My dear reader, today I would like to share with you two insights:

1.Positive sounding headlines

Glancing over my posts, I see that some headlines convey lighter, brighter, more positive sentiments than others. A punchy, strong headline such as “Bad boy!” might be memorable and attention-grabbing, but in the long run it sparks far less joy than a gentle, friendly, hopeful headline. I feel.

For example in weight training, “Training to Failure” means repeating an exercise until momentary muscular failure.This sure is a punchy, strong concept, memorable and attention-grabbing, but training in a way that leaves you energized, safe, and eager to return tomorrow is far better. I reckon.

In short, from now on I want to watch my language even more closely.

2. The world — life itself — is a giant washing machine for the soul

I was so deeply immersed in my viewing experience that I didn’t take a screenshot, so here’s a mock drawing of the landscape and train.

I just got off a video call with my mom. She’s on her way to her elementary school class reunion in her hometown, class of over-70-years-ago. She’s looking good, good complexion, well dressed for a walk through the wide and wondeful westernmost edge of the Pannonian Plain. She’s on a train, a clean, new train, very smooth ride, obviously very comfortably seated. On my phone, through her train window, I see lavish green fields beneath a very blue sky, playful rays of light, fluffy white clouds, bright sunlight, crisp cold air that makes the colors and shapes pop, it’s simply a joy to watch.

I like to see my mom like this. But suddenly she got a call from a classmate: because she had missed the bus she will be picked up directly at the train station – this I learn later. She had to interrupt our call to answer it. And at that very moment I had this insight:

I do want to talk to her. I really enjoy seeing her, talking to her. It feels like an inner need now, as an adult, to talk to her. Not just making a check-up, catch-up call, but to connect with her, she being so dearly familiar to me, she who has been there since the very beginning of my world.

You might need to know that there were times — quite a number of years, actually — when my mom and I lived apart in the same town, never seeing each other, and neither of us would even think of calling each other, not even the idea of it; for several years on end. But over the past 20 years our relationship grew into what feels like converging into a most wonderful mother-son relationship, even though we now live 9,700 km (6,000 miles) apart.

So, while I was waiting for her to call (or not call) back, I was strolling through a park, beneath the shadows of trees with my own blue sky and my own white clouds, and I was thinking, “The world really is a giant washing machine.” It cleanses our souls, if we let it.

“What for?” I was thinking. “Are we humans some sort of AI models that are being trained? Or is this just the way life works?” There sure is a refinement, individuation, maturing, purification, cultivation, if we allow it…

…and if we don’t allow it, if we don’t let this refinement happen, and of this I’m pretty sure, then whoever operates the washing machine will pour in a stronger detergent, and set the temperature higher.