by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

Chloe took it upon herself to edit the porn-film that they've shot, since Sheiny was busy writing the screenplay for the real movie. Chloe was not stupid. She knew how to edit. She knew what the final product should look like better than Sheiny did. And she assisted Sheiny with editing for some time. This should not have been a great challenge for her.

But as soon as she sat in front of the computer and loaded Kdenlive she stopped. Okay - she thought - I can do this. She loaded the first video file and watched through it. Coffee! - she thought - I need coffee. She went away and flicked the button on the kettle. It already was full with water. She looked aside and saw Sheiny working on the movie script completely uninterrupted. Focused 100%. Or at least it looked like that.

Anyway, she made her coffee and sat back in front of the computer. She looked at the picture on the screen and clicked on a web-browser. There she typed "yewtu.be" and pressed enter. There came a search field. She typed "epic fail compilation" and scrolled through the search results in hope to find an unfamiliar thumbnail. Wait the second - she thought - what am I doing? I need to edit this damn video.

She closed the web-browser and looked onto the editing software again. She scrolled through the video and made a cut. Ding! - she received a notification on her phone. She took it up and looked at the message. Somebody commented on her toot about how being free is doing what you want. She clicked on the reply. It was from Mr. Hambleton. He said - "Freedom is control over your own life" - in his reply. That's what I said - the thought. She clicked on the browser again and typed in "meaning of Freedom". She stopped. She pressed Alt-Tab to move to the other window. It was the editing software. It infuriated her. She could not concentrate. She looked at Sheiny. Sheiny was still typing her movie script. Completely uninterrupted.

Chloe: Hey, Sheiny!

Nothing. Sheiny was still typing off.

Chloe: Sheiny!

Nothing still. Sheiny was working on a very important scene of the movie. She didn't want to be bothered. So she decided that she will not be. She was still typing.

Chloe: Sheiny, I can't concentrate.

Sheiny thought about maybe answering her. She heard what Chloe said. But she ignored it.

Some time later, Chloe was still struggling with her concentration. She thought about that toot, that reply by Mr. Hambleton. And she went on a brain teasing rabbit hole to discover it's meaning. Roughly by the point when she had her conclusion, Sheiny stood up. And it broke even the concentration on this rabbit hole.

Sheiny stood up because she set up a timer to distract her specifically from the task of typing too much. Since she realized that she need some brain-rest once in a while. So she stood up and went to see how Chloe is editing.

Sheiny: How's the sequence?

Chloe: You know. I just figured out that I don't want to do it.

Sheiny: You told me that you wanted to do it.

Chloe: Well I changed my mind.

Sheiny: Why, because you are procrastinating?

Chloe: Yes. I'm procrastinating. And that means that I don't really want to do it.

Sheiny: What?

Chloe: Freedom is control over yourself, right? Myself doesn't want to do the editing. Therefor: who am I to force myself to do the editing? It's self-abuse.

Sheiny already knew where this train of thought can get them. And she was very familiar with these kind of conclusions. But she just never had expressed it in such a weirdly interesting way.

Sheiny: Self-abuse? Hm... And why isn't procrastination self-abuse?

Chloe: Exactly. I thought about it. What comes more naturally to me? To sit and edit, or to watch an epic-fail compilation video? It's the second. Therefor, that's what I truly want.

Sheiny: Well, that's not freedom... That's laziness.

Chloe: I'm free to be lazy. You can't force me to work.

Sheiny: You are right that I can't force you to work. And being lazy is a step beyond of being slave. Since laziness is at least, arguably, some freedom. But it's not freedom entirely.

Chloe: What's the problem with being lazy? I want to be lazy. Isn't that what it's all about?

Sheiny: How did you defined freedom again?

Chloe: Control over yourself.

Sheiny: Exactly! Well, think about it. I want to work on the script. And I know that it is a challenge. I know that I rather sit and watch videos. And I take it upon myself to control myself to do the work. Otherwise I'm not having any freedom.

Chloe: You abused yourself!

Sheiny: Isn't that what control is?

Chloe: Bad wording then... Ah... Freedom is then, to do what you want to do.

Sheiny: That will include control over others.

Chloe: Okay. Freedom is to not do what you don't want to do.

Sheiny: That's insufficient.

Chloe: Relax and enjoy the life.

Sheiny: Okay! Let's go with your definition. Whatever. But can we at least agree that this is our definition? That you will not change it again?

Chloe: I don't want to agree to that.

Sheiny: To not do what you don't want to do, right?

Chloe: Okay...

Sheiny: Okay. I don't want to waste my time. That's why I force myself not to waste my time.

Chloe: So perhaps true freedom is only available to those who want to waste their time.

Sheiny: So now you narrow freedom to a particular believe, or desire? Or in this case a lack of desire?

Chloe: I don't want to talk to you!

Sheiny: And who will edit the video?

Chloe: If you so don't want to waste your own time, you can do it!

Chloe got up and went out the room. Sheiny stupefied watched as she leaved and then thought to herself - What the hell just happened? She thought that perhaps she could not trust nobody helping her with the projects since nobody could be trusted with not being lazy. And that her fault was to promote freedom so wholeheartedly.

As she returned to the computer to type more of the script she was not as concentrated as before and it bothered her a lot. She thought about the conversation that she just took with Chloe. And she thought about the wrong turns that she took in it.

Chloe on the other hand was imagining a beautiful live that will come soon, since she discovered her new philosophy. A philosophy of joy and laziness. A philosophy of what she now called freedom. She imagined how much sex she will have. She will not need to go to work, or look for babies. Or do anything. Just have as much sex as possible. Then she tried to imagine a day in the live of her future self. She will wake up and have sex. And then go to sleep. And then wake up again and have more sex. And then go to sleep. She thought that she was missing something. Oh of course. She needs to eat once is while. Food is tasty.

A terrible smell appeared out of the corner of the shed, of which Chloe was outside. She saw a homeless man walking by. Person so ugly, so smelly and so desperate. How dare the system be made in such a way that people are forced to work, or be like him - she thought - it's unfair and unjust! Then a more practical question came to her mind. How much time was it after his last shower? Shower! - she thought - Damn! How dare the system be made in such a way that people who are dirty are looked down upon? I have to give him a hug right now, to show that I am the righteous after-all! And then she thought that she rather stay away because she doesn't like the smell.

When the man passed completely, her brain was bombarded with the existential crisis. She wanted to do something and didn't want to do something in the same time on so many topics. She didn't like shower, but wanted to not be dirty. She didn't like cooking but wanted to eat. She liked money in her pocket but didn't want to edit the damn video that brings her the money. A tear came down her cheek. She didn't know how to react to this overwhelming set of ideas.

Chloe slowly came back inside and sneaked to the computer to try her last attempt at concentrating on the editing. She looked at Sheiny. Sheiny had, on her screen a video of Richard Stallman answering questions.

Chloe: Is this a part of the research for the movie?

Sheiny paused the video. She sighed.

Sheiny: You made me very anxious. I wanted to make sure that I knew what Freedom means.

Chloe: You are procrastinating. I thought about what you've said. Damn it. I will try. But it's so hard!

Sheiny: I know. Let's try together.

Sheiny closed the video and started typing away her screenplay. Chloe took all her will power together and tried to concentrate as thoroughly as possible on the task in front of her.

Freedom is control over one self. Proprietary software and tyrannical governments are one source of loss of freedom. And this is a big and important one to fight against. Any person controlling any other person commits an injustice. And it could be only allowed as a tool to take away such power. In the case of police, for example. But police should not try to take the freedom away. It should establish and protect it.

But at a certain point, when fighting for freedom, you will see an uncomfortable truth. You yourself can take away your own control over yourself. Addiction, procrastination, laziness. All those things are real things. You want to do something. You really do want. But you end up doing something else, or nothing at all, because you let addiction, procrastination or laziness to take away your freedom.

Freedom is more than just doing what you want. It is also having a strong will to do it.

This article was an experiment. I know myself. I like to procrastinate a lot. Usually it goes something like what Chloe experienced in the beginning of this article. But this time I thought that I perhaps can pull of a whole article without breaking my concentration even once. I allowed myself only to go to the toilet if I needed to. But even that was not needed in the end. I wrote the entire thing without breaking my concentration even once. I opened the web-browser only once, to look up how to spell "Kdenlive". And as soon as I knew how to spell it I closed the damn thing and didn't open it again.

I will need to read this article and fix all it's mistakes ( those I will find ) still. You are reading the fixed version. I don't know how much I can keep this concentration. But if I will break my concentration I will remove this bottom section entirely. So if you are reading this. I was successful at finishing the damn article without breaking my concentration even once.

Happy Hacking!















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