Strange Silent Teachers

Shapeshifter – a 100 word story

As if being both a wolf and a woman wasn’t enough, now she was also a cat, a bear, and an occasional Moonkin. Those strange silent teachers were kind to her even if they were a little eccentric, talking to trees and all that. The problem was that now they were trying to teach her how to actually be a tree and she wasn’t sure she liked it, but then again, she was willing to go through the ordeal if only to keep the wolf in her at bay, to prove to herself that she was bitten, but not stirred.

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.

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Episode 29, Strange Silent Teachers

There are two types of time, objective and subjective. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at objective time and subjective time. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical, and not at all that serious, so – you’ve been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.

You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about objective time and subjective time. We use a method for measuring time incorporating mechanical devices that separate it into hours, minutes, and seconds. Since mechanical devices are objective, you can say that this method of measuring time can function whether we are there or not, so the time they measure can also be considered objective and separate from us, functioning on its own. Objective time actually flows at a measured pace whether we measure it or not, one measured unit of time is the same length as the next one. Objective time is constant, unchanging. You can set up an event using objective time and know that it would happen when it is supposed to happen. In that way, objective time is very useful. You can theoretically change the future using objective time by setting up events that happen at certain times, as long as those events don’t clash with events set up by other people.

Objective time is a constant while we are stranded here on earth, but that might change if we ever decide to leave our planet. That is because objective time is affected by gravity and speed. Time is slowed by gravity so it flows faster in space where there is less gravity. While the effect is almost negligible, it does exist and as time accumulates, the discrepancy between earth time and time in space grows. Time also slows down as we speed our way through the universe, stopping altogether when we reach the speed of light. Oh dear, time seems to have stopped. I better find out why. I’ll be right back.

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The Hunger – a 100 word story

There’s an empty, vacant look in his eyes as he drifts through as if caught by an unseen wind, more dead than alive, more automaton then human. They take him with them to the battlefield, let the hunger strike him. He barely knows his friend from his foe when the hunger strikes, but somehow he does. He recognizes the enemy and his sword goes down, cutting down enemy after enemy until his hunger is satiated, then the vacant look in his eyes returns and he just stands there, staring into empty space until his need, his hunger wakes him again.

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Welcome back. Subjective time is not about time itself, but about the way you experience time. It flows in a way that is influenced by what you do. It flows slower when you are not enjoying what you are currently doing and faster when you do something you like doing. In a way, you can control subjective time by controlling your experience, as opposed to objective time that cannot be controlled.

Controlling your experience is done by shifting your perception of that experience. Let’s say you have something of a chore to do, doing the dishes for example, or cleaning the house. You can change your experience by turning what you do into a game, washing the dishes by shape and color for example, or cleaning your house while roleplaying a magician, every clean room magically transformed by your action. You can add music to your environment to make your tasks more enjoyable. Each one of those actions would make subjective time flow faster.

While subjective time might have nothing to do with real, or objective time, it’s the way we experience time in our everyday life. We don’t experience time as a measured unit with an unchanging pace. We experience time as changing in pace, sometimes going faster and sometimes slower. That’s why we have a need for measuring time. Without the measurement of time, we won’t have any control over the events around us since we have no real objective grasp of time flow, only a subjective one. This concludes episode 29 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget – I’m just a figment of your imagination.

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The Right Scented Perfume

The Breadandbutterfly – a 100 word story

The Breadandbutterfly is a rare species indeed. It only comes out at certain times a day, the shy little creature. The lighting has to be just right and the air has to be at just about the right temperature. The Breadandbutterfly would only eat the very rare Goldenmonkey Fruit and it would only eat it if it’s just about ripe enough. If you are on the hunt for The Breadandbutterfly, you’ll have to observe all of those conditions precisely, wear the right camouflage, carry the right scented perfume, but most of all, you’ll have to go through the looking glass.

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.

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Episode 28, The Right Scented Perfume

It appears we have five senses, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting, all there to help us experience the world around us. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at senses. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical, and not at all that serious, so – you’ve been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.

You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about senses. Sight is the most obvious window to the world around us. We generally see in colors and shapes. Our brain get those as images through the windows of our two eyes. Our brain doesn’t handle those images as a whole though. Instead, it breaks those images apart, storing different parts in different places, then reassembling them for us, interpreting them as a whole. In that way, the image we finally get is not the real image of the world around us but merely our own interpretation of that image.

Sound is the result of the movement of air. Air moves in waves, not unlike the waves of the ocean. Those waves have singular shapes and speeds. The speed of the movement of air is also known as frequency. Faster moving air has a higher frequency and sounds higher pitched, while slower moving air would have a lower frequency and pitch. The shape of the wave would shape the timbre of a sound. A soundwave with a completely random shape would create white noise while a smoother shaped soundwave would create a smoother, more coherent sound. A triangular soundwave would create a sharper sound timbre. A combination of those waves and shapes create all the sounds we hear in our world. The sounds we intake through our ears are merely the interpretation of our brain for the movement of air around us. I think I’m going to listen to air move around me for a while. I’ll be right back.

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Sky Frog – a 100 word story

A frog dropped from the sky. Not a rain of frogs. Just a single frog. Not something to make conspiracy theories about. It did surprise the frog though. It didn’t expect to drop out of the sky. It was just sitting on a cloud, then it was plummeting towards the earth at top speed. It tried to comprehend what was happening, but it was only a frog. The end was inevitable. Frogs are very soft while the ground tends to be quite hard. As the elephant watched in horror from the cloud, it couldn’t help thinking “I could be next.”

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Welcome back. While sight and sound are about experiencing the world around you from a distance, touch is about proximity, it’s about being close, about being intimate with the world around you. Touch is the feeling of something touching your very own coating, your skin. The feeling of touch is caused by something moving the atoms on your skin, so touch is actually a sense of movement, the movement of your very own body, caused by some external, and sometimes even internal force. Touch is the sense that casts down the barrier between you and the world around you which is why it is considered the most intimate of senses.

Smell and taste are connected, almost dependent on each other. While touch is about connecting with the world around you, smell and taste are about taking the world in. Smell is there to sample the world around you from a safe distance, inhaling aromas and letting your brain decode them as smells, while taste is there to appreciate the part of the world that goes into your body in order to sustain it, and it is not complete without a sense of smell to complement it.

Your five senses are there to help you appreciate the world around you. Some people would tell you of a sixth sense, a mystical sense that goes beyond the five senses, beyond the world we know. They misunderstand the role our senses have. Our senses are there to help us understand the world around us, not to invent new worlds. That is the role of imagination, and that is where the sixth sense resides. This concludes episode 28 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget – I’m just a figment of your imagination.

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Little Green Creature

Under the Bed – a 100 word story

There was never any doubt. Conviction, it’s a strange thing. You end up confusing what is real, with what you believe to be real. That’s why I am convinced the little green creature under my bed is real, you see. I know you don’t believe me. No one else does. It’s fine. You don’t have to believe me. See for yourself. Just, don’t say I didn’t warn you when they find you tomorrow, mutilated, deformed, and half dead. I have to feed it you know. If I don’t, it would turn on me. We can’t let that happen, can we?

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.

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Episode 27, Little Green Creature

There are two main classes of opposites, one that is position-based and another that is based on essence and definition. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at opposites. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical, and not at all that serious, so – you’ve been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.

You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about opposites. Position. A line connects two dots. Those dots are on opposite sides of the line. They are opposites because of their position on opposite sides of a line. Let’s say we take the line, curve it, bend it until the two dots connect and the line is closed into a shape. Those are the same two dots, but they are not opposites anymore. The condition of the dots and the line changes, negating the oppositeness of the dots. This example shows us that positional opposites don’t always stay opposites.

Let’s say we are sitting on opposite sides of a very long table. Our position is opposite each other. Now, let’s say that the table is slowly growing in size. Since the earth is round, our table slowly curves until one end reaches so close to the other that we end up sitting back to back. We changed our position so we are no longer facing each other. We are no longer opposite. Position based opposites are fragile and can break as the position of opposite components changes. For example, I can get up and leave the room where the table is, then I won’t be opposite you anymore. I’ll be somewhere else. Let me just check for a minute if I’m here or there. I’ll be right back.

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Orthodocile – a 100 word story

There was a sound, unlike thunder but resembling it. Something was approaching very fast. Something big. I knew it was a dead-end. I couldn’t turn back. In the minimal lights, I could barely make up the walls, tunnels, and watery floor. I concentrated. Being a being of light, I glowed, painting the tunnel in green and yellow. There it was, a huge Orthodocile, all teeth, horns, and thick hides. I quickly integrated myself into the water, leaving substance behind, becoming pure light. The Orthodocile passed me, reached a dead end, and turned back. Predator problem averted, at least for now.

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Welcome back. When we get to opposites that are based on essence and definition, every opposite might hold the seed of it’s opposite and nothing is exactly what it seems. Take black and white for example. They are considered the absolute opposites in color theory, but if you examine them closely, you’ll find that there is no absolute white, and there is no absolute black. You can always find a lighter white or a darker black. In truth, all whites and blacks are different shades of gray, and gray is a mixture of black and white. In that way, white holds the seed of black inside it and black holds the seed of white.

Finding the opposite of something depends on how you define it and how you perceive its essence. It also depends on what “an opposite” really means to you. While definition is determined by the solid qualities of something such as shape and color, essence can sometimes be much more amorphic in nature, more subjective, and open to interpretations. This is especially true in abstract opposites, such as good and evil or determinism and randomness. The essence of abstracts often depends on your point of view and when the point of view of someone else is the complete opposite of your own, you might and up with opposites that are the same but only differ in subjectiveness.

Let’s look at the example of good and evil as opposites. When the essence of good from your point of view is the same as the essence of evil from an opposing point of view, opposites collide and this could lead to chaos. That is the problem with opposites. They are an illusion. They don’t really exist, like the white that isn’t exactly white, or the black that isn’t exactly black, there are no absolute opposites. You have to look at every case of opposites and determine how far opposed they are while keeping in mind that it is that way from your very own, unique point of view. You might end up finding those opposites sitting on a table opposite each other, drinking tea. This concludes episode 27 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget – I’m just a figment of your imagination.

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