tree – My Surreal Sketchbook of Reality

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 Gnome – a 100 word story

The fawn couldn’t see them hiding in the bushes. The arrow was quick and painless, tranquilizing shot penetrating, inducing sleep. The Gnome ordered the two hooded men to upload the fawn onto the cart. The three of them took the hidden road, delivering the sleeping animal to the laboratory. The mechanical chicken lay motionless on the table, a lifeless shell, nothing more. The Gnome connecter her to the machine. Carefully, he connected the fawn to the other side. Buttons were pressed, levers pushed into place. Life energy was transferred and the mechanical chicken awakened, ready to serve her new master.

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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 20, The Hidden Road

It seems like there’s a limited amount of things that exist in this world and that they tend to disappear as they are used by us. This is the essence of the idea of scarcity. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at scarcity. 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 scarcity. When we talk about a limited amount of something like food or trees, we are talking about scarcity. We say that wood is scarce and we should preserve as much of it as we possibly can because if we don’t, there won’t be any wood left anymore. That is not the whole story though. When you cut down a tree and make, let’s say, a chair out of it, you are merely changing the shape of the tree. If you then burn the chair, you are changing the condition of the tree from matter into energy. You can’t really get rid of the tree. You can only change its shape, definition or state.

Food seems to disappear when we eat it, but that is not really the case. It becomes part of us, blending with us completely when we eat it. The saying “you are what you eat” has much truth in it. Science shows us that matter and energy are interchangeable. It also shows us that there is a finite amount of matter/energy in the universe and that amount is constant. It cannot change. This means that the amount of food and trees can’t truly change. Only thair shape and condition can change. Things can blend into each other and change their essence and meaning, but they don’t disappear altogether. On the other hand, a tree is not as useful to us as a burnt-out chair, and food can’t be used again after it blends with us. In that way, those things are scarce. I’m going to check the scarcity of things in my fridge. I’ll be right back.

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Wildcards – a 100 word story

The Queen looked at the multi-colored roses in shocked amazement. Seven and Five giggles softly while Two just stared madly at her. “What are you doing?” she asked, her amazement turning to anger. “Why the fact is, you see, we are painting all your roses” answered Two. The Queen turned the perfect shade of red, the one she liked for her roses and shouted: “Off with their heads.” “Not this time,” said Seven and Five in unison and started splashing colors at the Queen. They splashed her, then splashed her some more until she was completely devoured by the colors.

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Welcome back. So we made a chair out of our tree, then we burned it. Can we get it back? Theoretically, this is a possibility, and here we will be going into the future of scarcity. We are currently mastering the ability to move atoms. The field of study that concentrates on moving atoms is called nanotechnology. If we could get back the energy of the burnt tree-chair and somehow convert it back into matter, then rearrange the atoms of that matter back the way they were when we first found them, we could theoretically get our tree back. This way of getting back the same tree might prove to be too difficult to accomplish and too expensive. There might be a more practical way, but you won’t get the same tree. What you will get though is the end of scarcity.

3d printers are on their way to becoming a household commodity. This idea of printing actual everyday objects is becoming a reality. Currently, those printers are very limited by the materials you can use, but that is going to change in the future. When the ability to move atoms makes its way into 3d printing, imagination would be the only real limit. You would take one material and change it to another by changing the composition of its molecules. This means you would take cheap materials and make everyday objects from them. Your only limit would be the composition of the atoms themselves. You would have to use atoms that can compose the right kind of molecules for the materials you want to use, but then if a certain material is missing you could always create a new one to replace it. In that way you would be able to print any object you could think of.

Our economy depends on scarcity. When you can print any object using a 3d printer, there is no scarcity anymore. You would be able to print out food, trees, chairs, cloths. You would be able to use 3d printers to print 3d printers. You could even be able to print money, but money would be useless. The age of 3d printing and nanotechnology would truly be the age of abundance. Something that’s already being worked on is the ability to print replacement organs for the human body. Eventually, we would be able to print a whole new body for ourselves, staying young forever. We would be able to rearrange the atoms in our brains, becoming more intelligent. This is just one of the things that might herald what is called the technological singularity, but this is a topic for another episode. For now, let us just remember that trees never die. They just change their essence. This concludes episode 20 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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