What do I want to focus on, listen to, and read?

Cartoon by me, Uva Be. October 26th, 2024

I search for good in the world. This led me to books about possible Utopias. Stories about when and how the quality of life for people had been improved. How did they do it? What did they do? I found a book The Utopians: Six Attempts to Build the Perfect Society by Anna Neima. 

4 of the 6 utopias were after World War I, one was as WWII was picking up and the last Utopia in the US was during the end of world WWII,... all the utopias disbursed. They made changes in people’s lives, but, the biblical curse of toil until the end of our days in the weeds of the wilderness remains.

I realized around the time I turned 50 that I had read so many more books by authors that were male, that if I only read books written by women, I probably would never reach a 50/50 ratio in the total books I have read during my remaining life span. For my own personal perspective, I decided to try to only read books written by women. But, even with a list in hand, of authors suggested by Ursal K. Le Guin I found it challenging to find what I wanted to read. This was not a new experience, it is true of any specific subject, the best books are checked out for a reason. (again for personal mental reasons, not for anyone else). I decided, if I couldn’t find a book on a topic I was researching, then I could justify reading a book by a man, if I had previously read another book, on any topic, written by a woman. 

I’m writing this paragraph to answer my own question. What do I want to read? People will talk about the tone of the writing being differentiable when it is written by a woman, but I find, like woman drivers, all driving skills depend more on the personality and mental state of the driver and who is in the car with them. Authors write whatever fits their personality and on the knowledge base the subject of their writing is established in. Just like handwriting, it is not dependent on gender at all. The stereotypical choices and expectations of what to write about is up to the author. The life experiences that only women can share, that is what I wanted to add to my personal mental reading life. 

Seems like a simple enough question, like knowing yourself. Do you know yourself? Do you know what you really care about, want, need, beyond daily survival?

Me? I wish I was an author escaping into a fictional world. I’m happy when I am able to make art. … Butt with two ’t’s, so far, I’ve not been able to earn my survival with either. “Keep writing, keep making art.” Seems simple enough. Except artists and writers are filters of the time they live in. We humans are social creatures, we are all participants of our culture, the one we were are exposed to is technically “ours” like it or not. 

It’s a challenge to live as an isolated hermit, survive and stay sane. Eh,... same for everyone social butterfly or recluse. Anyone who has lived knows that life is many things, but it is not “fair” or equal, even normal as far as I can tell seems to be a myth. And just when we might figure something out, understand something, other people meddle with our day. How many lives go as planned I wonder? If you continue reading, I wonder how many years into the future will people wonder why we made the choices we made, or the things we ignored in this decade. 

What I want to ignore and forget. In our shared collective consciousness, the world who has watched TV, how many millions have seen “that man” dancing* in their nightmares? (If you can call that slow paced shuffle with clenched fits a dance).

The screens blare and repeat the same name, the same face imprinted on our face recognition, (willingly or not, according to neurology and the cognitive sciences we humans do have entire areas of our minds dedicated to face and voice recognition and if you can read, if you see a word, like a name, then you have read it), over and over again, we see that face, hear that voice, read that name. 

For how long has this been going on? I know it has been sustained above a normal level of exposure for the people of a healthy independent nation who consider themselves free. For many people the severity of the repetition is effectively brainwashing. 

For some who watched the TV show “he” was the lead of for the first 14 seasons. The show aired on multiple channels from 2004 till 2017. And never having seen this TV show myself, I don’t know if there were reruns, I’ve only seen still images, been exposed to clips of video via other shows, mostly comedy news, and skimmed search results to write his paragraph. 

What is my point? He is just a human like the rest of us. This news media politics brainwashing is a symptom of a much larger, long-term problem. Am I writing this for myself so that I may free my own mind, to be able to focus on my personal, daily existence. Yes, of course. “They” say, move on, get over it. I am working on forgiving and then forgetting, but I’m not quite there yet. Forgive who, for what? Only the brainwashed ask that question. If you asked yourself that question only you can figure it out, for yourself, and only for yourself. No one can undo brainwashing from outside your mind. The rebuttal in my mind says, everyone is already saying the same things to themselves and to each other. Retrospect what use is it? Does mob mentality ever learn from history? Her story waits silenced again. We all just have to survive the next four years.

So I ask the reader the same question I first asked myself. What do you want to focus on, listen to, and read? 

................................space................................

If I was doing NaNoWriMo this year, I just "won", Nov 19th, 2024

I was planning on taking a break from social media for the month of December 2024, to think and write, undisturbed. But, I have decided to start, now, today ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................this is my vow of silence. Seen but not heard. If I don't have anything nice to say, why say anything at all, or like my Mother said, if you are going to cuss, at least be creative and imagine the meaning of each of your cuss words. 

P.s. Dec 11th, for my end of year 2024 writing goal of 100k, I just passed 70k word count last night.

Writing to the end of 2024

#inktober drawing for the 17th thru 22nd

 

I’m ending this year by writing. 2024, it’s been quite a year so far. Today is November 4th. The election is tomorrow, over half of the Nation has already voted, and it’s so stressful, like the pressure and drool just before you throw up. The world is spinning, just enough to make balance feel off, and you are not happy-drunk to numb the pain. That’s how it feels at my house anyways. 

BFF’s job, the giant company that bought the small company he worked for, for over a decade, is laying off another wave of people. Good people, some of them, contractors who are in the Ukraine, their wives and children in asylum, far away in other countries. It’s heartbreaking, he knows it’s bad for them. One of the contractors is also taking care of his elderly Dad, who also is not allowed to leave the country with the women and children, who are now not there to take care of the elderly men. 

And here I am, sincerely grateful to be American. I’ve already voted and checked to make sure my ballot got to the counting machine. 

Last month, October, I distracted myself by doing #inktober an ink drawing per day in October. It was nice, but reminded me why I’m not a cartoonist. I did seriously consider becoming a cartoonist. Several times over the course of my life actually, not just last month. I love cartoons, not comic books really, cartoons, the silly scribbly ones with more jokes and less fighting. 

My plan for November was to do NaNoWriMo but something has happened with the company having to do with AI and a small but bad conspiracy about grooming children. I sure hope that is a lie. The Ai stuff? It’s there in print, and I don’t agree. I think people churning out Ai generated trained novels and articles in a sham, and I don’t like it. I think the Ai should be doing fact checking for lies in the news, and writing author and artist credits -- to stop humans intellectual property and creative work from being stolen, not doing the stealing, or this so called creative work of humans.  I can barely even stand autocorrect or the Ai that suggests crap when I’m trying to chat with my family. Grammar is to change over time. That is the nature of human language. Dictionaries are useful communication tools, but being able to choose your own words is a freedom of speech level issue, especially when talking with your loved ones. 

I do very sincerely appreciate spelling help. I do also need help with homophones, words that sound like other words but have another meaning, I stumble over these two issues a lot. But, if I have an ideal, it is an ideal and if I have an idea, then it’s an idea and the two are not the same even if idea is the more popular word. It’s very, very tiresome to believe you have the right to choose your own words and have to fight as you type to make some Ai stop changing what you are attempting to communicate, especially if you are writing poetry, or fiction dialogue, have a funny non common spelled name (you think it would learn how to spell the authors name, but no?) and never mind the spelling of terrible character’s names. Ai. There’s a line. Don’t cross it will me or I’m going to get a brainless text editor. Oh, and I know I need a human editor. There's never been any doubt about that. If they succeed in an Ai editor that can help me polish my writing, not break it up and destroy it? Then they may have an actual intelligent algorithm happening.

I need to write. I haven’t been writing. It’s time. I need to write for other people so I had planned to do a 100k word count NaNoWriMo goal this month, but then everyone says boycott the company. And so I found another counting site. And of course just like Twitter turning into X and social networking being splintered into many directions, in my case. 5? Let’s see, ummm.. Facebook, (that I can barely stand but is where the most people I know are), Instagram, now owned by Facebook, but I don’t always have photos to share, and then BlueSky, Mastodon and Threads that I rotate ignoring. Oh, and Reddit. It’s 6 apps now that I waste my procrastination time with. 

Anyways. I’ve been writing again. I started November 1st, with 3,422 words. Nov 2nd, I was up to 7,055 words, I moved to https://trackbear.app/ on November 3rd, added my NaNoWriMo word count there, and ended the evening yesterday 8,481 the last word count update to NaNoWriMo. And today, via Track Bear, my morning writing word count was 11,687. 

Onwards, peace and love, ☮ +💚, Uva Be 

P.s. the illustration for this blog post is a screenshot of 6 of my ink drawings as posted on my Instagram feed. 

P.s. #2 Nov. 5th, can't sleep. Word count as of 6:31 a.m. 13,402. 

Why I really want to ask minor party 2024 presidential candidates to drop out, but am not doing so.

 I want to write a “letter” (really just this blog post), asking Jill Stein and Chase Oliver to drop out and endorse Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, … but that’s unAmerican and not democratic of me. 

Image credit. This is a screen shot from ballotpedia.org

The full list of 2024 Presidential candidates is crazy long, just look at this dear American registered voter, click this and scroll “FOREVER”!!! Actually 1,212 people!

The reason, I really want to ask the minor party candidates to drop out and endorse Kamala Harris has two parts. 

FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2016: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives

1. The 2016 official final vote count. 

A screen shot of the final numbers from Page 6. Of the US Federal Elections Commission report from 2016. The link to the full .pdf to Read and weep.

The second reason, is not because of who won, but the real reason why I’m writing this blog post is because the US Electoral College is broken and working against the will of the majority of Americans. As evidenced by the 2016 election and 2000 US Presidential Elections where the majority of the American people voted for the candidate who did not win. 

Personally, I’ve never recovered my disillusionment with the failure of our presidential election system Al Gore versus W. Bush in 2000. My ears still sting with “that” News broadcaster calling the election for W. Bush BEFORE the votes were counted!!! I can still see him in my mind’s eye committing treason against the American people pointing at a chart while votes were still rolling in. Haunting my memories I can still hear the lame stream news, in the final days leading up to the that election saying over and over how the candidates were the same?! It was so surreal, it was so obvious (esp. In retrospect) one was for climate change (An Inconvenient Truth … https://algore.com/library/an-inconvenient-truth ) and the other was for drill baby drill. And here we are 24 years later. And for me, THAT election is IMHO is the one that may have destroyed us. The what-ifs are the red line drawn in blood in the sand. 

Could 9/11 been prevented with a different Administration in the White House? Would we be in a more competitive era via technology and renewable energy with a more tech savvy, globally conscious president fighting for us instead of sending us to war in the Middle East? (because 9/11 didn’t happen in this imaginary time-line). But, reality.. You know, deal with it. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote

Soooooooooooo? “Sigh” instead of writing a blog post about why Jill and Chase should drop out and endorse Kamala, it would be better if ALL OF THE CANDIDATES instead endorsed the vote of the American people! 

How? The news media could ask all of the candidates running in the 2024 election if they support a congressional amendment to update the electoral college for free and fair elections. 

The US Electoral College needs to be an issue in this 2024 election. The fact that this process is working against the will of the majority of the American people needs to be addressed and amended. 

The candidates themselves need to make a promise to the American people, that if elected as POTUS they would have a national discussion to prepare an amendment before congress to repair the out of balance electoral college system to fairly represent the vote of the American people to support free and fair elections and the peaceful transition of power. 

And for obvious reasons, we the people can’t get this done during the last less than 50 days of this year’s US presidential election. All we can do as voters is vote for the candidate who promises to support free and fair elections. 

And sorry, Jill and Chase and all the other candidates “running” for POTUS in this joke of a broken system. You too have no option but to cast your vote and either throw it away as a protest, or vote for someone who has a chance in hell of winning in the system as it currently is. 

P.S. Just in case anyone wondered. It’s my personal policy to research all the candidates in the primary, and vote for whomever I like best IN THE PRIMARY. But, when it’s down to the wire, in the actual November or midterm elections. I vote for the candidate who has the greatest odds for winning (even if I only kinda sorta like them).

And in the 2020 primary, researching everybody on my ballot, watching the debates over four years ago now, I voted for someone else in the 2020 primary, but, Kamala Harris was in my top 5 list out of all those super candidates we had to choose from before their was only two old white men running. 

Putting Social Media into Perspective

Feb 2026 Update 

This post originated in 2024, with my 3rd personal social media test, but started to take shape in question form around 2018.

old desktop monitor set on books and boards

Not using AI doesn’t stop it from using your share of the world’s energy, it uses your phone, it uses your larger than phone computers. If it isn’t “it”/an AI, then it’s a webcrawling bitcoin “miner”. For example, web bots “hit” my writing blog at a rate of 20 to 1, when compared to the clicks inside the ‘blog-posts-read-analytics’. 

My point is, if we are going to fight back, we must get organized and do it together. 

I have a why, point a. and point b.

Here’s point a.:

Just FYI this is written by me, not AI. 

Four types of mob mentality? 
1. Deadly mob mentality.
2. Audience mentality.
3. The collective intelligence.
4. Social media memes.

The classic old as dirt, deadly mob mentality type 1, with pitch forks and fire, burning witches at the stake, the biblical stoning of adulters, people who were adored as part of their tribe before, the screaming and trampling of people fleeing from a burning theater, trampling people to death at a concert or a stampede at a sports event. 

The second type is active but not deadly, the audience mentality, sports and music fans screaming and yelling, they can turn into the deadly mob, but if not afraid (fleeing for their lives) or drunk, they will silence to a murmur at the raise of the umpire’s hand or when a person on the stages calls for the attention of the crowd. 

The third type is the collective intelligence. The collective intelligence works together, sorts the data and does the math to figure out how many emergency exits, and what type of signage can prevent a stampede to help allow people to exit the stadium or theater without fear, preventing deadly mob mentality. 

On a national scale the collective intelligence takes form in democracy, when people work together to maintain liberty and justice for everyone. 

The collective intelligence is whenever thousands (or even hundreds) of people work together as a united team, to win, make a movie, or to get to the moon. Or for a famous historical example, the multinational simultaneous development of the automobile. 

The hive mind works together. When you ask many people a complex question, and then combine the answers on a data point cloud chart, you can find the most accurate answer to even unanswerable questions. Like what are emotions, how to best mitigate climate change damage, or how to best plan farm land. The intelligent answers will line up, the not so smart answers will sort of spread and sink, or sometimes clump to the bottom (people who were making jokes etc… like “Boaty McBoatFace” for a collective naming example that went to the jokes, not to the intelligence area of the point cloud). 

This brings me to the fourth type of human mob mentality – the meme. It’s only possible because of the internet and social media. Before the internet, there were physical on the streets fads or trends. Some patterns of imitated behaviour, like cat calling by groups of men etc…Sort of similar to social media trolls.  

But, the on the street of a city this collective action isn’t to the extent of a mob (unless it is an actual mob, like a riot), because people physically on the side walks are scattering, going to where they intend to go, thinking about work, food, their loved ones, the dog they are walking etc… 

But, meme mentality is something else. Destructive when the meme is based on fear or hate, but usually it’s about recursive self examination. Memes are mobs because masses of people are focused on something all together as a shared experience. And like screaming in a crowd, it sort of takes over our collective sanity for a bit. 

Pause and think about each of the four types of mob mentality, when in your life have you experienced. 

1. Have you been a witness to or worse part of a dangerous mob? 

2. Think about how it felt to part of a large audience in the moment together. If you haven’t done this, pick a crowd event that you would enjoy, it’s really worth it and has to be experienced to understand. 

3. Have you experienced working with others to be part of the collective intelligence? For me it was working on a few indie movie crews, and some large college and high school projects that involved over a hundred people.

4. Have you participated in a viral meme conversation? How did that feel, everyone sharing how they saw some seemingly trivial details of media on a large scale, together. 
Of course reply in comments with interesting thoughts totally welcome. But, we shall see if the 7 social media apps I post on let anyone in my home feeds see this. 
Why? Because of this. 

Point b. Is best described by a question I asked Google search Ai a couple of days ago. 

Me: Is it possible or just coincidence that the social media apps only let one person see your posts in their home feed and shuffle all the rest with their profit algorithm?

AI: It is definitely possible and highly likely that this is happening, and it is almost certainly not a coincidence.

What you are describing is the core function of modern social media algorithms—a, “profit algorithm,” as you put it, which prioritizes engagement to keep users scrolling and, ultimately, to sell ads. 

Here is why you only see that one person:

The "Relationship Strength" Factor: The algorithm tracks who you talk to, whose posts you like, and who you visit. If you, or the other person, engage frequently, the platform deems that relationship “strong” and constantly prioritizes them at the top of your feed.
The "Relevance" Score: The algorithm predicts what you want to see based on past behavior. If you have clicked on similar posts before, the algorithm will show you more of that, even if it ignores 95% of your other friends.

The "Profit" Mechanism: Social media platforms want you to stay on the app. They show you content that makes you engage (like, comment, or share) because that keeps you on the platform longer. The “shuffle” of other posts is actually a curated, ranked feed designed to maximize your time-on-platform, not to show you everything in chronological order. 

Why does this happen?

Too Much Content: You are probably connected to more people than you can keep up with. The algorithm filters this for you, but it filters for engagement, not necessarily for importance.
Echo Chamber Effect: Once the algorithm decides you like that one person, it keeps showing them to you, creating a self-reinforcing loop.
Active Engagement Required: To see more diverse posts, you need to actively engage with other friends' posts. 

How to Bypass It

Check the "Feeds" or "Following" Tab: Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms often have a "Feeds" tab that shows you posts in chronological order (or at least, less heavily ranked).
Use "Favorites": Mark the friends you actually want to see as "Favorites."
"See First": On Facebook, you can select "See First" on specific friends. 
So, while it feels like a conspiracy to restrict your social circle, it is a deliberate, personalized,, and profit-driven curation strategy.

Me, to myself after I copy and paste this. Well, shit. And once again, what are you going to do about it?

Hey, one person who sees this post in my home feed. Any ideas? 

Here's to all the voices of the "little" people on the interwebs.

Really? Seriously, asking. ... Am I THE cat lady?

 

Extraterrestrial Dog-person, speaking, while Cat-person types notes.

Lately I’ve been spending a bit more time on Facebook, since the decline of Twitter and the eventual transition into X. 

A couple of days ago after getting very disturbed by something I observed on Threads, that I couldn’t (still can’t) wrap my mind around. I found myself on Facebook strolling the videos. Something I DO NOT DO… I can’t stand 97% of videos on the interwebs. Personally, I’d rather read instructions. Yeah, I’m’ one of those people. I’m also (perhaps ironically?) a film person, as in used to use actual film, as an art form, because it was beautiful stuff. 

I’m not against digital images, at all. They are just another art form, like oil painting versus clay and fired glazes used to make ceramic art, for tens of, thousands of years. They just aren’t the same thing. They are each their own stuff. 

Get to my point already? The types of videos most commonly shared on social media are… very slow, never seem to get to their promised punch line (click bait), apparently, on purpose? Are they keeping you there, because of adds on the side of the page or other area of your phone, if you are using FB on a phone, are there adds chosen for you, with your meta-data there, based on the length of the videos? 

Duh? So what? Your point? I know artists animators and filmmakers can and do make better short videos. Why aren’t we (the collective we) watching those? 

Yes, I do look at statistics and of course, Facebook is competing for the masses time/attention with YouTube. Etc… So, as the money goes, I have again, answered my own question. – Just not the quality question of why we spend our time, watching these, psychology based anger-equals-clicks,  slow, boring IMO, -- why these videos?! … #question. 

Again and again, I answer my own questions. The lizard brain (if you let it) will watch cute animals, and things that make us angry (like hurt animals) or people being mean to other people – apparently for hours. 

Soooooooooooo? (my favorite word lately, is so with too many ‘o’s as a question, to release stress. Like a good exhale. 

Soooooooooo, ... -- I am asking, because that is what I do. Question and triple-fact-check everything, ...

sincerely, and (I suspect) possibly one of THE original childless “cat” ladies, 

☮+💚(peace and love), @Uva_Be 

change and stay the same

UBD's 1990's art

 

Some things stay the same ...

June 21st 2024

As I work away from this story, (Un-Un-Cat, the unfinished past replaced by the next project). Sanity slowly creeps in, in waves, like the tide. The mental conflict leveling over time like a heaping pile of compost turning slowly into rich soil. Yes, I implied it, it was shit, politics gobbled up all that it could and shat it out. 

But, plants and interesting critters remain waiting for me to feed them, some of them growing like weeds and feeding themselves, other habits gone wild and feral as a grumpy mood. It takes time to tame them. All things in their place in the chaotic garden that is a human mind.

☮+💚 @Uva Be