Intelligent and Sad

The Protector – a 100 word story

The last of the Porcupine Caribou waded through the snow. The hunter pushed on, already thinking about the money this stuffed animal would bring him. He could see it in the distance, a brownish white spot on the spot white snow. He just had to get closer, within shooting range. He moved stealthily and quietly until he could almost smell the prey. Suddenly, the reindeer looked up, his eyes intelligent and sad. A shot was heard and the hunter fell dead on the snow. The protector smiled, walked to his beloved pet and gave it a rubbing behind the ear.

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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 26, Intelligent and Sad

Every once in a while, a feeling of melancholy might fall upon you. This feeling is also known as sadness. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at sadness. 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 sadness. Sadness seems to have two main causes. The first one is loss. The other is a discrepancy between you and the world around you that may lead to loneliness and alienation. There might be other reasons for sadness but those seem to be the two main ones. Loss is the absence of someone, an absence that leaves a hole where that special someone used to be. Someone was there and he or she is not there anymore. That someone might be a lover who walked out on you or a child who left home. They might leave you with the hope that they might return or they might be gone for good. In a way, that someone is still there, only not with you anymore. For this reason, such a loss might sometimes be more difficult to accept.

There is another kind of loss, one that is interwoven with the tapestry of the dippest kind of sadness. That loss is the result of the death of a loved one. That kind of loss leaves a hole that can never be filled. That kind of hole is within you for the rest of your life, always there, lurking in the shadows. It is the kind of sadness that is interwoven into your very being. You can learn to live with it, but it never completely disappears. No matter what you do, there will be loss in your life. It’s inevitable. People die or move on, leaving a person-shaped hole where they used to be in your life. I’m going to try and fix this hole here. I’ll be right back.

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Hide – a 100 word story

I want to hide from it. I don’t want to be part of it anymore. I want people to forget my name, forget I ever existed, then, maybe I’ll be free. All the things that have gone wrong, all my mistakes would disappear. So… can you do it? Good. Your plane of existence sounds good to me. So… you say it’s completely empty? Excellent. Now – about the cost. As I understand it, I renounce my connection to reality and sign it up to you. That’s fine with me. I never had much use for it anyway. Where do I sign?

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Welcome back. There is another kind of sadness, one that comes from not being in sync with the people around you. The sadness of the one who is different from the ones around him. The sadness that comes from the loneliness of being a unique human being, from being the unknown in the eyes of those around you. Most people are afraid of the unknown. It’s a fear that comes from ancient times when the unknown could be someone from an opposing tribe, someone that could kill you. If you are different, you are the unknown and people tend to stay away. It’s not a rational fear and it comes from ignorance. It has no place in modern times but it’s our heritage from that ancient past.

In truth, we are all different. We are all unique but sometimes it is difficult for the average person to understand this. Being perceived as different by those around you is really just a product of being in the wrong place. People are still tribal in nature and they like gathering with their own tribe. If you are in the wrong tribe you are perceived as different. It is quite easy to find a tribe that fits you today if you are stuck in the wrong place. This is one of the things the social part of the internet is used for. While finding your tribe in social media might be easier today then it used to be, there is still a problem. The people of your tribe might be scattered throughout the far-out corners of the world and reaching them might not be easy.

An internet-based tribe is no substitute for human touch, human contact. When your tribe is scattered around the world, that contact is missing and in its place, there is sadness. It’s a sadness that cannot always be resolved. You just have to learn to live with your sadness, embrace it as your very own unique brand of sadness. Give your sadness a name,  joke with it, have a drink with it, make it your friend. This concludes episode 26 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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Eyes are Cameras

Smoke Rings – a 100 word story

A man, or a mere impression of one. He rises from the chimney of some factory or another, taking shape from the smoke. He hovers above the city, carried by the wind, the result of a secret project. Eyes are cameras, ears are receivers, recording silently. No door can hold him. Built from the latest in nanotechnology, he just blows underneath like smoke. His brain has the computing power of a supercomputer. The results are being sent for processing at a secret facility. He is just the prototype. More are being created. Watch out from the fog, it’s coming alive.

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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 25, Eyes are Cameras

We know what a chicken is, or – do we? This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at the idea of chicken. 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 chicken. What makes a chicken what it is? Is it the shape of the chicken? Is it what it sounds like? The way it walks? The way it talks? You might begin by saying a chicken is a flightless bird, that is a bird that can’t fly. There are other flightless birds so that wouldn’t be what defines a chicken but merely one of the chicken’s characteristics or traits. Could you say a chicken is a collection of traits that make up a chicken? Do we need all of those traits to coexist in order for a chicken to be a chicken or is there one unique trait that makes a chicken a chicken. What is that one elusive trait that is uniquely chicken?

When we dig deeper into a chicken, we find a strand of DNA just sitting there, waiting to be found. DNA is the blueprint of any living organism or creature, a recipe for the makeup of that creature and the most unique trait of that creature. The chicken has her own unique DNA like every other living being and the sequence of that DNA can be sequenced and then mapped. No other creature has that same unique DNA map, so you can say that the unique DNA sequence that resides inside a chicken is what defines the making of a chicken. All this talk about the making of a chicken made me hungry. I think I’ll make a chicken for lunch today. I’ll be right back.

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The Science of Beauty – a 100 word story

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so some scientists started dissecting eyes, searching for the exact place where beauty resides. First, they dissected the eyes of mice, got them nowhere. They dissected the eyes of convicted criminals, dead ones at first, but then someone reasoned that having some real-time input from subjects could result in important data. It didn’t work either. Someone pointed out criminals didn’t really have a sense of beauty, so they tried using the eyes of artists, poets, and musicians. When they finished, they looked around them to find a world without beauty.

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Welcome back. So, we say that the chicken DNA is what defines our chicken. What if we cook the chicken? That chicken soup still has those DNA strands in it. Does this mean the soup is a chicken? If it doesn’t, when does the chicken stop being a chicken? Is it when the last strand of DNA dissolves? Is it when we eat the chicken and it becomes part of us? Maybe DNA is not all that makes up a chicken. Maybe it’s a collection of DNA and other traits. It would seem that being alive is one such trait, but then it also seems that a dead chicken is still a chicken.

Let’s say someone builds a mechanical chicken. Is it still a chicken? We might say a mechanical chicken is not really a chicken, the same way that a drawing of a pipe isn’t really a pipe. What then if we take an actual chicken and start replacing all the parts that make up a chicken with mechanical parts until it becomes a mechanical chicken. When does the chicken stop being an actual chicken? What is that unique characteristic that stops a chicken from being a chicken?

You might say if a chicken thinks it’s a chicken, then it’s a chicken. What then if a mouse thinks it’s a chicken? Is that mouse also a chicken? You might then say that a chicken is whatever you think is a chicken. This would make the definition of chicken the same as the idea of chicken you have in your mind. In that way, the chicken itself doesn’t really exist. It’s just the idea of chicken that exists in your mind. This concludes episode 25 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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All the Way to the Moon

Elevator – a 100 word story

The elevator went up on cables made out of carbon nanotubes, and it went all the way to the moon. There was the question of who gets to use it though. At first, it was was an elected committee that decided, but it turned out they displayed favoritism towards friends and family so it was dispensed in favor of a lottery. It was revealed that the lottery was falsified so a reality show was created instead. People held their breath and watched in wonder as the winners went up the elevator and then showed everyone what mooning was all about.

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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 24, All the Way to the Moon

There are two kinds of qualities, one that is found in art, music, and literature and another which is found in crafts. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at quality in crafts. 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 quality. Crafting is the act of making something useful, that is something that can be used. Quality in crafting depends in part on the usability of the item that is being crafted. If a crafter makes a shoe, it wouldn’t be as useful if the shoe falls apart when you wear it so durability would be one aspect of quality in crafting. It would also have to sit comfortably on your feet. There is also a kind of subtlety in crafting that distinguishes a quality crafter from a common crafter. A crafter might increase the quality of a shoe by making it more pleasing to the eye, adding artistry to it.

When it comes to crafts, it might seem that the human touch is what distinguishes a quality crafted item from a mere factory product. This distinction is fairly dismissable these days. It is becoming very easy to make a factory product that looks like it was made by human hands and a quality product can now be made by a machine. You can say that the quality of crafting today goes into the design of the shoe, the making of the computerized 3D model that serves as a blueprint for the product. People can plan the shoe in intricate details creating the perfect shoe in a computer program, then send it for mass production. The quality resides in the amount of detail that goes into the computerized shoe model, how well it fits your feet and how durable it is. I’ll just have to go and see if the shoe fits. I’ll be right back.

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Room 306 – a 100 word story

We are pretty sure there’s a dimensional rift in room 306. Every once in a while one of our guests wanders in. The problem is it’s an exchange. What comes out looks like our guest, but we are pretty sure it’s a demon. We know it by the way he abuses hotel employees, being rude to the maids and abusive to the bell boys, so we use our demon cage to contain the abomination. Once he’s inside demanding a lawyer, we dispose of him in the river. In fact, we believe there might also be dimensional rifts in other rooms.

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Welcome back. Crafting will probably be taken out of human hands altogether in the coming years. Artificial intelligence is advancing to the point of understanding human needs and designing products that meet those needs. It would be possible to create quality products without any human intervention, and this also includes the actual design of those products. While quality in crafting was defined by the human touch for years, it is now obvious that this human touch won’t exist in future products anymore, or would at least be very rare. People would always want to craft things for their own enjoyment, but that would go into the hands of a few crafting enthusiasts, not people actually working the crafts for a living. Crafting would become a hobby for us humans.

In the meantime, while machines take over most of the quality in crafting, the question we might ask is this, is there really actual quality in machine crafted products? For a machine to be a quality crafter, there would have to be applied the same principle conditions that apply to human crafted products. The shoe would have to hold without falling apart. The shoe would have to be comfortable. The shoe would have to be pleasing to the eye, maybe even to the point of being a piece of art. Artificial intelligence will be in charge of the automatic crafting process and it is now learning how to also become an artist. There are already examples of artworks created by machine-learning artificial intelligence programs.

The distinction between human intelligence and an artificial one is becoming more and more blurred as we go into the future. Artificial intelligence itself might actually become one of the last quality crafted items. When the machines we craft become more intelligent than us, they might become the pinnacle of quality in crafting, the crafting of another living organism, made not of flesh and bones but of plastic and metal. The crafting of the ultimate quality crafter. This concludes episode 24 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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