though it may have been cathartic, i must say trashing the place was easy, mostly because tatiana and ash did all the work. i just showed up as a venerable guru and burned some stuff.

but i must say there are some things that have changed the way i perceive the world profoundly. here are some random snippets.

in 700 guests, i found no good way of predicting anything based on sex, gender, age, nationality, color of hair and so on. i also found that people's responses to myself (a fixed variable) are also pretty much random, ranging from love to hate with everything in between, fitting a nice bell curve that proves that it is a uniform distribution. this pretty much settled a simple thought: we are all clueless regarding other human beings and should ditch, once and for all, all stereotypes, with no exceptions, including gender. all stereotypes are profoundly wrong, and we just use them to confirm our bias

anarchy doesn't work because anarchists don't like to work, but anarchy works if you work a bit extra and provide the basics (food, warmth, security). this means that for anarchy to work, you have to work extra for everyone else and provide for others, meaning you end up being a slave of the community. i see this as one of the many paradoxes of anarchy. but the right answer is: anarchy works, under certain conditions.

people are pretty much an empty shell, filled with what's around them. what other explanation can there be for having 700 random people (with 3.8 connectivity) in your house and not a single one stealing or harming anyone else? we are defined so much by our setting, that a well designed setting will shape people into entirely different human beings. but don't get pompous. everyone reverts to the same lazy, selfish, oblivious fuck they were before, but with some new pictures to tag on facebook. PEOPLE WILL BECOME WHAT YOU TELL THEM TO BECOME! so remind them that they are full of shit. that will ground the ensuing conversation. then you can tell them how awesome they are.

messiness has a tipping point. too clean gets creepy, too dirty and shit grows exponentially, but there's a point where it's just right. it's in that point that people feel "at home"

if you're a young mid-twenties man you're fucked. races have racism, females have feminism, nationalities have xenophobia. but if you're a young male, you're on your own. the lone male traveler is one of the most kicked around of travelers out there.

beautiful people are too used to be catered to and agreed with and are wrong just as many times as everyone else, they just get told that much less often. learning to be able to reject this bias is essential to be socially fair. the inverse is valid for ugly people too. disregard the looks! write it on paper and see how a pretty face makes commonalities sound so interesting just because you want to procreate! ridiculous!

we may think we treat everyone the same way but we don't. everyone caters the pretty girl and kicks the ugly guy. that is profoundly wrong and, if anything, looks must be seen as a warning.

if you are born A and get told that A is always B, you will live up to be B, even if there's no B in you and you're a genius in C. everyone just lives up to their own (and their surrounding) expectations, prejudices and stereotypes and EVERYONE SUFFERS EXACTLY THE SAME WAY BECAUSE OF IT! the fact that everyone is forced to live a lie, to lie to themselves, and to live up to something they are not. yup. that model looking girl is just as fucked up inside as that fugly balding hunchback. everyone is just trying to cope with being real in a fucked up world. if you know how to recognize that in people, you will know people deeply. they will also cry on your shoulder. a lot.

listen. but don't be a neutral listener or people will revert to mindless shit. if the conversation is headed towards mindless shit, say it. interrupt and expose that fact. ask people what they really care about. ask people their story, what are they most passionate about, what world do they want to see. ask people fucking difficult questions. you will hear the most amazing answers if you let people bloom. water this with alcohol and food. we all need brain calories and a little loosening up.

freeloaders breed freeloaders. freeloaders always have money, but never when you need it. freeloaders will always bring friends, take more space than they need, and use a very elaborate and powerful suffering puppy dog look to get their way. if you don't want to have kids but want the experience, get a freeloader or two. here's the catch: a freeloader is the most adapted one to survive, so that suffering look is complete bullshit. learn to treat it like it is: another strategy to get by without doing shit for anybody else.

everyone thinks their music is the best, that their youtube videos are the funniest, that their vacation pictures are the best, mostly because they are so fucking clueless that they forget that only in their subjective experience those things have emotional content. yet EVERYONE will want to impose their tastes on everyone else, i argue not because they see it as imposing, but because they want others to feel that emotional response. news flash: nobody else does. if they were playing that wonderful polka song at that beach when you had your first kiss IT'S NOT THE POLKA SONG! i can hear it a million times IT WILL NEVER FEEL LIKE A FIRST KISS!

the better the humbler. the best buskers, artists and thinkers are the ones that SHUT UP! the ones that value words, music and moments enough to know they are precious. now don't confuse quiet with retarded-and-hiding-it. if someone has a tremendous gift, you just have to recognize it and feed that bit of their personality. they WILL BLOOM if you give them space and time to do it. the most generous and giving will not need to leave a mark, to write on your walls or to leave you notes. they know that the biggest mark you can leave anywhere is generosity and inspiration.

there are no such things as facts. everyone lives a fictional tale and only seldom you'll encounter someone that understands the scientific method enough to know that, that reality is somewhere beyond our comprehension and we're so fucking limited that there is little hope to get critical thinking to spread. the most common stories will always be the invisible aura energy mumbo jumbo, not the actual fact. that is probably one of the saddest (but most creative) things about human beings. they do not live in the real world, they live in a waking dream, walled up in their own beliefs and seeking only like-mindedness.

if you do not choose who you interact with, you will be miserable. you will be proven wrong every day, over and over again. it is a choice between being aware and miserable or oblivious and happy. can happiness come if you are aware? i'd argue yes, but only from adding meaning to your life. the easiest way to be happy is to remain in your bubble, to keep only the friends you agree with, to care only about your tribe. but that's closing yourself up in a cushioned cage. it saddens me that almost everyone i met falls in this latter category.

everyone is the promised messiah, everyone has the solution to all of mankind's problems, everyone knows best about everybody else. yet the people that will save your ass are the ones that make no such claims.

everyone is capable of being the most amazing expression of cosmic exuberance. but to get there, everyone needs shelter, food and real human connections. because if any of this fails, we get what's out there, 6 billion lazy, selfish, fearful sacks of meat that will destroy and kill everyone and everything they encounter.

my house provided shelter, food and real human connections, so it created amazing expressions of cosmic exuberance. all it needed was a keeper. everyone can be a keeper, and every house can be a hatch. yet one of my saddest realizations, is how rare this place and its activities were.

i know that despite hearing inspiration stories, nobody started anything (prove me wrong). but i know i can never go back to living a normal life in my own cushioned prison.

to all you cushioned prisoners: GET OUT OF YOUR FUCKING CHAIR AND ACT LIKE A REAL FUCKING HUMAN BEING. HERE IS A PROOF THAT IT CAN BE DONE. STOP THE WHINING AND BE WHAT YOU CLAIM YOU ARE! BE WORTHY OF THE NAME HOMO SAPIENS!

godspeed starstuff ☆★☆☆★★★☆☆☆☆☆