Your Alien Brother from Another Mother

Tag: parallels

  • Idealism and Moral Justice

    We all have an idealism of some sort. It might be too harsh or too soft. It all really boils down to our temperament and how we view the world. In an isekai, it is often achieved through vigilante justice because often times isekai villains are either too influential or are already above the law. Injustice is rampant, and there would be oppressed or belittled races. Morality kind of goes out the window. No longer is it about trying to do what’s right; rather, it is about power struggles and trying to access political or social status. Yuusha or heroes would often level up or gain absurd powers, then swoop in and defeat the enemies. This story setup sparks something inside of us that makes it so satisfying to watch or continue on with a series. It is in all of us to want to take control of a situation and do what we think is right, call it a compass of some sort. The usual trope of the weak character becoming strong, we like to identify ourselves with someone powerless, that works hard and achieves things through hard work and resilience, then stumbling upon a superpower or a “cheat skill” that somehow makes the hero journey more bearable.

    We yearn for that kind of world, a world where we somehow can make a difference, trying to defeat Demon Lords and gaining control over our situation and lives. This genre of anime is often an alternative escape, similar to what MMORPG once was, trying to play out a role wherein you have more control. What kind of role would you play if you have more control? Would you be the righteous judge who considers all things before making a decision? Would you prefer to be the vigilante, who instantly seeks us justice for those who can’t? We all have an ideal world. What kind of world is ideal for you? What kind of E-Sekai would you want to have?

  • Another World Within This World

    An E Sekai doesn’t need to be out of this world; rather, it can be created within. The easiest way to shift things around is usually by creating something new, to start from scratch and create it in such a way that it aligns with our ideals. Of course, if that is true, then it would mean that future you won’t have a future, so instead of thinking outside the box, we create a box within the box. Within that box, we can build upon things that are meaningful and important to us and our purpose; we make sure that the contents of that box are not easily accessed. Taking responsibility for the security of the box and how it is accessed from within the bigger box. We carefully choose the right people, the right connections, so that it could fulfill its role and purpose. How do we do that? We use core principles to find what matches it. That way, we could live in that small box in the hopes that someday, we could work our way towards a bigger box. Before you know it, we now have a bigger box; it would get messy for sure, some would outgrow the box, some would find familiarity with the box so that maybe in the future we could have a fair share of space within the bigger box and hopefully not lose core things that built that box in the first place.

    Anyway, this idea came from the Schrödinger cat experiment, but instead of a cat, we replace the content with a man. The life of the man is in the hands of the one conducting the experiment, unlike the cat, which could not really care for itself. The man could create a safe space for himself within the box and maybe take care of the cat as well. TADA! A small E-Sekai for those within your box. It might be a little bit cramped, but at the very least, there is peace there.

  • Making Sense of the Pareto Principle

    The Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule, where 20% owns 80% of the wealth. The idea in itself was supposedly applicable in other areas like efficiency, where 80% of the output comes from 20% of the workers.

    While this is applicable to certain scenarios, using it as a catch all can be detrimental. My though about this is, in this world we were meant to serve each other and the higher up we are in the chain, then we have a bigger role to play. To be called “vital” should not be self serving rather it should serve the interest of the people. The world really isn’t in an ideal place right now, arguably people shift things towards their advantage. In this world, certain things are needed in order to move things properly and accordingly, this hurts because often times the interest of one view does not justify the interest of other another’s view. This is similar to what I wrote about earlier in the “Trolley Problem“. The “vital few” often times need to take care of the own tribe first which can be contradicting to the bigger picture. Power and control also play a part, because often we can be persuaded by different things depending on the situation that we are in.

    What happens if we are on the other side of the Pareto principle. Do we just stay still and wait until the 20% dictates what should be done? Maybe yes, if we believe in them even if it complicates all the things in our lives. Maybe no, if we want to move on our own way. In life there are certain boundaries, and we don’t necessarily have the means to cross those boundaries, I mean chance happens to all of us after-all. I think what matters is what we do with what we have, it doesn’t mean we don’t try to broaden our horizons, rather it just means that we hold on to the 20% so that we could better serve the 80%.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The Subaru Syndrome, What Can I Do Better Next Time.

    In Re:Zero, the epitome of “HERO” responsibility is the character Subaru. Re:Zero’s main theme is centered around “I am responsible for everything that revolves around me”, here the hero Subaru does not die rather when he does die in the story, it brings him back to a certain point in the story timeline wherein he is free to make different choices from his “past life” in order to change the outcomes or just not die in the current iteration.

    Though the plot of Re:Zero is a little bit gruesome or romanticized. This kind of thing happens to us on a regular basis. In order to build yourself up then part of you dies, it maybe a bad habit that you give up on or an outdated way of thinking or maybe just choosing a better alternative. Either way, this “death” creates a new person, one that tries to do better in order to proceed with his life in meaningful way. This is the healthier, way to improve because it does not try to shift your environment in order to adapt to you rather, we shift our attitudes rather than focusing too much on things that we have little to no impact on.