Your Alien Brother from Another Mother

Author: Mr. E-Sekai

  • The Paradox of Efficiency At Work

    As things get more automated and tools lean towards AI, I was wondering earlier there is something we lose in the process. There is no something for nothing in this world and as we move forward in advancements, what was the price that was taken.

    I then looked back at how ineffective work turned out for me in the past. These created a lot opportunities for improvement but most of all it created something that we could strive for. Going through processes gave chance to get to know working on the other side. Getting a chance to chat about the work, the trouble of how to get things to move. Asking for small work favors in order to get done in a timely manner. Having heated discussions about how bad current process is and what we could do afterwards. I did grow a lot through the years though, I matured to a point where I came to accept certain things while trying to grasp everything that is still under my control. The thing with effectiveness, is that systems become easier and people come to accept status quo. We find little to nothing to improve thus we become relaxed deferring improvement to the hungrier generation. Often times we neglect the fact that the guidance would be coming from us anyway and most of the time the younger generation still looks up to the ones before.

    Work becomes stale, lacking the connection from chance encounters and small talk from asking small favors. We do not get to know the people we are working with and trust fails as soon as we encounter problems. Intention gets misinterpreted and we become more defensive, which causes more disruption than work.

    While the results sound so dire, being effective is also part of who we are. Striving and finding ways to make things easier and effective can help us cause less friction in work and creates better opportunities for people inside and outside the company.

  • Waiting When There Is Nothing

    When you get presented the option on Shrodinger’s cat scenario would you assume that the cat is alive? Control is deprived from us and delegated to the “experimenter”. What if you were in the cat’s position on the experiment, in this case your life is in the hands of two different people, one a cold judge and the other a person that is completely detached from what happens to you.

    Another test is the cookie experiment, here the kids are given a cookie in front of them and the scientist suddenly needs to go somewhere and requests the child to hold off from taking a bite from the cookie. If you were in the child’s shoes, would you wait or would you eat the cookie.

    In both scenarios, there is no clear reward. Our only basis for what to do is what the scientist told us or their “authority”. That is hard for anyone, because we do not like giving up control, our view is often limited to something that is tangible, something that we want in the moment. Yet we are still given much freedom in those scenarios, we can roam around the room, we can rest or other we can find something else to pass the time. The focus doesn’t necessarily need to be on the actual experiment rather we can just do different things so long as we are within certain bounds. Given that on the first thought our choices are dictated by another, would you rebel and choose to not be part of the test? or would you trust that what ever happens it would turn out for the best for you.

    I think that certain things require trust especially on 50/50 scenarios when we are given little to no choice. Cliche as it may seem, it would always be good to not focus on the problem but rather what we have control on. Maybe we end up getting punished or rewarded, and there might not be a good solution to it. In the end, we are still subject to this weird experiment and while others might not agree with me, I think it is best to keep lane and make sure we don’t mess up the “work” that they are doing.

  • Knowing Someone When They Refuse to be Known

    We all hide behind walls, this is especially true in the day and age of the internet. Identity and hiding behind anonymity gives an edge, much like not showing cards during a poker game, we can bluff, lie and even lead someone on. Although, the knowing that I am talking about here is different, it is when we simply refuse to show our true selves.

    It is funny that we often hide ourselves in our emotions. Emotions are for sure part of our personality, but it rarely is who we really are. Think about it, when we speak with someone in anger, what shows up is the spirit of anger. We convey things in a fiery manner and utter words that we come to regret later, but what if we come to a conclusion that anger is part of our personality. It becomes deeply ingrained that we don’t even notice it. It becomes a justification, that creates a different persona from who we are normally. Severing the connection from our higher self, the one that sees everything from a wider view.

    Conversation happens two ways, its either we keep a higher trail of thought or we devolve into the same level as the other. Like water trickling down, we fill conversations with thoughts that helps the discourse to bloom into a meaningful garden of words. It tries to link both head and heart together so we could speak freely and openly about things that satisfies our needs. It gives and it takes, so we do not feel taken advantaged of and we do not feel heavy afterwards. To be lifted up instead of being brought down.

    Though as I was thinking through this, I realized that sometimes we also need to go down to the same level in a conversation. A heated discussion can bring out deeper thoughts and concerns that normally won’t happen in a objective talk. Balancing out the fire with an arbiter and or rules can probably help us create a healthy space to speak out. However, this depends both people respect the rules and bind themselves to them.

    Overall, hiding oneself is a defense mechanism… We just need to learn how to uncover, hidden things or concerns that we have. Being direct requires trust and a certain degree of understanding, knowing who you are speaking with and being attune to certain realities can help build either a beautiful garden or a cold chat.

  • The Other World the Counter to Nihilism

    There is currently a common thought nowadays of living dead or people that are alive but are dead in some way shape or form. The idea is leads me to think of how a nihilistic person would view the world today.

    Imagine you have a dream, simple yet true and readily achievable, however for some reason, you are unable to push through with it, as if stuck in a rut as all your options slowly dwindle down. Creeping like darkness in dusk, then finally you are in the middle of that abyss with just a lamp as your source of light. Nothing left, except a lamp to comfort you since without it you will be forced to journey in pitch black nothingness with no way to trudge through towards your goal. In my head that is what nihilism is, a swallowing up of all things hoped for, with no other thing left to pursue.

    In that meaninglessness, it is easy to find our minds wandering into a spiraling despair. Finding no drive and purpose to this very existence. So now what, how does the other world give meaning to this life? We assume that the other world is true and we should go prepare for it? Ehhh, does that mean I need to save a life so that I can benefit in the next life, the classic save a little girl from dying from a speeding truck so that we could get rewarded in the next life? That could very well be the real meaning of living, how we could save up for the next life.

    So should it be a heroic act or an undying self sacrifice? I think it is more than that, its about trying to reach out, trying bring something to the table, trying to fill a role in more that one aspect. Knowing that somehow things will move accordingly and appropriately. Trying to shift purpose in order to fill in the void for another person in the hopes that it will also fill in the missing pieces in our lives and ultimately collect enough credit for the next world. It doesn’t need to be grand or extravagant, rather it should just fulfill a role that is needed in the right moment.

  • Miraijin or Time Travelers

    If you know someone that could travel time, how would that look like for you? Is age not an issue for them or rather since they have access to any information in time, they know which action would lead to the best result. Imagine if you could potentially alter what happens to a world, what would you do.

    Most of the time travelers in movies and books tend to interact with people that does not share time travel capabilities. This is because certain interactions could potentially be harmful for people or there could be things that are missed or just completely left undiscovered or ignored. Think Marty Mcfly in Back to the Future, the possibility of erasing yourself because your dad missed the opportunity to get to know your mom. Now imagine time traveling is available for not just one person where they try to jump on top of each other thus creating a series of prevention of opportunities for one another. That is much like war at that point where chaos is the norm and all things are free for all, that is worse than any nightmare I could imagine.

    Though what I mentioned above is the scary bit, there are a lot of things there are a lot of convenient things like getting to know which horse would win a race or if you need to cancel a meeting in case the other party is a no show. It seems to me that regulating might be a challenge, though I would assume they want to keep a low profile and limit the impact of their actions thus there is a self regulation that happens innately. If you had that capability, what would you do? Would you abuse it? or would you lay low and create a small opportunities instead.

  • Loyalty and Faithfulness

    So I was speaking with my dad, the other day about loyalty and the value of it when I thought about how I didn’t seem to recall reading or hearing “loyalty” when reading my KJV bible. I know, I know, you probably are asking why the heck is he talking about religion on this blog. Just so you know that as much as I want to limit or keep conversations here on a certain level, I would often leak some theology here. Anyway back to the topic…

    You would be surprised that there is no result when trying to find the word “loyal” on a KJV bible. I found this interesting and amusing, considering “loyal” should be a common term. If by any chance I am mistaken, please do correct me, I welcome it and would love to see that verse as well. It did occur to me as well that, faithfulness is a more apt word since they technically have the same context and it would be more appropriate in a biblical narrative. Some other thought that I had was that, it might be that loyalty is an offshoot to denote or distinguish faith as more God-centric. I don’t really have a good reference but according to search results, the word loyalty only came around 1400s thus it might be that there was no direct translation of “loyalty” for the Greek language. Anyway quite an interesting find and just thought I could shared here.

  • A Deciding Factor

    When looking back in the past, we can always see the frame from a wider view. How things were set in motion because of an action and what we could have done better, what things we can do to improve the current situation. This allows us to make the right decisions and help us to stay grounded since we could not fully grasp the all the possible trajectory of each person. We can only estimate things if a person has unlimited options, thus if we want to come up with a concise decision then we must limit its uses. Think in terms of Subaru if he gets limited in one path, on the next revival he chooses a different path, choice is what makes us different from animals, we can always pivot towards another path that is not hindered nor limited. Everything comes at a cost and we must never discount the source of anything because it eventually boils down to one thing anyway. So when deciding on things, we must take into consideration all the factors that are involved, people affected by our decisions, effects of our decisions across time and how it affects the environment that we are currently in. Unfortunately, we have limited scope and view of our world. We can only control what is immediately in front of us and the things within our grasp in our short lifespan, I think we should consider things that helped us get this far and which things we should retain in order to move along the right direction.

  • Reflections and Renewal

    A new world requires a recount of the old one. If we have not experienced the old then we wouldn’t know what we want with the new. A child is disciplined when we don’t confirm to what is “correct” behavior, however who was it that defined the correct behavior. Why would we act in a certain way when we don’t have rules in place for our actions. In our world today, often times it is society that dictates what is acceptable and what is not. Comparing it to the old days, we have become more liberated and less concerned with judgement. “I have done nothing wrong”, “What I do does not affect anybody” or “everyone else is doing it” are common ways of thinking nowadays. Completely disregarding past norms, since they had little no benefit anyway. Bending and breaking rules, testing the limits of our new found freedom in order to be “yourself”. Innately, nothing wrong with that right? Having individuality makes us unique and experience is the best teacher after all.

    Our standards suddenly become miles apart from what we previously had. Was is it really all for free, I mean did we not lose anything in the transition towards this “new world”? Like shifting from black and white to colored, new seems to be much better than the old. Often times it is, since I am not typing on a typewriter rather on a laptop computer. This is true for technology, but is it also true for other things? What did we lose in order to get to where we are. Is it really negligible. In all honestly, I don’t know or maybe I fail to see what I am missing. Maybe all the advancements and the know how somehow overshadow what is sacrificed, or is it that we just fail to notice it because it is too mundane and nuanced.

  • The Bright View in a Dark Room

    It is a common anime trope to have a dense character in the midst of all the chaos, completely oblivious while still staying positive. This humorous parallel is often true both ways, we can either be super positive of a situation or super negative about a situation. A toxic positive attitude can disqualify what others are experiencing and prevent them from opening up and sharing problems and struggles they currently have. On the other hand if we view things too negatively then we can’t share successes and celebrate growth. Words are a reflection of the speaker, thus we learn to take in anything and digest it in order to bring life onto our words.

    Recognition of someone’s situation and their truth helps bring out authenticity and prepares us to plant the right thoughts that could bring out the best in people. Situations does not define a person’s capability to respond properly rather it creates an opportunity to learn to control what we say and do. Grips on reality helps us not fall into the stereotype of the above trope, rather it helps our higher self flow freely which stabilizes our emotions and reactions.

  • Nature Vs Nurture

    This is quite an interesting topic to think about right now. In the world of plants, there isn’t usually a need to nurture. What is the natural thing for them to have other creatures like insects pollinate for them and birds or small rodents to spread their seeds. Though in contrast when nurtured, the human would till the soil, sow the seeds, water and help maintain the land they grow in from weeds and other things that would hinder their growth.

    The same logic applies for growing a person, we plant the right seeds in their mind and heart, then we nurture them so that they would grow into the person we want them to be. On the flip side of things, we allow nature to take place and just have them learn things for themselves and nothing more, often this way creates a wild growth that could lead to an unintended direction.

    This is quite similar to tending to a house or a dungeon or even a pet. Without proper admin or knowledge, these would be neglected and not be up to standard of the owner. Then again often times the owners themselves do not know what it is they want, so we try to present them possibilities and ways to reach the desired goal. Now, we all know that depending on the person viewing the requirements, they all get to imagine a unique outcome to what the owner wants. Having all sorts of ideas can have positive or detrimental effects to the product because we either complicate things or we diverge from the original plan. Thus, sometimes it is good to come back to the owner to check if we are close to what it is that they want.

    Eliminating complex things and trying to make sense what the original goal is, helps us figure out if we really need nurture or nature to move things forward.