I am sort of trying to avoid using YouTube and trying to read more instead

The Creation Of Eve by Michelangelo, 1511

I'm not against making more videos with translations, since there are people out there that are asking about this. There are some videos that I'd like to translate and post. But making more videos hasn't been a priority for me in the last few years. Moreover, since the internet is now teeming with people who, for example, think that someone like Alex Jones is "real" and "trustworthy", it's not really a system that I want to use much. The internet has its uses for me, but I don't spend much of my time socializing on it or trying to please people. I never have done this. In fact, for the last few years, I have been trying to see if I can actually lose followers and subscribers instead of attracting them. Most of my attention has been going toward work stuff and health stuff lately. I'm an autistic person that has to live in a world that hates autistic people. The discrimination and hostility that's directed toward autistic people is overwhelming. Every day brings something unpleasant and challenging. Therefore, I don't have the privilege of taking it easy and yapping every day, like all of those neurotypicals that make up 95% of society. I must say that when it comes to my health there are a few breakthroughs that I made recently. What has been causing me the most trouble is a certain health condition that I've had since I was little, and I inherited this condition from my controlling and abusive neurotypical mother. But I began finding out about this condition only about a decade ago, although it has affected me my whole life. This is a serious and complex condition that forces me to think about it and to try to control it a lot of the time every day. If I'm not careful, I can even die from it. But it affects me in a variety of ways. I have been learning how to deal with it on my own for about a decade already, ever since I realized that I have it. However, I recently found out that it's even more serious than I had thought. I recently bought drugs that alleviate this condition in a minor way. These drugs became available for purchase without a prescription from a doctor in the late 2000s. Drugs that completely cure this condition don't exist, but these drugs at least have some effect. So, after I began taking these drugs, I realized that I can think better and that I have more energy. Before this, there have been very few times in my life when I felt this well. These drugs do lose their effectiveness after everyday use for several days, but there's a way to get around this. Simply don't take the same drug every day. Take one drug one day and a similar drug the next day. That is, alternate taking drugs or supplements if you don't want them to lose their effectiveness. Or you can take the same drug for several days, and, when it begins to lose its effectiveness, stop taking it for a day or two or take another drug for a day or two. So, as good as the supplements that I mentioned in my earlier posts can be for me, they just don't get to the roots of my main health problem. Another supplement that I recently discovered is called Memoria + Huperzine A. It's an effective supplement that supports cognitive function and memory. Besides the alkaloid Huperzine A, it also contains Lion's Mane, Phosphatidylserine, Korean Ginseng, Bacopa, Gingkgo, and Toothed Club-moss. It's an effective combination that definitely helps a person to think better. Anyway, some years ago, I learned that I have to avoid certain things in order to feel better, but, as it turns out, simply avoiding certain things isn't enough because the condition that I'm talking about reduces blood flow and oxygen to my brain every day and all the time, thereby muddying my focus, memory, and mood. Because of this, I always have brain fog and fatigue, on top of all of the other health problems that I have. So, needless to say, because I have such a condition, as well as a few other serious conditions, my health occupies a lot of my time every day. The funny thing is that I inherited almost all of these problems from my so-called parents. My sister, for example, didn't inherit any of them. My neurotypical mother also has the condition that I'm talking about, since I inherited it from her, but it's not as bad for her as it is for me. Perhaps this explains why she has remained a housewife and why she's still married to a certain "man", although they always quarrel and they rarely agree on something. I still find it somewhat hard to understand how so many neurotypicals can be so aimless and how they can drink alcohol and use drugs. This neurotypical society that we live in is created for them and their comfort and yet they still turn to alcohol and to drugs. If only I had their health and their ability to communicate with neurotypicals. Anyway, although I haven't done anything when it comes to making videos for some time, I have still done some reading in my free time. I just don't live and breathe on the internet, like all of those content creators on YouTube and on other popular websites. Moreover, I have generally tried to avoid using YouTube and other popular websites for a long time already because I don't really want to listen to propagandists, sellouts, reactionaries, money makers, business owners, industry insiders, and crappy neurotypical philosophers with their bad modern education. I finished reading 'Secrets of the Exodus: The Egyptian Origins of the Hebrew People' (2000) by Messod Sabbah and Roger Sabbah not that long ago. I enjoyed reading this book, for the most part. The book is described as a fascinating reference that fuels the passionate debate about the biblical Exodus with a provocative not only was Moses an Egyptian but so were the Hebrew people who followed him to Canaan. Through linguistic, philologic, and religious explorations, the authors prove that the "Chosen People" were not slaves from a foreign country but high-ranking Egyptian priests and the adherents of the monotheist pharaoh Akhenaton. During a counterrevolution against monotheism, his followers were forced to move to the Egyptian province of Canaan. The following is a quote from the book. "There were many things happening in Akhet-Aten (the "Ark") that Ay found subversive. Among them was the language of the inhabitants. A new language was developing among the people. The city was cosmopolitan, composed of people not only from all over Egypt, but from throughout the known world. There was an urgent problem of communication. In order to converse with one another, a new language was adopted by the population. The new language of Akhet-Aten was created from the foreign dialects. This new language incensed the Divine Father Ay. He could not tolerate the insult, this heresy to the holy language of ancient Egypt. Ay could not speak or understand the new language. He needed an interpreter in order to be understood in the capital of his own country. This new language was the beginning of Hebrew. Ay had to negotiate with Pharaoh Smenkhkare who spoke Hebrew, the new popular language of Akhet-Aten. The pharaoh also, of course, spoke Egyptian. However, an interpreter was indispensable in dealing with the court, since many of the courtiers spoke only their own foreign language and the new language, Hebrew. Thus we find Egyptian words in the Hebrew language. These words come from the Delta to Lower Egypt. Additionally there are words derived from Canaanite, Phoenician, Aramaic, Babylonian, and from many foots of the Arabic language. The birth of the Hebrew language, then, was another reason for Ay's wrath. That corrupt city, with its corrupt language, had to be destroyed. Ay even considered destroying all those who lived within it, but relented. The parallel with the Noah story is notable. It is not as though actual arks were not part of Egyptian life. And the flood in the Noah story certainly has a strong Egyptian basis. Among the models of boats found in Tutankhamun's tomb, an alabaster one is the most beautiful and imposing. It is Pharaoh's Ark, with the stern and bow sculpted with gazelle heads. The second book of the Bible, the Book of Exodus, tells the story of how 600,000 male slaves, accompanied by "a great multitude," including their wives and children went from Egypt to Canaan. In all, some two million people - men, women, children, plus another "multitude" - are reported to have made the journey. That number would represent nearly as many people as the entire population of Egypt at that time. The slaves purportedly had been in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41) before they made the great escape. As a prelude to their escape from slavery, ten dreadful plagues infested Egypt, including one that killed the firstborn sons of every Egyptian. The slaves and the "multitude" made their escape by walking right through the waters of the Red Sea. As important as such an event would have been to Egypt, there is no record outside the Bible that an event like this ever occurred. Ancient Egypt left behind a great written record. Archeologists have brought additional insight to our knowledge of that cradle of civilization. Yet, try as they might, no researcher has been able to find any proof of such an exodus. There is not a single reference to any group of people called "Hebrews." Is it possible that an enormous horde of people, resident slaves in the country for so many years, who brought down horrendous plagues on the land, and who escaped by a parting of the Red Sea, could have left no historical or archeological trace behind? This puzzle has bothered historians and archeologists ever since the nineteenth century when the French Egyptologist, Champollion, deciphered the hieroglyphic writing that recorded the history of Egypt. On the other hand, Egyptian history and archeology do happen to report a significant exodus, which occurred around 1344 BC. The population of an entire city - the capital of Egypt at the time, Akhet-Aten - departed from Egypt and settled in the Egyptian province of Canaan. The people who made this astounding trip were monotheists, believers in the One God. They left the polytheistic land of Egypt in an exodus that is well recorded in Egyptian history, and is verified by modern archeology." The book isn't difficult to obtain. I bought it on eBay in used condition. I've also read a big chunk of 'Michelangelo: His Life, His Times, His Era' (1921) by Georg Brandes already. This is one of the most celebrated biographies of Michelangelo, but it's not easy to obtain. It actually costs quite a lot on eBay, even in used condition. Brandes wrote, "For what we call inventive genius consists precisely in the combining of concepts hitherto separate - and inventiveness is one of the marks of genius. It is an activity of the mind, not mechanical but rather in the main unconscious, inspired, independent of resolutions and systematic procedures. Audacity, daring is another sign of genius. Who possessed this quality in stronger measure than Michelangelo when he, who heretofore had dealt almost entirely with sculpture, first stretched out on his scaffold beneath the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? His whole body ached from the cramped position. Paint dripped into his eyes. Yet he set out to fill those ten thousand square feet without being able to judge, from his dizzying height, what effect the painting would have on the beholder below. It was Kant who defined genius. It is that, he said, which in the course of events makes history. If he is right none more deserves the title than Michelangelo. Michelangelo was not a man endowed with the social graces. In his relationships with people, as in his art, he was terribile. Leo X was referring to the difficulties in dealing with him when he said: there's no getting along with him. He was the fondest of sons, the most worrisome of brothers - a family man, a true Italian, given to nepotism, like Napoleon after him. He loathed Leonardo whose great talents aroused his rivalry. When Leonardo had the misfortune to fail on his first attempt to cast a statue, Michelangelo scored him as a bungler - and soon afterward fate played him the same trick. He loathed Raphael, child of grace and fortune, seeing in him only one who had misappropriated his creative heritage, who had learned all he knew from him. No, he was not a gracious man; but he was touched with divinity. Homely and proud, he was also timid and shy. He was indifferent to applause, brimful only with his creative power. Not since the great age of Athens had a town left so epoch-making an impress on the history of art as did Florence. Florence was never the capital of Italy, any more than Athens was ever the capital of ancient Greece. Moreover it lacked the conditions for ever becoming the fountainhead of a great country. It was located neither on the sea nor even on a navigable river. The time of its greatness falls neither into the Roman Empire nor the modern Kingdom of Savoy. It extends roughly from 1250 to 1530. As in all such cases the inherent vitality of the people of Florence was first manifested in shifting internal struggles. The parties of the aristocracy hated and exterminated one another and involved the commoners in their feuds. From 1215 onward deadly enmity prevailed between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the papal and imperial parties. The bloodiest of civil wars immediately preceded Florence's time of greatness. Despite forever recurring political unrest and revolution the people of Florence were frugal and hard-working and registered steady progress. They lived and ate simply though they valued a display of splendor during official festivities. Luxury was not pursued in private life, but such was the growth of the city that public buildings, ecclesiastic or secular, were given a monumental aspect pleasing to the eye. The municipality was as open-handed as the citizen was frugal. A carefully observed tradition manifested itself in an architecture of essentially harmonious character, despite a broad range in style. Most streets remained narrow and there was no overabundance of squares, but both were well paved, while for decades to come the Romans still had to wade through dust and mud. Citizens who insisted on having overhanging upper stories that darkened the street below were heavily taxed. Beyond the gates lay hospitals and hostels for lepers, and others afflicted with contagion who were not allowed inside, but whom the citizens showed generous charity. The numbers of monasteries outside the walls kept growing, on the hills and at the bridges spanning the river. Most eminent of the circle, after the death of the universal genius Alberti, was the writer Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), already mentioned, Lorenzo's friend and contemporary. Poliziano, better known to us as Politian, was primarily a philologist, translated and published the writers of antiquity. Among the Greeks he preferred Aristotle and the Stoics, among the Romans the writers of the so-called Age of Silver - Quinctilius, Statius, Persius - displaying a certain independence of mind, if not flawless taste, for Cicero was then worshipped with a passion that tolerated no dissent. The Catholic view of the world underwent a change from the unworldly isolation of the Middle Ages. Acquaintance with classical antiquity shattered the narrow medieval outlook. True, the Arabs had already appropriated the traditions of ancient Greece - but they had gone about it quite differently. Translating the old texts into Arabic, they steeped them in Oriental ideas. Aristotelianism became theosophy, astronomy astrology, employed even in medicine. The Italians, on the other hand, sought but enlightenment. From the Romans they proceeded to the Greeks, and the art of printing broadcast the ancient classics in many copies. Geography was learned from Ptolemy, medicine from Hippocrates and Galen."