it's possible to live

Monument 3 (locally known as El Dios del Mundo, the God of the Earth), El Baúl, the south coast of Guatemala, 1958.

so back pre-ts era, logia users were the craze. for oda to lay it down early in 2010 how mythical zoans are rare and different, was nice preparation. like a decade later he managed to deliver on his word. my question is what limits are imposed on marco and if they'll be explored even further. it's a shame ace didn't awaken his fruit but we'll see it's full potential with sabo.

can i also just say it's cool how ace is not self-conscious of his freckles/looks? atta boy!

Story of mevlana & shams i tabriz

Before meeting Shams, Mevlana was the quintessential high-expression Gemini. He was a brilliant academic, a master of theology, a collector of texts, and a beloved lecturer. Of course he was alwasy surrounded by books, which represents the Gemini tendency to gather facts, definitions, scriptures. Gemini is the "I think, therefore I am" stage of spiritual development.

Sagittarius doesn't care about what is written about God or truth; Sagittarius wants to experience it directly (that's why you'll see Sagittarius influenced people diving heads first into anything and absorbing the essence of it which can't be taught from books). Shams blew into Mevlana's life like a roaring Sagittarian fire, and basically sagitterrorized him in modern terms...

A story of Gemini-Sagittarius opposition;

Mevlana is sitting by a fountain, surrounded by rare, priceless manuscripts. Shams walks up and asks, "What is this?" Mevlana, feeling intellectually superior, smugly replies, "You wouldn't understand; this is knowledge that cannot be gained through hearsay."

Shams then takes the books and dumps them straight into the water. Mevlana is devastated and outraged.

Shams pulls the books out of the water, completely dry and untouched. Mevlana is stunned and asks, "What is this secret?" Shams replies "This is taste and ecstasy, you wouldn't understand."

True wisdom and integration can not be achieved through books.

Throwing the precious books into the water was Shams’ ultimate Sagittarius move. He was saying, "You are drowning in information, but you are starving for wisdom."

Shams forced Mevlana out of the Gemini lower mind (logic, reading, reciting) and dragged him into the Sagittarius higher mind (intuition, cosmic love, direct experience). Aside from their mentor-student dynamics, they became very good friends and Mevlana discovered the taste of oneness with Allah through Shams, which is how the concept of "Divine Love" was emerged. As Shams was a gateway to God and infinity for Mevlana, he was highly attached to him. After the said incident, Mevlana became utterly consumed by Shams. He abandoned his students, his teaching, and his books just to sit at Shams's feet. He was treating Shams like a new, walking "encyclopedia" of divine knowledge. His intense, agonizing attachment to Shams's physical form represents the shadow side of Gemini: clinging to the dual (twins cannot be seperated) and the tangible.

But in true Sagittarius fashion, Shams left...then he came back...then he left again.

First time he left, Mevlana was so devastated by the loss that he fell into deep grief and depression. Seeing that Mevlana’s intellectual rigidity cracked, Shams returned (partly coaxed by Mevlana’s son) to finalize the transformation. But Shams knew that as long as he was physically present, Mevlana would always look at him for answers instead of looking within. In Sufism, the bond between a master and disciple is meant to guide the student toward Divine Unity (Tawhid). Sagittarius is the sign of the distant arrow and the endless quest. By permanently vanishing, Shams forced Mevlana to stop being a "student" (Gemini 3H) and finally become the "Master/Prophet of Love" (Sagittarius 9H).

For Gemini, "Twin" is not just a friend; they are the missing half of the soul. For a Gemini archetype, losing the "other" feels like a literal death. Being mutable air sign, it takes the shape of its container. In relationships, Gemini energy becomes a perfect mirror of the partner. Mevlana didn't just love Shams; he became Shams. (This is why he named his book the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi which he wrote as if he were Shams).

Shams’s constant disappearing acts represent the Sagittarian archetype of the wanderer. He was a catalyst and a spiritual nomad. He didn't come to be Mevlana's permanent fixture; he came to spark the fire ans awakening. Mevlana's intense grief during these absences turned him from a prose writer into one of the greatest poets in human history and gave birth to Sufism. He wrote entire poetry books about his experiences with him

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge.” — Mevlana

“The chemistry of mind is different from the chemistry of love. The mind is careful, suspicious, & advances little by little. Whereas love says, ‘Let yourself go!’” — Shams-i Tabrizi

Foundations of New Age Spiritualty

It's also important to note, Sufism laid the foundations for new age spirituality. I mentioned in my last post that Sagittarius Pluto generation is when the new age spirituality wave has reached its peak. Under any post-modern "manifestation/spirituality" principle, you find sufist philosophies. The "Law of Attraction" or the idea that "the universe responds to your vibration" isn't a 21st century invention, it is what Sufi mystics like Mevlana and Ibn Arabi were writing about nearly 800 years ago repackaged.

A core teaching of modern manifestation is that the external world is just a mirror of your internal state. It can be tracked back to Ibn Arabi’s philosophy of Wahdat al-Wujud (The Unity of Being) writings that everything in creation is an outward manifestation of a singular, divine reality. Mevlana famously wrote: "You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop." If you want to change the reflection, you change the self.

Modern spirituality tells us that to manifest something, we must "align our energy" with it. Sufism teaches that the human heart (qalb) is a mirror.

Modern spirituality says: "What you seek is seeking you" or "Your thoughts create your reality"

Mevlana says in Divan-i Shams, “Whatever you are seeking, you are that.”

“If you are searching for a friend, you are looking at a friend. If you are searching for a piece of bread, you are a piece of bread. Understand this secret: Whatever your soul seeks, you are that.”

“The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.”

“The world is a mirror, and it shows you your own face. Wash your face if you want to see a beautiful reflection.”

“Knowledge is to know yourself. If you do not know yourself, all your reading is in vain.” -Yunus Emre (Turkmen Sufi)

butcher bird 🪶

https://github.com/laylavish/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist

Install this blocklist using the instructions on the GitHub page. For Firefox, you will need to install uBlockOrigin for this. Google Chrome no longer allows the uBlockOrigin extension, so I'm assuming you're at least primarily a Firefox user - or about to be (see browser alternatives below).

For Google Chrome or mobile browsers, this will work with uBlacklist. See the GitHub page for full details on compatibility.

Remove AI Widgets:

If you go to your uBlockOrigin Filter lists page, you can select to filter out AI Widgets - this should completely remove the 'AI Mode' widget/button from your Google search page, in addition to the work done by the Huge AI Blocklist.

Using the uBlockOrigin Huge AI Blocklist filter has made my Google searches look like they used to, and gives me genuine search results.

Look at this. It's beautiful. It's informative. It's not a heap of burning trash bloated with fake information made up by a hallucinating chat bot.

We can go even further: return to the old school search results.

Now, the above results are great and should be free of generative AI junk, but some people would rather not see any of the summary widgets or 'people also ask' box at all. Fear not! You can remove all that by using the 'Web' mode in the Google search bar. Click the 'More' drop down menu and select 'Web'.

Huzzah! Incredible. It's like a functional search engine again.

You can make this the default Google search mode in Google Chrome using Method 1 from this page (https://allthings.how/how-to-turn-off-ai-mode-in-google-chrome/). Unfortunately, I don't know if there's a way to do this in Firefox too. This is why for the most part I still use DuckDuckGo (see below) as my default search engine, and only use Google to supplement my searches on the rare occasion I'm just missing something.

Remember, if you clear your cookies, your search engine preferences will reset, including any settings you enabled/disabled to avoid AI. This applies to DuckDuckGo as well; check your settings every time you clear your browser!

Extra filters (optional):

I've also added four filters (their order doesn't matter) to the My Filters page. Full disclosure: I'm not sure they still work, or may only work on Chrome, but I'm keeping them anyway, just in case.

From https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1i7kg83/comment/m8lllwr/: see which solution in the list works for you, it seems to be different for everybody.

google.*##div[jscontroller]:not(:has(div[jscontroller].YzCcne)):has(.YzCcne)

From https://allthings.how/how-to-turn-off-ai-mode-in-google-chrome/:

www.google.com##.Beswgc

www.google.com##.olrp5b

www.google.com##.hdzaWe

Make sure you hit the apply changes button when you add filters.

Browser alternatives: escaping Google Chrome.

If you haven't jumped ship from Chrome yet, I'd recommend doing so. Sometimes Chrome outperforms Firefox for niche purposes or because a website doesn't bother to fully support non-Chrome browsers, but the days of Chrome being the superior browser are long gone — by about 10 years. If you're trying to escape Chromium browsers, beware that a lot of the popular Chrome alternatives are just Chrome in a different hat.

Firefox has been the most popular non-Chromium browser for years, and for good reason. However, the company running Mozilla Firefox has annoyed their users, me included, by refusing to take an anti- generative-ai stance, and even included AI features in the Mozilla Firefox browser. Most Firefox users specifically use it because they hate Google's enshittification and want a privacy-focused, clean browser that doesn't hog their RAM and CPU for no reason. So, you can imagine that Mozilla's attitude has pissed us all off recently. You can turn off the AI features in Firefox with the built-in settings, but the company has recently steered straight into the burning garbage heap by saying they want to make the browser based on AI.

Waterfox and LibreWolf:

There are really good alternatives based on Firefox (open-source) which are not affiliated with Mozilla (the company), if you don't like how it operates. Waterfox and LibreWolf are even more trimmed down and privacy-focused than Mozilla's Firefox, and don't use AI. Anti-ai statements: Waterfox and LibreWolf.

From this page: https://programming.dev/post/42546774

In short: LibreWolf is for those who want a “locked-down” fortress out of the box, while Waterfox is for those who want a privacy-conscious browser that still feels like a normal, convenient daily driver. Choose LibreWolf if: You want the highest level of privacy without having to manually edit config files, and you don’t mind occasionally “fixing” a broken website or re-logging into accounts. Choose Waterfox if: You want a privacy-respecting browser that supports Firefox Sync, has an Android counterpart, and handles streaming sites/logins without any extra friction (it supports WideWine out of the box, which lets you stream DRM protected content (netflix, hulu, disney, etc). — [email protected]

I've heard good things about both of these browsers and will investigate them further to decide whether to personally switch from Mozilla Firefox.

DuckDuckGo:

I would also recommend installing the DuckDuckGo extension to your browsers and setting it to be your default search engine.

I've had DuckDuckGo installed on my browsers, Chrome or Firefox, for like 10 years now. It is a good search engine, it's unobtrusive, and blocks trackers, cookies, and does not save any data about you. I've also used it as my default mobile browser for years, along with Firefox mobile, which you can add the AI Blocklist to (see again the GitHub page). I haven't tried the DuckDuckGo desktop browser yet, but I imagine it works just fine like the mobile version. I think DuckDuckGo's browser is also Chromium-based, at least indirectly. I use Firefox with the DuckDuckGo extension so I can have a widely-supported, non-Chromium browser, but include all of DuckDuckGo's anti-tracking features.

Note: DuckDuckGo has included AI in its browser product, however you can opt-out of all AI features with the built-in settings and they will not push it on you like Google does. I hope they remove AI features entirely in the future, but for now I am comfortable with the barriers in place to keep AI out of my face. Firefox also has AI features like Chrome does, which you can turn off with the built-in settings.

There's also noai.duckduckgo search, an alternative version of its normal search engine which removes AI-generated images and turns off AI results/assists by default. Even though DuckDuckGo's inclusion of any AI features annoys me, its policy to make these features 100% optional builds trust with this browser/extension/search engine.

You can always use Google search if you need to, but with uBlockOrigin and the AI Blocklist filter added on, at least you shouldn't have AI-altered search results or the AI overview anymore.

Other browsers exist, probably:

There are certainly more non-Chromium alternatives out there, but Firefox, Waterfox, and LibreWolf are the top three recommended to me. That link to alternatives, plus this ComputerCity page are the best lists I could find in a brief search. If you google "non-Chromium browsers" you'll get a lot of mixed results which require a bit of digging to realise they're not really recommending you what you looked for at all.

I've heard about Ecosia over the years, and while I like the idea of a search engine that plants a tree for each query, I don't think that's actually what happens — at least, that's what they used to be reputed to do, but I believe that's an unsustainable business model which has likely changed. In 2026, Ecosia says it uses 100% of its profits for the planet and runs its search engine off clean energy. That's cool! It's still Chromium-based. And it also uses generative AI for chat bots, so I don't trust its principles on environmentalism. I need to do more reading on this to form a stronger opinion about it.

I hope this post has helped at least some of you have a better experience browsing the web and googling your questions.

Waterfox has a marginally better privacy footprint via my testing in Cover Your Tracks. I have to log into websites more often than Firefox, but not every time like Librewolf. My Firefox account is usable on Waterfox (thus all of my bookmarks and extensions). I usually use Startpage as my search engine with the AI features turned off. Startpage isn't a default option but only takes a moment to add (guide here). Hate Mojeek, Ecosia, Qwant, DuckDuckGo is okay but adds news and previews to search results.

I have Waterfox on my phone, Steam Deck, and PCs. I use Brave on my iPad just for the ad blocking. Waterfox syncs great and I have very minimal user issues. At the moment the Android application can be a little buggy with letting me upload files so I switch to Firefox.

For those wondering, I did end up installing Waterfox and it's literally just Mozilla Firefox, but less bullshit. 10/10 would recommend.

Haven't used it for long, obviously, but I've made a clean transition from Mozilla to Waterfox and it took maybe like, an hour? Because I like to dig through all my settings and fiddle with things to make sure it's all set up right. After the initial setup, it's good to go and I expect I won't need to touch it again soon.

If you're making the switch from Mozilla Firefox, it'll import and sync everything including the mobile browser straight from your Mozilla account, including history, bookmarks, settings, etc. You'll need to check and re-install your extensions and your uBlock Origin Huge AI Blocklist. Follow the prompts and you'll be fine. You could use the default adblocker from Waterfox, but if you install uBO, you'll have to choose one or the other so they don't conflict. Remember to re-select the AI Widgets filter under Annoyances for uBO! All the advice on this post applies the same to Waterfox as it did Firefox.

If you're on Google Chrome, skip Mozilla and just switch straight to Waterfox - you're doing the slightly tedious work of transferring to a new browser anyway, might as well make it the cleaner version.

It's pretty much identical and trims off the AI bullshit. I set my home page to the search, and removed all search engines except DuckDuckGo and the Waterfox default. If you wanna go a little extra, you can try LibreWolf but if you want "Firefox without the AI garbage shit" then just go for Waterfox and call it a day.

It's clean, it's easy, it has mobile versions you can continue to use extensions on just like you could with Mozilla Firefox. You can open YouTube on mobile, open the page's settings, set that page to your phone's home screen, and use that for watching videos on your phone without ads.