How Life Roles Make You Age And Die

You adopt life roles, because they are neat and ready – and because you have no clue what else you could be doing. Roles offer to answer the pesky questions of life. They offer definition and goals: the two things you should find for yourself.

But they are hard work, no one tells you how it’s done. So you accept roles for relief. In fact, there would be backlash if you didn’t. But roles don’t allow you to think for yourself and form your own identity.

Once you’ve adopted them, you’ll be busy adjusting your behaviour according to the role.

• Are you a Christian? What would Jesus do?
• Are your neighbours loud? How would a cool guy react?
• Are you engaged? What do engaged people aspire to?
• Did your boyfriend sleep with someone else? How should a girlfriend react?
• Economic news on your FB feed? What is a person of your ideology supposed to think about it?

What is left if you stop playing all these roles and decide what you are, what you think, and what you aspire to?

How To “Know Thyself”

“Know thyself”

This is your highest responsibility in life. To figure out, who you are and – as a result – what you want.

Without it you are less than a human, you are a mere Mirror of others, a response to their actions, a reaction to their nudges, an echo of their opinions. It doesn’t matter if they are Mirrors themselves. That just makes you even less.

Blindsighted

There is a curious phenomenon, when a blind person can sense and react to certain visual stimuli despite having no visual experience of it. Like sensing a light source or movement. They can reach for an object without consciously seeing it.

This can happen due to brain damage, when the eyes are intact, but the brain fails to translate the visual input into images.

This is also how people react to energy. They underlying dynamics of their interactions are invisible to them, but they still react to it. They move towards the source of energy and try to extricate themselves when in the grasp of a vampire.

“The Meaning of Life” – and other chronically underdefined questions

There are a few questions people enjoy chewing on endlessly. Some of them inevitably come up, when people discuss longevity or mortality. One of these sloppy questions is “the meaning of life”. Let’s see what’s sloshing around in the little minds when they appear to ask Big Questions. (Hint: they’re just whining.)

4 Reasons You Should Never Ask A Friend To Read

How many times have you heard…

“I am keeping your manuscript so I can sell it when you’re famous…”

…but they haven’t even bothered to read your story. Or if they have…

1. It will be a giant exercise in ad hominem

A complete stranger writes about rape? How graphic was it? How scary? It will annoy the feminists, etc. They will consume the text the way it was meant to and you could clearly see whether it works.

A friend wrote a story about rape: Was he raped? Did she rape someone? How does she know this? That’s not how rape works. Why did he give it to me? Is this a hint?

6 Things Wrong with Immortal Stories (Written by Mortals)

I used to think there was nothing left to be told about immortals. It is a boring subject, exhausted by the sci-fi and fantasy literature. I wouldn’t read an immortal story myself.

Until I took a second look at the ones we already have.

Re-watching the Highlander I realised what I did not see as a child (and before I studied scriptwriting): Great music, but there is not much there in terms of a story. I am supposed to be shocked by the fact that there are immortals. They show me one resurrections and I don’t recover for the full 90 minutes. In the meatime they fight away. Only one can be left.

When they try to explain, why immortals exist, the story gets unbearably awkward. (Anyone remembers the second and third part of that movie? No? That’s for a reason.)

Or take vampire stories. The only thing sexy about a bloodsucker is that it is immortal and has the power to turn you into one. There’s nothing more to this line.

After a quick meta-analysis of the immortality-meme I found 6 things that annoy me about our image of immortality.

Alpha – Where the swans live

 

We were late for the conference because we waited for more people. First arrived the twins, Sky and Slava. I knew them from Belgrade. They were jokers. You could never tell whether they were serious but they always meant business.

Alpha – When war comes to you

My attackers were airborne and about to descend on me when they hit an invisible wall between us. The blow distorted the woman’s face and threw her back. She landed on her backside with a dull thump. It was comical and the humour helped me to recover. She quickly assumed the face of an injured, old lady, too weak to hurt anyone and unjustly attacked when she was just being nice. Predictably, she had also detached herself from her son. She would only share in the prey, not in the blows.

But she was still dangerous. She was looking for a way to benefit from the new turn of events. I stood up and slammed her innocent face with a brick. I chose a plain brick because the last time I directed energy at them it turned back against me.

Then I turned to find the son but he was already begging for mercy. Unluckily for him, the guy towering above him was unlikely to commit that mistake. He had something better than a brick though.

Alpha – Remote-activated, heat-guided humans

I had to leave London, but I had no particular destination in mind. Still something made me go to Geneva. It was the Call.

And when I was there, I saw a few extraordinary things.

First, there was that billboard.

When you’re in the Silence, or Out, you see things you can’t see in reality – and vice versa. I was used to that. I couldn’t hear most of the babble of humans and their thoughts when I was submerged in the Silence. So I spent a lot of time there.

What I haven’t seen before was a billboard that was only visible in the Silence. It was visible only to me. Passers-by would see yet another Swiss time piece on yet another celebrity. Aspirants can communicate through the Silence, so that only the recipient can hear it. But it wasn’t a personal message to me, any Aspirant passing by could see it. How many of us could possibly be in Geneva?

It was the advertisement of a cosmetic clinic. It promised to make you look older – if you’re “bored with your twenties”. Whoever put it there knows who we are and how we communicate.

Alpha – Would you like to read a catcaller’s mind? Why not?

Phase one of a catcaller attack: Getting the idea.

Marcel was walking down the lakeside promenade. It was a pleasant morning, sightly misty, just to his liking. He wasn’t in a hurry and he enjoyed himself. It was Friday, but it was a day off. It was his team-building weekend, when his boss would pay for all the booze and girls. No wonder he felt elated. He also allowed himself a beer or two for breakfast, so he felt brave, slightly horny, and on the top of a certain, undefined pecking order of life. He was headed to the marina to catch the ferry to Lausanne.

That was when he spotted a girl. She was alone, lying on a bench. She wasn’t tapping her phone or had any other excuse for lying there.

Is she alright? he wondered, but he didn’t slow his pace. What if she was attacked and left there bleeding? He hesitated. Was he supposed to help? How long before the ambulance arrives? He can miss departure. That would be a shame.

He hesitated.

What if she wasn’t attacked at all? He would look ridiculous. He preferred to play it safe. No unsolicited help. That way you’ll never embarrass yourself. He decided to leave.

But then he saw me closer and changed his mind.

I knew it because I could hear his thoughts. He was the first to appear for a long time, and I must have let my guards down. He could obviously see me.