Encylopædia Draconica

If you've ever read the Montaigne's essays from his book titled "Essays"¹, you likely noticed that they're chunky. Paragraphs are huge, the ideas waver a lot, there are big ideas, small ideas, all over the place. The reason for this partly is that it's just how books were written back then. These days writing is more like "What's up. One billion dollars. Mic drop." Straight to the point, no fluff, some jargon to sound sound hip. The audiences love it, they'll repost this saying "I especially loved the one million dollars part", and someone will respond "Yes, the A. Author's writing is so concise and mind-expanding."

The writing is usually called good if it's concise and mind-expanding. Concise, so you can read it quickly and go back watching Tik Toks. Mind-expanding, so the value-per-pixel ratio of the text is reasonably high. Why would you read something that doesn't change your life forever these days? One reason I can think of is to feel good because the text is promoting your favorite politics. The other is to be outraged of the text that is promoting the opposing politics. I remind you that this is a political blog, not value-neutral at all, so we talk about politics every now and then.

Are "Essays" concise and mind-expanding? No. They're not concise, and… well, in a way they're mind-expanding, but not in a modern way. Instead of expanding your mind, the essays serve to expand the Montaigne's mind. It's not like people don't write like this these days, I could be exaggerating a bit. Essays are not a dead genre, but modern essays are a bit more tightly focused: build exposition, introduce an idea, connect to the next idea, build exposition for a conclusion, conclude, share, like, and repost. I'm sorry I make fun of the modern media culture too much, it's just so funny I can't stop. In a way, my writing is akin to a Montaigne of modernity, where my short attention span shows in ways I don't really want to control because nobody reads my blog.

Are "Essays" a good writing? They're a good reading if you want to exercise your archaic reading muscle, but are there good ideas in it? I'm likely to upset Montaigne's fans here, but I didn't get much from reading Montaigne. Probably I'm not smart enough — must be the primary reason. Or my archaic reading muscle is too weak, and I extracted like 10% of meaning and all I can do now is ramble about the form of Montaigne's writing rather than the substance.

What "Essays" taught me is that you can generate big chunks of text by simply laying down every thought of yours. As long as they're topically connected, that's an essay. Even a clear conclusion isn't so necessary. Life doesn't offer clear conclusions, save for rare exceptions (marriage, death, promotions, etc), why should an essay offer any? As the footnote one says, essais are trials. Like in a court trial, or in trial and error. They mostly serve to expand your mind, not the minds of your readers.

Now let's build some exposition for a conclusion. How is this all connected to the subject line "Blog-writing is decompression"? Obviously, it's a dual blog to the blog titled "Note-writing is compression", which taught you, dear reader, that you should try to make your notes short. This one teaches you to make your blogs long. Montaigne did this, and what if you don't? Well, you aren't as cool as Montaigne.

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¹ In my native language [not telling you which] it's traditionally translated as Опыты, i.e. Experiences, or a confusingly homonymous Experiments. The French original essais can also be translated as trials.

Life changes a lot when you have a partner. I can't behave the same way as when I'm alone. In a way this is good, as it keeps me up. On the other hand, it's exhausting, having this feeling that someone's around, and they may approach you any time, ask what you're doing, or announce they're doing something. I haven't always lived alone, naturally, I spend the most of my younger years with my family so someone always has been around. So it kind of feels like returning to that old state of being surrounded by people. And even before that I lived with a friend. I'm not new to this. But it's always so weird and exhausting. Being alone is also weird and exhausting in its own way, so it's not like I'm complaining (if I were to complain, it would be a complaint about everything and how all modes of being suck).

It's Sunday, the Day of the Sky Fish who gazes upon us from the endless void of what's up there above. It sees what we do and hears what we say and feels how we smell. It's very capable. If there's anyone I trust, it's the Sky Fish, definitely not the government.

One reason we can't trust the government is that it's run by people, not the Sky Fish. Abilities of politicians to see, hear and feel the smells are very very limited, they basically just sit in their offices all day and try to think of cool promises for the people so they (politicians, not people) don't lose their job. Sky Fish isn't afraid of losing its job, because it's self-employed. Why can't politicians be self-employed?

Because politicians do not make money; the government has the money and politicians decide how they spend it. Politicians aren't even normally allowed to make money, because a politician might say "hey let's invest the government money into my business", and boom, it's their money now. Now Sky Fish would never do that, if you give money to the Sky Fish it won't even take it, because the Sky Fish does not have hands.

Let's consider another important factor.

Sky Fish

kF is Shy

See what I did here? Do you know what kF means? And why is it Shy?

kinetic Friction

Anyway, that's just me attempting to solve the mystery of the Sky Fish.

Now take a look at this:

    g
————
nment

Disgusting.

So my girlfriend came to visit me these holidays, which was exciting. She said she's noticed I struggle a lot with small decisions: where to go, what to do, and whatnot. This is true. I like to overanalyze, and I constantly indulge in overanalyzing. I bargain with myself a lot. I usually want to make a perfect decision. I try to be lighter on myself but mostly it kind of just happens. It's my default mode of operation. I guess it's as designed by the manufacturer.

I don't remember teaching myself to overanalyze. Maybe this gift has been bestowed upon me by heaven itself. Maybe I must be this way because I have a mission. Maybe I gaslit myself into thinking I'm overanalyzing because I'm actually under-analyzing everything, so I should overanalyze more. I think latter is probably the case. At least that's what I usually think. So I think that anxiety is making me be this way.

I want to avoid the disaster, you see. The one that ruins your life and everything. How do you achieve this without overanalyzing? By relying on your intuition? But intuition is not a proof, so you're wrong, I'm not listening to you anymore.

I don't like opinions. Why can't I be right all the time? It's exhausting. If only there was a device that makes everything I say correct…

I don't like making mistakes. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to say things people disagree with. Why can't you all agree with me? We seemed to get along so well… Up to the point when you opened your mouth. Ugh.

Today was long, and I'm exhausted. And I even still have things to do. I must write a paper. Papers, papers, more papers, there aren't nearly enough papers in this world. I must contribute another paper to the never-ending pile of papers our dear Science produces. This is my role, I'm a cog, and I will happily roll along. Hooray!

Now I must go. Peace be with you, dear reader. Good times are ahead, I promise.