https://danerickson.org/birthday-cake/
THE HERO FILES
the musings of Dan Erickson, Author of the ERIK ATLAS ARCHIVES and other works
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Monday, September 2, 2019
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Friday, August 30, 2019
Thursday, August 29, 2019
The Three Things Project
The task at hand
Of course we like to be brief.
The anagram TL:DR has leaked into our common speaking practice so
much so that I’m grateful anyone reads what I’m saying. It’s so
bad that I’ve had people reject complex arguments I have tried to
express because the logic was too long, so really not worth his time.
We’ve also reached the point where “fake news” has become the
shield and sword in every debate, where people solidly assert all
sorts of facts are no longer facts. Just check climate change, the
safety of vaccinations, Flat Earth conventions, Bush’s
justifications for the Gulf War and invasion of Iraq, Trump’s
taxes, or Clinton’s e mails to see the most hysterical ideas held
up as truth.
There’s many many factors that came to bring us here. I think the
whole model of commercial news is to blame. When you tell people
stories about the world, just so you can shift their focus from the
world to which floor wax is better, or cram your local news with
stories about psychic pets, just so you can keep your viewership
connected and ad revenue up, you have to expect the truth to suffer.
In fact here is the indictment aimed at the news industry, you have
abused our attention and now you and the rest of us are going to pay.
You acted badly, and said anything to keep our attention. Now we
refuse to pay attention to sirens and any amount of flashing lights.
Now a master manipulator sits in the White House and is using your
abuses and crimes as license to get away with kleptocracy to a
legendary level. The bigness of his huge bigness is huge.
The next presidential player will be eager to take up the charge for
their tax money sucking vampire lords and do the same, because no one
sets aside powers once they have them; they never do. Until we get
torches and pitchforks, nothing will change. So enjoy candy crush or
whatever has occupied your hands and heads at the time.
If you don’t think we have a problem, ask yourself, why does every
presidential election always reduce itself to gay/women’s rights,
abortion, racism, and the second amendment? The ruling president
never works with those issues. The rest of congress and all
authorities spend precious little time on those issues. Yet we talk
about them as if there was nothing else to talk about, in tones grave
and urgent. You know it, it’s all bullshit.
I stopped watching news, hoping that being uninformed was better than
being misinformed. If you feel all butt-hurt and indicted by this,
you’re not listening. Of course who could blame you? I’ve taken
over 300 words just to point out the problem.
It turns out there’s no victory in dropping my news addiction. It
made me feel connected with the world. It helped me be smug thinking
I know things. What I found is that the voices of the world, your
voice, any voice, is something I crave. Talk to me. Be earnest.
The psychologist Tom Lundgren tried to measure how much we know,
adding facts we knew, forgot, replaced, edited, and finally discarded
in favor of new things over a lifetime. It turns out we know about a
gig of stuff. As you know even that figure is strangely small if you
think in terms of video, but in terms of books and spoken words,
that’s can be sizable. What it comes down to is that we use each
other as our external hard drive and need a consensus to actually
call knowledge something worth knowing.
I need you.
In this sense I love you. You help me know things. I crave that. I
found that after dropping all news, I was incredibly lonely and
depressed. I live in New Mexico, USA, and everything here is remote.
But it’s all less remote if I have you and this thin internet
connection.
So as a lark, I asked a number of friends to tell me three things.
There were precious few limitations. I was hoping they might keep
those statements to a single declarative statement. Some did Some
told me that their dog died, In fact the sheer number of statements
about dogs and cats took up about half the first serving of
statements.
Some people were confused and even insisted they didn’t know three
things. They were somehow unqualified to say they know anything
unless some superior told them it was ok, or they had a specific
degree from an Accredited University (tm).
On that first day I asked for Three Things, I learned we have five
different kinds of white blood cells, the German word for “strength”
is feminine in gender, and one man in London woke up horny and was
hoping someday he could do that with someone there to help.
Strangely, I find that just as informative as knowing that congress
is debating removing healthcare from everyone, because that would be
nice, right? (#sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell.)
I realize the only way we can cross these artificial lines of
conflict that our conversation managers of the world have invented,
is to conduct this conversation ourselves and take it out of the
hands of our masters. Read what other people say. React and start the
conversation about it at home and around.
I implore you, right now, tell me three things.
Tell me three things please! Do it now and do it again tomorrow. If
you think of it, keep it going. I’ll collect them and assemble them
in my blog and make sure you get credit if you like. I will never
ever argue the truth of what you’re saying, and this is not about
that argument. Don’t be a troll and try to break this tool. I get
to ignore you if you do. We need this discussion. Let’s get started.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
New Kindle with Audible built in
https://www.amazon.com/All-new-Kindle-Paperwhite-Waterproof-Storage/dp/B07CXG6C9W/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=ods_gw_ha_eink_ms_feb_vday
This is a superior reading system. Recommended.
This is a superior reading system. Recommended.
Sunday, September 23, 2018
DIVINE FIRE is LIVE for presales! BONUS OFFER
Long awaited and a labor of soul, it's finally done, DIVINE FIRE
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HLTS7GM?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
"They resemble The Heroes we’ve always celebrated. Divine Fire is tag team duo in the World Wrestling Zone and the current Tag Team World Champions. Spartan Gutierrez, The Black Destiny, and his partner Alan Gundersshon – they are the Divine Fire. In truth they laughed when their manager named them. It made for a cool entrance every time. Cutting over the screaming crowd voices the announcer continued would thunder, "The next time God shakes the Earth he promised there will be DIVINE FIRE!"
The promise of their fame and success did not last. In a freak accident, the Alabastard is killed, leaving Black Destiny to live on, alone, and grieving the loss of his secret lover. He decides there is no retirement and the Black Destiny presses on to fight solo against the lineup of powerful teams that have waited to get a shot at taking down the pair and wearing their belts.
Spar scores a win and notices that he gets help from his lost partner Alan. The crowd and their love for them call and call and help his spirit live. It’s not just Alan they call, they ask for DIVINE FIRE. And they get it. What was a small game becomes a magical fight for control over the elemental spirit of some god’s rage.
Divine Fire is a story of the gritty underground of professional wrestling and celebrated the blood and sacrifice they do to bring us a show. It's also a story about ghosts and how we know so little about what they truly are. When we see a ghost, is that somehow proof of heaven and hell? Or maybe a ghost is proof that people can summon parts of dead realities when the grief of not having them is too much. Or maybe we're just crazy and its not good to do so many drugs."
BONUS!
Thank you for reading my work. Here's a little giving back to you! The book is now available for pre sale - BONUS if you make a pre sale purchase of DIVINE FIRE I will send you copies of HERO and HEEL. Send me a copy or screencap of your pre sale receipt confirmation to squareshoulders@gmail.com and I'll send you epub versions of BOTH BOOKS as a bonus. Bonus ends OCT 1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HLTS7GM?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
If you need help with a screenshot, check this out.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-take-a-screenshot-on-pc/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HLTS7GM?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
"They resemble The Heroes we’ve always celebrated. Divine Fire is tag team duo in the World Wrestling Zone and the current Tag Team World Champions. Spartan Gutierrez, The Black Destiny, and his partner Alan Gundersshon – they are the Divine Fire. In truth they laughed when their manager named them. It made for a cool entrance every time. Cutting over the screaming crowd voices the announcer continued would thunder, "The next time God shakes the Earth he promised there will be DIVINE FIRE!"
The promise of their fame and success did not last. In a freak accident, the Alabastard is killed, leaving Black Destiny to live on, alone, and grieving the loss of his secret lover. He decides there is no retirement and the Black Destiny presses on to fight solo against the lineup of powerful teams that have waited to get a shot at taking down the pair and wearing their belts.
Spar scores a win and notices that he gets help from his lost partner Alan. The crowd and their love for them call and call and help his spirit live. It’s not just Alan they call, they ask for DIVINE FIRE. And they get it. What was a small game becomes a magical fight for control over the elemental spirit of some god’s rage.
Divine Fire is a story of the gritty underground of professional wrestling and celebrated the blood and sacrifice they do to bring us a show. It's also a story about ghosts and how we know so little about what they truly are. When we see a ghost, is that somehow proof of heaven and hell? Or maybe a ghost is proof that people can summon parts of dead realities when the grief of not having them is too much. Or maybe we're just crazy and its not good to do so many drugs."
BONUS!
Thank you for reading my work. Here's a little giving back to you! The book is now available for pre sale - BONUS if you make a pre sale purchase of DIVINE FIRE I will send you copies of HERO and HEEL. Send me a copy or screencap of your pre sale receipt confirmation to squareshoulders@gmail.com and I'll send you epub versions of BOTH BOOKS as a bonus. Bonus ends OCT 1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HLTS7GM?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
If you need help with a screenshot, check this out.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-take-a-screenshot-on-pc/
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