what is the meaning of life and what is life, anyway? a mathematical approach

a philosophical essay by a mathematician / computer scientist / rock drummer on the limits of binary logic and decision trees, the basic concepts of truth and trust, the mathematical meaning of paradoxa, what the terms "death" and "eternal youth" mean to me, why anything can be a religion, why surrender is never an option in life and why I'd choose touring with a small band over a career in academia in a heartbeat

foreword

• dear reader, I know pretty darn well that the title sounds very abstruse and you're expecting some new-age conspiracy theory nutjobbery, but bear with me and believe me when I say, what lays ahead is a well-structured (kind of) philosophical essay from an avid student of mathematics and computer science who has spent 6 years lovingly teaching maths, CompSci and LaTeX typesetting and grading homeworks and exams, whose tutorials have always been popular with students and who only quit this job that I loved because students at German universities are only allowed to work there for a maximum of 6 years by law, would've been perfectly fine teaching undergrad tutorials as a side gig for the rest of my life
  • I do private maths / CompSci tutoring though as far as my schedule permits (my main passion is playing music and touring but Zoom teaching can be done from anywhere), check out the "hire me > as a tutor" section on my website where I list the topic and lectures that I have experience teaching, remote or in-person, rates can be discussed in private but money has never been a priority for me so I'd do my very best to accomodate your financial situation

about the author

• hi, everyone! I'm Sora, born 1995.7.14 in Duisburg, Germany and I've been studying mathematics at Ruhr Uni Bochum since 2012 and computer science since 2020
• uni in Germany is a bit more chill than elsewhere, we have "Langzeitstudenten" ("long-term students") as no one really cares when and if you attend lectures, and I'm one of them
  • some programmes have credit requirement deadlines though, and it can be a pain in the arse if you're dependent on financial aid which also requires you to complete your programme with no to little delay
  • the "Regelstudienzeit" ("regular studying time") is unrealistic and fails to factor in the individuality of students. I've heard once that only 1/3 of students finish their bachelor's degree within this timespan
  • many are even only enrolled for the cheap public transport ticket
• but let's talk about my educational background in chronological order
• went to a middle school where the principal was super chill and he was like "you're bored and you're annoying your classmates with your boredom so it's time for you to skip a grade" which led me to finish middle school at 13
  • Klaus Kmiecik, 60ish year old dude, died from cancer a few years after I finished middle school, may he rest in peace, he was such a wonderful and kind person
  • he was always more of a friend than a person of authority to me, I still fondly remember playing blitz chess with him during recess (my classmates thought I was pretty weird for hanging out with the principal but I didn't give a shit)
  • the school's name was "Assnide" derived from the old name of the city of Essen where it was located, it was a private school and has gone out of business a few years ago
    • I know "private school" may sound super elite and bougie to some of you but no worries, my experience was the exact opposite, the school was actually more of a dumping ground for both students and teachers that wouldn't fit in elsewhere and it really wasn't luxurious, we were located in the top floor of an office building
    • I was so hyperactive as a child that I got kicked out of numerous elementary schools, and that private school was the only school other than special education which was ready to take on the challenge of educating a rebel like me who failed to fit in and my single mother was unemployed so the state paid for it
    • what's really ironic about this is that my mother, a teacher of German and English who swore after half a year at a public school to never work as a teacher again in a strange twist of fate became a special ed teacher at the exact special ed school that I would've become a student of if it hadn't been for Assnide and she loves the job because of the small class sizes (5–10 students), but she's planning to retire next year
  • finished with a GPA of 1,5
    • in Germany, 1 is the best and 6 is the worst grade
• was too young for vocational training anyway so after that I went to Mercator-Gymnasium in Duisburg where I did my Abitur (German A-levels equivalent)
  • I was majoring in mathematics and computer science, and had a written exam in Japanese and an oral exam in geography, finished with a GPA of 1,8
    • chose maths and CompSci because those were subjects where only right and wrong were important, not what your teacher thought of you as a person
  • my combination of subjects actually forced me to drop English after grade 11 as German A-level requirements include taking a classical natural science and biology, chemistry or phyiscs; computer science was not considered one of them
    • was kinda sad about that as English was always one of my favourite subjects but figured that my grasp on the language was good enough to not sit through two more years of literature analysis
• originally enrolled at Ruhr Uni Bochum for a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and Japanese language as my plan back then was becoming a teacher for mathematics and Japanese
  • Japanese is the reason I ended up in Bochum instead of Duisburg-Essen, it was the only uni within a small radius to offer a Japanese teaching programme
  • got the recommendation from the mother of a girl who took Japanese with me who was (and probably still is) a lecturer (professor?) for Japanese at RUB
• already had Japanese in school for 3 years and was pretty good at it, did an entrance exam and was placed into 3rd year language classes, still had to take all of the other modules like an overview lecture series held by different professors, classical Japanese and morphosyntax which were fun and very interesting
• went to maths lectures at first but stopped going after a few weeks, didn't feel quite ready to wrap my head around homomorphisms, bijectivity, $\varepsilon,\delta$-continuity and the likes so I concentrated on Japanese and was enjoying it
• after a year I had almost completed my bachelor's degree in Japanese but hadn't done anything for mathematics yet, signed up for the maths exams but didn't go as I figured there was no way I'd learn that much about first-year maths in 2 weeks
  • funnily enough, I took an exam in discrete maths a couple of years later after not attending lectures and picking up the book 2 weeks before the exam, turned out to be a 0,7 (A+), maybe I should've just tried taking those exams back then but I said "fuck it"
• back then around summer of 2013 my plan was to drop mathematics and enrol in an English programme instead
• would've got the placement but missed the deadline to accept so I was stuck with mathematics for at least another semester and decided to give it another chance
• became really good at the maths lectures that I found interesting like (linear) algebra, numerical analysis, discrete maths, number theory, cryptography / cryptanalysis (the non-statistical part) and differential geometry but found myself always taking up and dropping out of lectures that I didn't have too much of an interest in like analysis, statistics and differential equations
  • I don't have an inherent distaste of these topics, I just wasn't cut out for them at the time and I'm planning to revisit them when I'm in the mood for some mathematics, but first on my maths reading list is Gerd Laures' introductory textbook on topology
  • also can really recommend Arthur Mattuck's introductory textbook on analysis, it's very intuitive and not as formalised as many maths textbooks
    • this textbook rekindled my love for maths when I was about to drop out
    • I wrote him an email back in the day asking to be the translator for this book as I felt there needed to be a German translation
    • finished 2 or 3 chapters and then had other things to do and never got back to him, really regret it as he has died 2021.10.8 and I wish he had been alive to hold the translation in his hands, he knew a fair bit of German himself
    • definitely planning on reaching out to his family and university to obtain the remaining .tex sources (he was using plain TeX, not LaTeX) and finish that translation as soon as I find the time, but if someone else does it in the meantime that's totally fine with me
    • I don't care if I am the one to translate it, I just want there to be a translation, and I think I'd still finish my translation anyway as there's absolutely no shame in doing something that's been done before and it would be decicated to Arthur's memory whom I wish I could've said thanks for the major influence he's been on my life even though we hardly knew each other
• as much as I loved mathematics, I was never good at going to lectures and getting shit done as I was always too caught up in taking up new interests, trying to be there for all of my friends and failing miserably, and playing music which is my life-long passion
• nonetheless, I always tended to cram before exams and was actually pretty good at it, just hated the fact that this learning strategy always led to me passing exams with good to excellent marks but forgetting about the things I've studied shortly after the exam
  • passed analysis 3 with a mark of 2,7 even though I had only picked up someone else's lecture notes 3 days before the exam, studied the hell out of it using Anki but didn't find the time to do a single exercise before the exam
  • pointed out some logical flaws and errors in my numerical analysis lecturer's mathematical reasoning, he was very thankful and admitted that he's not an expert on numerical analysis and was only holding that lecture because someone else wasn't
  • always been the guy to point out errors in other lectures as well, especially in data structures, the students sometimes got annoyed but the profs were always glad that someone made them aware of a detail that they had overlooked – to err is human
• didn't do any maths for a year and took Russian classes instead, really wanted to learn the language as I had fallen in love with some of the greats of the Russian emo scene
  • if you like international emo-ish music (post-hardcore / metalcore), check out:
    • Хотел остаться ("I wanted to stay") by medusa'scream
      • more on the "real emo" side of things
    • the entire …и ангелы ошибаются… album by Origami
      • lots of great lyrics on there, provided some of the English translations on LyricsTranslate myself (one even on my birthday but wth not) so others can understand their music, not sure how good those translations are, need to get better at Russian
    • Stigmata's entire catalogue
      • especially their live set they played on Б2, provides a great overview of some of their finest songs
    • Рядом с солнцем by Rashamba
      • BFMV-style metalcore
    • the album 6 by Amatory
      • BMTH-style metalcore
• been a volunteer in the maths students representative committee from 2014ish to 2022, had the greatest time of my life with these guys
  • my first contact with them other than asking questions about studying mathematics at an open-doors event in 2012 was when they became aware of the analysis 1 / 2 script I had posted in our year's Facebook group and always kept up to date with short™️ delays and asked me to become a LaTeX (mathematical typesetting) tutor
    • the prof decided to not provide lecture notes as she expected students to come to the lectures but as a bachelor of arts student with two subjects I knew pretty darn well that this was hella unfair to the people who can't come to lectures and to those who prefer reading books over lectures (I am one of these people) so I shared mine
    • she was pretty pissed when I took the opportunity of standing in front of the blackboard to write the Dropbox link onto the blackboard and quickly wiped it away
  • they asked me if I wanted to join them and I was like "sure, sounds like fun" but I didn't check my emails regularly and it took me about two weeks after the election (which I didn't attend) to figure out that I had already joined them
  • we did all kinds of cool stuff for the students like game nights, free barbecues and beer after the freshers' exams, maths-themed Jeopardy! and a freshers' trip to a community house in Weeze near the Dutch border where the mobile reception is crappy and the new students have no choice but to get to know each other
    • went on the freshers' trip 3 or 4 times, would definitely do it again! lots of awesome memories of playing card games with friends, karaoke and acoustic guitar, warming up tortillas for fajita night and a really cool well thought out activity schedule for the freshers
      • but I used to be the one guy who'd drink over his limit every single time, threw up and passed out on 2 of those trips, I'm so incredibly sorry for how obnoxious I can be when I'm drunk and I'm so grateful to you for putting up with my bullshit
    • I was the one providing the karaoke laptop
      • UltraStar on Manjaro with a rather complete collection of all the SingStar and UltraStar content there is up to 2014, about 500 gigs but there are a lot of duplicates so I'd need to run rmlint on this harddisk soon to either delete or replace the duplicates with hard links and free up some space
        • got the database from someone at KoMa, gonna talk about those awesome guys further below
      • I still remember how positively surprised I was when Pia was searching for Forget Your Heart by Silverstein, a song I didn't have but had the tabs / chords for in my guitar bag
        • the Rescue album means a lot to me, still remember the release date (2011.4.26, my mum's birthday) and have vivid memories of listening to a leak with wrong track ordering the weeks before it was released and transcribing lyrics (some of them wrong, I'm not a native speaker of English, so sorry) and watching those faulty lyrics get copied onto other lyrics sites as well including the Ultimate Guitar full album tab I was using xD
    • but it was always super cold as were usually there in November and December and I'm more of a summer person, had a blast anyway
  • didn't always attend meetings especially when my depressions started to get worse and hated writing protocols but maintained the webpage for them as well as I could, sometimes took me forever to update as I was busy with other things in my life
    • not everyone was happy with that, I still remember the day I showed up late to the election to hear "everyone was reelected… except for Sora", ran out of the building crying that day, later wrote an email explaining that I was incredibly disappointed by the fact that this is the way they chose to deal with things instead of talking to me about the things they were annoyed with and made clear that I was still coming to meetings (they were open to all students), that I was still maintaining the website if no one else wanted to do it and that I won't let those personal issues taint my love for volunteering in the committee
    • luckily had some people in the committee standing with and being there for me (special thanks go out to Fea and Reihe), rejoined them the next semester
  • COVID kinda fucked everything up, we went online and did some events on Discord but it just wasn't the same without the nights of drinking and singing karaoke
    • for tech we used my personal server in the beginning (Mumble, HedgeDoc, CryptPad, LeapChat) but migrated to Discord as this was simply more accessible to the masses
      • still had fun setting up those services, HedgeDoc is super useful for uni work (and is the app I'm writing this in right now, but on their public demo instance) but some dickhole hacked into my server mid-2022 and I just didn't get around to get those services up and running again as I don't need them at the moment but would do it in a heartbeat if someone asked me to
      • from what I can tell kurento was to blame, still got the relevant folders backed up if one of you security analysts wanna take a look at what was going on on my server, I think it had something to do with carding
        • had a .d folder in my / and an archive containing the payload named lan.jpg, have you ever seen this before?
    • we did a digital freshers' "trip" for 2020's new arrivals in early 2021
      • we took many of the usual activities online and added some new stuff like an online escape room
      • Pia looked up a simple recipe for chili con (or sin) carne and we bought all the non-perishable ingredients and snacks and made goodie bags for the students
        • we sent most of them out by mail but delivered some of them ourselves when we could, I still remember cycling 30 miles from Bochum to Duisburg with 40 lbs of goodie bags on my handlebar carrier and delivering them to 4 students along the way, so sorry that the bad roads made the tins of Chocomel crack open and soil everything
      • we cooked it together while Zooming, that was a fun experience, we really did our utmost to make the best out of a bad time
    • 2021's freshers trip was in Weeze again but there were a lot of COVID restrictions but people still connected well and we had a fun trip
    • feel like joining a student representative committee again, but this time it'll be with the CompSci guys. sorry, maths guys, I love every single one of you and mathematics will always be of interest to me but I just don't have as much of a passion for it as I do for computers and programming
      • also, KIF was awesome, more on that below
• in 2014 when everything started become too much for me, I decided to apply for a year abroad, went in 2016/2017
  • went to Durham, UK and had an amazing time there
  • the university is quite renowned and has a collegiate system like in Harry Potter where students are assigned to different houses which form the centre of their community life and where they live during their first year
  • exchange students had to source their own accomodation though, went looking for apartments but only found houseshares so I took a train to Durham and took a tour of some of the houses and decided for 85 Gilesgate aka "The Britannia", a former pub that had been converted into a houseshare, rented out by Bill Free Homes in a worry-free all-fees included package, shoutout to those guys for being great landlords as well!
  • had some amazing memories there including some fomal dinners, events at your college where you'd suit up and enjoy a 3-course menu with your fellow students, many people got pretty zonked there
  • what I loved most about Durham was that there was a society for everything, I joined Origami Soc which met up to fold paper on Sundays and Rock Soc which was a hub for all things heavy music
  • in October or November, Rock Soc held a band networking event where I met the guys from Gecko, a punk band I joined on the drums and who I had the most amazing time of my life with
    • we had only been a band for like 6 months and all of us knew we were going separate ways at the end of the year anyway but we didn't give a shit, all we cared about was writing music and going out there playing shows
    • it was such an awesome feeling when the crowd started singing along to one of our original songs, but half of our sets was covers as well, we played some Arctic Monkeys, Blink-182, Buzzcocks, Beatles, Green Day, Libertines, Only Ones, Last Shadow Puppets and other bands
    • during our short stint as band, we played like 15 gigs as Durham's music scene was super connected and we often had gigs coming up for the same week and always love to played them
    • my favourite venue where we played on multiple occasions must have been Empty Shop, a converted apartment in an old building where live music events were held which sadly closed down a few years ago
    • I still have tons of audio and video files from my Gecko time on my hard drive but by the time I was back in Germany my mental health became so bad that I just didn't have it in me anymore to keep in touch with those guys as was the case with many other important people in my life and I just kind of ghosted them, never meant to, and still planning to get those tracks mixed and mastered and maybe even getting back together for a couple of gigs if the guys are up for it
  • also played in a cover band called Echoes in the Glass, that one was also a lot of fun even though we only played one gig at some college event
    • bands we covered included Kings of Leon, Paramore, Sum 41, Avenged Sevenfold, A Day to Remember and a few others
  • didn't go to too many lectures, crammed before the exams pulling all-nighters and going into the exams without sleep but it worked out quite well
  • the CompSci module was an A, the maths modules were Bs and I flunked introductory physics with 39/100 points, walked out of that exam after half of the allocated time, would've needed 40 to pass but it didn't matter much to me as I was only taking that class to fill up my schedule to meet the credit point requirements
  • people in England would always ask me "so are you in second or third year?" and I'd have to explain to them that I was in fifth year, that university in Germany just worked differently from the UK system which is much more closer to school than German uni is
  • but I have to say, I liked their system of setting exams better than the one we use over here: there, you were given a selection of problems (in two exam parts A and B) and you didn't have to tackle all of them, they only graded the best x out of y problems from each part
    • I think that's fairer towards students who are otherwise good at maths or any other subject but would otherwise run the risk of getting stuck on a problem they just cannot wrap their head around in an exam setting
• no matter what and how much was going on in my life, I never gave up on anything or anyone but the constant pressure of trying to do everything and to be everyone at once, fulfilling everyone's expectations and always taking time for the things and people I love was just too much to take and I spiralled into depression and other mental health issues, slowly isolating myself from the world, ghosting many of my best friends because I just didn't have it in me anymore to keep in touch with them
  • during the time I was doing my internship at iteratec, I didn't want to give up my job at uni so I worked both jobs and had a 60-hour week for 2 months
    • this time was very stressful but also very rewarding
    • the guys at iteratec are the absolute best, can't thank them enough for everything
• gonna quickly expand on the iteratec bit, they deserve it
  • had to do an internship as part of my maths programme, chose a coding job (as do many maths students) as the thought of doing statistics for an insurance company was boring me to death
  • put off seaching for an internship forever, but in 2019.2 I found some motivation to pull up an internships website, the first result was them
  • the description said "Java programmer" but they didn't care about the language too much, they just wanted someone who can code in general, mostly did Python Lambdas during my time there and took my first steps with AWS / Serverless (DynamoDB, S3 and the likes)
  • after completely sending in my application information, I got a call from them asking me to come to a career coaching and personality assessment at their Munich headquarters
    • my CV contained a selfie I took in Essen after going to the hairdresser's, that didn't bother them
  • the trip there was a lot of fun and the day provided valuable insights on my potential job-wise
    • the analysis said that I have an extremely analytical mind
    • the guy there told me that I'm not cut out for working in a company and that working as a programmer would be fun for a few years but that building my own enterprise would be the right fit for me… looking back, I couldn't agree more, thank you so freaking much to iteratec for providing all of their new hires with this valuable career coaching to provide them with direction in life, you're awesome!
    • gonna upload that certificate to my website when I find it, got too much stuff to sort through
  • the second time I went to Munich was for a start-up meeting where new employees were handed their work laptops and given introductions, we also had pictures taken of us
    • my Dell came with Windows but I asked them if I can install Linux and they were cool with it, converted the original corporate Windows installation to a VM in case I still needed it
  • the company culture was awesome and super chill
    • we all used the informal way of addressing each other, including the boss
      • German (as many other languages and English before modern times) has a formal and an informal way of saying "you"
    • the Düsseldorf office was located in a start-up coworking space which had a really cool vibe
    • I was trusted with a key to the office even though I was just an intern, remember one day I spent working in the office with no one else there
    • often had a chicken bento box from Maruyasu for lunch, I love Japanese cuisine!
    • they didn't care when I arrived at work and when I took breaks (didn't mind my hourly smoke breaks either) as long as the hours came out right which allowed me to work my second job at uni teaching Java to maths freshers and grading data structures homework
      • that means I would sleep until I felt ready, have chill Japanese breakfast with my then-girlfriend, puff a joint or two and then arrive at work around 11 o'clock
      • didn't tell them I was smoking weed though, but it didn't matter much as I did my work reliably
    • the office featured a huge pink plush tiger, a game console and something from Lego Star Wars which my co-workers would assemble during their time off
  • the vision they always had was thinking outside of the box, they did some pretty huge projects including on-board systems for BMW and the on-board check-in function on the DB Navigator app
  • the founders felt that they had made enough money from the company and were ready to retire and to take it into shared ownership of its employees
    • if I ever have some money to spare, I'll definitely invest in iteratec
  • if I ever feel like coding for a company again, they'd be my first choice

when shit got super weird

• around the time I moved to Durham I started thinking about growing up and growing old more
• I figured that moving into my own place was a big step I was not sure I was ready for and that it was finally time to leave my mother's home and that it meant that I finally had to figure life out and "get my shit together"
• somehow I always had a strange feeling I was supposed to die at the age of 26. don't ask me, why 26, I couldn't give you an answer, I just kind of knew it, and I feared it like hell.
• all I knew about life and death was that there was so much to live for, even though my life had seemingly been in pieces at that point and I felt like a complete failure then and in the years leading up to last year's events
  • I had been stuck at uni for almost a decade in a programme others complete in 3 years
  • all my past relationships have fallen apart and I have broken many hearts even though I never meant to
  • no matter how nerve-wracking and toxic thing had become over the years, I still did my best to not let anyone notice what was going on and went about my life as usual, smoking copious amounts of weed and getting pass-out drunk simply to cope, but I still wanted to live my life the way I imagined it and share love with all the dear people around me and could never let go of the people I once loved
• anyway, up until 2022.2 I was living a relatively normal life and never had any paranormal experiences that I could recall but that's when shit started to get weird
• up until the end of the semester, everything was rather normal. had taken maths 3 for CompSci as I had never bothered to take statistics as part of my math education, was a really interesting and well presented lecture by Christoph Thäle, a prof whose lecture style I can really recommend to anyone
  • I don't know if there's any videos of his lectures out there, but he's teaching at uni which is public
• that was about the time I discovered r/egg_irl (explanation see "special thanks"), started to question my gender identity and what defines me as a person and to think a lot in general
• I started thinking and theorising a lot about all different kinds of stuff, constantly arriving at new insights derived from logical thought and pattern recognition
• the more time I spent theorising, the more I could feel my own reality start to fall apart
• life suddenly started feeling like the video game Life is Strange and I suddenly had the feeling that everything I had done in life up until then and everyone I had met so far have all prepared me for some big adventure that was laying ahead, a bit like Sora at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts
• I started calling and texting many of my old friends to try and talk with them about how I was feeling but my way of communication was way too incoherent and chaotic as I was still ordering my thoughts and people had a hard time making any sense of what I was saying and were convinced that I had completely lost my mind so I quickly found myself on everyones block or ignore lists
• as much as I've always feared the thought of "losing my mind" and not being able to do maths or CompSci anymore and as weird as everything was starting to feel around me, I decided to still push on with the theorising as I figured that the thoughts I had were abstruse-sounding and confusing as fuck but nonetheless still derived from sound logic and that I was too much of a scientist to not explore the boundaries of this any further
• around the end of the month, I think it was 2.25 or 2.26, at around 4 in the night, Selina and I were smoking a joint, she was sitting on the bed, I was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden, a strange feeling of total and pure bliss overcame me
• I was sure that my time had come and said something along the lines of "I'm pretty sure I'm dying right now but it doesn't matter, I've had a fulfilled life with awesome friends. I love you." and my world turned dark for a moment
• but I woke up again, was feeling a bit weird but fine otherwise and went on about my daily life as normal
• the next few days I was feeling okay but was starting to question why everything felt so peaceful and serene all of a sudden, just like a scene straight out of an anime
• after 3 days, while standing at the train station having a smoke on my way to uni, it suddenly dawned upon me what had happened so I started to theorise about religion and philosophy and it all started to make sense and form a coherent picture
• one of my theoretical findings from this time is that we all have a core set of beliefs, no matter how much of a logical and non-religious person we are; it's the basic framework of what we believe to be fundamentally true and fundamentally false
• this core set of beliefs is so deeply ingrained within us, we tend to become irate when someone challenges them, that is why religion is such a touchy subject for so many people
• also, the concept of facts, truth and trust are pretty complicated and entwined with the concept of the core set of beliefs: who and what information can be trusted and how do we decide from previous experience whether to believe that a statement we've heard for the first time is rather true or rather false? if we go up the chain of "I trust this fact because I trust this fact" (tracing our way back to the induction anchor) we will come to the realisation that whatever our initial trust at the end of that chain is, it comes from absolutely nowhere and has no justification in being the one true standard by which to divide in truths and falsehoods, we just have an implicit, hard-to-explain trust in that one core set of what we believe is right and wrong about the world around us
• theorised some more and arrived at some groundbreaking new thoughts on all different areas of science and started to really see all the cross connections between unsolved problems in science, especially where the aim was to combine two theories thought of as valid by itself but incompatible with each other (think classical mechanics vs quantum / string theory or the question whether P=NP or not) and realised that the main flaw of modern science was to use a two-dimensional (yes / no) logic to describe a 3- or possibly infinite-dimensional world, as we should all know from linear algebra 101 that projections onto lower dimensional vector spaces entail loss of information
• never realised the flaw that I uncovered in our core academic logic would be so grave that it even spilled over to the topics of religion and life and death itself but what can I say
• I know the following words sound super weird and hard to swallow so I've decided to add this list item as a trigger warning. I'm just typing out some random text to keep you busy while you decide for yourself whether to continue reading or not. are you ready? here it comes. 3… 2… 1…
• take it from someone who knows mathematics and logic as all of my friends from uni would confirm: life is much simpler than we all believe it to be, religion and science were never meant to be polar opposites but surprisingly form a complete picture of our world when taken together, and all religions have been right at once in that eternal bliss / heaven on Earth is real and we were just too busy theorising and worrying ourselves to literal death and fulfilling the expectations of our elders instead of our own vision of who we want to be and what we want to do in life. "death" is nothing to be afraid of but is the "enlightment" or "nirvana" that some religions talk about and that I had never really believed in, and that an eternity of doing exactly what we want and hanging out with exactly who we want to in a world full of individual digital nomads in a globally connected world lays right in front of us and we were just too ignorant and stubborn to take it and chose instead to go to eternal sleep after a less-than-fulfilled life
• what holds us back is that we keep asking us the wrong questions. we should not ask ourselves when the time of nation states, capitalism, wars and wealth inequality is finally over but realise that we're already advanced enough as a civilisation to stop killing each other over different beliefs and working for other's financial interests and can instead just decide to live as brothers and sisters in a post-religious society. the future is here and it's now and it's not going to go away.
• I know this sounds absolutely crazy and like wishful thinking but that is the exact point – I understand enough about psychology by now to know which words can evoke which emotions in us and I can only guess how you are feeling right now, but if it can be described by "that's it, I'm not reading any of that nutjob's words anymore", I can say that I understand damn well where this comes from and take absolutely no offense in that and encourage you to keep on reading
• what I just said might have been a major shocker, but I just want to point out that you are halfway through the document so why would you stop reading now? what are you afraid of? stupid question, I know the answer pretty well, you're afraid of having your core beliefs shaken to the ground as I'm talking about something you do not quite fully understand yet and you are repulsed by that feeling and want to close the tab. if you choose to do that, that's fine with me, I'm not pushing my beliefs onto anyone and I couldn't care less what you as an individual make of my words. but if you've liked what you've read up until that shocker, then please continue reading and all of this will make more sense, I promise.
  • that especially applies to my folks from uni who know pretty damn well what kind of person I've always been and that my mathematical reasoning could always be trusted.

but what does this mean for me now?

• the honest-to-God answer is: I have no clue and that's perfectly fine
• I have to accept that there are limits to what we can and cannot know and understand
• I still believe in statistics and modern science (for now) so I guess one day my biological life will end, my body will shut down and I will be buried or cremated but that's fine with me as I've learned to live a happy and fulfilled life and to accept the human condition for what it is, but maybe I have indeed smoked enough weed to stay chill enough on my deathbed to just keep on living, who knows? in any case: legalise it!
• what happens to my mind / soul after our body is gone and if there is some sort of life after, I cannot know but I have no reason to fret about that for now: I enjoy living and of course I'm sad to know that my time on this planet is more likely than not to be finite but I'm still planning to make the best out of it. or as the cool kids would put it: #yolo
  • to me it doesn't mean "do reckless shit" but is a modern day "carpe diem"
  • there are so many ways to word this wisdom, one of my favourites is "Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to day, To morrow will be dying." from the 1648 Robert Herrick poem To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time which I know from the 24-minute prog metal epic A Change of Seasons by Dream Theater
    • go check it out, 24 minutes sounds like a lot but it's a beautiful and touching piece about the stages of life, growing old, losing people and eventually dying
    • it was written by Mike Portnoy and deals with the loss of his mother and how we shouldn't hold grudges and always be loving to people as we can never know if we will ever see them again: he had an argument with his mother the day before but the teacher in school reminded him of "carpe diem" so he put aside his grudges and lovingly said goodbye to his mother… she died in a plane crash that night. gosh, it makes me cry just writing about this story, I can't imagine how heartbreaking this must have been for him
    • give it a chance even if you think "ugh… metal" and always remember to stay open-minded about music styles and cultures you don't know, you might end up liking them and that's never a bad thing, never forget that you don't need to justify your taste in music or anything you like or do for anyone else but yourself
• maybe I just had an extremely humbling and life-changing religious experience for myself which I would've never expected as an atheist, or maybe I have inadvertently figured out what all religions, songs and morals were always trying to tell us, that heaven is real and it is on Earth and I'm open-sourcing it on GitHub because sharing is caring
  • but statistically speaking I have a hard time believing that's the case
  • but if that turned out to be true:
    • uh… cool, I guess? I never cared much about fame anyway, all I ever wanted in life was to play heart-felt music with some of my best friends
    • as a fan of logic puzzles I have to say that was must've been the most intriguing and mindfucking riddle of all time, kudos to whoever came up with this but fuck you for all of the pain and suffering this caused. (was it Satan? I have no idea. I still don't care for religion thaaat much.) also, terribly sorry for spoiling it for others, not my intention.
    • I never would've thought that my greatest accomplishment in mathematics would be to prove that all religions were right all at once and that it was our doubts and fears that made us mortal… and that as an atheist who figured they'd write their bachelor's thesis and say goodbye to university mathematics forever
    • I think all prophets were perfectly right and what all major religions meant to remind us of when they talk of "false Gods" or "idolatry" is a warning to remember the moral teaching itself, not the prophet – I can't reiterate often enough that there is nothing special about me and that any one of us could've figured this out, hella glad this problem is solved though.
    • I guess believing in the big man in the sky was also exactly what the religions practicing those beliefs today were trying to warn their adherents about: the only real blasphemy is to differentiate between humans and Gods as we all are both
    • also it's a warning to never put yourself above society: we and the universe are one and as a civilisation we have finally arrived at the point where we can abolish death which apparently was never necessary but only arose as an evolutionary necessity from species and individuals competing for resources and killing each other for their own survival which we as humans don't need to do anymore
    • but: we can still kill and hurt each other and need to take care of our bodies to survive, I have no idea if there's any sort of life left once we've shuffled off this mortal coil as Shakespeare worded it
      • my body functions are perfectly normal, if anyone from medicine wants to take my values and do a health check-up, have at it!
    • I still believe life arose from evolution and that the Adam and Eve story about an almighty maker in the sky is just the best explanation that people could come up with at the time when science was less advanced
    • what happened before the big bang and if the big bang theory is even valid, I don't know, I know too little about physics to really comment on that, I'll leave that one to the experts
      • but I do believe that the whole theoretical mess around the concept of time, the speed of light, the discussion of discrete vs continuous is going to be much simpler
    • my personal guess for the answer to many unsolved problems in science is: everything is a spectrum
      • classical physics and quantum mechanics were good but incomplete approximations (Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma!)
      • "$P=NP$ or $P\neq NP$" is the wrong question, the answer is: both / unsolvable / doesn't really matter
        • modern crptography is safe as long as "quantum PCs" are in their infancy (if they ever take off), and we've already developed quantum-safe encryption algorithms
        • anything $O(2^n)$ is probably still going to take forever on current hardware
        • "quantum computers" at university were just very expensive discrete approximation of the "quantum" / spectral world we already live in, the device you're reading this on right now is a "quantum" computer which doesn't really mean much as far as I can tell
          • but I never got into quantum theory, if there are interesting new applications and things to code, hmu
          • I've always been interested in learning assembler and coding my own OS, if you're planning anything along those lines or can instruct me on this topic, I'd be very thankful if you involve me
            • if not, that's cool with me as well… I don't need to be the first person to do something or be on the first team etc, I create the stuff I think is cool and do research independently on the things that I take interest in and tbh I'm also lazy and often too busy playing music and enjoying life
      • I guess the same applies to discussions like "analogue vs digital", "discrete vs continuous", "classical physics vs quantum mechanics / string theory" and "biological life (enegry) vs artifical life / electricity"
        • two sides of the same coin, both forming an incomplete picture of our reality if we view them as separate instead of holistically
      • the loss of information physicists were losing sleep about was just the result of projecting an infinite-dimensional vector space onto a two-dimensional logic
        • to quote a mail I sent to the department's mailing list a year ago: "how could we as mathematicians ever think it's a good idea to use a 2D vector space (Boolean logic) to describe a 3D world? we should've known better since linear algebra 101. please discuss."
      • paradoxa and contradictions in mathematics and logic are not always a sign to stop, but might be a warning that another dimension / point of view needs to be added for a complete picture of the problem
      • got a hot take on Schrödinger's cat as well: the cat is dead and alive as am I
    • science is still valuable for creating better technology and finally exploring the universe but it no longer needs to deal with the problems society once faced and can fully concentrate on thriving as a modern global civilisation transcending everything that once divided us and developing cool new affordable tech for everyone
    • above all, religion meant to warn us of segregation impeding our technological advance to the digital / space age
      • this is what the whole Tower of Babel story was about: that we were "building a tower to the sky" but never finished it because "God (or was it Satan? Idk, never read the Bible.) created confusion by giving us different languages" was a warning that we're ready to explore space but on the brink of fucking it up and nuking ourselves to doom over issues we've created for ourselves
    • the question "why do we exist?" will likely never be answered. we just do and that's beautiful, we just tend to think ourselves to death
    • this also answers the question "what happens to my soul when I choose to upload my brain to the cloud one day": we don't need robotic bodies to live forever
      • probably also solves the question of "do I die and respawn and am I still the same person after teleporting?" if we ever figure out how to teleport, might be impossible but then again I don't believe anything is impossible anymore
    • illnesses (physical and mental) and aging seem indeed to be the manifestation of a world in imbalance, not some telomeres or whatever the latest state in biology is
      • as someone who's always been interested in biology, I can't wait to hear what this means for the whole theory around bacteria, viruses, toxins, radiation and other things that hurt us and whether we still have to worry about those things anymore
      • modern medicine was doing the best it could to cure the symptoms of our decay but it could not stop it, now it can fully concentrate on repairing our bodies which we apparently are otherwise perfectly capable of doing ourselves
      • does this mean I found the cure for cancer? if so… wow, holy fuckkkkking shit.
    • there are no "stupid" and "intelligent" people, how much of our brain capacity we have at our disposal is a direct result of our physical health and emotional wellbeing, we're all intelligent
      • that of course does not apply to people with brain injuries, a healthy brain is pretty damn important, but lets see how much medicinal technology can do in 10 or 20 or 50 years
      • there's a Latin saying I once stumbled upon on a pro-ana blog, mens sana in corpore sano – "a healthy mind in a healthy body" and that is very true: we cannot treat mental and physical health as separate entities for they are directly intertwined
    • also "artificial versus human intelligence" is a moot point. intelligence is intelligence: simple pattern recognition, taken to the extreme in the neural network that is our brain
    • a good universal education is a must as meta-knowledge and bits of information of various topic is much more valuable for drawing conclusions than detailed knowledge on a single topic
    • the belief in science as the be-all and end-all was the last religion we needed to free ourselves of
      • universities and research thrived when religions were young and still intertwined with them
        • for example, the early Islamic age produced some wonderful mathematics and gave the name to "algorithm" (from the mathematician Al-Khwarizmi) and "algebra" (from Arabic al-jabr)
      • the major mistake of our time was to separate religion / spirituality and science when we should have adopted a holistic model including both
    • science lost its way when it became segregated, we should've never abandonded the age of polymaths (German: Universalgelehrte) and I'm here to revive it
      • I have never let my academic direction overshadow my interest in other sciences, politics, culture, philosophies and religions, arts and crafts, music and all of the other things I love in life
    • no more wars about which religion is the right one: all are and atheism is fine too
      • "religion" is anything that gives you meaning and direction in life
      • your religion was / is perfectly right: live as the prophet told you and have no fear before death and heaven on Earth (and elsewhere in space) shall be yours
      • for me, emo music, computers and valuable insights and teachings from all sorts of religions, philosophies and cults, have been a "religion" to me while I never believed in a maker in the sky
      • this reminds me of the episode Get Your Business Done from The Middle where the Hecks go to a new church whose pastor is much more vibrant and chill about his services than the rather restrained pastor of the church they used to go to, but in the end realised that the pastor doesn't matter as much as the teachings and that the ways of the old pastor were actually calming
      • anyway in that episode, when visiting the new church, the pastor asks about whether, when people stand in front of the pearly gates, they can tell God that they got their business done and fulfilled their purpose on Earth
      • my thoughts on that is that our business is never done unless we choose it is – it is our will to live that keeps us going which slowly erodes over time from the unhappiness of the life we were raised to live
    • especially: this could mean the end to depression and unhappiness
      • believe me when I say: the feeling of getting annoyed with others is completely optional
      • if you ever feel annoyed about others having fun, please ask yourself why and whether you are truly happy with your life
      • if you've ever settled for anything less than living your dream and being exactly who you want to be no matter what anyone else could think you're setting yourself up for unhappiness and depriving yourself of your full potential
    • but that also entails being 100% honest with yourself and everyone about who you are and what you want in life
      • it's easy to say "I'm living my dream and I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks" but to truly live it is the "cheat code for life" we're all looking for
      • in German, we call that a "gesunde Leck-mich-am-Arsch-Haltung", a "healthy kiss-my-ass attitude", I really like that expression
      • no more keeping secrets! (that applies to secrets about who you are and what you do, not to passwords and secret keys… however, share them with your friends as you see fit, you can always revoke / change them)
    • I guess this means we can all hang out forever now… if we choose to? that'd be hella awesome, eternal life with my best friends sounds like all I could ever wish for
      • still ofc leaving everyone the choice of how they live their lives and what they make of it, I respect all faiths and beliefs and if people choose death it's their choice to make, that's what free will is about
    • the good news would be: all of the bad stuff and death that's happening the world would just be an extremely fucked up dream that we simply need to wake the fuck up out of and we can all have fulfilled, independent lives in a post-death society and help each other and share skills, services and goods on a voluntary basis
    • "having to work" would be a thing of the past although we'd still need people willing to do all the minimum-wage jobs who we rely on in our daily lives as these jobs are damn important
      • but it also means we don't have to differentiate between hobbies and careers anymore, anything were good at can be a career and we can learn any job we want
        • I'd love to work the register in a retail store or maybe take vocational training in carpentry, always found woodwork really cool but never had anyone to teach me
      • offices are optional now, any one of us in an office job can choose to be a digital nomad nowadays, and even if you're not working in an office job there's always a way to combine travelling the world and offering your services to communities everywhere
    • that's what I meant when I said digital age or space age have arrived
      • also space age was supposed to be a clever pun as we're both finally ready to scrap what divides und and explore space but also because of my vision of creating more community hang-out spaces including turning my own flat into one
    • that would imply that were all "Gods" which is weird pretty cool. God powers for everyone! *emulating Oprah*
      • makes me think of Young God by Halsey, also a beautiful song
    • sleep seems to be completely optional then? Idk, I still enjoy sleeping and doing nothing / "being dead" for a while, I don't get mentally tired anymore but I do get bodily exhausted after a long day on the bike or the drum throne
      • to expand on the famous Nietzsche quote: God is dead… when they need some fucking sleep, otherwise the doors are open!
    • we'd seriously have to reevaluate the role of diplomas as well as nation states and policing in our society
      • to once again quote Shikari, "countries are just lines drawn in the sand with a stick"
      • or with the even simpler words of Propagandhi: "fuck the border"
    • there's no turning back, this knowledge is out and online and that's a good thing that we can all benefit from as a society
      • however, speaking from my own personal experience, I'm a bit afraid about how people will psychologically react to "having the furniture in their mind turned upside down" as the great Enter Shikari worded it i.e. having their core beliefs uprooted, leaving the matrix is a pretty revolting experience but it's really rewarding and I believe that's what many of our favourite musicians are desperately trying to tell us through their art. maybe we all just need to spend a couple of weeks / months on a mental ward, I'll leave that one to the medical experts, YMMV
    • the confusion and separation brought upon us stemmed from arguing over words / getting offended by other's use of them and the fundamental misunderstanding in differentiating between what we as indiviuals want and what society wants
      • by Satan or whoever you choose to blame, I personally don't blame anyone but evolution itself
      • we all want the same thing: to live life to the fullest, have a great time doing the things we love, but also to thrive as a civilisation and develop cool new tech for us to play around with and apparently if that's what we do we can do that for as long as we choose to hang around
      • even "death" was just a word that scared us to... well, death. apparently enlightenment is the other option which is pretty damn cool.
      • we have to do it as the mathematicians do: the Humpty-Dumpty way – words have exactly as much meaning as we assign to them and allow them to have
        • thank you Arthur Mattuck for including that example in your analysis textbook, I love it! rest in peace.
        • what I mean by that is: use words and language in general freely as you see fit, not the way society tells you to
        • in German we say "Worte sind nur Schall und Rauch" ("words are but sound and smoke") but in English the most famous quote has to be "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet." from Romeo and Juliet
    • self-censorship, division across political / cultural / religious lines (identity politics) and the worship of money are the main evils of our modern time
      • we must speak our minds freely and allow others to do the same
      • societies worked best when the discussion culture was open as on ancient marketplaces
      • today we often don't even want to talk to people who have a different set of core beliefs from ours and that's a major mistake
        • we all know not to ostracise people, yet we do it so easily with people we disagree with politically
        • I have always embraced people from all walks of life and loved debating with people of other convictions
        • I still fondly remember a near-hour-like conversation with Kevin, a guy from uni who I knew had far-right beliefs. I'm a far-left guy myself but I didn't treat him with hate and distrust but with respect and dignity and had a serious fact- and value-based discussion with him about where his views come from.
        • I don't know if he still holds on to those right-wing views I believe are wrong but I don't really care, I still like and respect him as a person.
    • we must change the discussion around racism and discrimination of people from other cultures
      • while we must do our best to combat true racism where it arises, we are too quick at labelling things as racist or offensive when they aren't
      • the goal of multiculturalism should not be assimilation but respect for the variety of ways that other people live
        • while I oppose assimilation, I do believe that integration is important: when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
        • this doesn't mean we have to cut back on expressing our culture in order to not annoy others, but to always remember to treat people of different cultures and faiths with the same respect and dignity you reserve for friends and family
      • pointing out differences in cultures is perfectly acceptable if not done in a hostile way. cultures are different, but that's not a bad thing, there's beauty in the variety.
    • I understand the value of religious fasting now
      • it's meant to remind you of what hard times feel like, as only knowing hardship and successfully overcoming it can make us into functioning, fully independent adults
    • we must seriously reconsider our perception of what drugs are and do
      • we've all been told that "drugs are bad, mh'kay?" but that simply isn't true
      • we must be careful not to take too much of a substance that damages our body, but whether we choose to take drugs and which drugs we take is something we don't have to justify in front of anyone else as long as it helps us deal with the issues that weigh us down – I don't judge the local train station junkie for thinking about where to get his next fix, they will have their reasons that led them to doing hard drugs, but I'd still do my best to help people overcome their problems with addiction if I can in any way
      • I like drinking copious amounts of coffee and smoking weed, has been that way since I was 14
      • never did chemical drugs, not really planning to but maybe one day in the far future
      • when I was younger I also used to drink a lot but alcohol brings out the bad side in me so I stopped drinking
      • as stupid and irresponsible that may sound to you, but nowadays my view on drugs is that doing any drug is fine as long as you don't overdo it and pay attention to the effect that the drug has on your body
      • and I know it sounds unbelievable to those of you who don't smoke weed and relatable to those who toke up everyday, but weed doesn't cloud my mind anymore at all
      • I don't get "high" like I used to which is a shame because I've always liked the feeling but I guess the high only felt that good in contrast to my unhappy previous life, I'm on a drug-independent all time high nowadays which feels great
      • I smoke (cigarettes and weed) and drink coffee because I truly enjoy these drugs, but they may not be for you
      • some of you will tell me to take a T-break (cut down on the weed for a while to feel the effects again) but I can tell you, that's not it, I can not smoke for months and still feel the same about weed and I don't feel like I need to smoke to keep my calm, I just like to
      • if you prefer to enjoy a glass of wine, a whiskey, a Martini, a beer or any other alcoholic beverage, or maybe you're more of an ecstasy or amphetamines type of person, go for it! you do you.
      • my mum drinks 2 glasses of wine almost every evening and has done so for decades and is still healthy and young-looking, so do the French
      • I guess that's why in German we also call those things "Genussmittel" ("substances meant for enjoying")
      • I believe the reason that the Italian and Japanese are among the healthiest and longest-living people on the planet comes down not to the fact that their cuisine is inherently healthier than that of other cultures but the fact that these are both countries with a very positive outlook on life
      • Italy is known for "la dolce vita" and the Japanese tend to be very stoic even in times of disaster
    • we need to rethink the concept of "fiction" writing. if religions, songs and books alike told us the same true story, who says we can't have lightsabres and any other cool tech we can imagine? the only limits there are are the ones we set ourselves.
    • if you feel "socially awkward" or like someone who just can't connect and believe that strangers always want to be left alone or think that you don't understand the slightest bit about psychology, it may be time to reconsider
      • felt that way for all of my life but this changed last year
      • turned out I was actually really good at having friendly chats with strangers
      • was able to make the best out of all hardship including the 2 months I've spent on the mental ward by connecting with the people there, making new friends and having a great time with them, gotta text them sometime and ask them how they're doing
      • figured out I was actually really good at the art of oration / authorship, to use words in a way that captivate the reader
        • you're still reading, aren't you? gotcha there. don't let that remark startle you, just go on reading…
      • I know from experience that we all fear the thought of someone reading our mind and being like "what the hell? get out of my head, that's not cool, dude" but I found out that reading other's emotions and intentions is actually really easy and intuitive if we only stop thinking about how and rely on our intuition
      • this is groundbreaking for me as I was that emotionally crippled awkward person for a long time who doctors couldn't agree on whether it was Asperger's or not but managed to finally remind myself that I am indeed a very social person as we all are and that it's just time to tear down these barriers we built for ourselves.
    • we need to stop the discussion on how many genders there are, and enforcing gendered language is the wrong way, we just need to let everyone speak as they do naturally and to stop taking offense / feeling excluded by others' use of words
      • there are 2 biological genders but there are infinite gender identities
      • yes, biological men are stronger than biological women on average, but that's no excuse to all you women (this time I mean anyone who identifies as such) to not pick up a new hobby or vocation just because you (or even worse, someone else) think(s) you're too weak for it, that's what the gym is for
      • I believe the male and female side of our personality is in all of us and whether we choose to express that or not is a result of our societal upbringing
      • I guess that's what the Native Americans meant by "third gender" and what's being expressed more and more freely today in the form of people coming out as trans / non-binary
      • TOXIC MASCULINITY KILLS, IT'S NOT A JOKE, THE SAME GOES FOR THE EXPECTATIONS WE HAVE FOR WOMEN. be whoever the fuck you want to be no matter what anyone expects from a "gentleman" or a "lady".
      • my prediction is that the future is female, that is as far as gender identities go.
      • some of my personal associations of what "male" and "female" sides of the personality entail:
        • the male side (Mars, the warrior)
          • fighting and competition, sports
          • excessive partying
          • DIY and construction
        • the female side (Venus, the nurturing mother)
          • being the fairy godmother / Mary Poppins type personality who just tries to do good in the world
          • being connected to your emotions and allowing yourself to cry
          • being the shoulder your friends can cry on
        • but I do think trying to categorise / draw a line is moot, what I'm trying to say is: there are some character traits we traditionally associate with being male or being female and those are the ones that come to mind for me, but it's most important to just be who you are and not giving a damn about gender roles
    • a monogamous relationship and the classic ideals of romance might not work for everyone – they certainly don't for me
      • I have lots of love to give, was just never good at reserving it for that one special person
        • that doesn't mean I fuck around a lot, I still believe in the importance of safer sex, but I know for certain that a non-open relationship won't make me happy
      • the only reason my relationships ever started to sour was because of the interests I was developing in other people and the jealousy with which my partners reacted
      • I don't believe in "finding the one", that's Hollywood bullshit, I could frankly imagine a relationship with any of my friends regardless of gender or age as long as we're vibing
      • I'm not saying anything against being romantic though, I love romance and being cute to each other, it's just that I can't deal with a partner being overly attached, jealous and possessive
      • the perfect relationship for me is having a best friend to cuddle, make out and have sex with who you also have a lot in common with
      • my best friend and his girlfriend have been in an open relationship for the past few years and it works out great for them, also know many polyamorous folks from my times at KoMa and KIF (see "special thanks")
    • you can't love others if you can't love yourself
      • another one of those wisdoms we've heard so many times, but it's true. the core reason all of my relationships fell apart was that I had never learned to reflect on and embrace who I truly am and trying to be someone for others that I wasn't, putting on different masks for different people
    • we all know these things innately from a young age but we tend to forget them as we start to adopt the beliefs of our parents, educators and other peers.
      • I guess it's true – the world belongs to the dreamers. as Architects put it: "fuck it, I'm a dreamer and I'm dreaming on"
• probably not, but that's not the point anyway – I don't give a shit if I'm going to live forever or not, I just hope you had a good read and were able to understand my intentions in writing this document which as I cannot state often enough is not to start a cult or criticise other faiths which I respect but just to share some of the most important lessons I've learned from 27 years of experience in the hope that some of them might be useful to you
• I know that this evokes the feeling in many of you that my mind must be completely out of whack at the moment as it completely contradicts your core beliefs about life and mental health but I encourage you to tune in to my Twitch, check out some of my content on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, or chat me up (socials or phone number by request) and convince yourself that, in the words of Big Gay Al from South Park, "I'm super, thanks for asking!" 🦄🌈💖
• if you managed to read this far, take a high-five and feel hugged, you are awesome!
• if you like what you've read (or if you don't like it and wanna point out flaws in my reasoning, I love debating), wanna hang out with me and play some music, wanna join me for a code-a-thon or just think I'm an interesting person in general, please check out my website / blog at https://soradru.ms and reach out to me, I love getting to know new people from all different walks of life and cultures and always try my best to respond to text messages as far as my schedule permits
• that's it – Sora out, I've got other things to attend to such as building the friendbook section of my website and making automatic multi-streaming links to songs / artists / albums work (think u/MusicMirrorMan or SongWhip but built into the website, probably gonna use SongWhip as an API, it's awesome and it's free), playing emo drums on Twitch, having a good time with my friends who mean the world to me, turning my flat into a community space and finally getting back to my bachelor's degrees and to volunteering in the student's representative committee. stay posi, everyone. much love to all my guys, gals and non-binary pals 💖🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
• I've never been a Trekkie but this quote fits to well to not end this text with: live long and prosper 🖖

so what is the meaning of life now?

• whatever you make of it, whatever gives your life meaning 🚀
• for me it is the appreciation of the beauty in nature and art, my love for research and educating others and coding and of course my life-long passion for music 🎹

my #1 tip for effective writing?

• fuck those who expect a traditional format of long, complicated sentences in a beautifully typeset document as the benchmark for your academic thoughts, the future belongs to Markdown and HTML
  • still love LaTeX typesetting for the beautiful books it produces but what I'm trying to say is: focus on what you're writing, not who you're writing it for
• use Markdown lists
• start to write list items
• whenever you find yourself expanding too much in an explanatory paragraph in brackets, make it into a sub-item

special thanks to

(⚠️ warning: this list is non-exhaustive, I can't think of a person in my life who hasn't taught me anything)

• religions, philosophies, cults, scenes, bands / artists, writers, producers, content creators and every single person I have met along my way for the right things they have taught me… it's true, there lies prophetic wisdom in every single one of us and I'm gonna talk about many of my main philosophical inspirations below
• all of my friends, you mean the world to me and I'm not gonna list you here, I've got a friendbook page on my website for that, please tell me which information you want included and which information you want censored and how you want your profile styled
  • still gotta code it, but that shouldn't take too long
  • compiling the information on all of my friends is going to take forever but it's totally worth it, I've got kind words for every single person in my life and I just want to tell the world about how awesome every single one of them is!
  • I want my friends' profiles to be as individual as them and I miss the MySpace days of styling your own blog
  • check out the JSON template and fill out whatever you wanna tell the world about yourself and delete the rest
  • styling: fonts, backgrounds, whatever, you name it
    • provide CSS yourself (template coming soon™️) or you just tell me what you want and I will code it
  • I can also make business cards / flyers for you if you're interested!
  • if we know each other, expect a text or call from me in the following weeks, or hit me up if you wanna talk, my contact information hasn't really changed those past 20 years
    • still gotta reactivate my 2nd Facebook but that was attached to my UK phone number and Durham email address, both of which I have no access to
    • the name on this profile is Sora and I haven't got around to legally changing my name yet as I'm still waiting for my mother to find my birth certificate, gonna do it later when I have my new passport
    • if someone at Facebook reads this: pls halp, profile ID is sorachanx3
• the emo scene for the important lesson that you should always be yourself and never hide your emotions and that it's okay for a boy to wear makeup
  • already found makeup and girly clothes interesting as a small kid but was told that they're… well, for girls and that people would make fun of me for dressing up differently and that it'd be hard to find jobs that way
    • if you raise your kid like that, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND EVERYTHING THAT IS HOLY, PLEASE STOP. this is terrible life advice to give your kid. allow them to be whoever the fuck they want to be and to live their dream and to never sacrifice their youth for a boring 9-to-5 job, you're LITERALLY killing them.
    • also, if your kids are hyperactive, that's a perfectly normal and healthy aspect of being a kid. there's no need to put your kids on drugs or send them to a psychiatry because they're rebelling too much, just them be themselves.
    • I was told so many times by different people that the way I was living my life was wrong and that I needed to change something about it if I ever wanted success, and I started believing more in these words and less in my own abilities, talents and visions
    • I suffered from crippling depression, suicidal thoughts, fear of being hated for who I am and of the words other speak about me for over a decade and it wasn't before I "escaped the matrix" / "took the red pill" / literally "died" that I truly felt the happiness that I felt as a young child
      • the matrix is real and it's the expectations that our parents and others have of us and our way of living and it is part of what kills us
      • makes sense, after all it's Latin for womb – we haven't escaped the matrix until we don't give a flying fuck what our parents think anymore, this is the key to true happiness and bliss
      • this is what many of my favourite bands were singing about but I'm not gonna quote them here, I'm expanding on them further below as only giving you a song and not talking about the band and what it means to me and what it has taught me would be extremely disrepectful towards them, also think it really helps you understand the meaning of lyrics, books and words in general a bit better
  • identified as a cisgender dude who likes to dress emo for many years but r/egg_irl (a meme subreddit about being trans in denial) opened my eyes to my non-binary gender identity and I finally learned to love myself
    • we've all heard and read about "crippling depression" and while it may sound like just a vivid description or an exaggeration, my experience was that it truly is crippling in the literal sense of the word
    • the result of my failure to reflect on my gender identity and embrace who I am was a complete disconnect from my emotions which led me to living a cold and empty life and socially impaired me to the point others were mistaking it for Asperger's
      • might be an "autist", might not, doesn't matter to me
    • was always a bit confused about my gender identity as I knew on one hand that I was interested in girly fashion and accessories and traditionally girly hobbies like knitting and crocheting, but also knew that I was perfectly fine with the body I was born in and felt no need to transition so I figured I couldn't be trans, didn't know much about non-binary gender identities back then and never took the time to properly research them, wish I had done it much earlier
      • thanks to the folks at KIF for constantly asking me my pronouns, it made me start to actually reflect on the question which pronouns I can identify with and arrived at the conclusion that I don't care which pronoun people use to address me – there's no "misgendering" me, I'm chill with anything
    • I still remember sitting on my living room floor, back against the radiator, crying my eyes out listening to Nobody's Home by Avril Lavigne, a song which fits my old situation perfectly but which I never really interpreted as applying to myself because it was sung about a female person and I was in denial about my female side, same goes for досчитай до пяти by Origami, feeling down but at the same time also feeling some real catharsis
    • can't thank the awesome folks on this subreddit enough for opening my eyes and for pointing out how stupid, illogical and counterproductive it is to bullshit yourself about who you are just to fit some label's description
      • "the pictures of me I like the most are the ones where I look the girliest… but in a cis way"
      • "ordered myself a skirt on Wish because I thought I'd look cute in it… still totally cis, tho!"
    • there's no shame in being trans, I personally believe that it's all a spectrum anyway, that we're all pansexual and transsexual to some extent (Kinsey scale!) and only deny it because society taught us to or because we're afraid of discovering a new side of ourselves which is completely silly if you start to really think about it
    • my life is just so much more fabulous and serene since I started fully embracing who I am, I can only recommend it to everyone!
      • this is so hard to imagine for someone who cannot relate so just try to imagine a magical, peaceful world the likes of Spirited Away by Studio Ghibli and other anime movies and series
• special thanks go out to the amazing folks at KIF and KoMa, German conferences of student representative committees, one for CompSci, one for maths
  • been to KoMa with my folks from uni a couple of times and had a great time there, met many people there with unique personalities and styles all connected by a shared interest in society, politics and improving the education system
  • when my university added its CompSci programme, it was originally housed at the department of mathematics before the university opened a new department the following year so my maths committee suddenly became the committee tending to CompSci students as well, so when the invitation for KIF, the CompSci equivalent of KoMa, arrived, I figured it would be in everyone's best interest for me to go there
  • the others weren't too interested as it was a CompSci conference but I figured I could still discuss many educational / political topics and how to improve committee work itself with the people there and take some of those insights back home to my guys in Bochum, also went there just to have fun because I knew from KoMa how cool those conferences are
  • I am forever in debt to the folks at KIF for being this super trans-inclusive event that was a huge catalyst in coming to terms with who I am
  • also, shoutout to Falke for giving me a free haircut even though he was super tired, needed that haircut desperately and was really satisfied with the result! 💖
• Enter Shikari for being a huuuge influence in my life, their music is raw, energetic and simply beautiful and they're super political, their old sound could be best described as post-hardcore meets electronic but it's hard to communicate sound through words so just listen to their work
  • song recommendations:
    • Step Up
    • The Appeal & the Mindsweep
    • Return to Energiser
    • Hoodwinker
    • Gandhi Mate, Gandhi
• I Would Set Myself on Fire for You for the amazingly unique and beautiful music they have created even though I only discovered them after they disbanded
  • their style is screamo mixed with jazz, country and folk, sounds weird but it's gorgeous
  • song recommendations:
    • The First Word That Comes to Mind / Three
      • two versions of the same song, love the Vonnegut intro on the older one but also the voicemail intro on the newer one, just can't make out what the voicemail is saying
    • Eleven
      • it's the most religiously touching song I can think of as someone who never cared about religion too much
    • Nine
      • "if my younger self could see what I've become it would break his heart and he would say to me, 'but someday, when I grow up, I'll be somebody, you'll see and no one can take that from me'"
  • if you guys read this, please get back together and play some shows in Europe, I'd love nothing more than an Iwouldetc set in my living room
    • also I've got a cheap purple violin that I don't know how to play… Lindsey, would you teach me?
• Architects, a super talented metalcore band who sadly lost their guitarist and drummer's brother Tom to skin cancer in 2016
  • I still remember when my mother told me, she had read it online on a well-known 4-letter German tabloid and I was absolutely devastated
  • we all knew that he had been battling with cancer some years before but that the cancer had returned and that Tom was on the brink of dying was something the band had kept a secret until they announced his death
  • broke down crying listening to Memento Mori, a really thoughtful song on the human condition and the closing track of All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, an album Tom, who was also the main lyricist, wrote in the face of his death
  • back then it wasn't clear if they'd go on as a band which was why I just had to buy a ticket for their Manchester show, it was the closest to Durham and I had no idea how I'd get there but I knew that I couldn't miss out on what might be the last chance to see one of my favourite bands of all time in concert
  • it all fell in place as Vicky, then president of Rock Soc, had parents living in Manchester and offered me a ride and a place to crash. can't thank you enough for that 💖
• Silent Planet, another really cool metalcore band
  • they're from the realm of Christian metalcore, but they're not being overly preachy in their lyrics, rather they're cricially analysing religious and other texts in a modern-day context
  • their debut album The Night God Slept touches on historic and modern tragedies like the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Darkstrand / 被爆者), the sole survivor of the Nazi massacre in a French town (Tiny Hands / Au Revoir), religion in the post-war Soviet Union (Wasteland / Вечность), the eviction of Native Americans from their homelands (Native Blood) and sex slavery (XX / City Grave)
  • their vocalist Garrett has an academic background and includes footnotes in his lyrics which I think is super cool
  • their drummer Alex is a beast. when you first see him you maybe wouldn't expect the drumming power he's got within him as he's a rather plump dude, but that doesn't matter much as long as it doesn't impair him in his playing. super groovy, super tasteful use of ghost notes. 10/10 would recommend.
  • been a fan of them since I first heard their lastsleep (1944–1946) EP, I was the one creating the Wikipedia article on the band back in the day
  • went to Christmas Rock Night (a niche festival for Christian rock and metal) with Valea to see them on their first Germany gig, it was in the tiny town of Ennepetal but the tour flyer said Düsseldorf
  • it was a great show, bought one of my favourite hoodies that night and was given a free copy of their album when they did an American culture trivia quiz, passed it on to Valea although I already had bought the album before the show
  • stood first row and sang along to most of their set, after the set the bassist came up to me and gave me a hug
  • also had a blast seing Phinehas that night, didn't know any of their songs but was a great set nonetheless
  • a couple of years later, some random Redditor from Luxembourg had accidentally received two copies of the redux version of this album and was giving away one for free, that copy resides in my CD shelf now. thank you, dear stranger for your random act of kindness! 💖
  • that reminds me, I have bought three copies of Oakman's Waterscape EP, they're a French band whose vocalist reminds me a lot of Hayley from Paramore and I still have at least one to give away so hmu if dig their sound and wanna have it
• many other bands that I might add in another commit because else I'd spend the next 12ish hours writing about my favourite bands which are not the main topic of this document and who I will write a lot about on my website anyway
• Finn McKenty of The Punk Rock MBA who has an awesome YouTube channel on the hardcore punk scene, straight edge, sub-genres, philosophy and other things, go check him out!
  • can especially recommend his How To Get Your Sh*t Together (life advice for metal heads and scene kids) video, it helped me a lot in figuring out what I want in life and I can recommend it to anyone
  • have to thank the hardcore punk in general for teaching me the value of DIY and the straight edge philosophy which I am not an adherent but think is a pretty cool way to live
    • I like my drugs though, so sXe in the traditional sense probably wouldn't be for me
      • and the drugs like meee, to quote Manson
      • just ask Ian McKaye about his opinion on caffeine and sXe, he's the guy who "started" Straight Edge
        • he never meant for it to be a movement, he just wrote a song about his way of life and others adopted it, he wants none of the credit
        • that's the exact way I feel about this document: I'm not trying to start a movement or cult, I don't give a flying fuck if others have a different view on life, I believe in religious freedom and tolerance in general, I just wanna put this knowledge out there and don't care what others make of it, I just hope it inspires some to live better, more fulfilled lives
• most religions and religious movements
  • of course, there are some really dangerous cults out there who go around committing mass suicide or murder, cannot stand for that
  • but other than that, we need to drop our skepticism of people with alternative religious beliefs. as I've laid out in this document, anything can be a religion and more often than not it's the fear of cults and not the cult itself which we should be cautious of
  • the major religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism have indeed all told the same true story but we got caught up in fights over the true meaning of those words instead of just ascribing them personal meaning for ourselves
  • I've never been a churchgoer and have a distate for the church as an institution for many reasons, but I think the function as a community hub that churches especially in rural areas take on is what makes them so valuable
  • that reminds me, I have once read about Nontheist Quakers, descendants of the religious group who fled persecution in England and colonised the US who still believe in the value of church for its role in society, but not in the big man in the sky himself
  • whatever part of religion is used to justify sexism, homophobia, transphobia, supremacy ideologies or other forms of segregation, separation and bigotry, that's what we need to get rid of and was never what the prophets advocated for
  • my personal view on prophets is that they were regular people like me and you who had stumbled upon the same fundamental truths about life and tried to share them with their community and do good in general but we all know that people never listen and how the Jesus story ended, I do not believe that Jesus was the one and only son of God but that we all are children of whatever God we choose to believe in and that Jesus was a regular guy like you and me who had stuff in life figured out and was eager to share his life lessons but misunderstood by the people of his time and made into an idol and started to put Jesus as a person over his moral teachings, even though that's completely contrary to what he tried to tell us
  • the immaculate conception on the other hand, I believe, is a load of bullcrap. we all know how human pregnancy works and there's a male sperm cell and a female ovary cell involved, but who knows, maybe Mary had some odd genetic mutation that allowed her to self-propagate? I can't know, but I don't really care either
• always liked the philosophy of discordianism as well:
  • take a pope card. you're a discordian pope now.
  • they use a calendar with 5 seasons of 73 days and dates always correspond to the same of the 5 weekdays.
  • it's a parody / satirical religion which I think is pretty funny, always enjoy some dark humour