We live in a world where we can communicate with anyone instantly, yet genuine human connection feels harder to find than ever.

As kids, we had clubs, youth groups, and places where we naturally belonged. Now everyone’s consumed by work, bills, families, and just trying to survive. Even socializing seems to cost money.

Somewhere along the way, we replaced community with consumption and confused digital communication with real connection. We’re more connected than ever but lonely as ever.

Does anyone else miss having an actual community? How do we start creating those spaces again?

I'm not talking about being chased by a goose. That's a perfectly reasonable fear. I'm talking about the ordinary fears. Uncertainty. Change. Letting something matter enough that it could go wrong. The chance that trying will rearrange the life we've gotten used to.

I've noticed that the stronger the want, the louder the fear tends to get. We can want something so badly that not getting it feels unbearable. And getting it can be just as frightening. What if it isn't what we pictured? What if it costs us the version of life that feels safe, even if safe has started to feel small?

So we stay where we are. We keep the desire theoretical. That way it can't disappoint us. And it can't ask anything of us either. The fear does its job. It keeps the familiar intact.

Lately I've been asking myself what's underneath that fear. And sometimes, it's the desire itself. The possibility that another way of living might be waiting for us.

The fear isn't wrong about the uncertainty. And sometimes what we already have really is worth protecting. But in trying to hold on to what's familiar, we can also keep ourselves from discovering what else might be possible. Not every fear needs to be pushed through. Some are there for a reason. But others might be worth getting curious about before we let them make our decisions for us. We don't get to know how it turns out before we try. That's the part no one can skip.

Have you ever realized, after the fact, that something you were avoiding was actually something you wanted? What was the fear protecting?"

Hypocrisy and qualia are a circuit of humanity.

I thought long and hard about hypocrisy, and masks, and well... Lies... And I came to accept it or understand it as an intrinsic part of human nature, because for all we know? A human's own conscious nature might be built upon the deceit of its own self.

But I mean... Why would humans build a world of masks, and games of pretend and lies if it wasn't our intrinsic existential nature? Same way even if you have a dog be vegan, it is intrinsically a carnivore and it'll show eventually. Now? You have, say on the low end, 20-15 thousand years of accumulative small lies that built the reality around us, because our own intrinsic nature influenced the environment rather than the otherwise.

That's why it's beautiful. Genuinely so. Because morals, good, gods, bad and everything in between comes from the most on the nose, behind the eyes and simultaneously smallest and biggest lies of living. Your own self. Qualia.

Because even the connotation of the lie, the concept of its meaning, we built it from the same society we built upon accumulative small lies. So that nobody looks, because lies are ugly. But... Deceit or a lie isn't intrinsically bad, it just is what it is for it serves a purpose. A lie? Never has no purpose. You can do good for the sake of doing good, but you can't lie for the sake of lying because it always serves an underlying purpose. And that's why it's beautiful. Because qualia is a lie. It's our own biggest lie, to forget that we're just... Atoms, on atoms in a vacuum of a void.

See that's the thing. People cannot escape being hypocrites even at a non-malicious level. Because it's our nature. Same way a wolf's nature is to eat meat, a flower's nature is to photosynthesize and so on so forth. As the Lithuanian saying goes: a human does one thing, says a second, and thinks a third (vienaip daro, antraip sako, trečiaip mąsto) - and a person who isn't a hypocrite like that isn't a person at all, they're simply a mirror of their environment. To be a hypocrite without a mask that concedes to the lesser lies than your own existential one? Is to find "meaning of life" because then? You simply get to live and exist. And in a billion billion years or so, you'll do it again but maybe different. Let's hope atoms remember aye?

Because the human mind cannot easily function without masks, after all to have no mask is to be authentic and to be authentic? The big lie needs to be the one acting directly with both the ugly and the beautiful.

But like that's the thing ye? I thought about hypocrisy - what it means, what it is, why it is, and why it is so popular - and I simply came to the conclusion. That hypocrisy isn't a mask. It's someone's true nature peering through the cracks thinking it's unseen.

But here's a unique personal paradox. The more open and non-delusional I was about my own hypocrisy, the smaller and smaller its range of effects had grown. Like how do I explain this? It's like being aware of your bigger hypocrisies ye, still acting them out, but as time passes on those hypocrisies get actually smaller until you stop noticing them. As if, to notice your own hypocrisies is to look at yourself inwards via a filter of some kind?

Yeah, they simply shrink to small, genuinely small things that I entirely miss out on until someone mentions. And I think - that's the perfect state of hypocrisy. You don't have to flagellate your own self, your own lies or truths to find the fact. Think of your own I's mechanisms as a perfect camouflage defense system?

Well, I simply found it hilarious that a lot of philosophies include self-flagellation, yet ultimately serve no other purpose than the purpose being a hypocrisy in of itself - the self-flagellation as the purpose and meaning behind the philosophy, so as to give a person something concrete to blame, to follow, to hate or love so that they don't have to face themselves even if the philosophy says they do.

Anyways. But that's why the defense mechanism is so great. Morals have aesthetics, but beyond that. Concepts have aesthetics. And imagine how ugly, how repulsive one would feel if they heard that their self-flagellation is a hypocrisy in of itself, even if it's not a bad one as long as the lie works as intended.

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Nietzsche once said in Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil that untruth is a condition of life, yet warned against the "last man" who just blinks, shrugs at the lie, and says "we have invented happiness" just to live in lazy comfort instead of suffering to create greatness and meaning. So if he asked whether accepting our own hypocrisy without self-flagellation is just being a "lazy last man" who shrugs because "everything is a lie", this is my answer: (Which is actually brought up from a discord chat because I've never not once in my life read a single philosophy book.)

It's easy to call it 'lazy last man' when what is greatness? Why seek meaning when we know we can't answer the questions. We won't. I don't think it should be answered. We create comfort because self flagellation for ideals or ideas is the same kind of lazy thing you described. Just another set of clothes to justify being. I don't shrug at everything because"i know everything is a lie" because truthfully? I don't know. Maybe not everything is a lie, but can I differentiate? No. And that's the thing. I simply experience. Not exist. Live. Live to experience, and experience to live whilst being a hypocrite - a human because I can't be anything more or less than that. And so I ask you instead. If you know nothing has meaning, then why continue existing? You can't live for nothing, and nothing doesn't live for you. But you are. That's a fact. And you experience - subjectively? Objectively? Do you know? Do I know? Does anyone know the answer to which is it? No. And that's the sad, hard and beautiful truth. A conception of deception that is belief in of itself. So believing that my view is the correct or yours is the right answer to living is a deception of your own consciousness because it's a non. A no answer dilemma that only questions but never answers - instead what answers is the collective lies and interpretations of reality filtered through our own very beings.

And so  what happens when the comfort rips away and you are hit by real tragedy, grief, betrayal, and black bitterness that doesn't shrink? Do you finally curse existence when the lie stops feeling sweet, or try to force yourself to love fate without flinching? My answer to that would be:

I do curse. That's the point, that's the reaction. Pain, tragedy or betrayal... Those are all intrinsic parts of existing and experiencing, yet when you do experience the loss of a loved one, do you not also experience the deepest kind of love and gratitude that they were? When you're betrayed and bitter do you not also learn how to not be deceived by the same kind of treachery? Without bitterness you won't know how truly sweet is sugar. Without sugar you won't truly know the depth of repulsion when that bitterness hits your tongue. That is experiencing. That is the deceit. When a curtain of something is, and when it's drawn down what happens is you find another layer, another curtain that shows you the back end of it. I dislike many things, I get depressed every fall and winter, and I think... How peaceful it would be to end it all, yet simultaneously I'm reminded of the beautiful things. And I think to myself. What more is there that I missed? Just how much more sweetness I can draw after this bitterness subsides. And if it doesn't? What if that bitterness doesn't go away? Then it eventually becomes the new sweet. If life goes only down, then the old worst is the new good. A drowning man looks at the surface until their eyes close and they sink to the bottom. They don't look at the bottom before that, because they already know what's down there - more water. But what's up? Air. Help. Survival and continuation.

So I ask you. Am I delusional to think this way? Or...

Even if the quest to be the exception destroys their life in the process

This is why some people believe in a flat earth regardless of all evidence. It gives their life more meaning than if they accepted the truth like everyone else

It's why people willingly get into relationships with someone with a cheating background. They feel extra special knowing things might be different with them

It's why some people are so religiously devoted because "my religion/God is more true than all others which are false"

It's why rich folks have "rules for thee but not for me"

And it's also the basis of "I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party"

I guess this is a conversation for those who are old enough to know. I’m just curious on People’s thoughts about this whole doxxing thing that happens today versus the fact that everyone had a phone book that had everybody’s names and addresses on it in alphabetical order with their phone numbers from the big yellow page book?……

Depression or anxiety? It's a mental illness, not society making you feel lonely or broke

Poor or unemployed? You're not trying jard enough or picked the wrong career instead of society not providing a safety net or the rich refusing to share a meaningful portion of their wealth.

Single or have few friends? Your standards are too high or you're not trying enough, or aren't social enough, rather than society shipping unattainable standards or making us bogged down in our phones instead of talking to another human being.

I'm sure there are plenty more examples. But blaming the weakest person makes perfect economic sense in such a setup, because there's always a potential cost you incur to your own social prospects, whomever you blame. And if you blame a higher-status person, that cost and the risk associated is higher. But if you blame the vulnerable individual, you minimize that, and since individualism is founded on being self-sufficient and neither needing others nor caring for them, since "nobody will save you" anyways (which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy), it's the option that is selected by default, and the resulting decisions by a multitude of individuals combine to maintain and reinforce the system.

Two years ago I was a skeptic. I thought world is rational and that's all.

Then I have read "The Magus" and it awakened my childhood memories of being fascinated by mystery. The passion for mystery reignited in me.

I felt it strange. My skepticism had nothing to do with this passion. The urge of irrationality doesn't make sense in rational world. Still it exists.

I thought of it a lot and here is the summary of these thoughts. If something resonates in you, I would be happy to read your comments (or you are welcome to DM me).

Our world is not a plain, it is a labyrinth. The only possibility of labyrinth is to walk and search for exit. The only possibility of world is to search for God presence.

Mysteries are kind of the hidden rooms of the world. You don't know what is hidden there, but anything unknown may hide the presence of God.

Walking this labyrinth is my spiritual journey. I feel like searching for mysteries, weirdness and unknown makes my life meaningful. I learn to be fascinated of the world. I learn to believe in God.

Recently I’ve been thinking of the cube personality test, I had done it once as a kid and decided to revisit it.

It essentially involves visualizing a cube, ladder, flowers, horse and storm.

The visuals I’m seeing are that of a dessert at night, in the center of my vision or portrayed image is a giant cube made out of gold. In terms of visualization I am looking from the ground up and not seeing an end to the cube. Leaning upon it is a ladder, a ladder made out of wood that seems extremely fragil, but still solid enough that it won’t break, there is some moss patches on the ladder with pieces that seem thinner than others but fully connected nonetheless. Clouds surround the top of the cube and the ladder goes into them, the clouds are blocking the view of the top unable to make up what the top looks like due to their dark and grey appearance almost as if it is about to thunder storm but no rain or lighting is yet visible. At the base of the cube surround it all is grass, a very low amount of grass that fades into the desert the further you go from the cube, but you don’t have to go to far before the grass turns into dust, within the dust are small white flowers, scarce but scattered all through the grass and the bottom of the cube, but not enough to make it past the ladders first step. Next to the cube is a dark horse, the horse is in the distance on the right side of the cube it has a saddle on and is looking at me, for whatever reason I feel scared of the horse, intimidated even. In perspective the horse is about 3 ladder steps in height but not close to the ladder. The cube is just that big. From my perspective I am at the bottom of the ladder but I see the base of the ladder looking up towards the storm, uncertain if I’ll go up on the ladder.

I’m not talking about feeling anger or joy or any emotions that can be easily displayed on one’s face.

I’m not necessarily talking about the basic feelings of anger, joy or sadness (while all of it could probably be dumbed down to those kinds of feelings) but more about the feeling that a certain song gives you the more you listen to it or the smell of something from your childhood that you know your nostalgic about but it feels like more than just nostalgia.

I want so badly to put a label on all of these complex internal feelings but I don’t know what I’m feeling and without being able to name them I feel a sense of discomfort like it’s so close but intangible.

Im aware of the fact that the reason for this may be because I’m simply not educated enough to put my feelings into the correct words but it’s become a serious chunk of my daily brainpower trying to do just that.

Does anyone else feel this way about anything?

I really think the world's going to stay the same, no matter what. People will die, societies can fall apart, and generations will pass, but the world will keep going, and the same old problems will stick around. There will always be suffering, people being mean, fighting, and hurting each other.

Even when things do change, it seems like we just swap one problem for another. Humans have been around for thousands of years, and even with all we've learned and achieved, we're still facing the same basic issues.

I don't see a time coming when the world will be fundamentally different. The surface stuff might change, but the overall situation will always be the same.

Isn't the money we see in our online banking accounts essentially just numbers stored in a computer system? What actually prevents a bank from artificially increasing those numbers and creating money out of thin air?

Cash feels easier to keep track of because it's tangible and you can physically see and count it, whereas digital money exists as numbers on a screen, making it harder to understand where it comes from and how it's tracked.

Also, doesn't currency only have value because people collectively believe it does? If everyone suddenly stopped trusting banks or believing that the money in their accounts was real, wouldn't the entire system fall apart?

I'm curious about how the system works behind the scenes and what ultimately gives those digital numbers their value and legitimacy.

Why are feelings so unreliable, fragile, almost as if they are what constitutes our reality of a situation? I mean, for something as extensive as life itself and our perspective of it, which in turn forms an individual's truth, why are they guided by something as variant and susceptible to change as feelings? They change so often that you might look back on and think about it, may not be what you were actually thinking back then at that moment at all. Why is it so easily swayed by external, outside opinions or even environmental factors, which are equally unpredictable in themselves? I can see how this is not a problem for everyone, if they're simply not aware of this happening, but as someone who's gotten really good over time at analyzing my thoughts, it's coming off as rather absurd to me. I mean, why?

In my last rambling I explored healing as an ongoing architectural project and how a deliberate shift toward a growth mindset can literally rewrite our emotional wiring and prove that our past does not dictate our future. We talked about how scars are proof that we survived, and how we can stop letting old hurts anchor us to yesterday.

But that raises a natural question: what happens to the weight of the suffering itself?

For a long time, we view healing as a process of learning how to carry heavy baggage without dropping it. We imagine ourselves walking down a long road, shoulders permanently hunched under the accumulated weight of grief, betrayal, and heartbreak, simply getting stronger at enduring the strain.

The beauty of true healing, however, is that it completely transforms what "carrying" even means.

If healing simply meant returning to who we were before we were hurt, it would be an exhausting, Sisyphean task. We would spend our lives trying to restore an older, more fragile version of ourselves. But suffering doesn't leave us where it found us; it forces us to expand.

Think about how nature responds to pressure. When a bone breaks and heals properly, the body weaves dense, reinforced tissue at the site of the fracture, making that specific area remarkably strong. When a tree survives a brutal storm or a harsh winter, its trunk thickens and its roots drive deeper into the earth. The ring inside the wood permanently marks the year of the drought, but the tree grows taller and sturdier because of the resilience it was forced to discover.

Human emotional architecture works the exact same way.

When deep suffering occurs, our old container for life often shatters simply because it was too small to hold the weight of what happened. For a while, we feel broken. But as we process, learn, and lean into our capacity to evolve, we don't just glue the pieces back together in the exact same shape. We build a vastly larger soul.

We cultivate deeper empathy, richer gratitude, clearer vision, and an astonishing capacity for joy that we might never have accessed in comfortable, unbroken weather.

We do not merely learn to carry the same old weight with tired shoulders. Instead, the weight becomes a tiny fraction of a much larger, stronger, and more beautiful self. The past stays the same size, but you become vast.

In that expansion, suffering ceases to be a heavy burden you drag behind you like an anchor. It becomes the very soil from which your wisdom, tenderness, and grace bloom. You don't just carry it, you outgrow its power to define you, leaving behind something profoundly whole and infinitely luminous.

Have hope, all you weary and broken. You may be tired today, but you are not finished yet. The best parts of your story are still taking root.

Having experienced bullying, group dynamics among peers, and family structures, I have spent time reflecting on how people behave when their beliefs, loyalties, and self-perceptions are challenged.

One observation that stands out to me is how difficult genuine accountability seems to be for many people. They may acknowledge wrongdoing when doing so carries little personal cost, yet change their position when standing by the truth threatens their social standing, relationships, or sense of belonging.

It makes me wonder whether we value truth and fairness as much as we claim to, or whether we value preserving the unspoken rules of the groups we belong to and protecting our collective self-image even more.

In the search for meaning, many people seem reluctant to ask the difficult questions about life, existence, and their own motivations. Instead, they follow a familiar script: acquire material possessions, project an image of success, and cultivate the appearance of being intelligent, wise, or high-status. Yet beneath that polished exterior, genuine self-examination can be surprisingly absent.

We also tend to defer to people who are perceived as successful. Those around them may hesitate to question their behaviour, either because they benefit from the relationship or because challenging them threatens the social hierarchy. Over time, this can reinforce a person's self-image without necessarily making it more accurate. When surrounded by people whose interests align with pleasing us, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish honest feedback from validation.

I have also noticed how people who question established norms are not always rewarded for doing so. Their willingness to challenge the group may be interpreted as arrogance, disloyalty, or unnecessary friction. However, if their position is eventually proven correct and they gain recognition or status, the same people who once dismissed them may suddenly seek their approval.

To me, this reflects a deeper contradiction in human behaviour. We often claim to value honesty, fairness, and independent thinking, but our actions can suggest that we value convenience, acceptance, and social positioning more. We are willing to praise the truth when it benefits us, yet resist it when it forces us to confront uncomfortable realities about ourselves.

Perhaps one of the hardest things to acknowledge is that the identity we defend so fiercely may not be entirely our own. Much of it may have been shaped by the expectations of our families, peer groups, and society, along with our desire to belong and be accepted. What we perceive as our authentic identity can sometimes be a role we have learned to perform.

Genuine self-awareness, then, requires more than believing we are good, fair, or independent thinkers. It requires being willing to question ourselves when doing so threatens the very image we have built of who we are.

These are simply my observations and reflections. I am curious whether others have noticed similar patterns in their own experiences.

We work for ~50 years of our lives. 10-15 of those years you work for FREE because you lose 20-30% of your income every year in taxes so they can subsidize billionaires, bomb kids and topple governments overseas. So they can scheme and conspire and use every loophole and advantage to steal from you, they built and carefully crafted this system for themselves.

And what do we get for trading over a decade of our precious life time for free? Shit healthcare, insane gas prices and non stop inflation, crumbling infrastructure and politicians who don’t even speak English anymore. They speak in optics, buzz words, deception and ulterior motives.

We live in mass psychosis, denial, an indoctrinated since birth lie that’s too hard to swallow. An abstract system that was cleverly created without a face to blame when it ravages the world, so all you can say is “you can’t go against the system”. A Truman Show. Everything is a carefully crafted illusion of choice and freedom. We aren’t truly free.

Suffering in this world is a CHOICE that was made for us by those in power. Scarcity is artificial. There’s no reason we should have third world countries, hunger or homelessness or go in debt because I need a root canal.

Just stop for a second and let it all sink in, connect the dots, think about the vast resources this planet has and our ability to reach everyone around the globe in seconds or physically in hours. We could be so much more, so much better, so much kinder and so much more advanced spiritually and psychologically.

Just IMAGINE what human civilization could accomplish. The technology. The beautiful and inspiring architecture we could build instead of copy pasting shitty looking suburban hellscapes.

Many people will say I’m naive, that I romanticize life and that it can’t be that way…but…why? Why can’t the human experience be different, why can’t we pivot and realign our priorities? Why can’t we realize that we’re in this together and we have ALL the power. Imagine if majority of Americans just stop going to Walmart for a week? The damage and change we could accomplish if we organized is immense that’s why they want to divide us. They want us left or right, black or white, immigrant or citizen.

And the culprit for all of this? GREED, a million is not enough, abit of influence is not enough, abit of power is not enough, a big house is not enough. SUCCESS IS NOT ENOUGH. They want more and more and more and more, profits every quarter, more more more more.

WAKE UP.

The only universal constant in this world is the persistence of life—fungi, animals, plants. Everything is interconnected within a cycle where organisms nourish one another; each is essential for the continued existence of the others. How life is lived varies entirely depending on one’s culture or species. Every being employs different strategies for survival, yet the ultimate goal has always been the same: to preserve one’s own life, as well as the lives of loved ones—or those we feel compelled to protect.

Have you ever considered how strange it is that parents feel an urge to protect their offspring, even when doing so is incredibly exhausting? I’m speaking in general terms: lionesses constantly hunting for their cubs, birds foraging to bring food to their chicks every few hours, or human mothers nursing their infants. Biologically speaking, this is driven by a cocktail of hormones that fosters a bond between parent and child, compelling the parent to provide care. But why does this happen? The purpose is to ensure continued existence—but why? Why do things strive to keep existing?

It may seem like a silly question, but I suspect it could stem from a human bias. We are so accustomed to seeing things fight to stay alive that we perceive this as mere common sense.

But why has life—or existence itself—taken a form that inherently tends toward its own perpetuation?

"After all, what would be the point of not existing?"

But then again, what is the point of existing then?

~ What is Normal? ~

If we observe the world today, we would consider innocents dying needlessly in war, from random violence, drugs, hunger, normal. Treating others with prejudice, indifference, due to their contrasts, normal. Homelessness, poverty, inequity, normal.

In a more compassionate world, no one would be ignored. Rather than continuing to live in a self-centered world of greed, everything would be equally shared so all may survive. Those without food would be fed, without shelter would be housed, in need of help, would be aided.

To change the world, we must challenge humanity’s definition of normal, realizing anything harming another in any way is not normal, and only together, selflessly helping each other, may our world not only survive, but thrive as well.

Ive often thought about how life seems to follow the same predictable structure college, university, work, retirement, and eventually death. The strange thing is that we spend so much of our lives preparing for the next stage that I sometimes wonder when we're actually meant to enjoy the life we're living. For example, we spend years studying to get a good job, then decades working so that we can eventually retire and enjoy our freedom. But does that mean we're putting off happiness until later in life. I find myself wondering whether people genuinely find fulfilment in this structure or whether weve simply accepted it as normal without questioning whether it's how we really want to live.

Like there is a chance aliens see us like we see cells or molecules or viruses

Like do u think molecules have the comprehension to understand quantum physics? No do we even care about them, no?

We're probably like that, people say but "we have to be important if we invent interstellar travel" but our universe as a whole could be random inconsequential thing like a a bacteria on a random sand grain in the middle of the Sahara desert....do we as humans care about that? No? And if that bacteria travels from one grain to another do we really care? No?

I feel like anti alien movies and stuff just feeds the human ego like we are that much important reality wise but we could just be inconsequential no matter what we do in the future like invent interstellar travel or whatever yada yada

I was thinking about this the other day. If you live to 80, that's just 960 months. And somehow, in that tiny amount of time, we manage to make life so complicated.

We spend years chasing money, status, approval from strangers, and holding grudges that probably won't matter in a few years.

And we're such a strange species. We built concentration camps and hospitals. We save strangers and kill over borders. We explore space but can't understand the people sitting next to us.

We know we're going to die, yet live like we have all the time in the world.

Sometimes I wonder if we've actually become wiser over thousands of years, or if we've just gotten better at building things while still being driven by the same fears, egos and instincts.

Anyway, just something that's been on my mind.

Does anyone else find the whole human experience a little absurd?

As I’ve gotten older I have found myself becoming kinder to things and to insects. They enter my house by mistake and it doesn’t feel right to me to punish them with death.

It got me thinking about karma, and I imagined, what if once we die, before we move on we are tasked with repaying the bad karma by experiencing the consciousness of the beings that we killed or contributed to killing in our lives like some kind of tax. An insect has a small karma tax because its lifespan is shorter. But the idea of this made me further empathize with every being because I just imagine - ‘what if that is also me right now?’.

​

To begin with, let me remind you that mathematics is not a science fortunately and that it is perhaps one of the largest organized, consistent symbolic formal systems for developing something: maybe intellect, maybe a certain form of thinking, maybe someone understands more clearly what exactly mathematics develops and can tell us about it.

And whatever it develops in us, there may immediately be a temptation to say functionally: well, then mathematics is needed precisely for developing this, Robert Wide.

The difficulty is that although there are interesting things in it, such as topology, or interesting theorems and models, and especially what seems important is the economic, technological, and research contribution of mathematics,

And yet it seems that this formal system stalls a person and makes it harder for him to think outside this formal system. Of course, one can say this about logic too, and about their similarity, and in general about any old systems of thought or let us call them closed or “controlling” ones. To some, dialectics may also seem like this, though to a lesser degree, and it is precisely dialectics that sets the task of sublating contradiction and arriving at generalization and understanding, that is, in an ethical sense it is a more encompassing system of cognition in the sense of its capacity — though often in verbal form to include something else and incomprehensible in its understanding. And if we abstract from formal dialectics, if you have ever heard these expositions, then the ethical idea and, as it were, real dialectics in full non-contradictoriness and some communication, for example as metamodernism, is the same dialectics or synthesis between sincerity and so-called postmodernity or irony.

Dialectics is still an example, not a proposed answer. Although it could perhaps be one of those considered.

Returning to mathematics. Despite its outstanding economic, technological, research possibilities and achievements, and as a result also social and political ones… it still remains rather abstract. One can say that it is the most complex, or one of the most complex, games of the mind, or games within the mind, or separate games within the mind. But for the mind itself this seems like something akin to sophistry or magic, though a very useful one. Or one can say that it is a magical system, or one of the magical systems of this world. But it is almost always something very abstract: it seems to me that this is often said about philosophers too, by those who do not delve deeply into philosophy; but those who do delve in, on the other hand, can understand that we often reflect on the most important questions or phenomena that we can feel or think. As far as I understand and it is not known how much the answers may still differ mathematics is a system of ultimate formal complexity, or of ultimate complexity for thought in general, since in one way or another what we formulate as philosophers often, though perhaps difficult, has a clearer representation of reality, even if it is Lacan’s Borromean rings. In the sense that philosophy, apart from again sophistry, usually does not strive to become complicated simply for the sake of complication because why? It seems that a person, after this stage of formal logic, can also learn other possibilities of thinking. But in mathematics, complexity and possibly even not necessarily, but possibly the degree of abstraction seems literally the quintessence of content. On the other hand, of course, this may also be good. In the sense of ultimate complexity, ultimate constructiveness, ultimate abstraction, in the sense that we as a culture have some content, some achievements that we may still have to comprehend, if some of them can be so complex that there are literally 400 pages of formulas of explanation.

But, like, why?

And returning to what we were talking about, this seems like ultimate sophistry or thinking in idle, in the sense for thought itself and for man, although culturally it brings enormous social results: both economics and technology and research and efficiency.

And even if we assume that mathematics is integral thinking rather than specific thinking, then although it is clear why mathematics should be developed: so that there can be a further possibility of development…

What for, and what from mathematics, and should it and it or they even be present in education?

Because even if we may have grounds to think so but even if mathematics is connected with integral, that is, general thinking, that is, as it were, some generalized function of it, the mathematicality of education then creates a situation in which a person tries to wipe the sofa with a processor without imagining what a sofa is.

And if not, and mathematics is more specific thinking, that is, in the sense that it also remains there and in a constant submetacognitive state: in the sense that it fundamentally cannot leave the box and its language and its formality or formalization… then such thinking is good for producing human-computers useful for working with ordinary computers, for example in a bank or somewhere else. As a result, man has, as it were, given his brain to mathematics, and how is he supposed to live further? Well, that is, then perhaps also the market, where this mathematized brain may be valued higher than the self-esteem or self-understanding of such a person, and so the puzzle comes together: successful recruiting into a successful company.

I will say right away that simply “progressive studies,” which may even be not thinking but to some extent dogmatic propaganda or propaganda at the expense of education hours, trying to lean on Marxism or performatism according to Butler, are, as it were… Well, people can learn something valuable, but on the whole it seems that this is simply the disintegration of education, or rather almost its absence, or its replacement by propaganda so that in an economic-political sense these people could be ever more perfect agents of this very propaganda, possibly even without fully understanding it. And how lucky we are that we can look at this from the outside, unlike the people and economies that this “progressive” propaganda may further repress. And the main complaint against it is probably economic, because a society simply without technical specialties loses economic opportunities; only oligarchs remain, and they would most quickly move to a new place. And in a universal human sense, this is potentially the next target and problem for the next intellectual stratum that will try to do something about this repressiveness. If, in general, there will be anyone left to do anything there.

In general, why was this clarification about “progressive” or agenda-driven education? So that this question is not in support of that very agenda, and, as it were, we understand in advance some of the existing difficulties there and have described them.

And still, the question: is mathematics needed? And such mathematized, formalized thinking — and then we are surprised by further formalizations and the resulting difficulties, such as bureaucracy and media simplification and corruption in many senses.

Additionally:

Maybe the form of my question is a bit of Soviet thinking or a way of thinking about something, and if you understand another or other better ways of asking or thinking about this, you can say so.

This is just something I've seen a lot and I'm honestly really sick of it. A lot of people will view others that they don't know as expendable. I remember even just a decade ago, it was pretty common to see signs of children saying to drive safely as their dad works there. The the concept behind it is reminding drivers that construction workers aren't just random NPCs, but are real people who have families who care about them and who would suffer if the construction worker ended up in an accident.

And like, I guess that's good, putting up those signs to remind psychopathic drivers that construction workers are real people, but.. What if they didn't have families?

This is something I also saw in the Netflix Movie Circle from 2015, where the whole premise is that 50 people wake up in a room and realize they need to vote on who gets to live, and they immediately start debating about who has children and families as if those who have children are somehow more valuable than those who don't.

The way I see it, shouldn't you actually protect the people who Don't have children, because they haven't had a chance to pass on their genes yet?

It's all very screwed up, and it's literally punishing lonely people for not being able to find someone. It honestly discussed me whenever people bring up loved ones as if they're what defines a person's worth.

What if the biggest misunderstanding of “Love Thy Neighbor” is that compassion requires surrender?

For nearly 2,000 years, one Christian teaching has inspired extraordinary acts of kindness:

Love your neighbor as yourself.

But buried inside that instruction is a question that deserves more attention than it gets.

“Who is my neighbor?”

It's the very question Jesus was asked in Luke 10.

His response was the parable of the Good Samaritan—a powerful lesson about mercy that crosses religious, cultural, and social boundaries.

But I've spent years thinking about another problem connected to this teaching.

How do you love people without allowing the wrong people to destroy your capacity to love?

Think about the devoted Christian who spends weekends visiting strangers, hoping to offer encouragement, wisdom, or fellowship.

Some people welcome the conversation. Others shut the door. Some respond with ridicule or outright hostility.

Of course, nobody owes a stranger their time or a conversation. Simply declining a religious message doesn't make someone malicious.

But persistent cruelty, humiliation, manipulation, and exploitation are different matters.

Now consider the social worker, caregiver, counselor, or minister who continually gives their energy to people in difficulty.

Some people respond constructively.

Others may repeatedly take advantage of that compassion.

And when exhaustion finally sets in, what does a deeply conscientious person often do?

They question themselves.

Maybe I wasn't loving enough.

Maybe I should have prayed harder.

Maybe I should have been more patient.

Maybe I failed them.

And so they give more.

Until there's almost nothing left to give.

What if the problem was never a shortage of love, but a shortage of discernment?

There's another teaching of Jesus that deserves our attention.

In Matthew 7:15–20, Jesus warns his listeners about false prophets who appear harmless but conceal destructive intentions.

He offers a remarkably simple principle:

“You will know them by their fruits.” — Matthew 7:16

Think about what that means.

Not necessarily by their religious affiliation.

Not by their social position.

Not by their impressive words, promises, or outward appearance.

By what their actions consistently produce.

And in John 13:35, Jesus explains that his disciples will be recognizable through their love for one another.

One teaching emphasizes discernment when faced with deception. 

The other emphasizes love expressed through conduct.

I find that combination fascinating.

Because it suggests that what people profess and how they actually behave are not necessarily the same thing.

Someone can speak beautifully about compassion while repeatedly exploiting others.

Another person might share none of your religious convictions yet demonstrate extraordinary generosity, integrity, responsibility, and concern for other people.

Shouldn't what people consistently do carry more weight than the labels they wear?

This observation became particularly important to me while developing a framework I call 8:2 Theory.

The theory proposes that beneath our countless divisions—religion, race, nationality, wealth, age, education, and political identity—there may be a more consequential distinction in how people consistently behave toward others.

I call the broadly constructive majority the 8s.

These are not perfect people. They make mistakes. They can become angry, selfish, confused, or hurtful.

But they remain capable of remorse, learning, cooperation, responsibility, and constructive change.

An 8 could be a Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, or someone who has never opened a religious book.

An 8 could be your neighbor, parent, employer, employee, or a complete stranger living halfway around the world.

They need not believe what you believe.

What connects them isn't their creed. It's their capacity and willingness to build rather than continually destroy.

Then there are what I call the 2s—particularly those displaying persistent patterns of deliberate exploitation, manipulation, domination, and sabotage.

In my writing, I've sometimes used the expression evil 2s to describe the most destructive manifestations of this orientation.

The theory isn't a scientifically established way of dividing humanity into exact percentages. Nor does a disagreement, an unpleasant interaction, or one harmful action establish someone's character.

It's a proposed lens for examining recurring behavioral patterns.

The numerical aspect draws on the familiar Pareto principle: a relatively small proportion of causes can account for a disproportionately large share of outcomes.

Applied to human relationships and society, the question becomes:

How much of our exhaustion, conflict, and stalled progress is caused by repeatedly giving destructive influences more power than they deserve?

And more importantly, what could happen if constructive people recognized one another across their differences and worked together?

Now return to the teachings of Jesus.

The Good Samaritan didn't ask whether the injured man shared his religion before helping him.

That matters enormously.

But the story also doesn't teach that compassion requires surrendering our judgment or exposing ourselves endlessly to those who exploit us.

And when Jesus speaks about recognizing people by their fruits, he introduces a principle that I believe resonates with the behavioral foundation of 8:2 Theory.

Look at the pattern of conduct, not simply the profession of belief.

I'm not suggesting that Jesus was secretly teaching my theory or that Christianity divides humanity into literal 8s and 2s.

But I do believe these teachings invite a conversation about something profoundly important.

The people we are called to treat with compassion and the people we can safely trust to build a life, family, community, or civilization with are not necessarily the same.

In my theory, the 8s represent that potential brotherhood of constructive people—people who may be wildly different yet share essential aspirations toward decency, meaningful work, family, cooperation, and a better future.

Recognizing them doesn't require abandoning compassion for everyone else.

It requires learning that compassion and trust are different things.

That forgiveness and reconciliation are different things.

That kindness and unlimited access are different things.

And that protecting the constructive people in our lives—including ourselves—is not necessarily a failure of love.

Perhaps one of the most liberating realizations a compassionate person can have is this:

You are not obligated to exhaust yourself proving your goodness to someone determined to take advantage of it.

You can wish someone well without trusting them.

You can pray for someone without repeatedly exposing yourself to their mistreatment.

You can offer help without surrendering your boundaries.

And you can devote more of your energy to people who genuinely want to build something worthwhile.

I believe this distinction could open an important conversation among Christians and non-Christians alike.

Because the problem isn't limited to religion.

It concerns anyone trying to live constructively in a world where not every influence is constructive.

Maybe the question isn't only:

“Who is my neighbor?”

Maybe we should also be asking:

“How can I remain a good neighbor without becoming an instrument of my own exhaustion?”

And perhaps most importantly:

If we are meant to recognize people by their fruits, why do we so often judge them by their labels instead?

I'm interested in different perspectives, including criticism of my theory.

Have you ever felt that setting a necessary boundary meant you weren't being loving enough? And if so, what eventually changed your mind?

AI Disclosure: The ideas, theories, research, and perspectives expressed in this post are my original work. I use AI as a writing assistant to help organize, structure, and clarify my thoughts while preserving my intended meaning and message.