JW Consciousness Stream - 10 November 2025

JW Consciousness Stream - 10 November 2025

This entry represents something like my stream of consciousness for Monday, 10 November, 2025. This is basically like a journal entry that I work on throughout the day. Since the girls were not in school, I did not have my own independent stream of consciousness for the last two days, nor time to focus and write, so I took a couple of days off from the stream of consciousness effort.

Originally published as: https://deliverystack.net/2025/11/09/jw-consciousness-stream-19-november-2025/

First, some music:

Somehow I did publish the following article Saturday morning, but I might have written some things that are too controversial for me to promote on LinkedIn:

I forgot to mention that Friday, Wendy asked for a coloring sheet of icecream, which was a relief. Saturday she asked for a coloring sheet of herself and it turns out there are sites where you can upload photos for free, or rather at the cost of your privacy, for conversion to line drawings and sketches.

Monday started kindof early. My older son called from the USA at 4:00AM, apparently not even considering my time zone, regardless of the fact that I was clearly groggy when I answered. He needs to find his social security card to get his driving license. I'm relatively certain that I already gave it to him or his mother along with my copy of his birth certificate so that they could renew his passport or get his driving permit. I specifically remember putting it in a bag for them. Otherwise, this paperwork would be in my safe with the social security cards and birth certificates for me and his younger brother. My friend that has my safe has looked repeataedly and says it's not there. His mother, who has always had problems with irresponsibility (similar to this son), can now find her copy of his birth certificate, but not my copy or the social security card. These kinds of issues with his mother are still extremely frustrating, where I have more sympathy for my teenage son.

Laos is always really hot, and this morning is no exception. I even sweat when it's cold. Here I am at 6:15AM with the fan blowing straight at me, dripping sweat. I need a haircut. Getting a haircut in a shop where nobody speaks English is always an interesting experience. It's generally less than $3USD here.

My mouse has developed a weird problem where I have to click very hard or it doesn't register the action. Honestly, this could be related to my sweating, but more likely it's a product defect or it could result from cramming the mouse into my backpack for travel. I like this simple small mouse because it fits in the right or left hand. It's tracking speed is more consistent than higher-quality mice, speficically gaming mice.This clicking issue is super annoying though, so I'll have to switch.

Little things like this can be challenging to find in Laos. It's like every company sends their products that failed testing here for sale at a small discount. I'm afraid to buy things like decent speakers because I've been burned a few times and return policies are terrible. I want to buy a laptop for my daughter Wendy (I already gave one to her older sister, Namneung) but it's often better to import electronics.

My friend in the USA that monitors my house and checks my mail sent me my property tax bill. I barely even live there the costs are outrageous; it's like renting instead of owning. Really nobody actually owns property; watch what happens if you don't pay your property taxes.I plan to sell that place in the summer of 2026.

We're not in a field of flowers
grown in the sun of the temple

If you think people are suffering in the material world, beware that they're suffering as much or more in the spiritual realm. It's not possible to be comfortable in one but not the other, and now, most people seem uncomfortable in both.

Christianity itself isn't the problem
Trying to be like Jesus is a good thing
But one must consistently apply his thoughts

While some of the bible is problematic
A critical thinker can reject those bits
And still interpret to find the value

Organized religion is a problem Because it represents a human power structure Wealth and power always corrupt To achieve greater wealth and power

Errors include things such as the prosperity gospel
And efforts to control simple human minds
To rationalize fear, greed, and exclusion
Such as associating religion with politics and parties

Expecting a theological text from hundreds or thousands of years ago seems like a logical error. It would be like expecting the engineers of the Internet's TCP/IP protocol to have accounted for all the potential harms of pornography, online gambling, social media, AI, and otherwise. These things are all made up by people, who are far from infallable.

Blogged:

People on WordPress are liking my posts, possibly because I'm not talking about technology anymore, and possibly because I'm letting WordPress ad hash tags. It's somewhat distracting and I may disable the email notifications, but I like to show my respect by checking their blogs in return. I think I really don't care about traffic and likes and things, so it's weird that when my blog and LinkedIn don't get much interaction I wonder what's going on, but when they do I can findi it almost overwhelming. For me, LinkedIn has really been like a ghost town lately - not only am I shadowbanned, but they're surfacing tons of irrelevent content repeatedly, and it seems like all of the good humor and content is gone (AI is killing everything; content no longer has any cost and most of it has no value). Not all of these WordPress likes appear to be fraud, as I can find others that are writing. This one even looks relevent to my book project:

And there may be more coming!

Actually, there are so many resources online about life lessons that I don't really have time to do research for my own book.

I did some writing about meeting Marta. I really can't work at the computer for long because of my foot. Today I took the bandage off, and it really shouldn't need another bandage until they take the pins out. It's still swolen and it's hard to keep it up when I sit at the computer. The whole foot is worryingly numb - I really look forward to getting the pins out to get a better idea of how it's going to work and feel for the long term. The thing that hurts most is still my ribs though. I must have cracked a rib or something; a bruise wouldn't hurt this much or take this long to heal.

It's lunchtime, which likely means noodle soup today. I'll probably have at least one can of beer with lunch, too. I've been drinking Nam Khong lately. Nam means water and Khong is a reference to the Mekong river, which normally goes by mae khong, where mae means mother in the Lao language. I really liked the first few (large) bottles that I had. Apparently Nam Khong has about a third of the calories as Beer Lao, which is basically the default beer here. Some people in Laos prefer Heineken, but I basically only drink Heineken in Amsterdam, and I think it's even worse when it's brewed in Asia (different water, maybe different ingredients). The cans that I got more recently don't taste the same as those first bottles. It seems like beer here is either very inconsistent or some isn't kept cold and it somehow spoils in the sun or something.

I just learned that Heineken makes Nam Khong and Tiger, which used to be a Singeaporean beer. I lived in Singapore for a couple of years but didn't like Tiger and beer there is too expensive unless you're out drinking drafts or drinking Chinese beer in a Chinese restaurant that is somehow cheaper (I assume they dodge tax duty somehow). Given a choice at a reasonable price, I'll typically go with a Japanese beer in either country, where I would rank Asahi above Kirin and Kirin above Saporo, but it also depends on which they have on draft.