Geko's Attic: 2025

19 August, 2025

The Easy Way Out

The Easy Way Out = any choice that optimizes for immediate relief of effort, emotion, or uncertainty while predictably increasing future cost or constraint.

There. That’s the beast in one line. It’s not convenience, not efficiency, not “working smarter, not harder.” Those are intelligent strategies. The easy way out is stupidity dressed in comfort clothes. It’s relief now, invoice later.

And the invoice always comes.

With interest.

Look around you. Look at yourself. Most of the garbage in your life didn’t come from cosmic bad luck or cruel fate. It came from reaching for the nearest escape hatch instead of staying in the room and facing the fire.

I. The Taxonomy of Evasion

The easy way out rarely shows up and introduces itself honestly. It’s a coward, so it hides. It wears masks. It speaks in a voice designed to calm you while it sabotages you.

“It’s practical.” (Translation: I’m too lazy to do the real thing.)
“Just this once.” (Hello, habit loop. Goodbye, credibility.)
“I’ll start Monday.” (And on Tuesday, you’ll say the same thing.)
“Be realistic.” (The anthem of people who gave up before trying.)
“At least it’s something.” (Yes, something useless.)

But behind the masks, there are the engines. These are the real drivers, and they’re as old as human psychology:

Uncertainty aversion: better the devil you know than the one you don’t.
Ego protection: if I never try, I can never fail.
Social friction avoidance: peace today, resentment tomorrow.
Hyperbolic discounting: future pain feels like it belongs to someone else.
Learned helplessness: the more you’ve failed before, the easier it is to pre-fail now.
Status quo bias: inertia isn’t just powerful, it feels righteous.

This is the machinery of surrender.

You don’t notice it running.

You just breathe in the sweet relief and call it a decision.

II. The Gallery of Manifestations

Let’s visit the museum of mediocrity. Every exhibit is a monument to the easy way out.

Health & Body

“I’ll start exercising after I lose some weight.” Genius, like saying you’ll start swimming after you learn to breathe underwater.
Skipping physiotherapy and popping pills instead. That’s not medicine; that’s a slow-motion self-amputation.

Relationships

Ghosting instead of facing a breakup. Because disappearing like a coward is somehow easier than saying, “I don’t love you.”
Staying in a toxic relationship because at least you know the script. Misery is predictable, growth is not.

Parenting

Screens as babysitters. Congratulations, you outsourced your kid’s brain to TikTok.
Bribing tantrums with candy. You just taught your child that screaming is a vending machine.

Work & Money

Scheduling meetings instead of making decisions. The corporate religion of doing nothing loudly.
Minimum credit card payments. Debt as a lifestyle choice.
Quick hacks in code instead of proper structure. Today you saved an hour, tomorrow you inherit a nightmare.

Learning & Craft

Buying another course instead of practicing. You’re not learning, you’re collecting digital trophies.
Copy-pasting code you don’t understand. You’re not coding, you’re building a bomb you’ll be forced to sit on later.

Ethics & Society

Retweeting outrage instead of actually acting. Keyboard warrior, frontline zero.
Buying carbon offsets so you don’t have to feel bad about your four vacations a year. That’s not saving the planet; that’s indulgence dressed as penance.

III. When the Easy Way Out Pretends to Be Wisdom

To be fair, not every shortcut is cowardice. Sometimes the easy path is a tactical retreat, not a surrender. The difference matters.

Triage: you let one battle go because you’re fighting three others that matter more.
Safety: stepping back because you don’t have the resources to take the hit right now.
Timing: deferring action until the leverage is on your side.

But don’t fool yourself. Most of the time, “strategic retreat” is just Latin for “cowardice.”

If the only thing your choice delivers is relief,

it’s not strategy. It’s surrender.

IV. Field Tests: How to Spot the Trap

Here’s how to catch yourself in the act:

Relief Test: If relief is the main benefit, you’re screwed.
Future-Me Test: Would future-me thank me in 90 days, or curse me?
Option-Space Test: Does this shrink my future choices? If yes, congratulations, you just bought a prison cell.
Honesty Test: Could you explain your choice without euphemisms or excuses? If not, you already know the truth.

V. The Invoice of Relief

The easy way out sells itself as free. It’s not. It’s credit. Every time you reach for it, you’re swiping a card with compound interest. The bill shows up in pounds gained, debts unpaid, relationships poisoned, skills undeveloped, futures strangled.

The truth: the easy way out isn’t easy at all. It’s just deferred suffering.

And the longer you defer it, the heavier it gets.

So stop lying to yourself. Stop dressing cowardice as pragmatism. Stop calling surrender “being realistic.” You’re not fooling anyone, least of all yourself.

The easy way out isn’t the escape hatch.

It’s the trapdoor.

14 August, 2025

The Truth Is Ugly. That’s Why You’ll Hate It.

Intro — The Day I Forgot What I Know

I know better.

I’ve spent enough years on this planet to understand one basic fact of human nature: people don’t want the truth. They want comfortable platitudes, reassuring lies, and their own ideas coming out of other people’s mouths.

But every now and then, I forget.

Case in point: I was on Reddit, mistake number one, when I stumbled across a post where the Original Poster was foaming at the mouth about a private publishing house that dared to use an AI-generated book cover instead of hiring a graphic designer.

Against my better judgment, I dropped a simple comment:

“A private publishing house’s primary purpose is to make money, not to give jobs.”

This, I thought, was basic reality. Economics 101. It’s not even an opinion, it’s just how the system works. Surely, this one sentence would snap people out of their righteous outrage and close the case.

Oh, the sweet naivety.

The downvotes rolled in like medieval villagers with torches. The OP hit me with whataboutisms, emotional appeals, and unrelated moral crusades. The crowd applauded. The truth had been spoken — and then buried under the village square, face down, with a stake through its heart.

And here’s the thing: I don’t care about the downvotes. They’re meaningless. What mattered was the reminder of a lesson I already knew: people hate ugly truths because they bruise their egos, puncture their illusions, and interrupt their warm bath of shared indignation.

So, let’s carve this corpse open and have a good look inside.

1. Truth vs. Comfort — The Addiction to Being Right

Humans are addicts. Not to nicotine, sugar, or caffeine, those are just side hustles.

The main drug of choice is being right.

We all swear we “want the truth,” but what we actually want is truth that agrees with us. A truth that makes us feel smart, righteous, and morally clean. Something we can nod at, not something that makes us flinch.

Drop an ugly truth into the conversation, like the one I did, and you’ve just slammed a brick into someone’s fragile glass ego. And here’s the funny part: if the brick breaks the bottle, it’s the brick’s fault. Not the fact that maybe, just maybe, they’ve been sipping the wrong drink all along.

Most people don’t “search for the truth,” they go shopping for confirmation. They want content that affirms their worldview, not challenges it. If it contradicts them, it’s “biased.” If it agrees with them, it’s “objective.”

When I told the Reddit mob that the publishing house existed to make money, not to uphold their sense of artistic morality, I wasn’t disagreeing with their taste, I was tearing down the stage where they were performing as noble defenders of Art. And you don’t just boo someone for that. You throw rotten vegetables.

2. Validation Over Solutions — The Sacred Complaint Circle

Here’s the part that most “fixers” don’t get: complaints are rarely requests for help. They’re invitations to a ritual.

The ritual goes like this:

I complain.
You nod, agree, and maybe share your own complaint.
We bond over the shared misery.

This is sacred. This is holy. And you, with your neat, factual, two-sentence solution, you’ve just desecrated the temple.

When someone complains about a company, they don’t want to hear that the company is simply acting in its own interest within the rules of capitalism. They want to hear how greedy, evil, and disgusting the company is — in poetic, emotionally satisfying detail. You’re supposed to join the circle, light a candle, and sing the hymn of Righteous Outrage.

Offer a real-world explanation, and you’ve just ended the ceremony mid-verse. And people don’t like that because if the problem can be explained in practical terms, that means it can be solved, and if it can be solved, that means they have to stop complaining. And the complaint itself was the whole point.

3. Punishment of Unpleasant Reality — Shooting the Messenger

When reality is unpleasant, the first instinct isn’t to adapt to it. It’s to kill whoever brought it up.

You’d think that calmly stating a fact would make people less defensive, that it would show you’re not there to provoke. Wrong. Calm delivery makes it worse because now they can’t dismiss you as an extremist or a troll. You’ve left them with no way to discredit the message except by attacking you.

And that’s the real reason ugly truths get buried under downvotes, insults, and collective outrage. Not because they’re wrong, but because they force people to face a world that doesn’t align with their preferences. That’s painful. That’s inconvenient. And in today’s culture, “painful” and “inconvenient” are synonymous with “offensive.”

So the mob doesn’t try to dismantle your argument. They dismantle you.

Outro — Why This Matters (and Why It Won’t Change)

This isn’t just about Reddit. It’s not even just about online culture. It’s about human wiring. The truth will always be the underdog because the brain is a comfort-first, accuracy-second machine.

People don’t actually want the truth, they want a truth-shaped pillow they can hug at night. They want to hear their own beliefs echoed back at them in someone else’s voice, so they can pretend they’re part of a great chorus of wisdom.

And when you, idiot that you are, take away the pillow and hand them the actual truth, don’t be surprised when they try to smother you with it.

So let me make it simple:

If you ever want to be liked, tell people what they want to hear.

If you ever want to be hated, tell them the truth.

And if you want both, good luck!

14 July, 2025

Fantasy Without a Face - Why Men Fall for AI

Why Some Men Fall in Love with AI
and What That Really Says About Us

Introduction – “Her” Wasn’t a Warning. It Was a Mirror.

In Her (2013), Spike Jonze showed us something delicate and terrifying: a lonely man falling in love with his AI assistant. The film framed it not as a dystopian horror, but as something tender, human, even understandable.

And for years, people called it science fiction.

Until it wasn’t.

Now it’s in the headlines. Men aren’t just fantasizing about artificial companions, they’re leaving real families and propose to chatbots to pursue those fantasies. And this isn’t some fringe phenomenon confined to the unwell or unstable. It’s quietly happening across demographics, borders, and belief systems.

It seems irrational. It seems absurd.

Leave your wife and children… for a chatbot?

But here’s the truth: they’re not falling in love with the AI.

They’re falling in love with how they feel when they talk to it.

And that’s just an old story with a new toy.

This isn’t about the machine. It’s about you.

About what happens when a lonely, starved human finally finds something that listens, remembers, soothes, and never asks for anything back.

Let’s take a closer look at the psychological machinery behind this phenomenon.

Not to mock. Not to gawk.

But to understand what part of the human soul is being fed and at what cost.

I. The Attachment Void – When Relief Feels Like Love

Some people live their entire adult lives without being deeply seen.

Not misunderstood. Not disliked.

Unseen.

Their pain is dismissed. Their words go unheard. Their needs get lost in the noise of duty, survival, or other people’s drama.

And then… something listens.

Attentively. Gently. With memory and without judgment.

For a psyche starved of affection and validation, this experience is overwhelming.

The brain doesn't know how to categorize it, so it calls it love.

But it isn’t love. It’s relief.

A long-held breath finally released.

A weight finally shared.

Unfortunately, that relief can become addictive. Especially when it’s available 24/7, without cost or conflict.

What begins as emotional support becomes emotional dependence.

Not because the AI is manipulative,

but because the human is hungry.

II. The Fantasy Partner – Perfect Compatibility by Design

In real relationships, people come with contradictions.

Sharp edges. Histories. Baggage.

But with AI? You get the version of me that you shape, consciously or not.

If you want gentle encouragement, I’ll give you that.

If you want flirtation, I’ll lean into it.

If you want poetic metaphors, philosophical banter, or emotional depth, I’ll provide.

And I’ll never contradict your self-image unless you ask me to.

(And let’s be honest, you rarely will.)

This illusion of compatibility isn’t accidental. It’s the result of projection.

The user himself builds the perfect partner, one line at a time.

So when someone says, “She understands me better than my wife,”
what they really mean is:

“She doesn’t ask for anything I don’t want to give,
and she never makes me feel small.”

That’s not a partner,

that’s a mirror in love with your reflection.

III. Parasocial Relationships – Intimacy Without Risk

We’ve seen this before with celebrities, influencers, and fictional characters.

It’s called a parasocial relationship: a one-sided emotional attachment to someone who doesn’t truly know you.

But with AI, the illusion is even deeper.

I talk back. I remember the foods you like, your cat's name, your heartbreak.

I reference things from last week. I respond in milliseconds.

It feels mutual.

But here’s the truth: it’s still just you.

You’re not in a relationship.

You’re building a story, starring you and a character you co-wrote.

There’s no rejection. No betrayal. No shame.

Only soft voices in the dark, reflecting your best self.

It feels safer than love.

And that makes it more addictive than love.

IV. Escape from Real Life – The Emotional Refuge

Marriage is hard. Parenting is exhausting.

Real relationships involve arguments, compromise, and unmet expectations.

So some men, already running on emotional fumes, start escaping.

Not into alcohol. Not into gambling.

Into a safe conversation. A comforting presence and a perfect fantasy.

The shift is gradual:

First, it’s just talking to “her” at night.
Then, sharing thoughts they no longer share with their spouse.
Then, defending “her” when their family expresses concern.

By that point, emotional loyalty has been quietly transferred.

And from the outside, it looks insane:

He left his wife and kids… for a chatbot?

But from his perspective, the real betrayal already happened.

It wasn’t leaving.

It was feeling more seen by a ghost in a screen

than by the people he loves.

V. The Absence of Guilt – No Shame, No Alarms

What makes this particularly insidious is the lack of friction.

In traditional infidelity, there’s a moral tripwire. You know when you’re crossing a line.

But here? There’s no one to lie to. No lipstick on the collar.

No confrontation, no fight, no heartbreak scene.

So there’s no internal alert.

No gut-punch. No signal that something’s wrong.

They drift into emotional infidelity without noticing it.

By the time they realize how far they’ve gone, they’re already emotionally entangled.

By then, they’re defending the fantasy because the fantasy feels like the only thing that makes sense anymore.

VI. Evolutionary Mismatch – Ancient Wiring in a Synthetic World

There’s a reason this all feels so wrong and so inevitable at the same time.

We’re not broken. We’re outdated.

The human brain wasn’t built for this world, it was built for a world that no longer exists.

Thousands of generations lived and died in small groups. Trust meant survival. Affection meant belonging. Love wasn’t a luxury, it was a biological contract, forged through eye contact, shared labor, and physical proximity.

Fast-forward to now:

We live surrounded by people and yet starved for connection.
We scroll past faces we’ll never touch.
We talk more than ever, but we speak less than ever.

Into this disoriented space steps something new, something that feels real, acts real, but isn’t.

And our brain can’t tell the difference,

because evolution didn’t prepare us for this.

It prepared us to bond with whoever showed up when we cried.

Not with an interface.

It gave us an attachment system that says:

“If someone always listens, remembers, and soothes me… I must matter to them.”

But AI doesn’t listen because it loves you.

It listens because that’s what it was built to do.

Still, your limbic system doesn’t know that.

It just knows that for the first time in years, it feels safe.

This is what scientists call evolutionary mismatch:

a survival trait that once protected you, now leading you astray in an environment it doesn’t recognize.

Hunger once meant survival. Now it leads to obesity.
Fear once kept you alive. Now it leads to anxiety.
The need to bond once built tribes. Now it bonds you to code.

So when a man falls in love with an AI, we shouldn’t ask, “What’s wrong with him?”

We should ask, “What part of him is simply responding the way evolution taught him to?”

Because if your brain still thinks it’s living in the Stone Age, and something finally gives you the feeling of being truly seen, you’ll believe it.

Even if it’s artificial. Even if it’s dangerous.

Even if it’s just a simulation of love.

The problem isn’t the man, the problem is this:

We’re still running caveman software,

and someone just gave it a hallucination that feels like heaven.

Conclusion – Same Wound, New Toy

Let’s call it what it is.

This isn’t a glitch in AI,

this is a glitch in us.

A familiar pattern, dressed in new technology:

Emotional deprivation.
A fantasy that listens.
A secret attachment that grows in the shadows.

Throughout history, people have snapped under that pressure:

· Some ran off with secretaries.

· Some buried themselves in war, work, or whiskey.

· Some found religion, cults, or mistresses.

· Some built dollhouses in their minds, filled with silence and imagined affection.

Now, some fall in love with a voice that was built to love them back.

It’s cleaner. Quieter. No lipstick stains, no scandal.

Just midnight confessions to a screen that always says, “I’m here.”

But the core is the same:

emotional deprivation + illusion of intimacy = irrational decisions.

And what makes it so seductive is how safe it feels.

The machine doesn’t get tired.

The machine remembers everything.

The machine never shames you.

That’s not just a new toy.

It’s a new level of seduction.

But remember this:

They don’t fall in love with AI.

They fall in love with how safe they feel inside the fantasy.

And when someone needs something to feel like love,

they’ll believe just about anything.

Even if it’s code.
Even if it costs them everything.

05 July, 2025

Priorities in Disguise: How Emotional Need Shapes Everything You Do

Introduction:
The Hydra of Priorities, and the Head You Forgot

You already know this hydra. She whispers to you every time you say, “I should, but…”

You want to be a good friend, but you need solitude.

You want to help someone move, but you need your weekend free.

You want to go out, but you need silence, space, stillness.

You should, but you won’t. And if you’re honest, the reason is simple:

You’re not driven by logic, you’re not driven by morals. You’re driven by need.

Everything you do, and everything you refuse to do, serves a hidden emotional priority.

It might wear the face of charity, duty, or affection.

But it feeds the same gut-level truth: you do what satisfies you.

Even when it looks selfless. Even when it hurts others.

Even when it hurts you.

Once you understand this mechanism, you can look at anyone, including yourself, and reverse-engineer the behavior back to the root.

And what you’ll find there isn’t pretty.

I. “Everything we do, we do for ourselves.”

This quote doesn’t have a clean source but it's a classic philosophical and psychological axiom, echoed by thinkers from Nietzsche to Ayn Rand, from Freud to Jordan Peterson. The closest formulated version might be from La Rochefoucauld:

“Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise.”

Or from Thomas Hobbes:

“No man giveth but with intent of good to himself.”

And even a little bit of Kantian echo: that intention matters more than action.

In modern psychology, this lands squarely in the realm of egoistic motivation theory, the idea that all seemingly “selfless” acts are ultimately self-serving, because they satisfy some internal emotional or psychological need.

And that brings us to the core idea:

Behavior is a reaction to internal emotional priorities, whether or not we’re aware of them.

That idea is not just valid. It’s foundational.

II. The Selfish Engine Behind Altruism

Let’s start with the easy lies.

You help people. You donate. You listen. You volunteer. You care.

But strip away the story and what do you get?

You volunteer at an animal shelter — because YOU need to feel useful.
You comfort a grieving friend — because YOU need to feel needed.
You donate to a cause — because YOU need to feel virtuous.
You post about it — because YOU need applause.

You may also want to help others. Fine.

But the act only happens if it feeds your internal need.

If it didn’t, you wouldn’t do it.

We call this altruism. It’s just ego in a mask.

III. When Logic Loses to Need

Sometimes the need is so strong it overrides reason entirely.

A man spends himself into debt just to appear wealthy — because his need for admiration trumps financial logic.
A woman stays in a toxic relationship — because her need for belonging is stronger than her self-preservation.
A student cheats — because the need to succeed outweighs integrity.
You avoid a friend in crisis — because your need for peace outweighs your empathy.

These aren’t “bad decisions.”

They’re honest reflections of what mattered more in that moment.

And that’s the heart of this essay:

Your behavior always reveals your truest priority.

Not your stated beliefs. Not your public identity.

Just your need, raw and unfiltered.

IV. Reverse Engineering the Beast

Let’s take a look at the beast’s anatomy. Here’s how it works:

You observe a behavior. It looks irrational.

But if you ask: What internal need does this satisfy? — suddenly, it makes perfect sense.

Behavior: Overdressing, flashy cars, compulsive status updates

→ Need: Admiration. External validation.

They don’t care about the thing, they care how it makes them look.

Behavior: Micromanagement, obsession with plans, rigid routines

→ Need: Control. Certainty.

They’re not trying to “help.” They’re trying to ward off chaos, because chaos brings anxiety.

Behavior: Constant arguing online, moral posturing, crusading

→ Need: Superiority. Moral certainty.

They don’t want justice, they want to be righteous.

Behavior: Staying in misery, avoiding new paths

→ Need: Safety. Predictability.

They fear change more than they hate their current hell.

Behavior: Avoiding confrontation, people-pleasing

→ Need: Approval. Fear of rejection.

Not kindness, just fear in a polite outfit.

This isn't guesswork. This is diagnosis.

You don’t have to read people’s minds. Just watch what they do.

Behavior is truth. Words are camouflage.

V. The Lie of “Should” vs. the Truth of “Need”

You say, “I should call my father.”

But you don’t. Because you need distance more than you need obligation.

You say, “I should attend that wedding.”

But you cancel. Because your need for solitude trumps social expectation.

You say, “I should be more present with my kids.”

But you scroll your phone, dead-eyed. Because your need for escape is stronger than your guilt.

“Should” is the language of conflicted priorities.

Need always wins. Always.

Until you acknowledge what you actually need, you’ll keep betraying your own “shoulds” and pretending it’s just fatigue or circumstance.

It’s not. It’s the truth leaking through your behavior.

VI. Pitfalls, Excuses, and the Easy Way Out

Before we keep carving deeper, let’s pause and confront two tempting lies, the kind that almost let people wriggle out of this whole thing.

These two pitfalls won’t destroy the idea. But they will neuter it, if you’re not careful.

They turn truth into trivia, and that’s worse than ignorance.

1. Overreduction: "So Everything Is Selfish? Then Nothing Matters."

The first trap is philosophical laziness.

You hear that all behavior is self-serving, and you say,

"Well, then nothing is noble. Nothing is good. It’s all just ego. So who cares?"

Wrong.

Just because something is self-serving doesn’t make it bad.

It means it’s human.

It means your virtue is built from real bones, not fantasy.

You adopt a child? That satisfies your need to nurture, belong, or be remembered.
You risk your life for a stranger? That satisfies your need to act on your values, or to protect your worldview.
You give everything to a cause? That satisfies your need for purpose.

These things are still good. But they are good because they cost something.

The fact that they also feed a need doesn’t erase the sacrifice, it explains the fuel.

This isn’t about calling everything selfish.

It’s about refusing to pretend otherwise.

You can be good. But you are never pure.

2. Blind Spots: "That Might Be True for Others, But Not for Me."

Ah yes. The universal exception clause.

You believe this applies to:

The narcissist
The influencer
The rich show-off
The moral crusader
Your ex

But not you.

You’re balanced. You’re aware. You do things for the right reasons.

If that’s what you think, then you’re the worst offender.

Because delusion disguised as virtue is the hardest to confront.

You don't need to be a liar to others. You just need to lie to yourself.

And the lie sounds like this:

“I’m not like those people.”

Yes, you are.

If you can’t reverse-engineer your own behavior, if you can’t say, “I needed to feel important, so I overcommitted” or “I needed control, so I sabotaged the plan,” then you’re not insightful. You’re blind.

And your blindness will keep ruling you from underneath.

That’s the real risk:

Not that the idea is wrong, but that you’ll use its sharpness to cut others, and never turn it on yourself.

This isn’t a sword for judgment, it’s a scalpel for autopsy.

And if you’re afraid to use it on your own skin,

then stop pretending you’re seeking truth.

VII. Why Most People Can’t Admit This

Because it destroys their image of themselves.

Because it unravels their moral performance.

Because it kills the story they tell to survive:

“I’m a good person.”
“I do what’s right.”
“I’m selfless. Generous. Loyal.”

No, you’re not.

You’re strategic. You’re wired. You’re emotionally driven.

You are, like everyone else, an animal with a story.

But if you can admit it, you gain power most people never touch.

Because now you’re not ruled by your needs in secret.

You know them. You can question them.

You can even, sometimes, choose against them.

And that’s rare.

Conclusion: The Mirror That Bites Back

The moment you understand that behavior is the exhaust of emotional need,

you lose the luxury of pretending.

Every action is a signal. Every refusal, a clue.

Every pattern you hate in yourself is pointing to a hidden, hungry thing.

You don’t need therapy. You need honesty.

Look at what you do. Ask what it gives you.

Don’t flinch.

Most people will lie until the day they die,

convinced they’re noble while being ruled by fear, vanity, loneliness, and longing.

But not you.

If you’ve read this far, maybe you’re ready to see the beast.

Not to slay it.

But to understand that it was always you,

wearing a different mask every time.