Jacob Banks Live in Concert

Hypnotic may be the first word that comes to mind. I knew I wanted to go to see Jacob Banks live because I was sure that such vocal prowess should be experienced live. He didn't disappoint. If anything, I was stunned at how beautiful, passionate and powerful his performance was. The entire music hall vibrated, echoed, roared with excitement and applause. I think it was the longest applause I have stood in. As if our applause might echo the power in his voice.

26 By 26

1. Spend less time on social media.
2. Start drawing and painting again.
3. Give back to the people you love and who love you.
4. Take a big trip. 
5. Go hiking more often.
6. Move toward an anti-inflammatory diet.
7. Pick up photography again.
8. Get off the dating apps.
9. Go to writers nights and poetry nights.
10. Save $15,000. 
11. Finish 20 books.
12. Go to art galleries more often.
13. Go to different creative events. Find inspiration.
14. Make meditation a routine. 4-5 times a week. 10 minutes.
15. Spend more time with Mom.
16. Go as waste-free as possible.
17. Spend more time in my body.
18. Turn to natural products. 
19. Keep some plants alive.
20. Learn to drive.
21. Learn to swim.
22. Drink more water.
23. Journal more often. 
24. Figure out your relationship with your lupus.
25. Volunteer for something that matters to you.
26. Try different kinds of exercise and movement. 

Homo Deus II

Since there is no script, and since humans fulfil no role in any great drama, terrible things might befall us and no power will come to save us, or give meaning to our suffering. There won't be a happy ending, or a bad ending, or any ending at all. Things just happen, one after the other. The modern world does not believe in purpose, only in cause. If modernity has a motto, it is 'shit happens'. 

on the other hand, if shit just happens, without any binding script or purpose, then humans too are not limited to any pre-determined role. We can do anything we want - provided we can find a way. We are constrained by nothing except our own ignorance. Plagues and droughts have no cosmic meaning - but we can eradicate them. Wars are not a necessary evil on the way to a better future - but we can make peace. No paradise awaits us after death - but we can create paradise here on earth,  and live in it for ever, if we just manage to overcome some technical difficulties. 

Homo Deus, pp. 200-201, Yuval Noah Harari.  

Homo Deus

We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives o most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another. 

Homo Deus, p. 145, Yuval Noah Harari.