In addition to the continue and collapse of the liberal post-war world order, I find myself inundated in a deluge of changes that echo the shouting world. Most importantly, a fundamental change in world view that was already wobbling close to the edge for many years but finally has fallen off the cliff: I have abandoned materialism. That is putting it dramatically, but dramatics make for better reading. My metaphysics has been definitively materialist in view-point for many years, since before the turn of the decade and yet I have wobbled before. In 2022, I posited to my friends that I perceived a non-material dimensionality to the material world, one that is deposited by the interaction of said material with conscious matter such that each interaction with a material would deposit more and more of this “emotional stuff”. An example: someone with sentimental attachment to a pen would deposit that feeling like invisible layers around the pen that would build the more sentimental the object was and that could be palpably perceived by conscious beings. This was an answer to a feeling inside me that certain objects undoubtedly have “feelings” imprinted on them that I knew people could often identify, specifically objects with extreme positive or negative associations. More recently, I’m reading the work of Bernardo Kastrup who champions “analytical idealism”. I am a quarter way through his book ‘Materialism is Baloney’ and (being supplemented with his interviews and video explainers) am finding his arguments quite convincing so far. I am slowly being driven to the viewpoint that there is in fact only mind and nothing else in the universe. I wrote down something he said that made a lot of sense to me: “What we call life or biology or metabolism may be the appearance of the formation of dissociated complexes in the mind of nature like dissociated personalities in a human mind” I dunno, you had to be there. I’ve been listening to a lot of Parenti (see my last blog post on why). Someone compiled a lot of his lectures into a ‘Michael Parenti Collection’ available on all good podcast platforms everywhere (and on the bad ones too, probably). 20-or-so recorded lecture from seemingly the 80s and 90s and spewing the most sense I have seen any political speaker spew. “Democracy”, he says, “is a wonderful invention of the people of history to protect themselves from the people of wealth and property”. Mid-January to February I was bedridden with tonsillitis. I missed a week of work and the first couple weeks of the Cricket T20 World Cup. What little I caught of the tournament (just enough to see my team get soundly beaten) has furthered me in my conviction that T20 is a format of cricket that is not conducive to good viewing. ODIs and Test (or even domestic List A’s and first-class cricket) are long enough for cricketers to truly display their skill. For proof, I include Adam Gilchrist’s 57-ball Ashes century as a link below. Though I will say, it was great that the Zimbabwe cricket team made it past the group stages as dominantly as it did. Magazines! Reading them. Mostly off the PressReader app off of my library, enjoying the following magazines (in order of enjoyment): 1. National Geographic (bit of cheating, my friend Olive got me a print subscription for Christmas and print > digital) 2. Wired Magazine (March issue on China is excellent). 3. BFS Journal and Horizons. (Again, a physical subscription based on my British Fantasy Society membership.) 4. Smithsonian. (It’s alright.) (I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting.) I am also writing a short story called Tale of Two Sisters. Scope expanded quite a bit from my original spec of around 3000 words. Will see to where I get. It’s based on an ancient Egyptian story. Trying to get into the habit of writing again after a tumultuous period. Got some good feedback on it from my writing group I hope to incorporate. That’s all I have. Hope the spring solstice brings you success.