The End of Illusion

Image found here

One of my goals in my pursuits of thought, and indeed one of the goals of philosophy itself, is to pierce through all the misconceptions and arbitrary knowledge we have built up through experience and culture and find a place of raw truth, the sandbox within which all knowledge is constructed.

Now, after building up a toolbelt of knowledge and contemplating the nature of reality, the Bayesian network model of knowledge, the is-ought gap between fact and morality, the concept of narratives, and the effects of language, I believe I have finally found a place free of all illusions. It is this: what happens happens, and all else is interpretation.

It is very hard to talk about this idea using language. After all, by describing it, I am, well, describing it. That in itself adds a layer of interpretation to something which is supposed to be beneath interpretations. Yet, as we discussed last week, it is possible to use words to describe things beyond words, so I will attempt to do so.

Consider how the squirrel sees the world. The squirrel has no language, knows no words. Yet still it perceives the world. Though it has no word for “cloud,” it notices differences in patches of the sky. Though it has no word for “tree,” it knows there are cylindrical surfaces with lots of footholds to grab onto.

There was a time before language, when all things saw the world as the squirrel does. There was a time before perception, and a time before life. Yet the universe existed back then, just as much as it exists now. And it behaved according to its inherent nature, just as it does now.

This is reality beyond illusion. That which is, independent of perception or belief. It does what it does, and all concepts, narratives, and models, from philosophy to religion to science, are merely interpretations.

What Words Do – Literal Meaning vs Manifest Meaning

 “Actions speak louder than words,” the saying goes. And it is quite clearly true. If someone says “I love you,” and another person gives you a gift that shows they have been paying attention to your likes and interests, the second person’s intention comes across much more strongly. But there is a deeper level to the phrase “actions speak louder than words:” words are a kind of action.

In our culture, we think of words as a tool for communicating ideas based on the words’ literal definitions. If I say, “Light is an electromagnetic wave,” it is natural to assume I am communicating the physical structure of light, and that is the end of the story. But if we are in a group of people talking about cultivating an inner light to share with the world, and I say “Light is an electromagnetic wave,” then the group would give me dirty looks. This might frighten me, and I would say, “What? It’s true.” This would drive a wedge between me and the rest of the group, and they might ask me to leave.

Here is what just happened. If we look at the literal meanings of the words, “Light is an electromagnetic wave,” and, “What? It’s true,” we find a true story. Light is physically an electromagnetic wave, and it is indeed true. But the actions of these words, what I call their manifest meaning, is to say “I do not buy into your spiritual metaphor and neither should you,” and then, “You shouldn’t be upset, because I am not trying to get you to change your beliefs.” In the realm of actions, these true phrases are, in fact, deceitful.

If you think about it, we never say anything simply because it is true. There is always a reason behind what we say. I have never mentioned before that there is a large parasol in the yard outside my window, even though it is true. This is because I have never had a reason to bring it up. Even now the reason I am telling you about it is not because it is true (although it is), but because it illustrates the point of this blog post. The reason we say words is not because of their literal meaning, but because what we say and when and how we say it is an action.

In order to understand other people, we must not only look at the literal meanings of the words they say, but at the actions they are performing by saying them. If we get too caught up in the literal meanings of the words, we get confused and do not understand. This is true not only for others, but for ourselves as well. In the above example, the person who says “Light is an electromagnetic wave” does not understand their own actions, because they are fixated on the literal meanings of their words. The exchange is not about physics, it’s about personal growth and its effects on others.

So we see that for words to be true, they must not only be literally true, but manifestly true. Yet I would go even further and say manifest truth is more important than literal truth. There are times when what someone needs to hear is not what is true, but something motivational. For instance, if someone is going through a hard time, we can tell them, “Hang on, everything will be okay soon,” even if there is no sign of when things will be okay. Maybe it’s literally true, and maybe it’s not, we don’t know. But the manifest truth, “You don’t have to suffer as much if you think positively,” is. However, straight-up telling someone “You don’t have to suffer as much if you think positively” is not nearly as motivating, and for some people it has its own manifest meaning, “You are to blame for making yourself suffer.” This is obviously not the message we want to get across, so instead we say, “Hang on, everything will be okay soon.” Everybody knows this statement’s literal truth is uncertain, but it is still sometimes the right thing to say; its manifest meaning is true.

Knowledge is power, and with power comes responsibility. The positive value of recognizing words as actions is immense. It can help us understand and make peace with one another, especially regarding sensitive topics. But there are those who use manifest meaning to manipulate others for their own gain, and understanding the idea of manifest meaning helps us guard against their influence. In politics, manifest meaning is prioritized over literal meaning, no matter what party, no matter what country. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the current United States President, Donald Trump.

It is no secret that Trump spouts nonsense all the time. There’s no point beating around the bush; he does not care about literal truth, and everyone can see it as plainly as the Emperor’s New Clothes. Some people point to the nonsense he says and call him an idiot. But this interpretation is wrong, as evidenced by this one damning fact: Trump got elected President of the United states. You don’t bumble your way into that position. Trump’s ejaculations of the mouth may be nonsense when taken literally, but it all has the same manifest meaning: “Life is a status game, and I’m the winner.” If we interpret his words under this lens, it all clicks into place.

You may be wondering, what is the manifest meaning of this blog post? That, my dear reader, is the question you should ask anytime you read a text. In this case, it can be summed up in this simple idea: words are not just words, they are actions. They have effects and consequences, sometimes independent from their literal meanings. If we want to understand others and navigate through the maze of human communication, we must internalize this and practice speaking and interpreting in terms of manifest meaning rather than getting caught up in the endless, needless tangles of literal meanings. When we do, we will discover life to be so much clearer than it appeared before.

Vast Minds – A Bizarre Possibility of Physicalist Consciousness

Consciousness:

The Hard Problem

Dualism

Physicalism

Idealism

Identifying Consciousness
Vast Minds

Identity, Self, and Other

The Question of Meaning

Disclaimer: The content of this blog post is outside the realm of current scientific knowledge. These ideas are meant as a fun exploration of possibilities, and should be taken with the same level of seriousness as life on other planets and alternate universes. 

Despite all of the revelations of science and philosophy, consciousness remains one of the universe’s most incredible mysteries. We have gone over several explanations of consciousness in this series, and in my judgment, physicalism fits best with the jigsaw puzzle of science. In particular, the version of physicalism that says consciousness is patterns of information in the brain. For this discussion, we will assume physicalism of this kind is true. (And remember, it has nothing to do with the q-word!)

Brains are made of neurons, a very simple machine. A neuron fires an electric pulse if it receives enough stimulus, and that’s it. But get enough of these simple machines together, and we get a system that exhibits conceptual models, self-awareness, free will, and consciousness.

If consciousness in the brain is a result of the collective information processes of neurons, then it stands to reason that if the same information processes happen in another system, such as a computer, that system will be conscious too; consciousness is substrate-independent. The unit of computation is the transistor, which behaves somewhat differently from a neuron, but wire enough transistors together and they can do anything a network of neurons can do. Thus, it should be possible to build a computer that is just as conscious as a human.

But here’s the question that comes to my mind: if we’re going to introduce the idea of substrate-independence to talk about conscious computer programs, why stop at computers? Drawing the line there seems just as arbitrary as drawing it at brains. A few adventurous thinkers extend the idea of substrate-independence to systems like billions of people standing in a field, raising flags or pulling levers. If these people can imitate the human connectome well enough, then this field of 80 billion people will be just as conscious as the human brain it is emulating.

So let’s be speculative pioneers and take this line of reasoning to its extreme conclusion. Let’s dispense with the idea of mimicking brains, and ask what kinds of sufficiently complex systems in general might be conscious? For instance, what about an ant colony?

Ants are not very smart creatures. For brains, they have only 250,000 neurons, which may not seem too shabby, but it is only .0003% of the 80 billion neurons humans have. These little brains can run programs to tell the ant where to find food, what task to perform, when to attack an enemy, and a number of other simple things like that. If an individual ant is conscious at all, its awareness is very limited, more of a mush of impressions and sensations than a thinking mind.

But what about the colony as a whole? The capacity for ants to build nests, gather resources, and wage wars is not in the individual ants, but in the collective actions of the colony. When ants come into contact with their sisters, they interact by sharing pheromones. This influences what each ant does next. The meeting between two ants is the unit of information sharing for the colony. Could the meetings of ants add up to information processing in such a way as to make the colony as a whole a conscious mind?

Ant colonies have between 500 and 10,000 ants. This is much less than the number of neurons an individual ant has. So it seems unlikely that an ant colony would be more conscious than an individual ant. But that conclusion is dramatic in itself; the very fact that known science does not dismiss outright the idea that an ant colony could be conscious if it had enough ants is mind-blowing!

Now that the door is open, let’s let ourselves loose and imagine the possibilities of consciousness in other collective systems. Perhaps the internet is conscious. After all, it is a network of sites and files and cookies and all that, which people and programs are constantly clicking through and changing. Perhaps the entire internet is one giant conscious mind, or maybe pockets of it are minds, like Facebook and YouTube.

What about more abstract things, like economies? The economy shares information through transactions, and every transaction influences future transactions and the overall state of the economy. Might an economy be conscious? Could our purchases, working hours, and business ventures contribute to the health and wellbeing of a living mind?

What about other complex systems? Might weather patterns be conscious? Ecosystems? In another discussion, we analogized ideologies, religions, and cultures as memetic organisms, propagating themselves through memetics rather than genetics. Might religions, ideologies, and cultures literally be alive and conscious?

It all seems absurd, and for all I know, the answer to all these questions is no. To the best of our knowledge, the only things in the universe that we can be certain are conscious are brains. But, consciousness is the least understood phenomenon known to science, and it may well be that once we understand it better, we start to find consciousness in all kinds of places we never expected.

Facts about Morality – How Small can We Make the Is-Ought Gap?

Some time ago, we talked about the is-ought gap, the idea that there will always be an unbridgeable logical gap between facts and moral duties. This is true, but that doesn’t stop us from turning the lens of fact onto morality, and seeing how close we can get.

To begin with, let’s step back to get a look at what morality is from an impersonal, objective point of view. Out of all the different views of morality there are, they have one thing in common: the idea that some things are better than others, that there are potential ways things should be and actions people should take, and there are potential ways things should not be and actions people should not take.

What determines what is judged to be good and what is judged to be bad? It starts with stimulus reaction and anticipation. Some things cause pain, and some things cause pleasure. We naturally recoil from pain and seek out pleasure. This is the beginnings of morality.

It is not the whole story, of course. We often abstain from pleasure or allow ourselves to suffer pain in the service of higher values. We might value order, justice, honor, or a clean mind, and make sacrifices in the realm of pleasure and pain to serve these values. The weight we give to each of our values determines our morality. In fact, we can think of the instincts surrounding pleasure and pain as values, and describe morality as the process of making choices and choosing rules for life based on our values. Values can be fluid; we might occasionally be able to choose our values, but most of the time they are influenced unconsciously, either by nature or by socialization.

It is not just our own circumstances that influence our values, but our capacity for empathy and compassion, to imagine what it is like to be in others’ shoes, and to want good things for them as well as for ourselves. There is a part of us that wants to do what is good for everyone, to make the world better, not just our own lives and actions. This is a double-edged sword, because although it can motivate us to help others, it can also make us think we know what is good for them better than they do, and to try to control their values and the choices they make.

On top of our values, we craft narratives. These can come in the forms of myths and stories, ideologies, philosophies, and religions. Narratives shape our values and help us remember them when the pleasure and pain stimuli become strong enough to make it hard to think. Compelling narratives for values different from ours can influence us to adjust our values in their direction.

The space of moralities is vast and varied. But despite all the variety of this moral landscape, the goal of all moral systems can be summed up in one statement: to make things good.

This is intentionally vague, because “good” means a lot of different things. Some say it’s happiness, others fulfillment, wellbeing, absence of misery, eudaimonia, or any number of similar concepts. In fact, as the philosopher G. E. Moore pointed out over a hundred years ago, it is impossible to define “good” as any specific thing. But in this context, we observe that any time a person looks at themself and the way things are and the way things will be, and says, “this is good,” they all share the same core idea: to be satisfied with one’s life and the world.

Despite “good” meaning different things to different people, it is the goal of all morality. Thus, we can take all conceptions of goodness and all measures according to all people, and indeed all conscious creatures, and add them together to make a “total goodness.” For any event, action, circumstance, etc., there is an objective level of total goodness, determined by the aggregate of its subjective, individual goodness to every person and conscious creature. This is messy and complex and always changing, but it does, in fact, exist.

And here lies the question. Can we say it is an objective, factual moral imperative that we ought to aim to increase total goodness? Well . . . No. Because we run into the is-ought gap. Even though the total goodness of something is an objective fact, that does not mean it is a fact that we ought to work toward increasing the total goodness. There is still an unbridgeable gap in the logic.

Any passage between is and ought requires a leap of faith. But the more descriptive facts about morality we take into consideration, the smaller the leap required. To me, the leap from the fact that there is such a thing as total good to the opinion that we ought to work toward increasing the total good, is small. Not even a leap, really, just a step. I am willing to take that step, and I invite you to take it with me. Let’s make this world a better place.

God, the Personification of Our Relationship with Existence

When I was growing up, I believed God existed. This God was a superhero, and his powers were to know everything, to manipulate reality with his thoughts, and to be perfectly good in all ways. As I learned science and contemplated philosophy, I came to realize that such a superhero does not exist. For me, that was sufficient to start calling myself an atheist. However, I remain open to non-physical, naturalism-compatible interpretations of God, such as an archetype, the impersonal, unconscious principle that separates what exists from what does not exist, or today’s topic, a hypothetical person who knows and understands everything.

As human beings, we struggle with existence. We strive to understand our place in it, how we relate to those around us, to the world, and to the universe. When difficult times happen, we want to know why. As individuals, there is so much we don’t know; most of this world is beyond our comprehension, not to mention the rest of the universe. This can be absolutely terrifying, as is captured by the fictional genre of cosmic horror. But we can find relief from this fear by imagining that there is a person who knows and understands it all, and whom we can talk to and get advice and comfort from: a God.

Of the many ways we conceptualize God, one of them is as a friend, a mentor, or even a parent. We imagine God as a person with us, who has our best intentions in mind and understands and fully appreciates the world both as it is and as it could be, who understands the whole picture and our place within it. When we talk to this God, either by words or thoughts, we call it prayer. We act as though this God is with us always, seeing our thoughts and emotions without judgment or bias, and when we are tempted to do something we feel isn’t right, thinking of how God would see the situation helps us to follow our conscience.

Some atheists criticize this version of God for being nothing more than an imaginary friend. But “imaginary friend” has childish implications, and it comes across as an insult rather than a criticism. God is much more than an imaginary friend; he is an archetype, a mythological figure with the qualities of knowledge, compassion, and empathy taken to infinite extremes.

Believers will also bristle at the word, “imaginary,” since it has connotations of being made-up and arbitrary. But archetypes are not arbitrary; they are the personification of profound things. In my mind, God is not real, because a thing is only real if it is real in the same way as matter and light and space and time; that is, physical. But archetypes are discovered, not invented, and for some people that is enough to call them real despite being non-physical. Thus, an argument here would be pedantic.

This version of God is not specific to any religion. Archetypes do not depend on the narratives in which they are expressed. My favorite short story is “The Egg,” by science fiction author Andy Weir, where the main character dies and has a conversation with this version of God about humanity and its purpose.

Despite calling myself an atheist and having a lot of issues with religions, I still sometimes act as though I am sharing my experiences with a God, and I still pray from time to time. I am not ashamed of this, nor do I see it as being inconsistent. Because what ultimately matters is not beliefs, but actions and their consequences, and sometimes acting in a spiritual or religious way helps us cope with the difficulties of life, appreciate the good things, and find the meaning in existence. This view is called Spiritual Naturalism. Like all great mythology and fiction, God does not have to exist in order to be significant.

The Barrier – A Short Story

This is a work of fiction. Characters, events, locales, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The Barrier

by Christian Horst

At the end of a canyon lies a town, and all who live there share in abundance and joy. There is no way to the town but through a canyon, and the canyon walls cannot be climbed. My tribe has journeyed far to reach the town, as have many others from all over the land.

Before us stands a great vertical surface, stretching from wall to wall and high into the air. It is transparent like tinted glass, darkening the view of the other side. I wonder about it, but no one else seems to mind, walking through it as if it isn’t there. When I reach it I pause in curiosity. What is this boundary, and why is it here? I reach out my hand and touch it, and find it solid as a wall of plastic.

“Hey.” One of the elders of the tribe calls my name. “You going to stand there all day? Come on.” He passes by me and walks through the barrier.

Confused, I feel around on the area of barrier he just walked through. It is as solid as the rest.

He turns around. “Why are you just standing there? Get a move on.”

I raise my eyebrows and knock on the barrier. The hollow sound echoes through the canyon.

The elder steps toward me and says my name. “Don’t be difficult.”

I throw up my hands. “What am I supposed to do?”

He looks at me for a long moment, and then turns around and says, “If you won’t come, then we’ll move on without you.”

He steps forward, and the rest of the tribe follows, walking around me, passing through the barrier as if it doesn’t exist. I stare after them, tongue-tied at the elder’s casual cruelty, and the ease at which the other tribe members follow his lead. The last member passes by, looks at me, and keeps walking forward. I am left standing alone.

“Hey,” a woman’s voice says. I turn to see a beautiful woman standing nearby, a stranger, smiling at me. She holds out her hand and introduces herself. I shake it and give her my name in turn. “I’m going to the town,” she says. “Want to walk together?”

“I’d love to,” I reply, “but I’m having trouble getting through here.”

“What do you mean?” She asks.

I pat the barrier. She continues to look at me with questioning eyes. “I mean I can’t get through,” I say slowly. “I don’t understand what’s confusing about that.”

“Well,” she says, “I guess if you’re not going, then it was nice to meet you.” She walks through the barrier.

“Wait,” I say, “I’m going, I just can’t get through the barrier.”

She turns around and looks at me. “What barrier?”

I narrow my eyes at her. “What do you mean, what barrier?” I say, hitting it several times with my hand. “The one you just walked through? The one that’s about as easy to miss as the color of the sky?”

She frowns at me. “Look, maybe we’ll meet again in town.” She turns and walks away.

“Wh—” I say, holding up a hand. But she recedes into the distance without looking back.

It suddenly dawns on me what the difficulties I’m having with communication must be. Not only are other people unhindered by the barrier, but they can also neither see nor hear it. It appears that this barrier, as incredible as it may be, only exists for me.

Determined to find a way through, I search the barrier from one wall of the canyon to the other, from the ground to as high as I can reach. Every inch feels as solid as the rest. After a second time through, and a third, I sit down on the ground, exhausted. All around me, strangers continue to walk through the barrier, completely unaware of its existence.

I fall asleep on the grass. When I awaken the next morning, I lie there, staring at the barrier, trying and failing to think of any options for attempting to get past it.

In the corner of my eye, I see a man walking by wearing a psychologist’s uniform. With a spark of hope, I sit up and call out to him. “Hey, can I ask for your help?”

The man sees me and smiles. “Sure,” he says, “what can I do for you?”

“There’s this barrier preventing me from going forward,” I say. “No one else seems to be able to see it.” I tell him about what happened to me yesterday.

“I see,” the psychologist says. “It sounds like you’ve had some failures, and you’re discouraged by them.”

I look down for a moment, thinking. “Yeah,” I say, meeting his eyes again. “I guess that’s true.”

“Well then, if you’re willing to work with me, I’ll have you back on your way toward town in no time.”

I smile and stand up. “All right!” I say. “What do I have to do?”

The psychologist beams. “Great job! That’s the first step down with flying colors! Now, repeat after me. ‘I am not a failure.’”

“I am not a failure,” I say.

“Good. Now say, ‘I have what it takes to succeed.’”

“I have what it takes to succeed.”

“Head high, back straight! ‘I am worthy of success.’”

Enthusiasm boils up within me. “I am worthy of success.”

“‘I am worthy of esteem.’”

“I am worthy of esteem.”

I continue repeating after him, saying things like, “People like to be around me,” and, “I belong in town.” By the time we finish, I am full of vigor, shouting the lines with all the energy I have.

“Awesome!” the man says, clapping me on the back. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? I’ll see you in town.” And without another word, he strolls off.

I hold out my hand, pressing on the barrier. “B-but . . .” He is too far away and doesn’t hear me. I mutter, “But what about the barrier?”

I rap my knuckles against the barrier. It’s still as solid as ever. I wrack my brain, trying to think of where I went wrong, of what I could have said to make the psychologist understand my problem instead of assuming it was in my head.

Maybe he did understand it. Since nobody else can see the barrier, maybe it really is in my head after all. Maybe all I need to do to get it to stop blocking my path is to stop letting it. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. There is no barrier. I am just like everyone else. On my way to town, where there is food and celebration and friendship. There is nothing in my way. I confidently start forward on my journey.

Pain explodes through my nose and forehead, and then my rear. In a daze, I open my eyes to find myself sitting on the ground, the barrier looming above me, dark and solid as ever.

Reality is a bitch. I groan through gritted teeth, and sorely lift myself back to my feet.

Several voices call my name. I turn around to see around ten of my friends coming my way. I sigh, and smile at them. They approach me. “We’re going to town. Come with us!”

“I would like to more than anything,” I say, “but there is a barrier preventing me from moving forward. It seems to only affect me. Look.” I lean against the barrier in such a way that without it, gravity would pull me to the ground.

“Huh,” one of the men says. “That’s weird.”

A woman points and says, “Have you tried going that way?”

I follow her finger to a path in the side of the canyon. Its entrance is on the other side of the barrier. I shake my head. “I can’t reach it.”

“Oh.”

They stay with me for a while, talking and laughing. For a time, I can forget the barrier and the town, and enjoy the company of these wonderful people. But eventually things start to wind down, and they decide to move on.

“We hope you can join us in town soon,” one of them says.

“If it takes a long time, we’ll come visit,” another says. “And you can give us a call anytime you need someone to talk to.” She points to a phone on a small table . . . which is on the other side of the barrier. “See you.” They turn and leave.

I smile sadly and wave. “Bye.”

Others pass me as the days go by. Most ignore me. Some give me dirty looks or shake their heads while pretending not to notice me. Some are kind and believe me, and I can see in the eyes of a few that they have barriers of their own. But I can’t see theirs, and none of them can see mine. Some come back from town to visit me from time to time. They brainstorm ideas with me, or talk about the joys and struggles of town life. I treasure their support. But I learn that I am the only one who can understand my barrier. I am the only one who has a chance at finding a way through.

There is one thing that gives me hope. When I press my thumb hard into the barrier, so much that it starts to hurt, it leaves an indent, which takes about a minute to smooth over again. With no other options, I press hard. Then, I push on the lip of the indent, widening it.

It is a long, tedious task. I have to keep applying pressure to the whole area, lest it rebound and force me to start over from the beginning. I keep pressing until the skin of my thumbs is raw and I start to bleed from beneath my nails. Then I switch over to my knuckles and push with them until they are skinned and my joints throb. Still I keep pushing, hoping that if I push enough, the barrier will tear and I will be able to open a hole big enough to crawl through. I don’t know if that is possible, but there is nothing I can do but try.

People continue to pass by me. Most don’t understand. They don’t see the effort I’m making. A few call me lazy, and tell me that if I refuse to move forward, I don’t deserve to live in the town. I ignore them and keep pushing. They were lucky enough not to have barriers, and because of that, they have the luxury to believe that the world is fair.

As I lean my shoulder to rest against the area I have been pushing on, I notice that others are struggling too. Some lean forward, as if pushed back by a strong wind. Some lift their feet with effort, as if crushed under a great weight. And I realize there is so much more going on, a whole world of struggles and barriers that most people never notice.

At the moment, I don’t have energy to put into anything but my own efforts to get to the town. But somewhere in the back of my mind, a seed is planted, and I think that maybe, once I reach the town, I might devote a portion of the happiness and energy I receive there to helping others through their invisible barriers.

Of Numbers, Deadlines, and Mental Health

Since the last Friday of December, I have published a new blog post every week without fail. I’ve written about quantum physics, metaphysics, futurism, and all kinds of mind-bending subjects. On top of that, I have been making YouTube videos as well. Today brings my blog streak to 34.

Last night, I was working on today’s blog post, when I realized it just wasn’t going to work. The quality was poor, and I was just rehashing ideas that I’ve already talked about. This was not what I wanted to give my readers.

I went to bed discouraged, a dilemma playing in my mind. Should I publish the post and maintain my streak even if it means delivering something of poor quality? Should I let myself take a break and lose my streak, which took me half a year to build up? Or should I aim for a miracle and write something new all in one day?

I woke up feeling tired and uncreative. Looking through my folder of partially-written discussions, all of them required more mental energy than I had available. I asked a friend for advice, and she suggested I let myself take a break, that 33 is a good number, and the quality of my blog posts and taking care of myself are more important than keeping the streak going.

I agreed, and was just about ready to let go, when I got a new idea: why don’t I write about the struggle I am facing right now? I am already talking about it with my friend via text chat, so it was easy to switch over to Scrivener and write my thoughts there.

And here it is, a new blog post, written entirely in just a few hours. And so, the streak continues, at 34 and counting.

But the dilemma has not been solved. I may have gotten through it this week, but what about next week? What will I do the next time I wake up on a Friday morning and realize I don’t have anything to show? I can only write on this topic once, a single-use get-out-of-jail-free card, and next time there may not be a way to escape by the skin of my teeth.

There will come a time again when I must choose between losing my streak and putting up garbage. When that day comes, I know what I must do. A number is just a number; the only meaning it has is what I give to it. And when the time comes, I will give up the number, because out of everything at stake, the number is the least important.