Enabling Thoughts on Dune

Maybe this could be the real sand worm of Paul Herbert's Dune. That and other random tangential thoughts could form the bulk of a networked corpus of knowledge, understanding, and analysis of classics. When I consider that, I wonder, why even care? I feel as small and insignificant as these sand worms.

Outside of academia, as it is often said, no one cares you know iambic pentameter. Or maybe I just repeat that in my head. I don't find validation in my art from perfectionism, or some misperceived notion of it. I often find the sharper I point my pencil, the more likely certain perspectives cause it to splinter. I think that can be said for most of my adventures gone awry. I misunderstand the "objective function" of the situation and yield to a flawed "subjective function." Which is to say, I act emotionally without understanding my emotions in order to achieve something I never really cared about in the first place.

Talk about a headless chicken.

Perfectionism knocked on the door and the Completionist answered. They could agree on a satisfactory course of action, but couldn't find the infinite time they needed to get it done. It would be great to have a knowledge map of all the references, insights, and metaphysics of Dune, but that's all it is. Great to have. It doesn't impinge on a survival narrative, unless you stretch some absurd economic incentive, which I guess in some ways is what I'm trying to do. If enough people support my hyperfixations on art and culture, does it justify trying to find something worthwhile in edge-case minutiae?

Is it worth honing the perfect blade, the perfect weapon? I would love tokens (since I hate the term NFT, I'll coin UFT) or ultra-fungible tokens. These tokens would be an artifact or symptom of being a participant stakeholder in a community, but that's beside the point. These knowledge graphs would be Metaverse "katana," in a self-referential, self-motivated economic framework. I think that's the soul of what I'm trying to reconcile.

Organizations like Gumroad and Patreon try to help artists by enabling their hustle. It's a way to stay alive, albeit on a razor's edge. There's not space for narrowly fixating on a niche with no discernable end in sight.

That's what I loved about Ready Player One. Wade, the novel's mega-geek protagonist, exploited game design while the games exploited Wade design. He was able to solve VR challenges because he memorized the lines of his favorite movie, he outmaneuvered AI with relentless practice and frame by frame study, and he won his own luck by repeatedly playing Pac-Man to relax from the stress of his Egg Hunt.

Nothing in this society rewards savant-like idiosyncrasy unless it is immediately exploitable for capital. Rain Man is one such dramatized, but illustrative example. But like Wade, you should be able to do whatever you want and live well for it. Even if it is naive, it ought to be worth striving for.

So I can be a perfectionist, I can be a react-or, I can be an "educational philanthropist" to an uncaring crowd, I can be a philosopher, or I can be part of a community. The frustrating thing is putting the cart before the horse. I'm building a future that depends on the future being built. I am doing what I wish all people to be able to do, but it's terrifying doing that.

Oh well, guess I might just have to do it—

1) Build in public and offer earnest engagements with what one personally finds worthwhile.

2) Demonstrate fulfilling engagement systems (e.g. spaced repetition intervals).

3) Create more and more nodes in this interconnected web that, who knows, someone might enjoy someday.

Questions, anyone? Let's start building together :)