Writing & Creative Writing

"...let me introduce to you the concept of Homo Spectatoris, completely deprived of any spark of its own imagination, evolved to consume information at incredible speed, often multiple sources at the same time, and to convert these stimulus into consumeristic impulses and also…” for some reason, these words from the Professor caught my attention. This lesson was so boring; I had heard the same Homo Erectus, Homo Sapiens, Homo Super Sapiens story a million times, but this new take on our evolution left me intrigued.

Did we really evolve into such simple creatures? I would have called that Homo Pavlovian, but the Professor’s connotation was more geared towards being unable of being creative in any way. Sick.

I wanted to experiment with this. I unplugged my Visor after peeking at the uptime timer. Wow! I had been logged in for 673 days straight without reboots. I even had some critical updates to install that I had muted, terminating the process against the Netizen Manifesto. I took the opportunity to update my trusted companion device and to look around the Offline World. Most people couldn’t handle it; they were just addicted to content. I had a form of Schizophrenia that made me totally immune to Dopamine, pretty rare, but my parents didn’t want me to become a lab rat, so they falsified the mandatory prenatal DNA screening.

Obviously, my logoff was recorded, and I had already received yet another admonition from the Professor, but I mean, it’s just an AI. What is it gonna do? Hit my hands with a stick? I pay way too much money for these courses; they can’t afford to lose me! That notification stayed in front of me for a couple of minutes, slowly blurring, like when you stare at a bright light for too long and then look at something else.

As my eyes adjusted to the different light and, more importantly, to the depth of field, I was shocked. Holy Voxel, this is insane; I have never seen anything like this. People looked like zombies, like our ancestors always staring at their handheld devices, but this time around, at least, they had better posture; they were just staring into the void in front of them. They all looked like puppets controlled by some invisible puppetmaster inside their head. Well, technically, next to it.

So, in the past, we used to look down on the so-called “smartphones”. Fun fact: my grandparents had met via a matchmaking software on these bricks with a screen attached to it. I can’t believe my DNA survived the Great Wars and the Purge!

Now we just stare in front of us. I think in the future we’ll just look up! What’s left otherwise?

So, that I did. I looked up and, to my surprise, again, I have seen things that I had never noticed before.

The sky was made of some ancient screen tech, like the ones used in the Sphere Museums of Lost Vegas and Old London. Obsolete, but pretty high definition for the human eye. Nobody looked up anymore because it was just ads all the time. Ad blockers were pretty standard installation, but now without a Visor, I could see what was going on. I could see the sky!

What? Why? I kept scanning it in awe until I noticed a dialog window. Ha! It must be an ad. Let’s see what I should buy but I won’t... I thought, approaching the pixel area a couple of blocks from my position.

"If you can read this, you must act now. We have been invaded, our minds are trapped, you can’t free us all, we are doomed. It's OK. You and your kind must survive and prosper, land and resources are waiting for you at 1°24'36.2"S 102°51'02.2"E."

The message disappeared, only to reappear a few blocks away from me. So, there’s a chance that someone else like me has seen it... I had to figure out how to get there.

https://twitter.com/polyMatto/status/1777780890086646113

“This is how we found it, no traces of her, the dogs can’t smell a thing” the Sheriff reported while I kept looking at that van that I had seen in hundreds of hours of footage on my way to this place forgotten by God.

I trusted my eyes more than anything else in this evidence gathering phase, I wanted to feel it, catch any possible subliminal message she might have been sending before her disappearance.

“We should try again with the dogs, this time, let’s have them smell these boots instead” I replied, pointing at the boots that I had seen her wearing in multiple occasions, surely they carried a fair amount of her smell, unorthodox perhaps but it was worth a try.

“I disagree but you are the boss” he answered with a clear sarcastic tone, I knew he didn’t like the fact that a kid like me wearing a suit was there to give him and his majestic white beard orders.

“We are a team, let’s act like one” and to that he just nodded and touched his hat, whatever that meant.

The girl, where was she? She had been living in this van for years, like a social media stunt, then she adopted a dog that she had trained to do the weirdest things, started creating some adult content (without the dog I hope) and despite the millions that she had made, she kept living like that, in the wild, alone. I couldn’t understand.

Perhaps she was in for the ride and not for the goal, like for real. Regardless, she was lost, no uploads in five days and her fans were all concerned, even the First Lady posted about it, ridiculous if you ask me but who am I to judge?

“Interesting, check this out boss” the Sheriff got my attention, pointing at one of the tires.

Uh, it was brand new, when did she find the time to change tires? She posted every single day for hours. This van has been on the road non stop for hundreds of thousands of miles overall, it was certainly weird.

“Well done noticing that, I guess having someone experienced like you in the team pays!” I tried to compliment him but he gave me the same answer with his smile and hat.

I prompted our language model for some frames of the wheel and to put them in a timeline inside something I could browse easily.

Five minutes later I had received the link and I was already looking back and forth, the tires always looked new, but how?

Then it hit me, what if…

“Look for signs of digital alteration or generative AI in every single frame of every single video that has been uploaded” I prompted vocally my support agent. The snarky answer made the Sheriff laugh and spill his coffee.

“I would recommend to work on a sample of frames from various videos instead, parallelize the effort spawning multiple agents and repeating the task until at least 51% of all content has been scanned, at that point I would reassess if it’s worth proceeding with this expensive operation, bear in mind global warming, sir”

Global warming, yeah, it was -14 Celsius in there, 4 degrees below the average but sure Mr Agent, work on a sample!

“Processing…” was its rebuttal, without any acknowledgement of my moaning about the weather, as a proper Brit by origin.

It was going to take a few hours so we called it a day, at 3 AM I got a notification that woke me up from my state of half-sleeping.

“Processing complete, please find attached the full report”.

“Several hallucinations point at the fact that it was indeed generated footage, all of it. The van had been used as a model, everything else was fictitious. The artifacts point at a custom made generative algorithm, for this level of sophistication we only have three possible candidates based on the research literature, all men in their 40s and older. This is not by any means a suspects list, anyone could have used the available research to develop in house this kind of technology without the broad public knowing anything about it.” was the gist of it.

My case was solved but I was weirdly unhappy about the outcome, we had a bigger problem as a society. What could I trust anymore?

No video no proof? What if the video is all fake? What if it becomes undetectably fake? Damn, I should probably start looking into another job.

There’s no male or female; we invented these words because we have that capacity. We observe nature and we try to understand things because we have that capacity. We name, label, study, play—that’s what you do when you are at the top of the food chain. We feel, and we feel in a certain way because we have that capacity. Can lions and chimpanzees feel what we feel? We don’t know. Do we know if a male gazelle identifies as a female one? No. How do we know it’s a male then? We observe and make an educated guess. Emphasis on educated.

The gazelle doesn’t even understand a single thing of what we are saying. Why should it be bothered by our nonsense, especially if directed at its genitalia?

Peacocks are my favorites. As a kid, I always thought they were female; they looked "showy" and flamboyant, and my intuition attributed these traits as feminine. I changed my mind immediately, as soon as my ignorance was amended with some education, recognizing that peacocks might see things differently from me—no big deal. I am not a peacock, or at least I think I am not one. Sue me if you think otherwise.

If I see a lady with a beard and she shouts at me because I didn’t call her “him” or something I could have never guessed, I apologize and I stop talking to them immediately; clearly, they are more interested in being called what they like than hearing what I have to say, and I know for a fact that I often say things that might sound a bit like nails on a chalkboard. How do I know? Because I can still hear my thoughts! Reading back what I have said in the past, it’s quite cringe, but that means I am growing. Believe it or not, you are helping me grow. Thanks!

This is my creative space; if you don’t like it, block me. If you don’t want me on your platform, ban me. It’s not like I am going to stop thinking these or other things… what would you have achieved? If you really believe in what you are saying, please educate me… Just don’t coerce me in any way; I don’t play well with that, sorry. Neither should you, by the way!

Do we have the capacity to tell others how they should feel? No. Actually, often we obtain the exact opposite when we try. Can we coerce others into doing something that they don’t really want to do but that they feel like they would be judged by “other people” otherwise? Of course! We are complex creatures, but we are so simple and fragile. I embrace my fragility; if someone calls me a girl, I smile as I would smile if I was called a peacock! Worst case scenario, I would ask a simple question: “Why are you calling me that?” maybe learn something and move on regardless.

There’s no male capable of birthing children because it doesn’t have that capacity. Naturally. Not because they are not enough of what they are not. Why would a rose want to be a tulip even if it’s impossible? As hard as it could try, it would never ever achieve that goal. Why would a tulip accept a rose as its own kind? Out of generosity? Out of empathy? Out of ignorance? Out of coercion? Tulips and roses are different, and that’s OK. Every living being is, in a way, unique, but there are natural laws that transcend everything else. As humans, we have the capacity to bend many of such rules; perhaps one day, men will be able to grow babies inside of their bodies, women to use their sperm to fertilize an egg.

I just managed to summon a vomit aftertaste with my mind, so everything is possible! Aren’t these abominations like it would be cross-breeding a lion with a crocodile? Or a man with a lion. What if the next trillionaire identifies as the king of the jungle and manages to become a “man-lion”; would you be OK with that? “Yes, I would because they wouldn’t hurt anybody; they are just being lions—what’s the big deal? Also, it’s not happening in my backyard, so... who cares!”

Right… so what’s next? One day your daughter tells you that she cannot introduce you to her cat-boyfriend because you are allergic. She hates you for that! Congratulations! You should load up on antihistamines and accept… whatever. You can go cry in the toilet like a grown man!

My rebuttal to all of this is: “Why?” Believe me, I have asked a few times but have never received an answer; I was just offended and called names. I meant no harm, of course, like a curious and ignorant kid doesn't mean harm when they ask stupid questions, but if my idea of normal being:

man + woman = couple => kids

outrages you... I am deeply sorry to break it to you, but the world has much bigger problems right now than arguing on social media and on the streets with strangers about stuff that is taught, or at least WAS taught back in my days in school, first grade.

https://twitter.com/polyMatto/status/1778507718724128809

Hello dear stranger, since you are here, for whatever reason, reading my thoughts and peeking inside my soul, I feel like I should at least say hi. I could be British and ask you “How are you doing?” but that would be non-genuine, I don’t know you, I don’t know anything about you. I could instead be Italian and just say “Ciao” but you might think I am saying goodbye because perhaps you are more accustomed to Portuguese… Ok, I am making lots of assumptions here, since I am doing it, I’ll push it a little bit further and just pretend that you are something, that’s how we are going to have an honest interaction.

I will take this image as inspiration, pretending that you are what I am looking at. I see you got some life going on there, nice, very nice. You remind me of a pregnant woman, beautiful, not in a creepy way.

I wish you a majestic blossoming, it might be brief but what isn’t? It’s all ephemeral and relative and relatively ephemeral. We should all make the most out of each fleeting moment even if life, with its randomness, always catches us by surprise. You might feel like the time is perfect, it must be spring, you sense that the temperature is good enough but none of your fellow cherries is blossoming yet, what do you do? I really admire you, it must be really hard and risky to be the first one that’s brave enough to take a shot.

But what does it mean to take a shot? Is it to blindly trust your sense of the temperature and risk the odd cold day right afterwards or is it to ignore the warm day and wait for maybe another cold one before blossoming? It’s all a juggling of time and options. Time becomes more limited, life becomes more precious, experience increases but why? Because we made mistakes… because we took the “wrong shots”. Were they wrong if they led us to where we are now? Subjects of a picture that a rando is talking to on the internet without any particular reason?

I don’t know. I only have questions but I’ll tell you what, I don’t know you but you are helping me finding answers.

You might blossom so to bear delicious fruits that are going to be the vehicle to provide your DNA a few more shots even after you are gone at this “game of life”. Or you might just blossom for pure show. Just because you can, because you believe that’s your purpose and that’s OK. I can only joyfully smile at any form of expression that has the ultimate goal of touching other souls one way or another.

You are a tree, I am a person, or at least I believe I am and yet you touched me. If somehow I touched you too, I was wrong, you weren't a tree but now you know I am an honest person. You can blossom again just to remind me.

— Hello, dear stranger. Since you've stumbled upon these words and peeking inside my soul, let us begin with a heartfelt greeting. "Hi." There’s no pretence here, no meaningless pleasantries. I do not know you, after all. I could have been British and have asked you “How are you doing?” but that would be non-genuine. I could instead be Italian and just say “Ciao” but you might think I am saying goodbye because perhaps you are more accustomed to Portuguese…

So many assumptions but since I am doing it…

Let’s embark on an honest interaction, shall we? Picture this: you are the embodiment of the image before me. There’s a vibrant energy about you, akin to life itself. Nice, very nice. Much like the splendour of expectancy in a soon-to-be mother. Non in a creepy way.

I wish for you a majestic blossoming. It may be transient – but then, what isn’t? Our existence is fleeting, moments slipping through our grasp like grains of sand that don’t fall at the bottom of the hourglass but that are lost forever instead.

Do you feel this? All this randomness? I do too, it’s like if the grains of sand that represent our time are not only falling and disappearing but in the process are also span around by strong winds coming from all directions.

You took a chance there, you must have felt that the time was ripe for you to blossom even if your peers didn’t do it. You, daring to unfurl in solitude, earn my silent applause. The courage to be the harbinger of spring does not go unnoticed.

To take a shot – what does it truly mean? Is it to trust one's intuition of the warm days, disregarding the risk of a looming frost? Or is it to shelve that trust, anticipating yet another chill before daring to bloom?

It’s all a juggling of time and options. Time becomes more limited, life becomes more precious, experience increases but why? Because we made mistakes… because we took the “wrong shots”. Were they wrong if they led us to our current standing? As subjects of a picture that a rando is talking to on the internet without any particular reason?

I cannot claim to have the answers. Yet, your silent presence guides me toward them.

Perhaps you bloom to yield fruit, a testament to life’s tenacity, offering your essence a chance to persist beyond your physical departure in this grand game of life. Or perhaps your bloom is art for art's sake – a display of existence because you sense that is your purpose. Whichever the case, it prompts in me a smile, a celebration of life touching life.

You are a tree, and I am purportedly a person, and yet we connect. If my words have reached you, stirred something within, then perhaps you are not just a tree. And in knowing this, I recognize an honest connection. When next you blossom, it will be a reminder – not just of nature's cycle, but of this shared moment between us.

https://twitter.com/polyMatto/status/1778863078815248618

I hate commuting so much. There’s just so much that can go wrong. Either you travel with your own vehicle or you share something with others, it’s always the same thing. I just want to walk to work, my legs won’t —hopefully— abandon me up until I am pretty old and dysfunctional already.

I hate trips that have multiple legs even more, you just increase your changes of getting something wrong. The driver might be sick, the boat might be broken, the weather might be to inclement, and so on.

I have been waiting for my speedboat pickup for more than one hour, sixty percent of the times, it was already late. Why do I even wake up so early I didn’t know. What pissed me off is the fact that even if I wanted, I couldn’t have walked towards my destination. I thought that progress was meant to make our lives easier but here we are. Learning to swim in my forties didn’t help either, I just can’t swim fifteen kilometres below sea level.

We invested trillions to reach for the skies, to probe for life in one of the countless number planets gravitating around the equally countless stars. Look at us now. We realised that there was so much undiscovered life just under our noses. Finding Atlanteans was simply the greatest scientific breakthrough in centuries. I mean, they just gave us access to some of their crazy technology in exchange for some of the food that they had never encountered in their vast underwater cultivations. They are particularly fond of chestnuts and dragon fruits. How weird is that?

I work at the construction side of one of the new lifts that we are building to speed up the trade between us and them. I had to take the speedboat 12, then hop on the repurposed platform “Read the freaking manual” and from there it was all underwater travel, with all the depressurising involved, what a pain in the ass! The lift we were building removed the problem altogether, we could just maintain the same surface pressure, like if we created a hole in the ocean and we build lifts, stairs and pipelines inside. The metal alloys that they provided did all the heavy lifting, literally, but they didn’t want to provide the goods and also help us building it, we had to figure out ourselves. I think it’s fair, we are like monkeys to them, that’s one way to push us further and to go beyond or capabilities. That’s something that we had stopped doing for a while now.