“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” - PKD

10/30/2021 Getting Ready for NanoWriMo

“Despite watching an excessive amount of Gilmore Girls and starting an exercise program in VR — When I went outside today and watched the leaves fall and the squirrels scurry with the implications of winter — It was a ‘good’ day”

“I’ve met people who hate Halloween and those who love it — Imagine if we spent all our time bickering about which one is true and correct”

Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups — Philip K Dick

“Personally — now — I prefer Day of the Dead or Fet Ghede — I’ve also been lectured about cultural appropriation”

“So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms.” — PKD

“Appropriation always implies ownership — The platform consciousness of capitalism permeates everything we hold dear”

I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. — Fnord

“The Ones who own everything don’t take death seriously enough — Imagine if we spent all our time arguing whose ancestors were more beautiful”

This, however, is where things get particularly interesting: Dick argues that reality becomes less real the moment we begin discussing it, for the discussion itself precipitates a dynamic manufacturing of what we perceive to be real, rather than a static contemplation of what is, producing a series of “pseudo-realities” that in turn produce pseudo-humans - Maria Popova

“It is good to remember who builds these pseudo-realities”

“How do you do it? Where did you get the idea of this maple in the garden? What does it try to sell you? Who owns it?”

A monk asked Joshu, "What is the meaning of Bodidharma's coming to China?"  Joshu said,
    "The oak tree in the front garden."
A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the living meaning of Zen?."   Zhaozhou said,
    "The cypress tree in the courtyard."
-  Mumonkan, Case 37

Well, y’all, we’ll see how the High Holidays play out and what gate(less) will become during NaNoWriMo. Just remember to clean and maintain your favorite pseudo-realities while the ‘veils’ are ‘thin’ — thin as they always are, but with a few more reminders.

Con/Jur/d, 10/30/2021