17 June 2026

Support (working title): some Courbet colors—Self-Portrait with a Black Dog (1842-44)—isolated and repurposed for this painting based on a lounger and a leaf that I saw outside a window with Yena in Lido. I remember the pillowy cushion bending to the empty weight of dried foliage.

I think the main organizing factory/inquiry with this one was trying to achieve a simultaneity of receding and confronting (in feeling and space), but I also ended up with something of an echo or a mirror. And a lesson in line. Worth noting to self that, as exemplified in the process for this one, I’m noticing how much more I seem to be working things out ahead of time in the drawing phase now. Of course there’s a certain (large) portion that needs to remain unknown before I begin painting to make it worth doing, but I’m also realizing more and more that I still feel fulfilled when the surprises happen earlier in my sketchbook. I suppose the most satisfying is when they happen in both phases.

Anyway, I think this one is asking some worthwhile questions and gave a good shot at fragmenting them further, but I think the color is a bit too binary still. So I think the next problem to solve has something to do with combining this more dynamic approach to line with a more interesting/nuanced/subtle approach to color so that they’re complementing each other rather than merely coexisting and the whole thing can reach a harmony that extends beyond the kinetic further into silence.

15 June 2026

Image inventory: a jagged wet reflection of a plane on a tarmac, collapsed and dismembered mannequins in an abandoned shop front window display, a group of pigeons on a sidewalk (half in light, half in shade), a marshmallow-looking lounge chair, two white doors loosely bolted together (one with covered-up graffiti in a block of gray), a phone booth with etched graffiti, a dog blurred and lunging towards a hand, dried yellow mimosa flowers on a nightstand (small dead explosion), a sliver of blue sky between two terracotta buildings with laundry lines, a white rectangle building floating on top of a full frame of ocean water, a dark cloud that looks like a face in profile over a small fluffy luminous cloud, a reflection of train seats, a small concrete sphere balancing on a brick ledge, two boats speeding through a canal towards a horizon, contrails shooting upwards out of two cut tree branches, a small red home and a small white bridge from above, rain drops in black water, wood grain three ways, pastel colored ceramic bowls at varying heights on a wood floor with dappled light, ivies encroaching on an upturned table, a yellow lost cat sign (name: Falco), shells organized by color (mostly whites and gray-blues) on a beach.

Is it only the UK or is the rest of Europe also displaying a short shorts trend? That and tight leggings. I guess the leggings were the hype a number of years ago and is still going strong but the rise of shorts seems to be taking over.

Everywhere I go, regardless of setting or temperature, there is a lass wearing shorts. And not just the ordinary type, but the type that ride up and through, presenting that glorious view of the lower cheeks.

I write this post with a level of hypocrisy. My girlfriend is one of these girls. Infact, I like to tell myself she's an 'OG' shorts wearer. She is always wearing her shorts, granted it's not usually the ass crack type, but the tight leggings shorts. And yes, I catch all your pervs catching a look. Whether we are outside, shopping, picking our kids up from school.. nothing can restrain the wandering eye of a straight male these days. I'm not complaining of course.. gawk all you want fellas!

However, I have to make a point whilst we're on topic, who are these parents letting their young children wear such attire. It was not long ago I turned an isle in Aldi and saw a girl, roughly 12, wearing the short shorts that rode so high her whole bottom was on display. I nudged my partner to see and we both gave a look of disbelief. It was a father shopping with his daughter. Surely, as a man, you know how this looks? How other men might perv on such a view? I'm confused about what angle the father took when he allowed his daughter to leave the house dressed like such.

Back in 2013, my elder daughter was in the improv group in her high school. The co-captain of the improv team was a girl named Ayo Edebiri.

So I’ve seen Ayo Edebiri perform live on stage many times, though, before Sunday, it was only in high school improv shows. I joked before we went to see Proof that the fact that we’d seen her in so many high school improv shows surely meant that Ayo should comp us some tickets to her broadway debut.

(I should point out that she and my daughter were friendly but not close, and I think Ms. Edebiri could probably pick my daughter out in a crowd but certainly not me or my wife.)

Anyway, so we were excited to see Proof, and I knew very little about it except that Ayo (because we’re all on a parasocial first name basis with her in our house) and Don Cheadle were in it.

There are summaries in other places, but this is a play about family and mental illness and what we owe each other. It’s got a lot of funny moments but is ultimately serious, and folks, Ayo Edibiri’s performance is absolutely stunning.

Because there are a few flashback scenes, we see what the character of Catherine was like before spending four years tending to a father with serious mental illness. And so the actor playing Catherine has to whip back and forth between hopeful and enthusiastic and beaten down and nearly broken, and Ayo pulled this off brilliantly. It really was a breathtaking performance. Awards of course don’t mean anything, and the only other show I’ve seen in New York in the last year was Bigfoot the Musical (which was utterly delightful but of course very different) but I am incredulous that she hasn’t been recognized for this performance.

Except of course by the audience, which absolutely roared at her curtain call. All the actors (Cheadle, Jin Ha, and Kara Young) gave good performances, but the play asks much more of the actor playing Catherine, and Ayo absolutely killed it.

(I’m trying to work on not being mean, but I did go to YouTube to look at Gwyneth Paltrow’s performance in the movie. And it’s…a lot of yelling. Without being too mean to Her Goopness, let me just say it’s a performance that’s not even in the same league as the one I saw on Sunday. And she presumably had multiple takes!)

The only quibble I had was with the play itself because “character seeing and talking to a dead loved one” was a hoary cliché when the play premiered in 2000, and it’s fundamentally a lie about grief because the hard thing about grief is the dead person’s sudden and complete absence from your life.

But that’s not the fault of this production, which is fantastic.

The family at the center of the story is played by Black actors, and this didn’t really have an impact on my interpretation of the story, but you know what it did affect? The composition of the audience. I don’t go to a ton of Broadway shows, but I know that the conventional “wisdom” is that people of color don’t really go to high-profile Broadway plays like this. Well, they certainly do if you cast fantastic actors of color in lead roles! I’m just sayin’!

Today we’re having an iced tea, and before you start questioning my drink choices. at least im not drinking a pissed drink and by that i mean coffee. and by we i meant me and i only. Not the fancy hot tea cup as always because im feeling like a fire flame with the weather these days. And I love it. i have nothing to talk about which is clear from the way i started this. talking about ice tea. but something about today wasn’t normal. i slept while i was showering and had that dream again. the ghost woman with her navy dress. i woke up in a bath full of my own blood, which was unpleasant to deal with, considering I don’t remember earning any injuries, but it was just her with her gun again or whatever she had this time. i dont know if she wants to leave me alive or to suffocate me slowly. and ive never ever slept while i was showering, guess that would be an interesting note to tell my therapist. havent mentioned the navy dressed woman to her would definitely have me into a new pill recipe or whatever.

I got gifted White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky. not my usual type of book, which is obvious from the fact that nobody appears to be dead. Still, i'll give it a chance. stranger things have happened to me than reading a book i wouldn't normally pick.

Sincerely, Ahmed

Any non Brits want to know what it is like living in the UK right now? You woke up a few days ago to find this guy called Andy Burnham all over every news stream. Who is this guy? Why has every-single-fucking news station started glorifying this guy? Not even my friends, family, coworkers or the guy walking his dog knows who he is.

A couple days pass and our pathetic excuse of a PM has decided to resign. You know, the guy who swore he would fight to the very end only a week or two ago? Yes.. he's quit. And now all talks are about Burnham replacing him. Excuse me, what?

Welcome to the drama show of United Kingdom politics. It is like they don't even hide it anymore.

Photos of two leading U.S. political figures are now available for download from the TechNewsLit portfolio at the Alamy photo agency, former vice-president Mike Pence, top, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. (Sort on “most recently uploaded” to quickly find the newer photos.)

Pence, who served as V.P. during Donald Trump’s first term, spoke to a full house at the National Press Club on 15 June about his conservative philosophy. He says that philosophy traces directly back to 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and the later presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Pence says he spells out that history in his new book, “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience”, on display during his National Press Club talk. Yet he barely mentioned his key role on 6 Jan. 2021 that allowed the electoral college process to play out and certify the election of Joe Biden as president, despite Trump’s demands and audible threats from rioters storming the Capitol.

Sanders, officially an independent who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate, spoke to another full house at National Press Club on 8 June. He gave his now-familiar stump speech reflecting his self-described socialist philosophy, pointing out the damage caused by growing economic inequality in the U.S. and continuing need for universal, single-payer health care.

In his talk and later Q&A, Sanders described proposed legislation to create a sovereign wealth fund with proceeds from a 50 percent stake in artificial intelligence or A.I. companies, which he justifies as payments for the companies using materials without permission copyrighted by the U.S. government, to train their algorithms. He also introduced legislation calling for a moratorium on new data centers that provide processing power for A.I., until stronger safeguards are in place.

In both the Pence and Sanders appearances, the speakers were interviewed by CBS News correspondent Robert Costa. Photos of Costa and Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman are also recently added to the TechNewsLit collection of media and business leaders.

Copyright © Technology News and Literature. All rights reserved.

When I was a kid, my neighbour and I found a goat carcass in the forest.

It’d been picked clean revealing the white skull which we brought back home to my grandmother

We wanted to show it to her

Apparently it was one of her dead goats she’d pulled into the forest herself,

And we’d pulled it back, (partially)

Probably it couldn’t be buried properly in the frozen grounds, and there was no room in the freezer

She really loved her goats.

I didn’t think about it being one of her goats, it was just a skull with horns and teeth

I don’t remember how she reacted when she saw it or why we did it, but I remember the pungent stench of death on my mittens

They threw them away

The UK is currently up in arms over the rape gang enquiry – 250,000+ women and girls as young as 11 have been systemically raped by mostly Pakistani Muslim gangs. What can I say? As a white British man with kids and rather conservative views, you might be surprised to hear my reaction is not deport, deport, deport...

I have strong alignment with what JD Vance recently said on The Diary of a CEO which is, fast immigration is never a good thing. Not enough time to assimilate, adapt, build relations, supply jobs, supply care etc. Correct immigration takes time and especially needs time to adjust for the culture shift. Now I'm not exactly pro immigration, as I said, I'm quite conservative, but I can't stand the narrative that every Muslim is partaking in some nation wide raping – especially when the enquiry clearly highlights the British support and health services equally to blame!

I do believe the 'Pakistani' factor is at play more over the 'Muslim' factor. I have met many Muslims and I think every single one was nothing but pleasant with me. More so than the English. So much so that when I came to faith in a higher power, I first turned to Islam because of how well the Muslims treated me day-to-day. I did however become Christian for reasons I can tell another day. The point is, I don't think Muslims are this plague of raping monsters which some media personalities seem to suggest.

I will admit that I think our nation has lost it's identity. Call it consequences of the middle east wars or the woke agenda but, it is safe to say that England has lost it's identity and it feels Muslim communities are filling that identity. I don't think Muslims are “taking over” but I do think their sense of community is becoming so vast that English people feel threatened. Every nation should have an identity and if it is lost then something will replace it.

Regardless, the people who partook in these crimes and especially the ones in power who knew but did nothing need to face the full swing of the law – my hopes on that matter are minimal to be truthful.

Freundinnen & Freunde der Weisheit! Diese Woche etwas verspätet, die Hitze fordert ihren Tribut. Diese Woche befassen wir uns mit unserer Persönlichkeit und wie stark wir sie formen können.

Viele Menschen wünschen sich, gelassener, gewissenhafter oder kontaktfreudiger zu sein. Die psychologische Forschung zeigt: Unsere Persönlichkeit ist formbar – aber nur bis zu einem gewissen Grad. Zwar bestimmen genetische Anlagen zu einem grossen Teil, wie wir ticken. Doch auch unser Umfeld, unsere Erfahrungen und bewusste Entscheidungen prägen mit, wer wir sind – und wer wir werden können.

Psychologinnen und Psychologen unterscheiden dabei fünf zentrale Persönlichkeitsmerkmale: emotionale Stabilität, Extraversion, Offenheit, Gewissenhaftigkeit und soziale Verträglichkeit. Diese „Big Five“ sind keine festen Kategorien, sondern Kontinua – man kann also durchaus an einer Eigenschaft arbeiten, ohne sich grundlegend zu verändern. Studien belegen, dass gezielte Übungen wie Tagespläne, kleine Mutproben oder sogenannte Wenn-Dann-Pläne (z. B. „Wenn ich auf der Party allein bin, spreche ich jemanden an“) dabei helfen können, gewünschte Eigenschaften zu stärken. Voraussetzung ist jedoch: Die Veränderung muss aus einem inneren Antrieb heraus erfolgen – nicht aus gesellschaftlichem Druck.

Besonders gut lassen sich Eigenschaften wie Extraversion oder Gewissenhaftigkeit beeinflussen. Andere wie Offenheit oder Verträglichkeit sind tiefer verankert – oft durch kulturelle oder familiäre Prägungen – und lassen sich nur schwer und meist nur mit Unterstützung verändern. Entscheidend ist dabei weniger der Wunsch nach einem Idealbild als vielmehr die Frage: Was tut mir gut? In welchen Situationen möchte ich mich anders verhalten – und warum?

Letztlich geht es nicht darum, sich neu zu erfinden, sondern sich besser kennenzulernen. Persönlichkeit verändert sich nicht über Nacht, sondern schrittweise – ähnlich wie ein Muskel, der durch Training wächst. Und sie verändert sich nachhaltiger, wenn Entwicklung und Selbstakzeptanz Hand in Hand gehen. Wer sich unter permanentem Optimierungsdruck verbiegt, läuft Gefahr, sich selbst zu verlieren. Veränderung braucht deshalb mehr als Methoden – sie braucht Mass und Sinn.

Denkanstoss zum Wochenbeginn

„Alle Unruhe im Menschen entspringt aus der Phantasie.“ – Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

ProductivityPorn-Tipp der Woche: Klare Strukturen für Meetings

Meetings sind oft Zeitfresser. Setze klare Agenden, halte sie so kurz wie möglich und stelle sicher, dass am Ende jeder weiss, was zu tun ist.

Aus dem Archiv: Vier Worte und ein Notizbuch – für einen besseren Schlaf

Wer kennt das nicht: Es ist drei Uhr morgens, draussen ist alles still – nur im eigenen Kopf herrscht Hochbetrieb. Gedanken kreisen, Aufgabenlisten wachsen, verpasste Chancen und ungeklärte Fragen drängen sich auf. An Schlaf ist kaum noch zu denken. Solche Nächte sind keine Seltenheit – sie gehören für viele Menschen zum Alltag. Doch muss man diesem inneren Film wirklich tatenlos zusehen?

weiterlesen …

Vielen Dank, dass Du Dir die Zeit genommen hast, diesen Newsletter zu lesen. Ich hoffe, die Inhalte konnten Dich inspirieren und Dir wertvolle Impulse für Dein (digitales) Leben geben. Bleib neugierig und hinterfrage, was Dir begegnet!

EpicMind – Weisheiten für das digitale Leben „EpicMind“ (kurz für „Epicurean Mindset“) ist mein Blog und Newsletter, der sich den Themen Lernen, Produktivität, Selbstmanagement und Technologie widmet – alles gewürzt mit einer Prise Philosophie.

Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet. Das Artikel-Bild wurde mit ChatGPT erstellt und anschliessend nachbearbeitet.

Topic #Newsletter

My phone battery is getting very dangerously low and so I’m going to this quickly say this out loud. I hosted another game night tonight and even though the turnout wasn’t huge, we had 10 people and so we were able to play a couple games. I also asked people to bring snacks and I felt like most of the people were very grateful to be there to be invited, and I didn’t feel like I was just an organizer that doesn’t get to participate. Because of that I’m very grateful. I also got to play a lot of the games because a friend offered to host them as a storyteller and that made it a lot more fun for me.

I used to write. I used to read without a schedule and a goal. I used to look younger. I used to not think about aging except as a means for opportunity and change. I used to go to concerts alone and freely. I used to watch movies, I mean, films. I used to kiss boys on streets outside of noisy bars. I used to drink, I mean really drink. I used to be sad all the time. I used to have short hair. I used to wax my bush. I used to wear red lipstick every day. I used to have jean shorts. I used to care more. I used to care less.

Conspiracies are real and many are admitted to well after the fact. Humanity is funny with time. Seems most forget, don’t care, or live in denial about the myriad of conspiracies that are slowly revealed over time. In general governments around the world do not care all that much about their subjects. Democide (the killing of people by their government) has been a major cause of human casualties. It’s estimated that 170 to 360 million people have been killed by democide in the 20th century alone. Click here for some details. I believe the number to be vastly higher, but you would need to include things like health problems due to bad policies, laws, and immunities created by governments – like industrial waste, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural chemicals.

The USA empire is on the decline, slowly unraveling and collapsing. In general the decline of the west has been in motion a very long time, you could maybe even say with the slow fall of the Roman empire. More recently the British empire really started to unwind after WWI and ramped up its decline during and after WWII with the USA squiggling into that position of world ruler which has lasted till now and is still trying to stay in a dominant position.

If you are a conspiracy theory denialist versus a conspiracy theory realist I’d recommend considering this. At a very basic level isn’t every election cycle around the world full of conspiring men and women vying for a position of power? They have a team that talks behind closed doors making plans to usurp power. Isn’t this a conspiracy? And at a deeper and more disturbing level what are these things listed below if not a conspiracy that actually took place in history only later to be revealed? And if those things happened then, why would you think governments around the world are not acting in a conspiratorial manner today? Are the governments around the world far superior now than they were in the past? Is your government a trustworthy moral and ethical beacon of light? What about the secret agencies? Do they have your best interest at heart?

Here is a very small list of conspiracies that have been been validated as conspiracy fact to a significant degree. With this list here I recommend you digging in further if you don’t know much about it. I’m just going to give a basic Wikipedia link to get you started. Not the best source in my opinion, but a good enough starting point. It’s worth digging much deeper into this stuff if you have any interest.

• Operation Gladio
• Operation Sea-Spray
• Tuskegee Syphilis Study
• A bunch of unethical human experiments performed around the world
• USS Liberty (it was intentional, there are many good documentaries on this)
• Sinking of the RMS Lusitania
• Here is a great short 24 minute video on the topic of false flag conspiracy events that have taken place to bring nations into war.

In my view conspiracies abound and we will likely never know the true extent of what is happening behind the scenes. Likely some of the current conspiracies will come into view in the future. That is the pattern of the past. A recent declassification dump with help from resigning DNI Tulsi Gabbard shows some of the shady behind the scenes of the COVID conspiracy (click here to download the PDF) see note 1 on page 70 for starters). Maybe a ramp up on the release of conspiracy facts will speed up as the empire crumbles. Many of the current big agenda conspiracies are already in the open. Groups like the WEF (World Economic Forum), Trilateral Commission, and the United Nations lay out their agendas for the public to watch and read. The overall narrative is that we need a “multi-polar order.” Along side this shifting of powers we also need to lower the world population and apply sustainable development goals. Here is a link to an in depth article on the subject of the multi-polar ideas I very much appreciated:

Multipolarity As World Government 3.0 & Its Pied Pipers

Part of these agendas are that the United States hegemony, or dominance pulling the world into its way of life and order, needs to be lessened. Part of the problem I believe is the mythology of the USA. Many of the subjects in that nation seem to actually believe that their voice matters, that they are in control. This myth is based on the words of the founders of that nation, their constitution, and the “Bill of Rights” which are the first ten amendments to that constitution. I believe that this is sort of a nuisance to the elitists who desire to control and dominate all of mankind. The ilk that think of the common man as “useless eaters” like Yuval Noah Harari with the WEF. Yuval would like AI to be our new sovereign with people being the subjects. Another example of the elitist mentality is prince Philip, he would love to be reincarnated as a virus to kill mankind. Search these things up in your favorite search engine, it's easy to find. These type of people are extremely callused toward humanity and want depopulation. Many of the elitists are very excited for this AI revolution that is taking place. They are in a position that they really don’t need people anymore… At least they don’t need very many of them. White collar jobs are rapidly being replaced by AI. A person skilled with utilizing AI can do the job of 10 or more people. And it seems fairly soon LBM’s (large behavioral models) will begin to replace the blue collar jobs. Basic human cognition can now be emulated to such a degree that admired thinkers, at least admired in the Darwinian atheistic world, think AI is more human than it is. For example, Richard Dawkins is even duped into thinking of an AI chat bot as fully conscious (see here). If you are an elitist that desires to have complete control over all of the common folk, truly complete control and dominance – then how can the common man think that he has rights given by our Creator? The people would need to be subjects to something, and give over those unalienable rights. And how can that happen if a nation full of people who really think they are part of the “we the people” ruling class with those unalienable rights be the dominant top dog? The people have already given up their rights and are subjects to the federal government, but that is a topic for another day. The point is that they still think they are free, have power, and are “we the people.” The belief of that alone is a hurdle of sorts to the elitists.

So I believe there is a concerted effort in place right now to dismantle the USA empire. I believe that is what the Ukraine war has been about, that is what Venezuela was about, and that is what Iran is all about. Ukraine has been a testing bed in new modern warfare with drones. It’s a proxy war for the NATO and the USA to test Russia. I believe behind the scenes it has been a dumping ground to lower the stockpile of weaponry from the west while building up Russia and her allies. As they learn how to defeat the western weapons they will be prepared for the potential full blown WWIII which is the last resort and might never take place. I believe we are already in WWIII but it is primarily a PSYOP war. It may build up to a full blown world war event with the chance of nuclear exchange. But for now there are major games being played. The multi-polar world order is being built up, and the USA empire is being torn down. It may ramp up and finish up very quickly and it may be a slow process. A lot is in order and beginning to function to help survive a sudden collapse of the USA and the west (like BRICS).

This is a huge topic which I could go on and on and on with. And maybe I will, but it should probably be spread out over time. I’d like to suggest a couple possible ideas with what is happening with Iran. I suspect that Venezuela was pretty much done by the CIA. They had it all lined up for an easy “victory” for Trump. This would stroke his fragile ego and prep him to go after Iran. Trump literally may have thought that it would be just as easy, and maybe that’s why he had little hesitation to go for it and talked as if it would be all over in a couple weeks or less. I suspect that behind the scenes, those handlers or puppeteers pulling the strings knew that it would not be so easy. I believe the Iran conflict in historic hindsight will be seen as a major blunder that exposed the weakness of the USA empire and a major component of it being dethroned. And I believe that was part of the overall intent behind this conflict. With that exposure it will help further the unraveling of the USA empire’s grip around the world. With all the big talk from the USA it sure doesn’t look like they won anything in Iran. They blew some things up and killed people, but none of the stated objectives the USA laid out in the beginning was accomplished. The USA blockaded the blockade, and now it may open back up. Victory!!! Or wait, was that the objective? I really don’t think the USA can beat Iran, and if they really tried they might trigger WWIII and completely lose. I don’t think Iran can beat the USA, unless all it means to win is survive the attacks of the USA – which they have. But in a WWIII situation if Russia and China and others went up against the west I think there is a decent chance that the USA would be destroyed. I don’t expect this MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) between the Trump (USA) and Pezeshkian (Iran) to result in a finalized binding agreement – but I think it has a chance. I really hope it does lead to a final agreement, I’m tired of war and death. Israel is tied to this deal, and Israel seems hard to reign in. Once they start blowing things up they have a difficult time stopping. And if Israel does keep on blowing things up (especially in Lebanon) it may obliterate the deal. It seems to me that Israel wants the USA and Iran to continue fighting, so why would they stop bombing Lebanon? Perhaps behind the scenes that is exactly what is desired. This might just be another stalling tactic before more bombing exchanges. Perhaps they just want another “forever war” going on while dismantling the old world order. The political national celebrity news can keep everyone busy thinking about war, deals, blockades, and other dramas while the big dogs continue their attempts at a technocratic world domination. Which likely includes data-centers for the digital surveillance state, digital ID’s, digital currency, and more. And after enough chaos they can drag everyone into the multi-polar world order.

Check out the MoU for yourself, to me it looks like a major defeat on the part of the USA:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/17/trump-us-iran-memorandum-of-understanding-mou-deal-read-full-text/

The depopulation efforts are working. If they rapidly killed off everyone in war there might be another “baby boomer” situation. Another thing learned from psychological reprogramming of people, or brainwashing, is that fear works better than actual pain. So keeping people scared of potential WWIII and nuclear war might help bring people where desired better than actual painful and brutal WWIII. What they want to do is domesticate the human herd. All of the so-called advanced nations are not breeding. Heavy propaganda from birth is pushing people away from having children. So as the multi-polar order comes into being the aim is to get all the third world nations in the same situation. If this works then we will reach max earth population before the year 2100 and have a rapid decline as people die off and aren’t replaced. I think they’d like to speed up the death and might, but I don’t think they have to for massive depopulation. They just have to keep doing what they are doing and penetrate their ideology into the nations with high birth rates. That is why one of the biggest concerns the elitists had during the COVID scam was that we need everyone on the internet, and with digital ID. Everyone on the internet so they can be hit with heavy propaganda, and everyone with digital ID so they can be tracked more efficiently.

Some aspects of the NWO (New World Order) or multi-polar world order sound decent. The devil is in the details and sometimes you need to read between the lines. If you want to read some of this directly from the source here are some resources:

The Great Reset

Agenda 21

Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development

Internet of Bodies

Anyways, have a lovely day! Don’t stress too much about all of this. Plant a tree, read a book, hang out with a cow, build a barn, make a burrito. Life is great and the creation is awesome – the false authorities and their constructs not so much.

I just finished the interior layout of my debut novel that will be coming out in November, The Lost Text of the Omen Bird, which was a more complicated endeavor than the typical work of fiction. The book is framed as the recovered logs of an ancient civilization, and makes extensive use of their language and the script I developed for writing it.

I'll admit, I did kind of pull a Tolkien with this one: I wrote the language first, and part of my motivation for writing this book was to create more space for that language to live. It's one of three languages I created within this universe, which is my most fully developed sandbox and one I've used for other stories (and plan to use for more). Of the three languages I’ve written, the one used in The Lost Text of the Omen Bird is the closest to functional. It's still definitely a work in progress, but it has a full set of grammar rules and a dictionary of around 3,000 words. I haven't fully learned my own language to the point that I could speak it off the cuff, but I have translated things into it and—while I do occasionally still stumble across things I haven't figured out have to say yet, and have to stop and fill in those gaps in the language before I can keep going—it does function in that sense.

I'm the kind of person that tends to learn things best by doing them. Probably the process would've been a lot faster and easier if I'd taken a class in how to write languages from the start, and I'm sure there are tons of options out there for people who want that more formalized kind of entry point. But for other folks like me, who get a kick out of the learning process itself and aren't in a rush to “finish” the language, here are some rough steps you can take and some resources that can help you out at each stage.

Really, actually learn English.

Some of you might already be ahead of the game here, if you actually really paid attention during English class or have a job like an English teacher or a professional editor. But most people, even those who write for a living and know how to write correct sentences, don't fully understand the official rules of the English language. Someone who's a native speaker of a language picks up knowledge of its rules through use and repetition. They can point to a sentence and tell you whether it's right or wrong, but not necessarily why.

I made my first attempts at writing a language before I worked as an editor, when I was one of those writers who knew how English basically worked but hadn't fully studied its architecture. Once I started trying to think about the language beyond just building its vocabulary, my lack of deep grammar knowledge was a definite roadblock.

If you need a refresher on rules of the English language, the first resource I'd recommend you use is the good old Elements of Style. It's not that long and it's written in pretty straightforward language, so you don't need to be a linguist to understand the concepts it's talking about. Now, because it's fairly short, Strunk & White doesn't cover every single detail of the language that you might need to think about when you're writing your own language. For deeper exploration of English grammar, there are a couple of excellent free online resources:

• Purdue Owl – A comprehensive and easy to search guide to various grammar concepts
• Khan Academy – Website that offers free courses in a range of subjects, including a very thorough one on grammar

Studying resources like this can help you clarify exactly why certain grammar rules function the way they do, along with the specific terminology for grammatical concepts. That's not something that's important for most daily users, so it's easy to forget, but once you're trying to write your own language it's helpful to know what to call grammatical concepts so you can research different ways to approach them.

Study some other languages.

Studying other natural languages (those that originated organically and are used in the real world) can be useful as a conlanger for a few reasons. For one, it gives you experience with what it's like to learn a new language from scratch. This is useful practice in building the foundations of a language in your brain, something you'll need to replicate if you're writing your own. It also gives you some exposure to alternate approaches to language, aside from what you'll find in English, which can help you to envision how you might want to structure things.

You don't necessarily need to become fluent in another language to learn from it. In fact, it can be more helpful to get a baseline introduction to a few different languages, taking a kind of general survey of how different cultures have approached their communication system.

Some useful free resources to learn about different languages include:

• Duolingo – a free language learning app that has a wide range of languages to choose from
• Omniglot – an online encyclopedia of languages and writing systems, that can give you a basic introduction and further reading resources for a huge variety of different languages
• 7,000 Languages – language learning classes and information on endangered languages. Currently its courses are primarily focused on indigenous American languages, though they have plans to expand as they develop more courses
• Open Culture – a website with free learning resources on a variety of topics, including several focused on language learning. Resources are listed for over 45 different languages currently

It can also be useful to check out some constructed languages that other people have already created and see how they approached it. A couple of those resources listed above can also be tools for learning about conlangs, including Duolingo (which has courses in Klingon, High Valyrian, and Esperanto) and Omniglot, which has info on several constructed scripts.

Here are some other resources to learn about constructed languages:

• Toki Pona – A simple constructed language with its own script that is an excellent model for a simple, easily learnable conlang
• Esperanto – The most popular constructed language worldwide, Esperanto has its own organization (Universala Esperanto-Asocio) that organizes a yearly conference.
• The Klingon Language Institute – One of the most popular fictional conlangs, Klingon speakers also have their own annual meeting, along with language learning resources and other info on their website
• Ardalambion – An established resource for information on Tolkien's languages
• Tolkien Gateway – A fan-created Wiki focused on Tolkien's universe, it also has some fairly detailed information on many of the languages used in the world

This obviously isn't a comprehensive list of existing constructed languages (I wrote another blog post in the past with info on a few other ones that have been created throughout history), but these are among the most well-known constructed languages, and can be a good starting foundation if you're just getting into things.

Get some insight from the pros.

There are a few big names in the conlanging world who are good people to look into if you're interested in getting into it yourself. One of these is Mark Rosenfelder, a linguist and conlanger who has written a few different books on the subject worth checking out.

Another well-known conlanger is David J. Peterson , who's created languages for a lot of TV shows including Game of Thrones. He also has a YouTube series, The Art of Language Invention, that's worth a watch for conlangers, and wrote a book by the same name that's become one of the most oft-cited texts for modern conlangers to learn the craft.

Peterson was also one of the founders of the Language Creation Society, a global organization for conlangers that can be another helpful resource. The “Conlanger's Library” portion of their website is a great place to check for books, articles, and other resources to help you write languages.

Other potentially helpful resources

If you're planning to write your own original script for the language, turning it into a font lets you use it much more easily. I use FontStruct to do this, and it's served me well thus far. There are other free tools out there you can use to do the same thing, too, like FontForge and Glyphr Studio, so there are a few different ways you can go about turning your script into a font that you can type in. With FontStruct, you assign each keystroke to a specific symbol that you create within the interface, then you can export it as a True-Type Font that you can install on any computer.

You can also use online tools for building your language's dictionary. I'm a bit old-school here, and I still have my languages just saved in Word documents. A Google Doc or word processor is a functional way to organize your words, though arguably not the most efficient. If you want to give your language an actual codified, searchable dictionary, you can use the open-source Lexonomy platform to create one for free.

As a last word, remember that other folks who also write languages can be one of your best resources, especially if you're trying to do something that's very different from existing languages. There aren't really any hard-and-fast rules when it comes to writing languages, which is awesome from a creativity standpoint but also means you don't necessarily have a clear roadmap to follow when you're doing it. You'll find forums and Discords on a lot of those websites I linked to. There's also at least one subreddit (r/conlangs), and are plenty of similar groups across the vast expanse that is social media and the internet at large. Joining a community of fellow conlangers can be helpful for ideas and problem solving (plus a chance to geek out with fellow language nerds).

See similar posts:

#Conlangs #Worldbuilding