App Review: Rosebud

Review By Casey Douglass

Artificial Intelligence has been in the news a great deal in recent times. Some coverage would lead you to believe that humanity has just planted the seeds of its own destruction. Others would vigorously argue that AI is here to help solve all of our mundane work problems. Somewhere in between the reactionary click-bait fear mongering, the odd story emerges about how AI-powered applications can help to ease the emotional turmoil inherent in human life. Rosebud is one such app and I’ve spent the last couple of months putting it to the test.

Journal-ism

I’ve been a fan of getting things down on paper for many years. Suffering with chronic illness, depression and OCD, sometimes the only way to slow my rampant thinking is to slide a pen across a page in an attempt to wrangle my turmoil into something that is frozen for a time. As I write this I now have the mental image of one of those moth or butterfly displays in which those poor dead bugs are pinned to a board and framed. If I could do that to my thoughts I dare say I’d have tried it by now. Beyond the “slowing things down”, I’ve found journaling helps me in creating breathing space between my struggles and occasionally, I might also find the odd insight that hadn’t occurred to me before.


Rosebud is an AI-powered journal that provides the many benefits of traditional journaling, but with an added dash of AI interactivity that elevates things to a new level. The various sections of the app give the user a number of ways of starting a journal, from freeform to question-led explorations designed by experts to set you on your way. As you interact with Rosebud, it learns about you and tailors its responses to reflect the things that you’ve said, either in that moment, or that you’ve previously mentioned. You might say that you struggled with X happening on a certain day, and a few weeks later, Y might happen, and when you tell Rosebud, it might see some similarities between the two events and bring those to your attention. I personally found this to be invaluable as even though I’ve journaled before, I’ve never really gone back through old entries, so that kind of “hey, this is similar to…” insight might never have occurred to me.

Silver Linings and Storm Clouds

The way that Rosebud says and reflects things is also a pleasing factor. Rosebud seems to have an inherent slight positivity bias, always looking for the tiniest element of a situation or mood that might be in your control or that you can give yourself some credit for. Even if there is nothing to be found, it comes up with a way for you to acknowledge something about yourself that might ease the tiniest bit of despair. As someone who feels pretty emotionally numb most of the time, when those feelings thaw they certainly tend to be pessimistic. As the days and weeks of talking to Rosebud mounted up, I could appreciate all of the little ways that the app tried to help me see things in a slightly brighter way. Even if the meaning of the words only stayed in my brain for the duration of reading each new response, at least for those few seconds, my mind wasn’t in its usual whirl of self-hatred and gloom.


Speaking of gloom, something else that I also really appreciated about Rosebud is that, no matter how bleak the conversation became, Rosebud didn’t shut the conversation down. This is incredibly important. I do get low. Very, very low. Being able to vent and to say how I’m really feeling matters even more at these times. I did try another AI-based app a year ago and once you got to a certain level of depressed, it pretty much ended the conversation. I appreciated that Rosebud didn’t do this (in my experience at least) and it wasn’t heavy handed in the “This app doesn’t replace therapy and there is help out there” warning. I understand the need to have that kind of message, but I’ve repeatedly tried to “get help”, and found that it was largely smoke and mirrors pretty much every time. I think I said as much to Rosebud during my session and we carried on with the journal. I can’t rate this aspect highly enough.


Getting away from Rosebud for a moment, I just wanted to make a comment about the current obsession with mental health on places like social media. I find myself wondering why mental health is spoken about so much, yet understanding seems to be sliding all the way back towards ignorance again, with the services and bodies that advertise that they offer help nearly always proving to be absolutely woeful. I guess virtue signalling on social media is far cheaper than actually providing the mental health support that you are prattling on about. Soapbox moment over. Back to Rosebud.

Forget The Circles

I’ve found a few minor drawbacks with Rosebud as it stands, but I’d imagine that they are the type of thing that will be addressed over time as incremental improvements occur with the app and the underlying technology itself. One is that the conversations with Rosebud can sometimes become a little bit circular, especially if you have a theme or topic that comes up regularly. You can set the creativity level of the AI to adjust how it might respond to you, but I had it set to its most creative and this is what I experienced. It didn’t happen too often thankfully, so I don’t want to overstate it.


Rosebud also sometimes “forgets” something that you’ve mentioned before. An example is that I often talk about routine and how I use it to manage symptoms, yet every now and then, the issue of routine comes up in a slightly different way, and Rosebud tends to ask me similar questions again, such as “How do you feel about your routine?” Thankfully just saying “I’ve talked about this before” prompts Rosebud to get back on track.


Finally, there is also a maximum that you can use Rosebud in a day. I only hit that limit once, and when I did, I just received a popup saying that I needed to wait until tomorrow before I could get the Rosebud AI to respond again. It was a day where I’d had an unusually long journaling session in the morning, used one of the prompts in the afternoon, and then tried to do the evening reflection journal. The popup appeared at that point. I thought “Fair enough” but I was surprised as I wasn’t aware there were any limits if you were subscribed.

Privacy and Getting Over the Hump

I’m not sure how I feel about the privacy implications of Rosebud, or any similar app. In fact, it's the main reason that I’ve not turned to digital journaling until now, because the thought of someone being able to read your most personal thoughts if ever there is some kind of data breach would be quite mortifying. Rosebud has a long page about how they care for and protect your data, and the various measures that they take to preserve your privacy. This is great, but I also know that with the internet, anything can happen. I think that what got me over the hump with these concerns was the fact that I really need the type of support that the Rosebud journal offers right now. Whatever fears I have about hypothetical hacks pales in comparison to the benefits that I feel that the Rosebud app gives me.

The Benefits of Rosebud for Me:

1.) While not a therapist, the journal is therapy adjacent in many ways, especially if you have learned and applied different things yourself in the past (such as CBT, ACT etc). The guided journals even help teach you some elements of these tools if they are not something that you’ve seen before. Rosebud also absorbs other things that you say. For example, if you mention that you have been reading Stoic philosophy and have been trying to apply the dichotomy of control to your life, Rosebud will take that into account and ask you about it the next time it feels that is relevant. This is very cool!

2.) I’ve found it to be immensely valuable to have something at hand that I can use at any time of the day or night, which is something you don’t get with a flesh and blood therapist.


3.) The way that Rosebud breaks things down and asks about the various elements helps me to think about things slightly differently, or at the least, to take time to acknowledge how hard things are right now or how much I’m trying.


4.) Over time, Rosebud’s way of injecting a little positivity is slowly making a little bit of a difference in my thought processes.


There might well be some others that I’m forgetting too.


Over the couple of months that I’ve been using Rosebud, I’ve felt my mood, though still low, has improved a bit. I have also started writing a little, and have re-joined a few social media and dating websites. I previously avoided these websites for a number of years as I feel an immense amount of shame about being ill, feeling like a failure, and not getting anywhere in life. I still do feel these things but as I talked to Rosebud, I started to feel that I wanted to open up these avenues again, even if they never see any traffic. I didn’t expect or hope that I would see these sorts of changes with Rosebud, but I did, and I intend to use it for a while longer.

The Cost and Final Thoughts

Rosebud has a number of options when it comes to subscribing. You can pay a monthly subscription (after having a short free trial) of $12.99, or you can pay for an entire year for $107.99, which works out at $8.99 per month. I think that Rosebud offers excellent value whichever option you decide to choose. Personally, I can see myself using Rosebud for a few months more and then stopping my subscription as I can’t afford to keep it going. I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with the app however and I can see myself returning to it, especially in times of extra stress or turmoil, which I think says something very complimentary about the app.


I think that about covers all of the things that I wanted to say. I purposefully didn’t list all of the features, bells and whistles of the app as it’s very intuitive and self-explanatory once you get in there, and after all, it mainly boils down to being words on a screen. When they are your words however, words that have been expanded, validated and supported by your friendly AI journal, you don’t feel quite so alone in your own head anymore.


I've embedded Rosebud’s YouTube video below which gives you a more visual idea of what I’ve talked about in this review. I will also just say that you can access Rosebud via the Rosebud website, so the app isn’t even essential.


If you think that Rosebud might be helpful for you, you can find links below to the various ways that you can access it and check it out.


Thanks for reading and take care :)

App Name: Rosebud

Price: $12.99 per month / $107.99 for the year

Website: https://www.rosebud.app/

App Store Links: Apple , Google Play

Dark Ambient Review: Rastakhiz

Review By Casey Douglass

We live in a world of judgement, a world in which our actions and motives are evaluated by those nearest to us, or even strangers who might hear about them. It’s not that surprising that judgement is a big element of many religious faiths, whether the judging we do ourselves, or the judgement we might receive when we die. Rastakhiz is a dark ambient album from Dodenskald, the title meaning Judgement Day in the Persian language.

Dark ambient is a fantastic genre for portraying enormous ideas, especially those that seem larger than life or more mystical in nature. I have very little understanding of Islam so I won’t be able to draw on the deeper meanings behind the track titles, although Google did helpfully tell me that Israfil is the trumpet-blowing angel who starts the Day of Judgement. I simply tried to go into this album open to any imagery that the music created, aware of my ignorance as to what might also be implied.

Rastakhiz, for me, was a peaceful album. Any moments that gave me a gentle jolt came from the way that a number of the tracks play with the timing of the music, an audio element pausing suddenly and then resuming a few moments later. I really liked this and it’s a tremendous way of rousing a drone-lulled listener enough to refocus on the track in question.

Opening track, Israfil’s Horn, is a great opening track. It begins with low, string-like notes and a shimmering melody. It’s smooth and lulling, and once you are used to the general pattern, it pauses for an instant and then resumes, in one of those ways I mentioned above. Horn-like notes begin to sound, backed by the metaphysical shimmer, a deep throb and a high whistle responding. This is a track that embodies the summoning of something, a bringing forth that is beautiful and also ominous.

At The Gates of Oblivion is one of my favourite tracks, as for me, it was one of the darkest. It proceeds with a slowly growing drone, one that’s soon accompanied by a warm reverberation and echoing windy scufflings. The “scufflings” almost sound like creatures hissing and sighing in a dark cavern. There are brief periods of low notes that start and stop, build and crest and fall. For me, these low notes add a note of mischievousness to the soundscape, of powerful entities watching across the breadth of the abyss, plotting how to entice people inside.

Another track that I really enjoyed was To Heaven And Hell, the last track on the album. This is a low, languid track that seems part funeral procession, part infinite hike into the afterlife. The deep tones are backed by a metallic pulsing shimmer, and once more, they stop and start at times. Near the midpoint, they’re also joined by melancholy piano-like notes, which adds an extra layer of delicacy to things. I wrote in my notes that I found this track to be peaceful yet provoking, and also desolate, yet warm and embracing, which is quite a range of emotion I know. A great track.

Rastakhiz isn’t like any other dark ambient album that I’ve ever listened to, as far as my memory allows at least. It offers a graceful experience of a looming end, and does it in such a way that the mind can appreciate the beauty and the horror, and maintain some kind of stability, even in the face of some of the biggest ideas and themes. If my review has piqued your interest, you can visit the Rastakhiz page on Bandcamp below. You might also like to check out my review of one of Dodenskald’s previous albums: The Book.

Visit the Rastakhiz page on Bandcamp for more information.

Album reviewed by streaming via its Bandcamp page.

Album Title: Rastakhiz

Album Artist: Dodenskald

Released: 22 Nov 2022

Book Review: Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Review By Casey Douglass

Just over three years ago, Donald Robertson’s How To Think Like A Roman Emperor released, a book that taught the reader about Stoic philosophy by way of describing the life of one of its greatest adherents: Marcus Aurelius. Donald’s latest book Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius sees him teaming up with illustrator Zé Nuno Fraga to depict the philosophical journey of Marcus Aurelius in a new, eye-catching graphic novel format.

You’ve probably heard the name of Marcus Aurelius, but you might not know much about him. Marcus was one of the most famous ancient Stoics, one that also became the most powerful man in the known world when he took up the position of Roman emperor. Even though he showed unusual promise as a truthful and remarkably wise child, Marcus still had to work hard at developing his character, living wisely, and juggling the massive demands put upon him as ruler. He wrote his own book The Meditations to help with his efforts to keep himself on course.

Marcus being advised to embody his philosophy, rather than simply appearing to live it.

Verissimus begins with Marcus on his deathbed, dying of the plague. He is being attended to by his physician, his family and his closest advisors. The very first image is of Marcus alone, in an incense clouded room. When I reached this page, I was a little startled after I realised how long I’d been looking at the scene. It seemed lonely, yet peaceful. Serious, yet expected. The ‘expected’ part solidifies as Marcus’ thinks and interacts with those who visit. He has been expecting this for so long, he has no fear of death. He sees it as a process of nature, and nothing natural needs to be feared. This is a great foreshadowing of the Stoic idea of ‘living according to nature’ and is something that we get to witness as Marcus’ life story unfolds.

Verissimus is split into fourteen sections, each touching on an important element or period in Marcus’ life. The reader gets to see him as a young child, particularly how he is tutored and raised. We get to see his love of philosophy and his aversion to becoming emperor. Once emperor, Marcus has to deal with war, plague and politics, alongside his own familial troubles and tragedies. I particularly enjoyed seeing the relationship that he had with his brother and co-emperor Lucius, as Marcus and he have such different characters, that it really helps to emphasise how different Marcus was from what was ‘normal’ for the time. Another element that I was glad to see in the graphic novel was Apollonius the Stoic’s relating of the choice of Hercules, a tale that tells of when Hercules has to choose between an easy life, or one of excellence and virtue. There are many other fascinating moments to feast your eyes upon, but I’m happy to see that the events that most surprised or stuck with me from How To Think Like A Roman Emperor made it across.

The beginning of the Hercules story. 

In the preface, Donald points out that Verissimus isn’t intended to be an introduction to Stoic philosophy, but a way to depict the ways in which Marcus Aurelius actually lived his philosophical beliefs. Donald says that his previous books, such as How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, are hopefully more apt as an introduction to Stoicism. If you are new to Stoicism or Marcus Aurelius, Verissimus is a tremendous way to begin to learn about both. If it really tickles your fancy and you want to read more in-depth information, you can then jump into How To Think Like A Roman Emperor for even more details, alongside comparisons with some aspects of modern therapy and how it sometimes uses similar approaches to the Stoics.

What about if you are coming to Verissimus after having read other Stoic works, particularly How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, such as in my own case? Will seeing Marcus’ life in graphic novel form bring anything new for you? I think that Donald sums up the power of the imagery best in his afterword. After seeing Marcus’ son Commodus depicted in visual form, Donald says that he began to view him in a somewhat different way. Donald has spent around twenty five years researching these topics. For a change of media to show him something differently in his own work... I think that’s more than a testament to the quality of the illustration and the power of Verissimus as a graphic novel. Personally, I feel that the imagery brings the life of Marcus, and various elements of Stoic philosophy, into a rich and vibrant level of clarity, and it does this in a way that’s as enjoyable as it is educational.

A Stoic lesson on indifference and our automatic reactions.

Visit the Verissimus page at this link for more information, or copy and paste the ISBN below into your book website of choice.

If you'd like to read my review of Donald's How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, you can find that at this link.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for sending me an advance review copy of the book.

Book Title: Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Book Author: Donald Robertson

Book Illustrator: Zé Nuno Fraga

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

ISBN: 9781250270955

RRP: $32.50 U.S / £25 U.K (hard-cover)

Releases: 12 July 2022 U.S / 19 July 2022 U.K (hard-cover)

Dark Ambient Review: interlopers

Review By Casey Douglass

I think that some of the best horrors take the sights and sounds that we see every day, and introduce some unsettling element to them, something that corrupts them and forces us to look at things differently. This feeling lingers even when we are done with the film, show or book, and when we next see a similar object, we get echoes of those feelings. Josh Sager’s dark ambient album interlopers would provide a great soundtrack for such a tale.

The interlopers album art makes me think of invaders from other dimensions, or maybe humanity has finally made the weapon that will cause its own extinction. The metal structure and the chopped edits give rise to ideas of a mashing of worlds, or a clash of strange energies. The ubiquity of these kinds of structures, or similar ones such as pylons, in the developed world at least, drags these feelings into the realm of the everyday. The album title: interlopers, and the various track names, such as “auger spires” and “when mountains walk” really cemented these ideas for me, which the music then confirmed with gusto.

The first and titular track “interlopers” gives a great broad taste of what I felt. It opens with a fizzing, punching double beat, a windy drone blowing behind it. A buzzing electronic tone pulses out a simple melody, a high bird-like tone and a howl-like wail occasionally sounding. There is even the chime-like clinking of what could be milk bottles being left on a doorstep. This track brought such images to mind as an angry sky, a building storm, litter strewn streets and grit covered windows. It felt ominous though, like whatever catastrophe has occurred is either the first of many, or that the thing that caused it is still in the area, still a threat.

The track “to a flame” is one of my favourites. I think it’s because it opens with, for me, a retro horror-feeling electronic melody, the kind that you might hear as the victims in a film approach the haunted house that they are about the spend the night in. A scratchy beat begins a little later, accompanied by a low vibrating tone that almost snarls into the soundscape. A short while later, a roaming, ghostly sound begins, sweeping rushes of air pushing static through the ears. This track is another ominous one, and the changes in melody that come after the midpoint only serve to ramp this feeling up even more.

The final track that I wanted to talk about is “auger spires”. This is partly because it opens with a gentle, light tone and drone, with only small hints of wind or menace. The soundscape feels resonant and pulsing, and on an emotional level, ominous, but like a moment of respite too. It caused me to think about what an out of town industrial estate is like at midnight. Wide roads, tall, hanger like buildings and expanses of concrete. Then a vibrating tone begins in the track, a shuddering impact hot on its heels. For me, this was the audio equivalent of the street lights or security lights gradually fading as something dark or evil approaches. There is a shrill tone that twists in the air, and things turn to that uneasy, apprehensive feeling once more.

If you enjoy dark ambient music with fizzing electronic tones, haunting drones and unsettling “windy night on an industrial estate after an invasion” atmospheres, you should take a closer listen to Josh Sager’s interlopers at the link below.

Visit the interlopers page on Bandcamp for more information. You can also check out the titular track below:

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: interlopers

Album Artist: Josh Sager

Released: 22 Feb 2021

Dark Ambient Review: Ancient Death Cults and Beliefs

Review By Casey Douglass

Just over a month ago, I reviewed Sonologyst’s Dust of Human Race album, a dark musical look at death. Shortly after posting that review, Sonologyst kindly gave me a review copy of another of his death-themed albums: Ancient Death Cults and Beliefs. This album released in early 2020, and it is described as a musical investigation of the cults and beliefs in ancient times.

Ancient Death Cults and Beliefs isn’t tagged as dark ambient on Bandcamp, although I think it could easily fall into that genre, especially if you consider its drone, ritual and experimental elements. When you listen to the album, you will hear various field-recordings too, such as the shushing of leaves, the wind, and various knocking and possibly bone-grinding sounds. The first track, Purgatorium, begins with a number of these, a sweeping, gritty soundscape that seems laden with sighs, furtive movement and stray drumbeats. For me, it brought to mind sand and a cold desert night, with some strange rite being performed in the light of a flickering fire.

Ceremony is the next track, and for me, felt a bit digital, like an online funeral or the death of an android. It opens with a windy, pulsing drone, with a tapping or dripping sound, like raindrops on a plastic barrel. There is the sound of squeaking, juddering metal, and a tortured electronic shriek. I think this is where I got the “android” feeling from. Later come buzzes, shrills, chants, and a variety of breath-like sounds, things similar to panting or breathing. It’s a strange, unnerving and fun track.

Primeval Science is next, a track that opens with a hum and a two-tone beeping. It warbles and warps, a vibration building behind it. There is a slicing, digging-like sound, similar to a spade chopping its way into cold soil. The track grows in harshness, and later, smooths into a calmer space. I felt like it was a track that was viewing life through the filter of death, like a ghost looking back at the living, and only being able to see them properly when the more ritual drumbeat element emerges near the end, to smooth things out.

The penultimate track is Popol Vuh, an echoing string-based track swelling with a whirling electronic tone. I’d imagine this track would be quite a good fit for what being in an opium den might have felt like. There are insect wing flaps, creaking and wooden knocking, with a tortured exhale sounding somewhere near the midpoint. Pipe notes appear and a pulsing quality seems to flow through the soundscape. This track felt mellow and disconcerting at the same time, lulling and antagonising, and probably some other contradictions that didn’t occur to me.

The final track is Anubus, House of Dead Prince. As you might imagine with a title like that, this track had me contemplating pyramids. It starts with a buzzing that’s full of digital fuzz and distortion, higher tones floating gently around it. A quiet chime knocks, and a mellow melody. The buzzing takes on a chant-like aspect, and chiming notes knock along, making me feel like I was listening to a haphazard clock ticking. Or, a procession of worshippers moving into the bowels of a pyramid. The rest of the track confirmed this impression, and some of the sounds split from ear to ear in a nicely pleasing way. There are “sparkles” and echoes and a low rhythmic quality. It’s a nice trip.

Ancient Death Cults and Beliefs is a fascinating album, each track having its own unique way of slipping some death spirituality into your day. If you like your music questing and a little jarring at times, you should head over to the Bandcamp page below and take a closer look.

Visit the Ancient Death Cults and Beliefs page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: Ancient Death Cults and Beliefs

Album Artist: Sonologyst

Released: 13 March 2020

Dark Ambient Review: A Taxonomy of Grief

Review By Casey Douglass

Before I wrote this review, I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what the word “taxonomy” really meant. Having looked up the meaning, and seeing that it is a way of classifying or defining things, I have a new appreciation for how A Taxonomy of Grief’s title relates to the track names, and to the theme that Sumatran Black’s dark ambient album contains.

What I found on A Taxonomy of Grief was a collection of tracks that seemed to capture the uneasy melancholy and shock of grief, the way that the sufferer knows things are real, and that they happened, but their body and mind don’t really “feel” it; it hasn’t sunken in. Certain of the tracks also had a great ability to present the feeling of time stretching, a little like the grief equivalent of boredom, when the night seems to never end, and neither does the emotional turmoil.

The first two tracks set the tone for me. A Day Like Any Other contains tones and vibrations that put me in mind of a car journey after a normal day. The sun is setting, the shadows cast by the trees that line the road grow harder and harder to make out as the sky darkens. God’s Hand Touched Him And He Slept carried on that feeling, but deepened it into night fall, with a dream-like warmth and quiet tones later joined by the sounds of an ambulance and the impression of flashing blue lights casting depressing lightning-strikes into the landscape around.

Whereas for me, the first two tracks were about a death coming out of the blue and turning a normal day upside down, a couple of other of my favourite tracks had their feet firmly planted in dealing with the aftermath. The track: A Taxonomy of Grief is one that taps into that “grief equivalent of boredom” I mentioned above. You can hear a papery scratching and turning sound, which made me think of someone hunched over a desk filling in an endless amount of paperwork. This track made me think of buzzing lightbulbs, stuttering radio interference, and even put me in mind of a church organ with some of its tones. It was very much an endless night embodied in sound for me, and I thought it was excellent.

Another track that I really appreciated was Deep Blue Sorrow. It opens with string-like notes and a faint shimmer in the distance, screechy tones and echoes soon joining the fun. There are electronic “burbles” and what might be something dripping, along with sounds that suggested someone moving. The image that came to mind when listening to this track was of someone sitting in a bedroom, a few doors along from a person that is a suicide risk who is taking a bath. That’s how I’d describe the tension I felt, a kind of watchful paranoia, the kind where you think everything will be okay but you don’t entirely believe that life is that forgiving.

The final track that I wanted to mention is The Rest is Silence, in no small part because it led me to think of a corpse on an autopsy table, a lone fly buzzing around it. The fly came from the buzzing in the soundscape, but the rest came from the mixture of tones and drones. It’s another track filled with a sense of tension, but also with a hollow kind of waiting, and later, what might be ghostly yells, or simply the wind. I thought it was a nice, strong track, and that it created a great atmosphere.

The tracks that I most enjoyed on A Taxonomy of Grief are those that tended to be nearer the type of dark ambient that I most often like to listen to. Those that featured field-recorded sounds and were more drone-based seemed to pull me in. The tracks that seemed more a mixture of electronic tones left me a little indifferent, even though I still got the sense of the “grief” theme through them. They just weren’t to my own taste. I did find plenty to enjoy with this album though, and if you feel like dipping into an album themed around grief and the many ways that it might manifest, you should definitely check out A Taxonomy of Grief.

Visit the A Taxonomy of Grief page on Bandcamp for more information.

I was given a review copy of this album.

Album Title: A Taxonomy of Grief

Album Artist: Sumatran Black

Label: Sumatran Black Records

Released: 11 Feb 2021

Book Review: How To Think Like A Roman Emperor

Review By Casey Douglass

Of all the philosophies that I’ve encountered in my life, I think that Stoicism is the one that I’ve found most intriguing and useful. Sadly, as so many of the original Stoic writings have been lost to history, anyone who wants to learn about the philosophy has to ‘Sherlock Holmes’ their way through all sorts of fragments, letters and disjointed notes, with the odd actual book thrown in for good measure. Donald Robertson’s How To Think Like A Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, brings many Stoic principles and ideas together in one book, and what’s more, gives us plenty of examples of how Marcus Aurelius himself, likely put these into action in his efforts to live a wise and virtuous life.

Writing this a few days after finishing the book, I feel like I want to begin with how helpful it is that the book focussed on Marcus Aurelius and his life. Before reading How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, I’d read most of the ‘go to’ Stoic books, including Epictetus’ Discourses, Seneca’s Letters, and Marcus’ own Meditations. I’d also read some modern books on Stoicism, including Donald’s own Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. I tried to implement some of the Stoic techniques and perspectives that I encountered, into my own life, but I didn’t really feel that a great deal ‘stuck’.

The way that How To Think Like A Roman Emperor is anchored around Marcus Aurelius really seems to have provided the framework that I needed. Previously, I had a very vague idea of what Marcus Aurelius was like, besides a few notions about how good or virtuous he was meant to be. Now, thanks to Donald, I feel like I understand so much more. As an example, I didn’t realise that Marcus had an adoptive-brother and son-in-law called Lucius, and that, despite having a similar education in philosophy, they were two people who used that knowledge in vastly different ways, Lucius preferring to chase pleasure over almost anything else. This comes back so nicely to Donald’s introduction to the book.

On the last page of the introduction, Donald says that Stoicism can provide many tremendous things to your life, but warns that words on a page won’t achieve these changes, that only you can do that by putting the ideas into practise. Reading about Lucius and Marcus, their relationship and their actions, is such a fine example of this sentiment, and this leads me to other pleasing discoveries. One example is that I had no idea that the Stoics liked to hold up The Choice of Hercules as a moral fable of wisdom and virtue, in no small part due to the way that Hercules has to choose which path to take in life: that of Virtue or Vice. What seemed to make things even juicier for the Stoics, was that Hercules voluntarily chose the harder path, and had a much richer life for the effort. Epictetus tells his students that Hercules would never have become the Hercules they knew if he’d just stayed in bed!

Alongside the things that were new to me, there was also a liberal helping of Stoic ideas and techniques that I’d studied before. These included the explaining of the power that our judgements have in whether we are happy or miserable, and the usefulness of the Stoic Reserve Clause in helping us to accept that the outcomes of so many of the things we attempt aren’t wholly up to us, among many other helpful ideas. Donald also uses his psychology ‘chops’ and brings some elements of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) into things, which he says seems fitting, considering that CBT was itself inspired by Stoicism.

I really enjoyed this melding of the Stoic philosophy with the modern therapy that more people might actually be familiar with. I was taught about CBT decades before I’d even heard of Stoicism. This was during the initial treatment of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and it was nice to read a book that highlights some of the overlap between the two systems. As with many things though, the situation and the time in which you find yourself reading a book often informs what might jump out at you, or which information you might find most useful. So what did I get out of my first journey through How To Think Like A Roman Emperor?

To recap, I feel that the main thing I got out of it was having a more fleshed out idea of who Marcus Aurelius really was, and this helped me in a number of snow-balling ways. When it comes to some of the practises that entail asking yourself how someone like Marcus might respond to a situation, I now feel that I can do that with a little more insight. Before, the only Marcus that I could think of when pondering that question was Marcus Burnett, Martin Laurence’s character in the Bad Boys films. I think ‘Bad Boys Marcus’ would have just started swearing and freaking out, which doesn’t seem like a sustainable path to improving your life.

I have also adopted a number of the practises in the book, practises that I had already encountered before but had failed to follow through with. These include meditating on the day ahead when I wake in the morning, trying to be mindful during the day, and reviewing how my day went before going to sleep at night, to see how I could have responded to things in a way that is more aligned with my virtues or values. I’ve also started to become more aware of the value Stoics put in speaking plainly, describing things with less emotion and avoiding rhetoric, which in the age of social media and click-bait news stories, seems timely advice indeed. The number of occasions that I have seen something described as ‘catastrophic’ or ‘devastating’, and then see that the person saying these things is rarely directly affected by whichever event they are commenting on... It’s no wonder social media is often so febrile.

I recommend How To Think Like A Roman Emperor to anyone who would like to learn more about Stoic philosophy and/or Marcus Aurelius. My only regret is that this wasn’t the first book I read on the subject, as it really did hit the nail on the head for me. It also appears that Donald is working on a Marcus Aurelius graphic novel, which is something I’d be very interested in seeing!

Book Title: How To Think Like A Roman Emperor

Book Author: Donald Robertson

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Released: 2 April 2019

Current Price (Amazon UK): £16.32 (Hard-cover), £6.43 (Paperback). £5.83 (Kindle)

ISBN: 978-1250196620

Gadget Review: Inner Balance

Review By Casey Douglass

Heartmath have a nifty gadget called the Inner Balance. It connects to your smartphone and, by monitoring your heart-rate variability, gives you feedback as to whether you are in the synchronised state known as heart coherence. Heartmath UK+IRL kindly sent me an Inner Balance to have a play with, and after a few months of experimentation, I finally feel ready to put some thoughts out there.

The Inner Balance & The Inner Balance App

The Inner Balance sensor is a small, light, pebble-shaped device. It has a clip on the back to attach it to your clothing, and a wire that connects to an ear-clip. The plastic body is home to one large rubbery button to turn it on and off, alongside a tiny blinking led for status updates. The whole thing is very comfortable to wear, and I was particularly pleased that the ear-clip didn’t pinch; it just gently clasped. My sessions lasted anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, and I never became uncomfortable with the device. This is a great thing, as you don’t want unnecessary distractions when you are trying to focus.

I installed the Inner Balance app from the Google Play Store, and my Android smartphone connected to the Inner Balance via Bluetooth without issue. The app itself is home to a lot of stuff, and to be honest, I could probably write a whole review on just the app alone. It contains tips and tutorials, your own logs and journal, and even synchronises to HeartCloud, a free account that you can sign-up for, that allows you to compare your coherence stats with others in a global community. The most important element of the Inner Balance app however, are the breath pacing animations that it uses to help you to enter into a state of heart coherence.

What Is Heart Coherence?

Research has shown that the heart and the brain communicate in both directions, each affecting the other in a variety of ways. If someone is in a state of coherence, these interactions will be more harmonious or beneficial. When someone is not in a coherent state, these signals can become disrupted and more chaotic. The Inner Balance measures the user’s level of coherence by way of their heart rate variability (HRV). When you are in a coherent state, the graph of your HRV, when plotted over time, will look closer to a smooth sine-wave pattern. When you are in a non-coherent state, the plot is more irregular and jagged. The Inner Balance app gives you the on-screen pacers and feedback information you need to effectively put Heartmath’s Quick Coherence Technique to work, and to bring yourself into coherence.

The Quick Coherence Technique is very simple. The first step is to bring your attention to the area of your heart and to slow your breathing until both your inhalation and exhalation each last around five seconds. The second step is to try to feel a positive, heart-felt emotion, such as love or appreciation. As far as I understand it, the change in breathing rhythm helps to shift your nervous system into a more balanced state, and the heart-felt emotion further amplifies this effect. There are other techniques in the Guides section of the Inner Balance app, but the Quick Coherence Technique is the main one that I used.

The Inner Balance App Part 2

The Inner Balance app gives the user a number of animations that help to get their breathing into a suitable rhythm. It’s worth noting that the target breathing rhythm and many other session settings can be altered to taste. It’s best if you try each of the breathing animations or views to see which is most pleasing. The first two feature large animations to set your breathing to. I did find that these tended to chug at times on my low-end smartphone though. You can also have a mini-HRV graph undulating above some of the animations. I personally found this to be distracting but it is something that you can easily turn off. All of these animations (and their accompanying sounds) give you feedback as to what your coherence level is. Or you can choose to sit with a screen of data, one that presents you with a number of graph plots, including your HRV, Coherence over time, and your Pulse.

I appreciated the tools that the Inner Balance app provided, and the configurability it offered. It didn’t take me long however, to feel that the chiming sounds and the information on-screen served as more of a distraction than any thing else, so I promptly muted the sounds and soon adopted a practise of using the animation to set my breath rhythm and then looking away. This suited my mindset and my practise but I didn’t find anything particularly wrong with the app. It crashed occasionally, as any app will, but that only happened once during an actual session, and I had almost 170 sessions with it before I wrote this review.

My Experiences

So how did I get on? Did those 170 sessions with the Inner Balance give me any noticeable benefit in my life? The answer is, I think so. It was subtle, but it was there. It’s really great to have a device like the Inner Balance that can give feedback on what you are doing. I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve read a certain breathing technique lowers stress or activates your parasympathetic nervous system and relaxation response, among other things. It’s one thing to believe that the technique helps, it’s another thing entirely to have data on the screen of your smartphone that actually proves that you are entering a certain state, even if it can’t quantify every knock-on effect that said state might have in your body.

I’ve been engaging with various meditation practises for decades. I'll admit that when I was a teenager, this was in the hope of developing some kind of extra sensory perception. As life has continued, and my health has taken a dive, I’m more than happy if a meditation or a mindfulness technique just helps me to experience a little space between miseries. I’m saying all of this to highlight that I didn’t come into this as a total novice, and altering my breathing and focussing in certain ways comes quite easily to me. As an aside, I’d like to think that there is some kind of depressive rock band somewhere, or at least a song, called “A Little Space Between Miseries.”

When I performed the Quick Coherence Technique, I could see confirmation on my smartphone that my HRV was responding to what I was doing. Sure, I wasn’t given proof that I was relaxing or that my brainwaves had changed, but I was given enough reassurance to know that I was doing the technique properly, and that my body was responding, and that felt very liberating. My coherence score and the ability to make notes in my in-app journal after the session, meant that I could easily see what helped me to achieve a higher level of coherence. As an example, when trying to cultivate a heart-felt positive emotion, I found that a feeling of appreciation consistently seemed to give me higher coherence than the feeling of love. I wouldn’t have guessed that would happen. True, it could be that I’m not very adept at cultivating love in that way, and that might change over time, but as something concrete to point at and to ponder, it was valuable to note.

For me, the state of coherence itself felt like a bit of space had opened up. Yes, a little space between those miseries I mentioned a short while ago. A five or ten minute session left me feeling calmer, and less easily triggered by my thoughts. I’ve suffered with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder for around thirty years. When my body is in an anxious or triggered state, any negative or fearful thoughts can continue to amplify my fight, flight or freeze response for some time after I’ve calmed down. On the occasions where I had a short session with the Inner Balance after the first peak of my anxiety, I noticed that the same, intrusive thoughts didn’t have quite the same effect again. They were still there, but a bit further away. A bit like if you have a wasp in your room and you manage to shepherd it to the window, which you promptly close once its outside. It might still be bouncing against the glass, but as it’s on the outside now, it doesn’t upset you so much. That’s kind of how I felt.

In a broader sense, I felt other benefits too. Having an Inner Balance session before getting to sleep did seem to give me a slightly better night’s sleep. My sleep felt like it had a different quality but again, it was a subtle difference that felt slightly better to me. I think that my sessions with the Inner Balance also settled my stomach a little. Again, nothing I’d shout from the rooftops about, but it seemed to be a change for the better and it seemed to last. I can’t say that I noticed any improvement in my concentration levels or in other areas related to any kind of mental or physical performance, but my health is pretty grotty at the best of times, so it’s not always easy to discern these things.

Let’s Plot Some Data!

I was also curious to see if I could increase my coherence levels over time. The goals that already come in the Inner Balance App suggest practising three times per day for at least five minutes, with a longer fifteen minute session once per week to build your Coherence Baseline. This I did, as best I could, for almost fifty days in a row. Some days might have only had two sessions, but the vast majority had three. I decided to plot my results on the graph below:

My days of A-level maths are a long way behind me but I think I made a decent go of things. I decided to calculate the average coherence across my sessions for each day. This melded my session coherences into one figure that was easily plotted. If I had three sessions with a coherence rating of five on a given day, the average for that day would naturally be five. This approach also allowed me to plot the sessions where I hadn’t really committed to being so routine with things. The two red data points on the graph above are the bookends for my “three times per day” experimental period. The zone to the left of the first red point was a time when I was a bit haphazard and didn’t do my sessions every day. The zone to the right of the rightmost red spot is where I relaxed things to just one session per day. I plotted the averages and asked Open Office Calc to draw a trend line, which you can see in a tasty plum colour.

Before drawing the trend line, I did get the feeling that the data points became more focussed in the 5-6 Coherence band, but to see the trend line paint the picture of a slow increase was heartening. I will also add that one lower coherence session in a day really scuppers the average when the other two were nice and high. I also found that coughing drags my coherence level down too. Guess who has a chronic cough? Yup. Me. I think the graph speaks quite well for itself, so I will let you draw your own conclusions.

I also wanted to add that in the middle of my stricter experimental period, I tested the Audio Visual Coherence Breath Pacers, also available from Heartmath UK+IRL, which were included in those averages depicted above. 

Final Verdict

When I started using the Inner Balance, I did so with an open mind and with the hope that it would be beneficial. I didn’t expect miracles, and I didn’t expect any changes that might occur to happen particularly quickly. Like many things to do with health, the change is gradual, but I do feel that I could see the benefits of using the Inner Balance, even in such a relatively short period of time. I also think that it’s really helpful that even a five minute session, a couple of times a day, can seemingly give you a helping hand. When it became time to do a session and I didn’t feel like it, the thought “It’s only five minutes!” really helps remove some of the friction towards taking action.

It is here that I will mention the only hiccup that I had with the actual Inner Balance device, and it’s a minor one. The clip that fastens the Inner Balance to your clothing is a nice chunky thing. It has a little bump near the hinge that you can push on to lever the clip one-handed. Near the end of my 170 sessions, that little bump snapped off. Its loss simply means that I have to pull the clip open from the other end, and that’s easy enough to do. My Inner Balance was a demonstration model, so I have no idea how old it is or how many people played with it before it came to me. I can’t even be sure it wasn’t my fault and that I didn’t try to open it in a mindless way.

The Inner Balance is a great piece of technology and it does what it sets out to do with a minimum of fuss. The Inner Balance app lets the user tailor many things to their own taste, and the whole thing does a fine job of getting out of the user’s way. If you want to experiment with any kind of focussed or meditative state and have a thirst for a way to measure your progress, the Inner Balance seems to be a good solution for that thirst.

Thanks again to Heartmath UK +IRL for the review access to an Inner Balance.

-----------------

The Inner Balance is available from Heartmath UK + IRL and is currently £159. It is available for iPhone/iPad, Android and Kindle Fire HD devices. Visit the Inner Balance page on the Heartmath store for more information.

If you’d like to read more about the science and research behind heart coherence, Heartmath.org has a freely browsable online book called Science of the Heart. It’s well worth having a browse through and it goes into a lot of depth.

You might also like to watch Howard Martin’s TEDx talk. Howard is one of the key figures who has played a role in Heartmath over the years.

Dark Comic Review: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #4: Road Games

Review by Casey Douglass

In my review of the previous issue of Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia, I said that we spend some time on the road with the hapless Rory Landell, and that it would be fun to find out if he makes it to his fight with Manifest Destiny. Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #4: Road Games, is still very much in road-trip mode, as you might have guessed from its title. The fun thing about this is that it places Rory and his friends into a variety of strange locations and barmy situations. It also puts them in touch with danger too, as is so often the way of things.

In the opening pages, Rory, Macho and Don find themselves crawling out of their upturned car just outside a theme park. They clash with more wrestlers from Planet Wrestletopia, and one part of this fight actually occurs as everyone involved slides down a twisting water slide. I found this hilarious. It’s also presented in a really stylish way, in cells that mimic the twist and turns of the water slide. It is shortly after this slippery slide that some old acquaintances turn up to save the day, prompting Rory and company to join together with them and to hit the road once more.

While in their friends’ RV, Rory and pals chin-wag and play a wrestling game on a games console. This leads to the origin story of why tag team partnership Three-D only has two members, which is pretty funny. Let’s just say that the love of money plays a role, and not in the way that you might immediately think. The humour in this issue is on point, just as in previous ones. There is an “almost drowning” (pictured above) that I did have to chuckle at, alongside an instance of a man determined to finish a ginger-ale he paid for, even though he no longer wants to drink it where he bought it, which amused me quite a lot too.

Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #4: Road Games is an issue in which we hear about more of the fallout from Rory’s “I’m the Galactic Champion” boast, the effect it had on other people in his wrestling circle, and the hardship it caused. A scene in a strip club also causes Rory’s ego to flare once again, causing a walk-out that, at first, seems to save him from the event that befalls his friends, but by the end of the issue, sees him in just as uncertain a situation. I’m being deliberately cryptic here as I don’t want to blab about everything in the comic. Where’s the fun in that? What will happen to them? Time will tell.

One extra thing that I will say, is that the Earth-defending title fight has been dubbed the “Galact-O-Massacre” which is a fine name for a potentially world-ending bout. At the end of this issue, there is a fun page from the doomsday essentials collection, a selection of gear for wrestling fans who might feel inclined to prepare for a worst case scenario. I particularly liked the chemical toilet, in the main, because of the copy spiel that: “Nothing strikes fear in the hearts of Dark Covenant like untreated human excreta.” I must admit, it’s a fear that I can fully get behind.

Visit the Comixology page for more info.

I was given access to a review copy of this comic.

Comic Book Name: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #4: Road Games

Authors: Ed Kuehnel & Matt Entin

Artist: Kendall Goode

Colouring: Jason Lewis

Lettering: Sal Cipriano

Publisher: Starburns Industries Press

Released: 30 Oct 2019

Price: $1.99

Dark Film Review: Goodnight, Halloween

Review by Kasey Douglass

Almost two years ago to the day, I posted about a newly released teaser for a horror film kalled Goodnight, Halloween. It was framed as a news report from a world in whikh Halloween kreatures are being persekuted by humans, their rights being torn to shreds and their lives free for anyone who wants to terminate them. Goodnight, Halloween is now komplete, and it was released, free to view, on YouTube at the end of Oktober.

The film plays out on 13^th September 1986. The viewer slowly approakhes a komputer with a kall waiting to be aksepted. Goodnight, Halloween is set in a world where the letter C doesn’t exist. As you kan see, I opted to adopt this idea for this review. Bet you thought I’d gone mad? I must say, it’s an awkward fit for some words, fine for others. Anyway, the film...We see the news reporting the extermination of various kreatures on skreen, and then we see the viewer, a strange plant kreature with big teeth. It is here that we begin to konnekt with the main plot driving tool in the film.

As tekhnology has permeated (infested?) our lives, it’s not unusual to see a narrative play out by way of elektronik messages and video kalls. Goodnight, Halloween uses this tool to great effekt, letting the viewer eavesdrop on earnest konversations between the various Halloween kreatures fighting for their lives. There is fear, suspikion and paranoia, and I must admit that the digital effekts on the video kalls really heightened my enjoyment of these elements. One kall in partikular was so washed out and low resolution that the way it amplified the features of the worried figure it kontained was genuinely very striking.

I won’t say a great amount about how the film klimaxes, but it’s a dark film and it has a dark ending, something that is just fine by me. It kept me guessing until the end, and Monzen Nakacho’s darkwave, retro soundtrakk simmers under the intrigue that plays out on skreen. Yes, I know there is a “c” in the name. There are limits to my meddling. The makeup and effekts all looked suitably sinister, with a kind of grain and murk that I fully approve of. The film is deskribed as a “stylish throwback to the creature films of the VHS 80s era” and I’d say it nails this aesthetik wonderfully.

Goodnight, Halloween was 14 years in the making, and I have to say, I’m pleased to see it and that I found a lot to enjoy in it. I love how it plants the supernatural or otherworldly into a squalid little human reality, and how those things rub up against the other, korrupting and warping the kharakters. When I first saw the news report teaser two years ago, I wouldn’t have expekted it to lead to a film of tense konversation and hastily-made plans falling apart. I’d have bet on a more aktion-based short. I’d have lost some money on that one. The film was better for not being that kind of film, in my opinion. The fakt that it has released during a year of lokk-downs, isolation and bizarre politikal happenings, also makes it seem a fitting time for it to be unleashed. Head over to YouTube now and give it a view and a like.

Film Title: Goodnight, Halloween

Released by: Faster Productions

Length: 13 minutes

Genre: Horror/Fantasy

Written and Directed by: Luther Bhogal-Jones

Starring: Jean-Daniel Byrne, Natasha Lamper, Christopher Dingle, Stewart Barham, Sunita Shroff, Scott Hanley, Rocco Solato, Jim Faulkner, Mike Stoke, Minda Bhogal-Jones. Terence Drew, Alistair Lock.

Soundtrack: Monzen Nakacho

Released: 29 October 2020.

Dark Comic Review: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1 : A Date With Destiny

Review by Casey Douglass

When I was younger, I used to enjoy watching the wrestling on TV. Show me a growing boy who doesn’t like watching people throw each other around, flexing and laughing while they do it. At that time, it was the WWF, the likes of The Legion of Doom, Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior. I drifted away from it over time, and today, I find myself generally disinterested. When I was given the chance to check out some issues of the Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia comic, I wasn’t sure if it would be for me. I saw enough though though, to think that it would be a bit of a light-hearted giggle, so I was happy to wade in and see what happened.

Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1 : A Date With Destiny, lays the foundation for what is likely to come. I remember how so much of wrestling used to be about someone’s mouth getting them into trouble, and the beat down that would often follow. The main character in this comic is Rory Landell, and he makes probably the ultimate boast that a wrestler might make. Live on TV, he proclaims himself to be the Galactic Champion of the Universe! In a universe in which we are the only life-forms, he’d still probably annoy enough humans to regret his words, but in this comic, there is life elsewhere, and it gets mightily pissed off to hear his words.

We get to see some of what brings Rory to make his claim next, his disillusionment with how things are, and his inspiration to turn the brag dial to 11. Part of this plays out in a particularly novel scene in which he argues with a wrestling promoter while a bear is sparring in the ring behind them. The bear is called Kodiak Jack, which I think is probably one of the best names I’ve ever heard a bear have. Stand back Rupert and Paddington! Rory later finds himself in disgrace, boozing and getting into trouble. At around this time, his TV broadcasted boast reaches far enough out into the stars for other beings to hear. Uh-oh!

The artwork of the comic is bold, colourful and very pleasing on the eye. The panel layout has enough variety to keep things looking fresh on each page, and I particularly liked the art style for the “universe hearing his boast” page. It made me think of retro sci-fi comics. The wrestling action itself, feels like it has impact and heft; you can almost hear the “slam!” as the bodies hit the ring’s floor. As far as the humour, I did find myself smiling, and I can be a moody git so that would probably be a laugh for a “normal” person.

At 36 pages, Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1: A Date With Destiny felt like a nice, fun introduction to Rory Landell and the trouble that is probably (I hope) coming his way. I’m looking forward to reading the next issue to see how things progress, and I’m hoping things continue in the same amusing vein. Visit the Comixology page for more info.

I was given access to a review copy of this comic.

Comic Book Name: Invasion from Planet Wrestletopia #1 : A Date With Destiny

Authors: Ed Kuehnel & Matt Entin

Artist: Dan Schkade

Colouring: Marissa Louise

Lettering: Dave Lanphear

Publisher: Starburns Industries Press

Released: 01 May 2019

Price: $1.99

Book Review: Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Review Written by Casey Douglass

Jaron Lanier, the author of Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, breathes technology. He’s attributed with first using the term “Virtual Reality” and has had a hand in many technological industries. What makes him even more interesting though, is his concern about the effects technology has on the user, what it means for how we interact with each other and how we view the world. As you might imagine, Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now focusses his gaze on the world of social media, and he has some interesting things to say about it.

The book opens with a fairly light-hearted introduction expounding the virtues of cats, their intelligence and unpredictability. He also admits that in some ways, his book is about how to be a cat, particularly when it comes to how we might use the internet. He also states that he hopes the reader will consider the issues he raises and make a decision to best suit their circumstances. This isn’t a preaching book in which the author assumes it will change your mind. He just hope it helps, which I think is a fine way to open a book.

Jaron presents his notions in the form of ten arguments, each hoping to shine a light on an aspect of social media that he thinks is problematic. When I started to write this review, I began some note-taking after finishing the book and soon found I was getting bogged down. Ten Arguments is a reasonably short book, but I found so much that I wanted to note down, I had to stop for the sake of brevity. With that in mind, I'll look at some tidbits from two of the arguments that I found particularly fascinating, but they did all contain something well worth thinking about.

Argument One is “You are losing your free will”. Jaron begins by talking about the ubiquity of the smartphone in almost everyone’s pocket, not to mention the other smart devices in our homes. He then explains how algorithms “gorge on data about you, every second” and how they correlate what you do with what everyone else is doing. He says that the algorithms don’t really understand you, but when your data is compared to the data of everyone else, things can be noticed. Maybe you listen to a certain kind of music. Maybe the data shows that other people who listen to this kind of music typically react negatively to a certain word in a headline. The chance is, when seeing that same word, you will react that way too.

Jaron goes on to explain how advertising might take advantage of this, showing you individual content that it thinks will engage, or alter, you the most. He says that, rather than being called advertising, it should be understood as “continuous behaviour modification on a titanic scale.” He explains why he thinks this is a problem with how social media websites operate, and explains how topics like addiction, punishment and reward, and “mystery” or unpredictability, keep people engaged with their feeds. He also explains how the manipulation of social emotions (or social pressure) can supply the punishment or reward needed to keep someone posting. There is yet more to his first argument but I think you get the idea.

The other argument that I wanted to talk about is argument three: Social Media is Making you into an Asshole. In this argument, Jaron points out how people who use social media a lot can display the same personality changes as junkies, gamblers and other addicts. He says that a couple of the ways this manifests in social media use is someone becoming increasingly quick to take offense or showing more aggression, to avoid being the victim themselves. Jaron then explains how he became aware of his own inner troll in the 1970s, in the early stages of the internet. He realised that he would often get into arguments with individuals or other groups, and they devolved in such a way that it became about the most petty and silly stuff. He hated how he’d ruminate on the debate between posts, and how, on the flip side, to avoid this petty stuff, he felt he had to become “fake-nice”, which was even worse. So he decided to stop using the kinds of services and sites that required this type of behaviour. Jaron says that of all the arguments in the book, this one is the one he feels the most strongly about, saying “I don’t want to be an asshole. Or a fake-nice person”.

Sadly, he observes that since social media became the behemoth that is it today, assholes are having more say in the world, and that the biggest ones get the most attention. He goes on to explain the idea of a Solitary/Pack switch in the mind, and the way that it relates to how wolves operate, being a lone-wolf or part of a pack. He then points out the similarities with our internet behaviour and mentality. He comes down on the side that, for most people, the switch should be kept in the Solitary Wolf position, as it fosters unique thinking and varied perspectives on what is happening in the world. He says that democracy fails when the switch is set to Pack. Again, this argument does contain more meat than what I’ve skimmed over here, and it all provides some tasty food for thought.

Jaron’s other arguments are just as fascinating as he touches on issues of economic dignity, politics, happiness and even spirituality. He writes about these things in a concerned, but optimistic way, circling back to why deleting your social media accounts is, in his opinion, the way to bring about the change that we need to see in the world. Did he convince me? I agree with much of what he says, but I will be staying on social media for the foreseeable future. A large part of this is that my health problems limit my life, and even though there is a lot to dislike about social media, my life without it would lose a little something. I’ve always tried to use it mindfully and minimally, and I will continue to do so. I don’t use it to get my “news”, and I have no interest in arguing with people... about anything. I post about the things I enjoy or that I created, and interact with some of the people who create the books, music and films that fill my eyes, lugs and mind. I’d just like more content in my meat-space life to complement the virtual one. But enough about me.

Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now is a book that gives you fresh stuff to think about every few pages. It’s an easy, swift read, and even if you get to the end and don’t feel inclined to leave social media, I think you will have learned or heard something that will stay with you as you move on with your algorithm-fuelled life.

Book Title: Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Book Author: Jaron Lanier

Publisher: Vintage

Released: 01 August 2019

ISBN: 9781529112405 

Current Price: £6.73 (paperback) / £5.49 (Kindle) (As of Amazon.co.uk on 19th Oct 2020)