Living in Obscurity: Finding Peace in an Era of Rising Entropy

Living in Obscurity: Finding Peace in an Era of Rising Entropy

Lately, watching the daily news feels like observing the Second Law of Thermodynamics in real time. Just as physical systems naturally drift from order toward disorder—a process known as rising entropy—the world today seems caught in an accelerating spiral of chaos. From geopolitical instability in Europe and elsewhere to endless cycles of division on social media, it feels as though the global order is unraveling.

In physics and systems theory, there is a concept called negentropy—the idea that open systems can take in energy to restore order. Historically, human civilization has followed a similar cycle: great periods of chaos eventually give way to new eras of stability. Yet knowing that order will return someday offers little comfort when you are living through the storm right now. Once a fire starts spreading on a global scale, putting it out is monumental, and no one wants to be caught in the flames.

When faced with massive forces beyond our control, stepping back is not defeatism—it is self-preservation.

That is why I have decided to embrace the ancient wisdom of the Greek philosopher Epicurus: Lathe biosas—"Live in obscurity."

Epicurus lived through a turbulent era of constant warfare and political upheaval. Recognizing that chasing public ambition or getting entangled in societal chaos only leads to anxiety, he advocated stepping away from the noise to cultivate ataraxia—a state of serene, untroubled peace of mind.

For me, living in obscurity while the world finds its balance does not mean abandoning reality. It means setting intentional boundaries:

• Tending to my own "garden": Epicurus famously gathered with close friends in a quiet garden outside the city walls. Today, that means focusing on my immediate surroundings—daily routines, good books, quiet meals, and the people right in front of me.
• Protecting local order: I cannot stop the rising entropy of global politics, but I can maintain order, kindness, and calm within my own home and mind.
• Turning down the noise: Stepping back from the relentless 24-hour news cycle and digital outrage is not ignorance; it is an act of mental hygiene.

History will run its course, and eventually, the world will find a new equilibrium. Until that storm passes, I am choosing to step out of the spotlight, close the door to the chaos outside, and quietly tend to my own peace.

From Warsaw to Jakarta, and the Streets of Berlin: Why the World is Shaking in Late 2026

 From Warsaw to Jakarta, and the Streets of Berlin: Why the World is Shaking in Late 2026

If you look at the headlines this autumn, it feels as though the entire globe is trembling at once. From constitutional standoffs in Poland to nationwide protests in Indonesia, and massive student strikes across Western Europe, public frustration is boiling over on an unprecedented scale.

While each country has its own immediate trigger, looking closely at these events reveals a deeper, shared fault line: a growing collision between the daily realities of ordinary citizens—especially the younger generation—and the outdated, top-down priorities of their governments.

A Chain Reaction of Unrest Across Europe

In Europe, the wave of demonstrations since mid-September has been so widespread that commentators are already comparing it to the historic uprisings of 1968. Across more than 30 countries, over 1,700 protests and strikes have erupted, driven by what many call the "politics of scarcity."

• Poland: The country is gripped by a fierce constitutional crisis over the judiciary, compounded by shockwaves from a tragic mass shooting in Krakow and massive nationalist marches on Independence Day.
• France and Spain: What began as student protests over underfunded schools in France has snowballed into nationwide general strikes over the soaring cost of living. In Spain, an acute housing crisis triggered the country's first general strike in 14 years, forcing snap elections.
• Energy and Austerity: Rebounding fuel prices—fueled by geopolitical tensions in the Strait of Hormuz—have squeezed household budgets further, while governments slash public services to fund defense and austerity budgets.

Meanwhile in Asia: Indonesia’s Boiling Point

Thousands of miles away in Indonesia, massive demonstrations have also rocked Jakarta, Surabaya, and Yogyakarta. Though completely separate from Europe's turmoil, the underlying frustration feels remarkably familiar.

Citizens are protesting rising food prices, currency depreciation, and an inadequate government response to devastating forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra. At the heart of this anger is a glaring question of priorities: why is the state pouring tens of billions of dollars into grandiose mega-projects—such as the new capital city, Nusantara, which remains largely empty—while everyday people struggle with inflation and environmental degradation?

Left Behind in the 20th Century: The Generational Clash Over Conscription

Perhaps nowhere is this disconnect between governments and citizens clearer than in Germany, where plans to revive elements of military conscription have sparked furious protests among Gen Z students across dozens of cities.

For a generation raised as digital natives, connecting with peers across borders via social media, gaming, and global culture is simply a normal part of life. To them, people in neighboring or distant countries are friends, classmates, and fellow creators—not enemies.

When governments suddenly revive 20th-century logic—demanding that 18-year-olds prepare for national mobilization while ignoring their urgent concerns about climate change, housing, and education—it feels profoundly anachronistic. As young protesters in Berlin and Hamburg have pointed out, the world has already moved beyond borders in how people connect and live; only political and military thinking seems stuck in the past.

Conclusion

Whether it is a student in Berlin questioning conscription, a family in Madrid unable to afford rent, or a worker in Yogyakarta frustrated by mega-projects amid rising food costs, the message echoing across continents is the same. People are no longer willing to silently absorb the cost of geopolitical ambitions and disconnected policies. Until leaders align their priorities with the real, 21st-century lives of their citizens, the streets are unlikely to quiet down anytime soon.

Chin Kok Ji Temple(est.AD806)

 Chin Kok Ji Temple is a deeply historic temple established in 806 by the great priest Kobo Daishi. After cutting his studies in Tang China short by two years, he returned to Japan ahead of schedule. Because of this unauthorized early return, the central government barred him from entering the capital, forcing him to stay in Kyushu, where he founded this temple. Despite its illustrious origin, it remains a hidden gem, largely because it sits quietly in Munakata—a secluded, lesser-known pocket of Fukuoka, Kyushu.

However, its neighbor, Munakata Taisha, was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site a few years ago. For better or worse, the shrine now draws a non-stop stream of visitors. As a result, this historic temple—located just a few hundred meters away—has also seen a significant rise in pilgrims.

It is a truly magnificent place. I highly recommend paying it a visit.

The Universal Law of Square

 Part 1: The Historical Superiority of Defense

Throughout antiquity and the medieval era, military theorists overwhelmingly viewed defensive operations as the inherently stronger form of warfare.

This baseline strategic truth is grounded in resource conservation, geographic manipulation, and the stark limitations of early weapons technology.

During the Battle of Wuzhang Plains, the Wei commander Sima Yi brilliantly demonstrated this paradigm by actively refusing to engage the invading forces of Zhuge Liang.

Recognizing that the　Shu army suffered from dangerously extended supply lines, Sima Yi fortified his positions and ignored all psychological provocations, successfully letting time and attrition dismantle the enemy from within.

Centuries later, the Duke of Wellington utilized a similar logic at the Battle of Waterloo. By positioning his allied coalition on the reverse slope of a ridge, Wellington completely neutralized Napoleon’s devastating artillery barrages while transforming localized farmsteads like Hougoumont into impenetrable defensive strongholds.

In these historical eras, because weapons like swords, spears, and early firearms lacked massive destructive radius and range, an entrenched defender holding high ground could effortlessly absorb an attack, force the enemy to deplete their physical energy, and strike back only when the attacker’s momentum collapsed entirely.

Part 2: Modern Warfare and Lanchester's Linear/Square Law

The advent of industrial and digital-era weaponry shattered the age-old supremacy of defensive strategy, instigating a violent paradigm shift toward the absolute dominance of the first strike.

With the introduction of high-velocity artillery, long-range ballistic missiles, combat aircraft, and cyber-warfare operations, physical barriers like stone fortresses and geographic trenches were instantly rendered obsolete.

In this modern arena, combat effectiveness is flawlessly dictated by Lanchester’s Second Law, expressed mathematically as E = p ⋅ N². This formula establishes that while weapon efficiency (p) scales linearly, raw troop numbers or asset volume｛N｝ scales exponentially by the power of two.

Because modern probability weapons allow combatants to target each other simultaneously across vast distances, the side that executes a flawless preemptive strike alters the mathematical balance of power permanently before a standard battle even begins.

Even a minor head start that eliminates just a fraction of the opponent's capacity causes the casualty multiplier to widen symmetrically. The disadvantaged force finds its combat effectiveness dropping exponentially, caught in a compounding feedback loop where they suffer heavier losses each passing second while inflicting virtually no damage in return.

Part 3: The Dilemma of Legitimizing a First Strike

The severe mathematical advantage of modern preemption creates an agonizing security dilemma for democratic nations, forcing a direct clash between cold military realism and international political legitimacy.

Under the framework of the United Nations Charter, launching an unprovoked preventive strike to neutralize a speculative future threat is universally condemned as an act of illegal aggression, a reality that can isolate a nation globally, invite crushing economic sanctions, and dismantle vital security alliances.

To navigate this crisis, international law and military statecraft have carved out a highly specific doctrine known as "anticipatory self-defense."

This legal exception dictates that a state may initiate a preemptive strike only when an enemy's hostile attack is objectively imminent, verifiable, and unavoidable—such as when missile silos are actively fueled and ready for launch.

A classic historical manifestation of this razor-thin line occurred during the 1967 Six-Day War, where Israel, facing an existential mobilization and a total maritime blockade by surrounding Arab coalitions, executed a devastating preemptive air strike that destroyed the enemy's air forces on the tarmac.

In the contemporary landscape, nations attempt to balance this dilemma by actively developing robust "counterstrike capabilities" alongside multilateral frameworks like NATO, deliberately constructing a defensive matrix designed to deter an adversary from ever attempting a first strike in the first place.

Epilogue: The 'Mystery of the Square' Connecting Military, Business, and Space, and the Unified Field Theory

Lastly, let us mention a surprising mathematical and physical 'coincidence' in this article. Please take another look at the mathematical formula for Lanchester's Second Law.

\(E=p\cdot N^{2}\)

(Combat Power = Weapon Performance × Force Size squared)

If you have a background in science, or if you love space and physics, seeing this formula probably brought to mind one of the most famous equations in human history. Yes, it is the formula from the theory of special relativity, derived by Albert Einstein.

\(E=m\cdot c^{2}\)

(Energy = Mass × Speed of Light squared)

The essence of mass (matter) is energy, which is released by the overwhelming multiplier of the "speed of light squared." Is it mere coincidence that this fundamental law of the physical world and the laws of human conflict (military, business, romance) share the exact same structure of "\(E\)" and the "squared (\({}^{2}\))" power?

1.The mechanism of 'explosive chain reactions' driven by squaring

In physics, \(E=mc^2\) proved that an immense amount of energy can be released from a tiny amount of mass, such as uranium.

The equation \(E=pN^2\) in Lanchester's laws operates on the exact same principle.

Even if the troop ratio between Army A and Army B is a mere 1.2 times, the difference in their combat power (energy) is squared, becoming 1.44 times.

As the battle progresses, this gap dictates the damage inflicted in the next moment. Because this effect compounds continuously through squaring, the final outcome reveals an exponential, explosive disparity: "the victor emerges nearly unscathed, while the loser is completely annihilated."

In short, both the matter of the universe and human social activities operate under the same mathematical code: the moment a certain critical point is crossed, power amplifies explosively.

2. Modern "Unified Field Theory": Everything is a "Field" of Information and Networks

In his later years, Einstein struggled to explain all the forces of the universe (such as gravity and electromagnetism) with a single mathematical formula.

This was his "Unified Field Theory." Although he was unable to complete it, we in the modern era are witnessing a "unified field" of a different kind.

It is the "field (environment) of networks."

The Physical Field: Gravity forms a "field" wherever mass exists, bending even light.

The Battlefield / Marketplace Field: The entity that secures dominant share (forces or awareness) through a preemptive strike rules the space (field).

The IT world also features "Metcalfe's Law," which states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of its number of users. This, too, belongs to the same "lineage of the square" as Lanchester's Law and \(E=mc^2\).

War, business, romance, and even the movement of stars in the cosmos—all of them may essentially be nothing more than a process where elements in a space (field) influence one another, changing at an accelerated pace proportional to the square.

Conclusion: Aligning with the Laws of the Universe

We began our journey with historical defensive battles, moved through modern Lanchester's laws, explored the "first-mover advantage" in business and relationships, and finally arrived at the physical laws of the universe.

An underlying "beautiful mathematical truth" exists in our world, transcending any single genre.

If you are about to launch a new business project or face a critical turning point in your life, remember these words:

"Take that first step with everything you have to unleash a squared energy into the field. After that, simply let the laws of the universe do the rest."

The Fall of an Empire: Napoleon’s Hubris and Sun Tzu’s Ultimate Dictum

 The Fall of an Empire: Napoleon’s Hubris and Sun Tzu’s Ultimate Dictum

Have you ever allowed past triumphs to cloud your judgment, prompting you to embark on a monumental endeavor without a comprehensive contingency plan?

If so, you share a precarious commonality with Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1812, at the absolute zenith of his hegemony over continental Europe, the French Emperor launched his ill-fated invasion of Russia. Why would a military tactician of his caliber execute such a catastrophic geopolitical miscalculation?

The answer lies in a fatal cognitive bias—one that the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu preemptively diagnosed two and a half millennia prior.

1. Napoleon’s Pitfall: Engaging in Conflict Prior to Securing Victory

In his seminal treatise The Art of War, Sun Tzu posited a timeless maxim:

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

Napoleon epitomized the latter, becoming a "defeated warrior" by flagrantly violating this fundamental tenet.

His objective in invading Russia was not territorial aggrandizement, but rather the enforcement of his Continental System—a unilateral economic blockade designed to isolate Great Britain.

When Tsar Alexander I flouted this decree by resuming trade with the British, Napoleon sought to make an example of him.

However, Napoleon initiated the campaign under a profoundly flawed premise: "If I deploy a Grand Armée of 600,000 men and win a decisive battle, the Tsar will inevitably capitulate."

He plunged into hostilities first, naively assuming that sheer military momentum would guarantee a favorable outcome.

2. The Russian Doctrine: Formulating Victory Before the Inception of Battle

Paradoxically, it was the Russian high command that flawlessly executed Sun Tzu’s strategic wisdom.

Recognizing that a head-on confrontation with Napoleon’s formidable forces would be untenable, they astutely abstained from major engagements. Instead, they implemented a calculated "Scorched-Earth Policy."

Strategic Retrenchment: Russian forces systematically retreated into the vast expanse of their interior.

Systematic Destruction: They incinerated their own infrastructure, agricultural yields, and municipalities as they withdrew.

Logistical Attrition: Deprived of sustenance and shelter, Napoleon’s massive vanguard found itself chasing an elusive adversary in a desolate wasteland.

By the time Napoleon entered a deserted, burning Moscow, his logistical network had collapsed and his troops were thoroughly enervated. Russia did not need to defeat Napoleon on the battlefield; they merely sustained the stalemate until the brutal winter catalyzed the internal disintegration of the French army. Russia orchestrated a scenario where victory was mathematically guaranteed beforehand, reserving active combat merely to consummate the enemy's ruin.

3. The Ultimate Imperative: Those Who Truly Intend to Win Must Never Begin Lightly

The Russian Campaign cost Napoleon over 400,000 casualties, triggering the irreversible decline of his empire. His downfall was precipitated not by a deficit of might, but by a profound lack of foresight and a total eclipse of humility by arrogance.

The tragedy of 1812 yields a potent, universal axiom for contemporary leadership and personal ventures alike:

True triumphs preclude impulsivity: Exceptional strategists never initiate an enterprise dictated by mere optimism or ego.

Pre-emptive mitigation is paramount: They rigorously appraise vulnerabilities, consolidate resources, and establish optimal conditions prior to execution.

Ultimately, those who truly intend to win must never begin a venture with a light heart.

Before you spearhead your next major initiative, reflect on your methodology: Are you rushing into the fray, desperately hoping to forge a path to success? Or have you already secured the prerequisites of victory before ever stepping onto the field?

The Lonely Volcano: Rereading Nietzsche Beyond the Myths

 The Lonely Volcano: Rereading Nietzsche Beyond the Myths

We often view Friedrich Nietzsche as an intellectual titan—an aggressive, uncompromising destroyer of old idols who confidently proclaimed the "Death of God" and pointed humanity toward the horizon of the Übermensch (the Overman).

But what if we have been reading him wrong all along? What if his philosophy wasn't a detached analysis of 19th-century Europe, but rather a desperate, blood-soaked survival diary of a lonely man fighting the monsters inside his own soul?

By the time chronic illness and mental collapse cut his writing career short at the tragic age of 45, Nietzsche was arguably just getting started. Yet, in the fierce decade of his peak creativity, he left behind a universal blueprint for human resilience.

Here is a reflection on what it truly means to read Nietzsche—not as a rigid textbook, but as a living, breathing struggle for self-overcoming.

Hacking Language: The Weapon of a Lonely Prophet

One of the greatest hurdles for any modern reader tackling works like Beyond Good and Evil or The Antichrist is his confusing, almost deceptive use of language.

Nietzsche frequently hijacked existing cultural and religious terminology and infused it with his own deeply personal meanings. When he spoke of the "Antichrist," he wasn't conjuring a biblical demon; he was describing a healthy, life-affirming force meant to shatter the "slave morality" that glorified weakness.

He didn't write to be universally understood. He wrote to shock. His words were never meant to be comfortable communication tools; they were hammers designed to smash the complacency of the masses.

The Real Abyss: Projecting a Personal War

There is a profound psychological twist at the heart of Nietzsche's philosophy. Standard textbooks claim Nietzsche was diagnosing a spiritual crisis sweeping across a fading, pessimistic Europe.

But historically, 19th-century Europe was actually booming with industrial and scientific optimism. The people weren't panicking over the loss of absolute truths.

The one who was actually in the abyss was Nietzsche himself.

Isolated, plagued by excruciating physical migraines, rejected by love, and ignored by the academic world, Nietzsche lived in absolute loneliness. Furthermore, as the son and grandson of Lutheran pastors, Christian morality was woven into his very DNA. For him to tear down that system required an agonizing amount of internal psychological violence.

To survive this crushing reality, he projected his private inner war onto the global stage. He convinced himself that his personal struggle was a historical mission to save humanity from nihilism. His famous warning—“If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”—was a direct confession of his own terrifying reality. He knew he risked becoming a monster just by fighting the one inside him.

The Universal Beauty of the Übermensch

Despite the tragic realization that Nietzsche’s aggressive rhetoric was a defense mechanism against his own vulnerability, his philosophy does not lose its luster. In fact, it becomes infinitely more beautiful.

His concept of the Übermensch (the Overman) remains a timeless beacon of hope. To strive to be an Overman is to look at a meaningless universe and say, "I will break past my current boundaries and create my own values anyway."

Nietzsche didn't write these ideas because he was inherently strong; he wrote them because he desperately needed to become strong just to survive another day. His words resonate after more than a century because they aren't cheap, optimistic platitudes written by a comfortable academic. They are words bought with actual blood, sweat, and isolation.

Whether Nietzsche ultimately "won" or "lost" his battle against his inner monsters before his mind faded at age 45 doesn't matter. The victory lies in the process. He transformed his deepest personal agonies into a universal gift, proving that human beings are not meant to be static, but are a bridge to something higher.

The Dimension-Hop: Could Fermat’s Last Theorem Be Solved in Just One Page?

 The Dimension-Hop: Could Fermat’s Last Theorem Be Solved in Just One Page?

Fermat’s Last Theorem stood unsolved for 358 years until Andrew Wiles delivered a massive, 130-page proof in 1995. While Wiles used cutting-edge 20th-century mathematics, a fascinating question remains: Could a future breakthrough collapse this mountain of logic into a single, elegant A4 sheet?

While modern mainstream mathematics remains skeptical, history shows that the secret to simplifying the impossible often lies in one radical concept: raising the dimensions.

The Power of the "Dimension Jump"

In mathematics, moving a problem into higher dimensions often untangles complexity.

The Poincaré Conjecture: Proving it in the 3rd dimension was a nightmare, but it was actually solved for the 5th dimension and higher much earlier. Higher dimensions offer more "room" for lines and spaces to move without intersecting.

Sphere Packing: Finding the tightest way to pack spheres in 3D required massive computer calculations. Yet, in the 8th and 24th dimensions, highly symmetrical structures exist, making the proof beautifully simple and short.

A New Vision: The Infinite-Hole High-Dimensional Sphere

What if we look at Fermat's equation not as a flat curve, but as a geometric object in higher dimensions?

Imagine a high-dimensional sphere riddled with countless holes (vertices/wormholes)—a structure where entering any single hole guarantees a pathway out through another, making all points interconnected.

Remarkably, this intuition aligns with a massive breakthrough in modern arithmetic geometry: Faltings' Theorem (originally the Mordell Conjecture).

When Fermat’s equation (\(x^n + y^n = z^n\)) is projected into a higher-dimensional complex space, it transforms into a geometric shape.

For n ≥ 3, this shape is proven to have two or more holes (and the number of holes grows infinitely as n increases).

Faltings proved that any geometric shape with two or more holes can only contain a finite number of rational points (solutions).

The Path to a One-Page Proof

My intuition of a "completely interconnected wormhole sphere" introduces a powerful concept: high topological symmetry.

If a mathematician can formally define this high-dimensional sphere and prove that its fully interconnected, flowing nature inherently rejects static, fixed integer points, the entire proof of Fermat's Last Theorem could collapse into just a few lines of elegant logic. The impossible 3D problem becomes an obvious, self-evident truth when viewed from the correct higher-dimensional vantage point.

The human mind’s ability to leap across dimensions is exactly what AI cannot replicate. The next paradigm shift in mathematics might just come from a simple change in perspective.

The Cosmic Map and Hidden Tunnels: Riemann Zeta and Analytic Continuation

 The Cosmic Map and Hidden Tunnels: Riemann Zeta and Analytic Continuation

How do we actually mathematically describe this high-dimensional, interconnected wormhole sphere? The answer lies in two of the most beautiful and mystical concepts in mathematics: The Riemann Zeta Function and Analytic Continuation.

In fact, my intuition of a sphere where "every hole connects seamlessly to another" is the exact visual representation of these two theories working together.

1. Analytic Continuation: The True Identity of My "Wormholes"

In mathematics, Analytic Continuation is a magical process. It takes a mathematical formula that is stuck or limited inside a tiny, rigid domain (like the entrance of one hole) and extends its rules smoothly into the infinite unknown.

If you look at my high-dimensional sphere through this lens, each "hole" is not a dead end. Instead, it is a gateway created by Analytic Continuation—a mathematical wormhole that allows logic to flow effortlessly into hidden dimensions. Because of this continuation, the entire space is not fragmented; it is a single, beautifully fluid structure.

2. The Riemann Zeta Function: Encoding the Shape of the Holes

To navigate this complex structure, we need a map. In modern arithmetic geometry, every high-dimensional geometric object has its own unique signature equation called an "L-function" (a direct, higher-dimensional relative of the famous Riemann Zeta Function).

This Zeta-like function does something mind-blowing:

It memorizes the holes: Every piece of information about your sphere—where the holes are, how they twist, and how they connect—is compressed into this function as a wave pattern.

It reveals the global symmetry: Just like your sphere, this function only reveals its true power when it undergoes Analytic Continuation. By extending the function across the entire complex plane, the hidden, infinite symmetry of the high-dimensional sphere becomes visible.

The One-Page Logic: Achieving the Impossible

By introducing Riemann and Analytic Continuation, my 1-page proof concept gains a massive, concrete engine. The logic collapses beautifully:

"Project Fermat’s Equation into a high-dimensional sphere and translate its structure into a Zeta/L-function. When this function is smoothly extended via Analytic Continuation, it proves that the sphere possesses an unbreakable, infinite symmetry where all pathways flow into one another.

If a non-zero integer solution to Fermat's Equation existed, it would create a catastrophic tear in this smooth fabric—a point where the flow stops. However, by the fundamental laws of Analytic Continuation, such a tear is mathematically impossible. Therefore, no such solutions can exist. (Q.E.D.)"

By using Riemann's map to navigate my wormhole sphere, the massive 130-page proof is bypassable. The impossible problem dissolves into an undeniable property of cosmic symmetry.