I'm crazy.

So ya, I understand it's different strokes for different folks. Hehe.

We only have to connect with our own kind of weird.”

He immediately shot back:
“Having said all that this morning, there's lots which is very clear and really helpful to me. Your section on EFAW, for example and so I'll press on. Thanks for the opportunity!” (sic)

See what I mean?

Feedback is feedback.

It’s fascinating to me how readers decide what to address in their reviews from the over 300 pages in paperback and whatever the Location counts on eBook. I am a slow reader and I find it incredible that someone can read The Dance of the Chi in less than a week. A friend even said she read all of it in two days! I suppose not everyone will read the book in its entirety and some will flip through the pages according to their personal inclinations and interests and then if they leave a review, the review would be based on the parts of the book that were actually read.

I'm on record for saying I'm not for editing the reviews of my book(s) as I find I can take a lot from the comments that are left by readers, be they, friends or strangers. So far four reviews have been published and they are as different as the individuals are different. This has inspired me to blog about the reviews I've received. Until now, no reviewer has shared their thoughts about  ‘My EFAW Theory’ and ‘My Outer Space Experience.’ I'm curious why no one has found those chapters worthy of a mention in their reviews. Still, I am grateful for any review as reviews do help to garner more interest in the book(s). I would like to take the opportunity here to thank the readers of The Dance of the Chi for their thoughtful reviews.

If I am the one writing the review, I would not like to be told what to write or to be told to write something that the author would approve of. I believe we have to be fair to both the author and the potential buyer. Imagine writing to help the author at the expense of the reader? That would not be a good thing IMO. I take the reviews as they come. One of these days, if I should get an unpleasant and negative review, I shall have to take from that as well. Experiences are meant to be what they are. Alan Watts, the philosopher, said: Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience. Accepting a negative experience is a positive experience. Unless the reviews are left by haters and trolls up to no good, I can't complain about the reviews I have. They are all meant to be helpful and they are, each in their own way. I am grateful that my readers take the time to leave a review.

When I read books, I tend to put myself in the mind of the authors. I try to feel whatever they are feeling and experience whatever they are experiencing. When I can’t wrap my mind around the mind of the author is when I can’t read a book.  So it’s fair game if someone can’t read my book(s). I find that people who purchase a book are more likely to read as much of the book as possible as they don’t wish to waste their money. Purchasers are also more likely to be able to appreciate the contents as they know what kinds of books they want to invest in. This is the reason I don’t care to give my books away for free. I need to target my audience and the best way to do that, it seems to me, is for them to actually buy the book.

As my book reviews go, most reviews have the effect of making me reflect on the readers’ reading experience. Each reviewer is likely to say something that would make me sit up with alertness and attention. It doesn’t go unnoticed by me that the reviewers are, in effect, complimenting how I managed to "put my sh*t together (tao-gether)" in order to publish the books. It occurred to me that because everyone has problems and obstacles in life, the people who succeed at their creative projects are the ones who could manage to get it together despite or in spite the obstacles along their path. That's just what the books were/are—getting my act together. That’s the reason Zig Ziglar said: What you get by achieving your goals is not nearly as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

The last twenty-one years (three Uranus cycles) for me was "do or die" time. The next seven years will be more or less the same. The next seven years of challenges and stress can be the best of times and the worst of times. My projects are how I create meaning/purpose/direction for my life and how I channel my energy, intent, and angst. We need to stay in the higher vibrations and my projects aid me to do that in a big way.

I’ve covered what the writing and publishing process do to add to the quality of my being. I’ve covered what the reviews do for me. Another huge bonus of being in this industry is the friendships and interactions with fellow writers and editors who cross my path. It's a treat to be exchanging with fellow writers who appreciate the need to be clear in the expression of complex and abstract ideas. It is a pleasure to exchange and interact with people who as a result of being who they are, force me to uplevel and improve my game. There is so much to learn and I learn something new every day.

A reviewer called my attention to my arms. He wondered about the significance of my arms. When playing Taiji, my arms in an extended posture would be the physical expression of me in the moment of an expanded mode of being. This is then followed by a contracted physical expression of me in the moment of a contracted mode of being. The "expanded mode" is the one that allows me to reach out to others and make the connections. The contracted mode is when I need my solitude.  Some teachers in the energy arts say (each in their own way), the arms are the physical expression of energy flow and vibrations that is expressed by the spirit via the body. I imagine the arms are also the body part with the most concentration of "intent." We express a lot of intent with our arms. I can't imagine what it's like for the Thalidomide babies who have to live their whole lives without arms. And what of those who lose their arms at some point in their lives? They would have to develop "alternate arms" of expressing energy flow and patterns.

It's no surprise that writers tend to be the ones to write the better reviews because they have the analytical discipline, training, and their way with words, to begin with. Even when writers are not impressed with what they are reading, they can still dig deep to leave a kind and/or encouraging word for the author. I reiterate reviews reveal as much about the reviewers as they do the books they review. 

When indie authors publish, we have no idea who would be drawn to read our work. Whether the book is a free reading or a purchased reading, the writer and reader would have to be connected on some level or else, of the millions of authors (and even more books) out there, why would anyone read one author and not another?

It's all good. Again, I thank my readers for taking the time to read me and I'm grateful for the friendships and mostly positive reviews.