Reading novels when I was a child.

It's peculiar, but as an adult I very rarely can be bothered to read a novel again. As a child I used to read the same books over and over and over again, especially Enid Blyton books. Maybe once a year I would read all the famous Five, all the 8 adventure books, the 15 Fatty books etc. And the Narnia and Jennings books over and over again.


I think I perhaps just enjoyed reading children's books vastly more. They were about characters I cared about, which I could visit again in the next book in the series etc.


As an adult there's only a handful I've read a second time. Shogun . . umm . .and I'm struggling to think of anything else.

We are heroes

We are all heroes and heroines in this life. When things are bleak, or in the face of adversity, we square our shoulders, look reality in the face and soldier on. Do not let adversity bend us. We are all heroes . .we are all special . . gaze scornfully at adversity. She is a mistress that can be, and will be contained.

Soul relocating to my younger self.

I'm just wondering what it would be like if my soul travelled back in time and inhabited my 13 year old body? I'm guessing I'd lose my current intelligence, but yet retain my current memories as an adult. But if I do keep my memories, it seems I might understand more on, say, something like philosophical issues, than I originally did when I was 13. But I wouldn't understand as much as I do now.

Classic Sesame Street - "Inch Worm"

A subversive message to children suggesting that reality consists of more than its quantifiable aspects and that colours, smells and beauty really truly exist! They are not just illusions like the modern western metaphysic holds. On the other hand I do have a propensity to read too much into things..

Journey on the train of life.

We're all on this train. We do not know where our fellow passengers come from, not even where we ourselves come from. Perhaps people just materialise out of nothingness, or perhaps people just don't remember. And we do not know where people will go when they finally get off the train. But we know we will finally get off at some point. To some strange destination, or to oblivion -- we do not know. Meanwhile the train and its inhabitants are our world -- the only world we know. Let's read, chat with our fellow passengers, play games. Something to do before we alight from the train to our new strange destination, or to oblivion.

On Quora: "How does it feel like to have an IQ of 140?"

From here:


A certain Chris Hayward responds:

To be honest, it sucks. I have an IQ of 146. By most stats and graphs that is considered Genius and in the 0.1%. Most people would envy it but it's not worth it to be honest. My intelligence actually meant I failed most subjects at school that didn't interest me.

Yes that's the problem with being intelligent, failing subjects at school as one finds them boring. Much easier to pass subjects if one is thick because then you wouldn't realise they're not interesting! :D

The self and its experiences

Is helpful to distinguish between the self and its experiences. What is the self? I suggest it is that underlying reality making one the very same individual from when one were a toddler, to the present time when we are adults, to when one is drunk and so on and so forth. Throughout these different times our interests, intelligence, behaviour and so on all change . Therefore these latter attributes cannot constitute the self since that would entail that the self quite literally changes after, for example, one has had a few alcoholic drinks. The self changes when one is drunk, but only in a comparable manner to which a table might change if we paint it a different colour, and not change in the sense of smashing the table up and replacing it with a similar one. 



Think of a container and lots of objects filling that container. Compare the container to the self, and the objects within it to one's personality characteristics. Just as the objects themselves are not the container, so our experiences, intelligence, interests etc are not the very same thing as the self. Moreover, the objects are all different shapes and not any shape will fit into any container. Likewise not any personality characteristic will go with any self. The nature of one's self will limit the possible personality characteristics.