Harbinger Report 7

Today is day 7.

Obviously I meant to be posting more than I am. So that's a failure. On the plus side, I have been getting to bed within a reasonable time every day this week. Staying up a little late on weekends, but able to sleep in as a result.

Results of my caffeine side have been good as well. I have purchased no energy drinks. I have imbibed no energy drinks. I have not made use of the coffee dispenser at work. I have had tea, black tea, but tea or I have had hot cocoa. I had two lapses. I split an existing Energy Shot containing about 200 mg of caffeine between Monday and Tuesday morning wake-ups. Which I think is not unreasonable. Not ideal, but not unreasonable. Late last week I also had a can of Coca-Cola. But given Coca-Cola has approximately 50 milligrams of caffeine per can, I am not concerned on that case. The nutrition front has likewise been going well. My wife has wholeheartedly embraced this idea, and between the two of us we have managed to eat some vegetables with every meal, and a certain amount of fiber with every meal. We are relying heavily upon frozen meals, but nonetheless are eating better than we previously had been.

I have not been prioritizing exercise, because one can't prioritize everything. I do the temps in New York state School fitness challenge. It's apparently requires 57 sit ups in a set and 40 pushups in a set, which is kind of astonishing when I think about the physical maturity of the kids trying this. And a toe touch, but that one was not difficult. I managed in the midst 30s 4 sit-ups and the mid-twenties for push-ups. This is disappointing as previously I can do sets of 100 floating sit-ups and sets of 40 pushups to multiple sets. So obviously I have some work regaining what has been lost. On the plus side I have started walking a larger portion of my commute again moving from a one kilometer walk, up to a 3 and 1/2 kilometer walk. I would like to get back into my runs, but I'm not going to add another priority to an already lifestyle change intensive month. The results of the distinct possibility that the weather will turn icy and slushy very soon, it being November. So I have been seriously considering turning November and December and January into strength training months, and perhaps flexibility and yoga training months. The latter being significant as I do have arthritis to manage.

On the progress side, I am seeing noticeable results. I am not exhausted throughout the day any longer. Daylight saving time has messed with my schedule a little bit, and I suppose I should have accounted for that. I am waking up at 3 a.m. ahead of my alarm clock buy some 2 hours. Given the previous I was waking at 5, I would have expected that daylight saving time would push my Rising to 4 not 3 a.m. I suspect it is because I'm actually getting sufficient sleep and my body is feeling sufficiently rested earlier than it would have otherwise. I am making a point to sleep until my alarm goes off at 5, even if it means going back to bed repeatedly after waking up feeling ready. I know I have a sleep debt, and I know I need to deal with that.

Psychological energy is also returning, previously I had trouble watching anything a fictional nature. Getting emotionally involved in any sort of plot was too much for me. I retreated to documentaries and other things that were psychologically antiseptic and sterile. My wife and I are not working our way to the second season of stranger things, and I am not finding myself emotionally exhausted the way I did when we pushed through the first season, as much as I did enjoy it. This is only one weekend, but the physical and emotional improvements are noticeable have been relatively Swift and dramatic. So I suppose, steady on and stay the course.

The Harbinger Report 1

So today is officially day one of my first solar month on the harbinger project. I was up a little bit later last night that I meant to. But of course yesterday was last month and so I was allowed by the rules I set for myself. Given that this month the priority is regaining energy, by reclaiming sleep and nutrition primarily, I was concerned that staying up late the night before I started would have an impact on getting up on time on the first day. Thankfully this did not prove to be the case. I was up on time showered by 5:30 a.m. and had my dogs walked and myself out the door by 6:30 a.m.

My day job was my day job. We do not speak of that here. I did not meditate on my lunch break. I did not nap on my lunch break. I wrote towards my national novel writing month word count on my lunch break.

I did manage to get a reasonable amount of greens today. Having a Caesar salad with lunch, the vegetarian pasta option for lunch, and a whole pile of carrots with my breakfast. I had only two cups of black tea, English breakfast style, for my caffeine intake for the day. I walked from my work to the SkyTrain, adding an extra kilometer to my daily walk. All told I believe I walked roughly 3 kilometers today. Not very far, but more substantial than than I normally would using a Transit commute.

I plan to purchase bananas later this evening to increase both potassium and fiber intake during the remainder of the month. These updates and November are going to be the least two dramatic training montage ever. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

The Harbinger Report T-Minus 2 Days

Welcome to the Harbinger Report.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwwpqAOXF57ZYnVZb3hyTTJFdWc

Fictional Revelations: October 2017

This is Fictional Revelations, a half assed attempt at a podcast, hosted by Professor Harbinger and Captain Slithery. Here we talk about stories and myth and tropes. This month: Halloween and Scary Movies and Awesome, Dear Boy!

Listen to the Podcast

 

Note: The link may not be working. I will split it into smaller files shortly.

A closer look at the Wendigo

All monsters begin as something mundane. The fractal begins with simple rules, and then spirals out into something more, and sometimes, something much worse. The origins of the Giants are unknown to the Psychonauts, but the origins of the Wendigo are not. The Wendigo were once human.  

The Wendigo are what happens when the hunger of the Grey Locust is left wild and uncontained by the Locust King and the constraints that the Grey places upon the Hungry Empire in an attempt to maintain its cold order.   

The hunger drives them, and in the early stages they still seem human.  

The Stillborn  

From a distance, one might mistake the Stillborn for people. Up close, the mistake is unlikely. The Stillborn's skill has gone white and chalky, and clouds of dry skin cells explode around them with sudden movements. Their eyes have gone milky blue-white and the skin has tightened all across the face to give the eyes a sunken look. The Stillborn's hair has bleached to translucent silver and seems to defy gravity, floating about the skull like an unholy halo.   

The Stillborn still speak, but their language is unintelligible to any non-wendigo. They have their own culture and mythology, those none who understand it are able to transmit it back to those who still understand human speech. The path to hunger is nearly always a one way journey.   

The Hungry Ghost  

As the body is consumed by the hunger, the Stillborn go from emaciated to truly skeletal, with skin stretched so tightly of bone and sinew that they could be mistaken for desiccated corpses if they choose to remain still. The teeth sharpen and elongate and the eyes decompose completely in the head, replaced by cold blue lights. At this point, the Wendigo is known as a Hungry Ghost. The Hungry Ghost, like the Stillborn army, still physically eat. However, they no longer attempt to cook their food, and seem unable to digest it- as the food sits inside their huge distended bellies.   

The Ravener  

The final state of deterioration. The Wendigo's head is now a skull with glowing eyes, resembling nothing so much as the terrible love child of an elk and a bear. Carnivores teeth poke out of a herbivore's jaw. A predator's eyes sit uneasy in the skull of a prey animal. What skin remains is ragged and wispy and flutters in the slightest breeze. The Ravener is an animate skeleton that glows with a cold blue light. The body of the skeleton too is twisted, elongated and ape-like, but with the hooves of an ungulate, the ribcage and fore paws of a polar bear, and bizarre protrusions extending from the individual vertebra of the spinal column.      

The Recurrence of the Tower

Whether its the Tower of Retribution in Berserk or Kami's Watch Tower in Dragon Ball, The Tower of Babel in Ancient myth or the New Tower of Babel in the film Metropolis, The Dark Tower quoted in King Lear or the Dark Tower in the works of Stephen King; no matter the form of the story, epic tales grow towers like damp houses grow mold.

 

The Inverse Mentalism Principle

Hermetic Principle 1 - Mentalism
“Everything is mental; the Universe is a mental creation of the All.”
~ The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus

This is of course vastly inaccurate. Universe is entirely physical, and the mind, which is to say the mental Dimension, arises out of the physical. But all human interaction with the physical is entirely bounded by the mental. Everything is not mental in nature, but we cannot interact with the universe without pretending that it is.

Through magic we play with the universe, lying to ourselves so that we can use those lies as a useful way to interact with the vast mystery outside of our comprehension.