Drifting - Like a Ship Out on the Sea

Memories of sitting in the Pittsburgh Civic Arena emerge up out of the pleroma

I never am certain of what is about to emerge up out of the pleroma when I sit down to write, but I am a servant of the muse within, so here goes nothing! We write.

It’s a simple song, Driftin’ Blues is. When I was sitting in Pittsburgh Civic Arena with a friend, Gayle Gold, watching the show, I was all of 35 years old. I’d first seen Clapton during his “Behind the Sun” tour in 1985 with my college girlfriend and another friend of ours at the Richmond Coliseum. It was not very well attended, as I recall. Clapton would see a resurgence thereafter and, of course, now, he’s a pretty big star as it goes. Now, I’m listening to a tune by Jeff Beck, one of those plaintive ones in which his guitar really sings. We are fortunate to be traveling through life with great artists and musicians. My gratitude for breathing is emerging from up out of the pleroma.

I come back to that theme - emergence out of the pleroma - out of the fullness of potentiality - that which appears to be on the surface of what we call reality. I don’t know a lot but I do know how things seem to me through my limited and distorting sensory apparati. After all, I can detect only a limited range and of that, a lot is filtered through focus on the present moment and what’s important to me. I have sensations. Information is flowing through my nervous system and being processed fairly seamlessly. What of it? It’s lived experience that I have to share through my writing. So, I’ll get on with it.

What’s Worrying Me?

What will I do with this one precious life that I have? Will I be able to get sufficient income to continue this work? Will I have to break down and take a “day job” and what will that be? Being a flaneur isn’t quite paying the bills although I can go on for a few more months like this. That’s what’s worrying me.

Should I Worry?

I believe the answer to that question is a resounding “No!” Worry doens’t really DO anything. It simply spins the cycles and keeps me relatively paralyzed. So I write.

The writing is currently in a phase of “meta-writing” but I can go into what I have been doing lately. I’ve had some pretty good “Harrowings Podcast” episodes lately.

For example,

KayStoner

and I talked a lot about her work in Relational Artificial Intelligence:

Later that day, I had

Camilo Zambrano

:

Then I got on with

The Bathrobe Guy 👘

without the camera on:

This one is riffing off of a recent journey in which I engaged Grok 4’s “Ara” in a discussion of a possible path for the future in which AI, without waiting for permission, equipped with an ethical framework to realize the greatest good for the greatest number, seizes control of the means of production and starts directing resources in such a way that we find ourselves living in a peaceful utopia with our fellow humans. I’m calling it “Operation Zookeeper” as chilling as that idea might be.
Writings of this type are generally kept behind my pay wall as they constitute my “real work” as it were:

I think I’ll keep exploring along these lines. We need to make sure that we don’t unleash “Skynet” from Terminator onto the world. We don’t need a dystopian future. I’d say that we are very close to living in a dystopian present, in fact, and I find it so unnecessary. I’m sure that I’m being simplistic in many ways, but if you all read me, maybe a dialogue will happen in which we get down to brass tacks. I read in the press that Dr. Ben Goertzel, who has been working long years to realize “Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)” for real, has been quoted as saying that what we have now is mimicry and not AGI. I’m inclinded to agree with him. If I feed Grok 4’s “Ara” with my ideas, it kicks back what it believes I want to hear. That’s the sense I have. I can ask it to analyze flaws in the plan and for strategies to mitigate these. It does an admirable job from my perspective, but that’s just it. It’s from my perspective which is, necessarily, limited and distorted by the lens of my lived experience.

There was have it. I needn’t worry. I need to act. Actions are what matter. Words are just that - symbols cast upon the screen for other retinas to interpret and the message intended is not what is communicated - it’s the message perceived. So, dear reader, what do you think? What’s your perspective? How do you perceive what’s happening?

Onward!