Perception

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.

I read the paragraph above recently in the early pages of The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley. Huxley is probably best known for Brave New World (which I highly recommend if you've never read it). I was looking forward to reading this essay, but this paragraph caught me a little off guard. It reads not as if written by an enlightened intelligent person, but like a depressed and lonely sole. If that was any indication for the rest of the story, I wasn't going to be impressed.

Luckily, things turned around and this marked paragraph now seems a little out of place, though there is some follow up explanation in the book to bring it back down since we "are sufficiently like one another" so that we can understand and care about each other. But then I went back again after I finished the book and re-read this section that stood out so strongly. There is a very powerful imagery contained there and I can't really agree with but I do appreciate. No matter how well you know another person or how well connected you are to your community in your corner of the planet, in the end your "soul" - what makes you you - exists entirely within your own head, isolated from everyone and everything except through your senses, your perception. Maybe that's obvious, but I had never thought about it like that before.

I'm looking forward to reading more of his works.

PS - I linked the full text of The Doors of Perception, but this is one that is better read on a comfortable couch or lawn chair, so get the printed version.

Toughest Mario Level EVER

OK, I've just spent the last 5 minutes laughing my butt of at this video

It walks through a level that severely frustrated me many years ago. Somebody found the original movie and added a commentary like he was playing. The guy's commentary is very entertaining. Of course, the player is obviously very capable and familiar with the level because once he uncovers a new trick, he just works around it. But the running commentary is priceless. Strong language, so NSFW. If you watch the whole 23 minutes, your frustration level will be high -- but nowhere close to what it is when actually trying to play insane levels like this.

For completeness, here's a video of somebody actually finishing this. Of course, he kind of cheats using some issues with the ROM emulator (passing through walls) and exploits the breakable ceiling, but at least you get to see the whole world in like 4 minutes.