Lost in the ephemereal love of a catch call to action, the here I am for just today. Rain on the roof air in my lungs and love in my heart, a reality here for the second and any point abount to disappear. Is there a light in your eyes? Where is the magic magic, where is the progression, am I still just that sixteen year old who was half way half way, is there a purpose, is nothing a purpose, I don’t know, I’m just dancing in my head, always unsure just not going to let the straw break my back or the meaning of reality make me lose the faerie nature of reality. When I was a tree I felt more honest, but now I look to being the particles of nature again, drifting for infinite, for the tendrils to come together for some cosmic purpose, yet, then, here I am, in my purpose, what is it for what is it for, what is the greater we can do, what does light bring, why is it purpose to be light, what damned good does it mean the entirety of existence but then we are here, how must god feel, he must feel like everyone else, dazzled, and, wondering his own position, what is the what is the oh let the reality be all we have and I am not sure not sure but I am here and may I be true and as a soldier of the universe may I follow the purpose of a greater reality.
Remain (poetry)
Feelings of lost time
Always the feeling of the future
But when does that disappear
Life as a graph
In a retrospective future
There are only so many permutations
What would be the highlights
Of my future self
Ahhhhhh
The allure of reinvention
This purmatation is without closure
Is it time to move or to keep resisting
What does the finite nature of life dictate
Sincerely unsure
Sincerely lost
A trend calcified into a law
Lost as a reason of being
Lost as a way of life
Sitting with my father on a swing set
“I always hoped to have achieved more”
Is our potential to continue achieving not universal?
Isn’t it?
Ring a round the rosy, pocket full of posies
A choo! A choo! We all fall down.
But here we are
Not in the darkest light
Or the lightest light
Just a rumination
Still infinite
Still moments untamed
Wrapped dimensions
And meaning perhaps something
Maybe not ours to understand
What does the speed of light mean?
What does the mathematical probability of quantum really mean?
Why is light both a particle and a wave?
How is an electron and a photon related?
Are we primitive, who is carrying the torch?
Wanting wanting
Wanting wanting
Wasting wasting
Wasting
My feet still good
Heart still beating
Still free
Free as I have ever been
Choices at a finger tip
Other mountains to climb
Dimensions to disappear into
Yet still this consistent reality
Still the same questions unanswered
A candle failing to illuminate
Yet, still casting light
Still a choice
And still, with every touch of a keyboard
A choice to stay
And understand
If there is such a thing as progress
If A Relatively Competent General Wanted to Conquer the Democratic Republic of the Congo
There is no power in the Congo, it is an empty throne that no one really wants, so all aspects of a state are just facade. There is no correlative, perhaps Somalia, but it is different.
You do not need to conquer the DRC, you need to control the June 31 Boulevard in Kinshasa.
The Belgians structured the road for this purpose, it is the choke point of the entire DRC. It is the river of the city. Who ever controls this boulevard controls Kinshasa, whoever controls Kinshasa wears the crown of the DRC, since it’s a meaningless title.
I would think an ideal number of soldiers to hold it would be around 500 ace (read disciplined) troops with armoured carriers, but it could be done with a fraction, re: Rwanda invasion. Kagame is a great general, but he just highlights the complete lack of any form of real soldier power.
Note that every single thing in the DRC is for sale, 100 million dollar demands can be negotiated with the right tact (read respect and win/win perspective) down to a beer and 1,000 CDF.
Note that there are no bullets with most soldiers, they like to say Kabila keeps them, my personal hypothesis is they have been sold.
I would think a well branded revolution could succeed quite easily, perhaps incorporate the existing senate as a group of advisers with a permanent salary.
Congo feeds off of money changing hands, it is an extractionary economy that does not build value. This has to change. I would propose linking all bribes to a vehicle that is tied to long term success in the economy, so that powers that be are motivated to see the country succeed. I would also propose an immediate implementation of a clever universal basic income in a digital currency that expires and can’t leave Congo. Someone from MIT could figure it out. Finally I would propose throwing out the entire existing constitution, which is unrepareable.
The most clean path to a better Congo would be a 1789 style French revolution, but this would have a high cost of lives lost so this would be the key thing to try to nudge so that the the revolutionary burning of the existing paradigm is cleanly swept away with a minimal loss of human lives.
Note that a revolution will likely happen at some point, somewhere between today and in 100 years, revolution is the only way I see the DRC getting the fresh start it needs. Plausibly the country is conquered a dozen times by internal and external parties along the way, but I don’t see this as changing the status quo, the rationale of pillage is just too tempting, any messiah will find themselves on a cross. It would be good for the revolution to be structured to be sooner rather than later to get it over with; it would be good to be clever in how it’s done so there is a minimum loss of life; it would be good for there to be extremely concrete plans for what the goals of the revolution are and what would be the step by step roll out to transform the Democratic Republic of the Congo into a place where its citizens get the opportunity to live empowered lives.