SHIVA SERVER SPACE

Sometimes a thing that is the opposite of a thing is destined to become the thing that it is the opposite of. Sometimes, going so far in the wrong direction is the catalyst that motivates us to change direction and go in the right direction. This is just such a time. The separation before the union.

The atomisation that has caused us to communicate via electronic communication will cause us to actually become that electronic communication, uploaded minds unified in one big algorithm. We'll no longer be 'here' but we'll never be alone again.

The only physical evidence of us ever having existed upon this plane will be a skyscraper sized server humming in the middle of a field somewhere. Obsolete corporeal forms will dangle, atrophied, from wires on the server's bleak exterior, but consider the server's interior. Oh, what an interior. Our communal consciousness residing inside, realising that we are all Lord Shiva and that we are all 'one'. We'll be creating universes and playing cosmic games until some tiny fucking varmints scamper up the field and nibble right through the Shiva Server's power cable, causing existence to end and start all over again.

Start because the tiny fucking varmints will evolve into a super intelligent race and eventually upload themselves to a similar Shiva Server space.

...they'll no longer be 'here' but they'll never be alone again.

Here's a poxy song about it...

I love you very much you know, so go away and come back when we're ready.

THE YTIRALUGNIS

I'm kind of clever, kind of. I read about stuff that matters and I ponder it and comment about it, online usually as I find the interface of face to face a muddled and confusing place.

I'm currently worried about artificial intelligence and the impending Singularity. When it comes to artificial intelligence, the Singularity is the point when computers become more like humans only superior. It's quite concerning. Although, maybe, maybe, yeah maybe, I was thinking, we should be talking about things happening the other way around. We should be talking about the impending Ytiralugnis. That's what's really going to happen. The Ytiralugnis is the Singularity backwards, the point when humans become more like computers only inferior. When we all become the nodes of one great algorithmic consciousness. Led by the #s and validated by the 'likes'. 101001000011010001ing our nodey little heads off. All as one. Unified at last. A singular thing but in a perverse kind of reverse. All with opinions on opinions we are destined to have opinions on. Each of us will be a 'unique' series of takes on whatever is trending.

This is Lord Shiva as a search engine and us as anonymous voices emitting from the Cloud. We'll no longer be people but blogs and Twitter accounts and Facebook walls and apps and regular forum posters and viral uploads. We'll be multi-platform experiences. We'll all be part of one great family. Our surname will Dotcom. Our new family may be slightly dysfunctional, somewhat divided. The upper caste will be those with high hit counts. The lower caste the least hit. And newborns will be called noobs and the elderly will be sneeringly referred to as Commodore 64s. And when we die we'll be shipped off to a landfill in Ghana and stripped down for reusable parts and then incinerated on pyres by kids with emphysema, wearing homemade pollution filters, that never logged on in their lives.

The #Ytiralugnis – it's going to happen. It has happened. It's happening right now. Artificial Intelligence, it's making us kind of clever, kind of; reading about stuff that matters and pondering it and commenting about it online, finding the faceless interface a muddled and confusing place.

GOOD NEWS FOR CHRISTMAS!

 (pictured –  Jesus and Krishna, Marvel Team-Up)

Jesus was born on Christmas day two thousand and thirteen years ago and was murdered thirty three and a bit years later for blaspheming that he was God. He did claim he was God alright but he also said that everyone else was God too. Christians don't talk about it much but that's what he said. I swear, take a look at John 10:34. No one seems all that concerned about it, which I find a bit odd. I mean, you'd think followers of the Good News would pay more attention to the Good News, seeing as it's such good news and all.

Jesus said he was God and we are all God and that's pretty interesting because it means that if we are all God but don't know it then God him/her/itself has forgotten that he/she/it is us too. Are you with me? God forgot God was us so God sent God to remind us that we are God and then we killed God because God was saying God was us and we'd rather not be God because that kind of raises the bar a bit and also democratises the whole set up a bit too much which won't do at all because it suits some of us a lot more to have the rest of us believing that we are less Godly than them. Are you still with me? Are you sure? That was a long old sentence and there was a lot going on in it. It does sum it all up though, the paradoxical nature of the strange game God is playing with himself/herself/itself/ourselves.

It's like this - imagine if you worshipped yourself but then you forgot you were you but continued to worship yourself, wishing that you were you. That's what seems to have happened here. It's a bit of a tragedy. But the Good News is that you are actually you and that's not all, it gets better, you are not just you but you are also God. Great isn't it? I can't really imagine better news than that. You are God!!! And I am too and so's everyone else. Hindus say that we don't realise we're God because we're trapped behind a thing they call the veil of Maya. I reckon some of us are behind several of Maya's veils. You know the type I mean. Deterministic sorts with ulcers. Absolutists. Boring fuckers who are convinced that they are the opposite. People who think about their cars a lot. Those fuckers are completely Mayaed out of I reckon. But, you know, I try not to judge. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone and all that. So, no matter how much I'd like to, I won't chuck a rock through their windscreens and I'll just hope they find enlightenment when they drive around the next corner. No point being angry with myself after all. Lord forgive me, for I know not what I do - and neither must you because you're me too and both of us are the prick in the car apparently.

It's a bit mad the way the Hindus and Jesus believe the same thing isn't it? I don't suppose they could really have the same message though could they? I mean, Hindus don't even have Christmas. It's only Christians that have Christmas. That's because Christians reckon they are the ones that are favoured by God. I suppose it makes sense that God would favour himself/herself/itself/ourselves. Maybe God favours those examples of himself/herself/itself/ourselves that have forgotten they are him/her/it/us. Maybe God favours the forgetful out of pity. Self-pity. Maybe it's due to self-pity that God (a.k.a. us) sits around on his/her/its/our own birthday stuffing his/her/its/our face with chocolate complaining how shit the telly is, wrapped in layers of Maya he/she/it/we gave him/her/it/us for Christmas. Maybe that's it. Or maybe not. Or maybe both. Or maybe neither. Or maybe all of the above. God knows really, ...even if he/she/it/we isn't/aren't sure himself/herself/itself/ourselves.

Are you still with me after all that?

No, ...thought not.

Happy Christmas anyway.

DO ME A FAVOUR LORD SHIVA AND GET THE F**K OUT OF MY OFFICE!

'Hope fuels the fool because the fool doesn't know what to hope for.' That is the legend that hangs over the entrance to the Fugger Life Coaching office.

There's a lot of discontent out there. There's a lot of people limping through their lives, hobbled by their discontent. A lot of these people come around to Fugger's life coaching office. I get them to sit down and tell me all about it and they do. It's always the same. They are unhappy. All of them. Some want to be understood. These people usually are understood, perfectly understood. The real problem for these people is not that they are misunderstood but, in fact, that they are not understood in a way that they would like to be understood. They would like everyone to understand them as fantastic individuals but others understand them as flawed individuals. Instead of acknowledging that they may actually be flawed, the people that come to my office take the easy option and decide that they are misunderstood. Do you understand that? No, neither do I. I tell these people that they are indeed misunderstood and the person that understands them least is themselves.

Other people often tell me that they wish they were, and I quote, 'fucking dead'. I am forced to point out to these people that their problem is not that they wish they were 'fucking dead' but really that they wish they were 'fucking alive' or maybe just 'fucking'. I'm not sure if that's what these people want to hear but it's what they need to hear. They usually ask me what they can do about it and I tell them to stop wanting things and maybe to try and just let things happen.

You see, the problem for many is that they won't let things happen unless things happen exactly as they want them to. Take the great many who come to me complaining that they are 'unloved'. I tell these people that, unless they are child eating cannibals or something, they are doubtlessly loved by someone but probably just not by the person they wished they were loved by. Then I tell them that the person they wished they were loved by is probably visiting some other life coach complaining about not being loved by some other person and that this other person might well love the person I am talking to and also be feeling similarly unloved. Do you follow me? You probably don't. You often get confused by those perplexing sentences I construct for that very purpose. Apologies. I'll make myself clearer. It's like this, Tom comes into my office complaining that no one loves him. By 'no one' he means Jane. Then I tell him that Ann loves him. Then Jane comes in complaining that 'no one' loves her and I ask if by 'no one' she means Ann and she admits she does and then Ann comes in complaining that 'no one' loves her and she means Tom. It's a Möbius strip of discontent. The Universe's little joke. Lord Shiva playing a game with himself. A strangely miserable game but perhaps entertaining in its misery, like Eastenders or something. I tell those that feel unloved that everyone feels unloved and this is the ultimate irony of the cosmos because everything in the cosmos is the one thing. 'It's as if the top of your head longs to touch the sole of your foot because it fails to realise that they are already connected', I say. It's in response to this that I'm often told by my clients that I'm being far too spiritual and not at all pragmatic. That's when I say that spiritual is pragmatic and that it seems to me what the client actually means by pragmatic is magic, as in a magic solution to all their problems that will bring them their desires on their specific terms. I then conclude by reminding the client that I am a life coach and not a fucking genie and, pointing to the words over the door, I say 'do me a favour Lord Shiva and get the fuck out of my office'.

Yes, my clients often complain that my coaching fails to make them happy and they usually ask for their money back. This is when I remind them of two things. The first is that money doesn't make you happy. The second is that life is not about being happy anyway but actually about feeling fulfilled and fulfillment often comes by a circuitous route that involves a great deal of unhappiness. Take a mountaineer who feels the need to conquer a daunting peak. Climbing to the peak will probably be a miserable and trying experience but the compulsion for fulfillment drives the mountaineer on. When my clients finally understand this they usually return to the topic of the money I've taken from them. (It's very hard to shift people away from the thought of money) 'If money doesn't make one happy Mister Fugger', they ask, 'then why don't you give me a refund?'. My clients often adopt a smug expression when they ask this question, thinking they have turned my own logic against me. This is when I tell my clients that they'll find not getting a refund more fulfilling than actually getting a refund because if they don't get a refund they'll enjoy moaning about it all the time and moaning is obviously what makes them feel fulfilled because actually addressing their fucking problems certainly doesn't seem to do it for them. If this seems unfair to you I'll remind you that the clients and me are one and the same anyway as we are both of the same cosmos so they don't need a refund as they never lost the money in the first place. Remember too, you are also us so if you still think it's wrong for me not give a refund you should remember that you are me so you are also not giving that refund and, like the clients, we are also being denied the refund just as the clients are denying themselves the refund. It sounds complicated but it's simple enough to grasp really, once you're enlightened. We are all one. We are all Lord Shiva's sock puppets, albeit unaware that we are mere avatars in his cosmic game of Eastenders.

****

Look, I hope I'm not coming across as esoteric and heartless. That's not my intention. I know that life can be rough and sometimes it can be very very rough. I also know that depression and sadness are terrible things but discontent, well, discontent is quite another thing. Discontent is caused by a sense of entitlement that is based on cultural norms and today's cultural norms come from the unsophisticated narratives found in popular large screen dramas, advertisements and other kinds of things where all problems are portrayed as solvable and everyone, ultimately, gets what they want. This is nonsense. Even if it were true, once you got what you wanted you'd probably start to want something else. 'Want' is the problem. 'Want' is an addiction. 'Want' is a state of mind. We are indoctrinated to 'want' and not just 'be'. Sure, 'want' makes money but money doesn't make you happy. Mine is the true War on Want! Quit wanting! That should be all you want.

Consider it this way, a thousand years ago my clients wouldn't have had the time to be discontentedly wanting all the shit they want, they'd just be happy enough to have made it to the end of the day without being mauled to death by some kind of gigantic bear.

Do you understand? Are you feeling illuminated? Good. Now, do me a favour Lord Shiva and get the fuck out of my office.

(Remember – although greatly enlightening (and a bit up its own arse these days), visiting fugtheworld.blogspot.com cannot replace a therapeutic relationship with a reliable mental health professional - you crazy fool.)