Author: furamo

A few years ago doctors took an ultrasound picture of my stomach and found that I have an extra spleen, for backup, in case the original one fails. Unfortunately, the organ I most require a backup for is my brain. Any organ donor volunteers?

A couple of times when some old dude has coughed on me loudly in the tram I’ve thought, that’s it, I’ve now got the ‘rona and I’m gonna kick the bucket, so what are the top 5 things I wanna do before I die.

I haven’t really come up with any good answers, the last time I had that scare I wrote the previous blog post, to pass on my deepest life wisdom, but now that that’s done and all, what else is there left?

Should I rather read 177013 before I die or should I rather not? Just to find out what all the fuzz is about? It’s really hard to know without reading it, but if I do read it it’s already too late to unread it.

The biggest, most impactful thing people can do in their lives, that anyone is capable of, is to be kind. It creates a lasting change. Easy to say, hard to achieve you say? Or perhaps, you care about your close ones but not about strangers? Well, listen to me a bit here.

Let’s imagine the total amount of happiness in the world is measurable with a number. Each time someone’s mood improves, the number nudges up. When some problem occurs somewhere, the World Positivity Score™ gets lower. The total amount of happiness in the world has probably increased over the past centuries, but it also has a lot of room for more improvement.

You might know about the law of conservation of energy – which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed – only converted from one form to another. What I’m gonna say here, is that there actually is a way to create something from nothing.

If someone acts positive and polite even if there is no reason to, it will brighten the mood of everyone around them, who in turn will spread it to next people. It will turn into a ripple of good that reaches far. It cost the initial polite person nothing to be polite, yet his actions added happiness to the world.

That is how anyone can make a difference. Be nice. Find opportunities to create positive emotions in others. Your act of kindness will increase the total pool of good feelings in the world, which will continue to exist long after you are gone, moving from person to person.

Even you have a personality that creates more distress than joy around you, you can still apply this principle in your life. If you make a conscious effort, you can at least create a bit less negativity, even if it’s just once a year. Or throw a little spice of good vibes on top of your toxicity when you feel like you can.

My SSD is full, but that’s a story for another time. What I actually want to discuss this time is the hard disk in my head. My memory. It’s terrible. Like, most of the days I don’t remember what I had for breakfast. It’s even harder to remember stuff that happened days, weeks or years ago. But, for some reason, there are a few parts of my brain that store and recall information really well. One of these is my memory for long numbers. Another one is the memory for Magic: the Gathering cards. And the biggest baddest storage space of them all is the part of my brain dedicated to storing embarrassing memories.

I think from time to time that I should make a conscious effort to store pleasant memories too, so that I have something to bring up to counteract all the bad ones. There’s the negativity bias and all. It’s all human nature. It’s not just me. Most people have these random flashbacks to past pitiful events, especially when going to sleep or when your brain is otherwise not occupied with anything else. So you gotta work hard to pay attention to the good stuff, because by default you take particular notice of the bad stuff. Like, a small nice thing that happened might go unnoticed. But a small annoying thing can really ruin your mood. What will matter in the end though, are all those small pleasant things that happened during your lifetime. So let’s all work harder to store these precious moments as long-time memories.

What? You say I need to get my shit together and change? Well I already have. For the better.

Me. In high school. I got a new hoodie. It is the first hoodie I’ve ever worn, and for some reason having a hood on my shoulders makes me anxious. I keep adjusting the hood and asking people if it looks okay.

Me. In his thirties. My wardrobe only consists of hoodies. Wearing a hood makes me feel most comfortable, somehow it makes me feel less bad when I’m in the deepest of depressions.

So, there you have it. I’ve certainly improved.