A thanks to the ABC show Wipeout: Since the first time I saw you, I simply couldn’t look away. Your mindless entertainment has sapped my mind of any thoughtful ideas more profound then “I wonder how hard it would be to run over the Big Balls?” and for that I thank you. The relaxation that comes from being an armchair critic of someone who is trying to outmaneuver a wall of punching fists, while simply awful for productivity, does instill an odd peace. I’m entertained, there must be more to this, there has to be some redeeming observation that we can gain from people subjecting themselves to humiliating yet hilarious physical challenges, all in the name of overcoming the Wipeout Zone and pocketing $50,000. Would it be something about a reflection of where we’ve come as a culture? Maybe, but it’s hard when it’s just so entertaining to watch someone get their clock cleaned with a giant rotating metal bat.
And I wonder how much information the contestants actually receive when it comes to what they actually will face. I think I like the idea of the courses being sight unseen, for perhaps then we can say that the courses are just a metaphor to life? Seems reasonable – as we progress toward our goal we overcome more and more absurd obstacles against a smaller number of more capable opponents and in the end if we are truly best we will take home the prize.
It might be true, but it’s not particularly interesting – it doesn’t take a whole lot to see overcoming obstacles in just about every show that has ever been. Which m…and now the producers are smattering the contestants with paint as they try to cross a hydraulic and a-rhythmically moving series of steps, classy…
And somewhere in oppressive heat, the Domino’s commercial and the wail of the passing fire truck I realize that sometimes there is just nothing particularly useful to say. But how to make that nothing interesting? Mindlessly entertaining television, mindlessly nostalgic sounds, mindlessly thinking with only half a brain because the other half just can’t get enough of…new episode Thursday? That’s fantastic, now I know!
But I do wonder, why are we so entertained by media that’s devoid of content? I know absolutely that this show is a waste of my time, but to be quite honest sometimes there’s just nothing that I would rather do. I know absolutely I could be doing something better, anything really. Truly, I think that watching the humidity condense on the walls would be a better use of time: easier on the eyes, more connected to the state of my apartment, and probably also a meditation of the inherent emptiness. It could be all of that, sure. I could be having a moment my wall and instead I’m having a moment with the Gut Buster and the Sinister Stairs.
And luckily for everyone who may have contact with these words, Wipeout ends; the winner having taken home victory by about 4 minutes (or about twice as fast as the runner up) and the channel surfing begins. TV, just like reading, music, silence, search overload or even atonal jabber or spastic movement all inspire ideas, from where will the next come?
Thank you ESPN, at least I have taken the leap to “Narco Soccer”. Thanks to the World Cup I sit in the blissful month every four years where television pretends to care about futbol long enough to give me my fix. At least now I get to something with a bit more meat –the story of Andres Escobar, the footballer murdered after his own goal gave the US a improbable upset in the 1994 Olympics and kept Colombia from advancing in its first World Cup in 28 years (http://www.nj.com/soccer-news/index.ssf/2010/06/andres_escobars_own_goal_murde.html for the full tale).
These two options could not be more diametrically opposed. “The Two Escobars” paints a tale of the cruel effects that gambling and cartel activity…telling now about the million dollar bets that Pablo Escobar with make with a friendly rival, players of hand picked teams flown onto Pablo’s estate for a high stakes game…one show about players willing to humiliate themselves for 50K, the other a tale of people laundering and betting millions simply for something to so. One hosted by the former host of Talk Soup and an ESPN broadcaster (there’s the connection!), the other the connection between two men with the same surname yet very different effects on their cultures.
How quickly our thoughts can change, how smoothly we can shift gears. Not even particularly sure why today is a good day to be that obnoxious writer playing the “this is what I was doing today” card; honestly my only defense is that sometimes it is the discussion of inspiration that can itself inspire inspiration. Or so I hope, perhaps the combination of a summer cold, a long day and…Carlos Valderama explains how soccer brings war torn countries together, mentioning that the paramilitary and the guerillas watching a game together thanks to the power of sport…perhaps that’s why soccer is so slow to catch on, its unifying power is confusing to a country so steeped in territorial division. Perhaps it’s the snappy editing and footage exemplifying exactly what a feelgood story is all about, but there’s such inspiration in this tale…
…”not only with soccer, but with exceptional personality, we will be ambassadors to the us…we’re all working for a common cause, to be representatives in the USA”…in those words it’s hard not to see that there is good in evil and evil in good. This team, an inspiration for a country that had little to look forward to, was built by drug money and cartel actions. Pablo himself both supported the poor, built schools and was moved by the issues that plague the unfortunate while at the same time achieving his ends through horribly inhumane action. Andres, so full of light (at least from the documentary’s standpoint and I have no reason to argue) only achieved his fame and assistance through the support of other Escobar.
My apologies, but this is it for me today – the documentary is too fascinating, and I hope to be in bed by the time that it’s over. If there’s one thing to take away it’s this: in any affair, there will be much more to the truth then what you will initially think - so look and look and look again. I’ll probably spend a full post devoted to what I’ve found in the past hour, but 1,000 words is 1,000 words and tomorrow is a new day. Take care, and right on.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
My shadow rocks back and forth
As I sat outside on a break today, watching my shadow fade in and out as the clouds pass in front of the sun I mull over some familiar topics, but as always they condense into the same question that I’ve asked with increasing frequency – am I getting all that I need from this life? Will I even know it when I see it? For that matter, what is so wrong with a life without a permanent answer to these questions? The longer I query the farther I seem to get from these questions, and mixed in with the hypotheticals and possible worlds is the further nagging question of whether I should be asking about these issues at all, for isn’t it enough to just be here in this moment and enjoy it, regardless of what else might be going on? A tough question; both sides have some excellent points to be made, but today we focus on what I will call the seeker.
On the side of the seeker, there is perhaps nothing more important than figuring out if we are getting all that we can and need from this time we are lucky enough to be here. Not content with simply “because it’s there,” every thought, every notion is analyzed and a place for it in our ontology is sought. Should I be sitting in this pub with my friends? What am I cultivating now, what nourishment is I receiving from this event, this thought this moment? Is this a good (viz a viz beneficial) or bad (detrimental to our quest) thought word or deed? For that matter, might there even be events that are ultimately neutral, neither good nor bad, not a learning experience yet not self destruction or should everything be categorized so that we may draw upon it when necessary?
The benefits of this angle are many. By constantly referencing what we are in the midst of with our end goals we can at any time tease out new meaning and progress. Take my quietly watching my shadow phase into and out of existence in the middle of the city, I couldn’t help but see it as a microcosm of our world – just as my shadow changes form with the sun, so too does my life each day. Sometimes it’s in sharp focus, sometimes it blends with the rest of surroundings, all things muting into the same shade of dark. We are as fleeting as the shadow, trying our best to make the greatest impact that we can while we are able. In fact, that shadow and my time spent watching it wink to and from my sight can mean anything that I need it to – it could perhaps also symbolize that the need to understand impermanence, or even that I should instead be looking up to see what the rest of world does (for they don’t disappear when the sun comes out, maybe I should people watch with my time).
But therein lies the problem,the pain within the pleasure; we can make any idea fit so long we can live with it. And we don’t have to look very far to see the obvious issue with that – the Crusades, turning Saddam + terror into a cause for war, believe that Van Helsing 2 is anything other than an abomination. There is distinct split between what we need and what we think that we need depending upon which voice is doing the analysis.
That aside, if you are the type who sees both sides of the issue, it is just so easy to become paralyzed by indecision about matters of little import. Will a chick pea or cobb salad be more beneficial than the Frech Dip, or is this the cigarette that is going to kill me? Do I tell you I appreciate you or that I love you? The fact is that as humans we are limited in the amount of processing power we have and the amount of time that we have to do it. There are simply too few hours in the day to adequately mull (or agonize or grasp at) how truly decisions like those fit into the rest of our life. I’m already down on the concept of anything other than subject truth, and even that seems almost impossible to reach, so what would then be the use?
What is the use? The problem with this line of thought grows even further once we get more towards the fundamental questions of “Oh yea?” and “So what?” A philosophy professor once told me that ultimately philosophical questions boil down to one of two ends – (you guessed it) oh yea and so what. It may seem like a flip question and trite answers, but despite the economy of words the moral behind them is perhaps most damning at all. If we cannot ultimately know if we are making the best decisions about where want to go and how those activities fit in our larger scheme at a certain point we simply have to stop caring? For instance, the question of “Is this relationship good for me?” There are so many factors, and I know (or at least hope) that we have all agonized over this question at one time or another. The possible avenues are endless: “the sex is so great”…oh yea? “ Yea, but is it covering for latent issues? “ So what? “Well, I want to be a rewarding companionship, someone who can connect with me” Oh yea? “Yes, and I think that’s what we do but how will I know that it’s real?” So what? “So what? “I’ve never seen a healthy relationship, I know it exists and I may have it now, I know what dysfunction is and I want off the merry-go-round” Oh yea?...
And so on and so forth, eventually we come to a point that is irrefutable – stop caring for a second because you ultimately don’t know and just move on. Just as you cannot know both the position and velocity of an electron at any given time, you cannot know the “truth” and the meaning of a particular experience; as you approach clarity in one you lose focus to the other. My apologies too for making the above dialogue so simple, but the idea behind it is the notion that at any time we are at risk of realizing the thing we looked so hard to find the answer too is just a game, one that can be exposed at any minute. For those skimming beneath the surface however, this feels like a failure. Unfortunately, there is no objective truth in these kinds of questions and the answer only comes when we are tired of thinking about it, when we cannot turn over any new stones of insight and we must decide, so as to no longer sit paralyzed by our lives.
I admit that I am completely ignoring some important factors in our decision about meaning and how it fits in our truth, but when you’re speaking about types it’s best to introduce too many variables at once. Our intuition, our impulses, the words of our friends and mentors, television, books and (of course) our prior experiences, all have a hand in our making decisions. And rightly so, for we are not simple machines where we can input data, crank the wheel and get simple yet complete answers. We are complex creatures and nothing happens in a vacuum but my point here, and perhaps a major point for this work in general, is that we include so much more than the rationality we think we express in our decision making that we need to take a step back and look at those activities under the lens for a minute – is our past experience a useful tool moving forward, or is it simply setting us up for disappointment? Is our web of truth in fact so, and what factors are holding that web together?
I cannot be sure yet, but perhaps work on the other side of the coin will prove fruitful. Tomorrow I plan to discuss the other side, those who simply do not care for such questions and can take the “sun is shining, wind is blowing, I’m happy” at face value without wondering whether the sun is worth the cancer, how loud they must play their guitar in order to be heard over the wind and whether or not their happiness is fleeting or eternal. It may sound like the preferred alternative after our time spent discussing the above, but I’m not so sure – taking our experiences without the admitting the underlying sophistication of life may ultimately lead us back to the quest for meaning. I personally would rather suffer with the truth and the questions then be ignorant and “blissful”*
*I subscribe that to be truly blissful you must feel how you do despite your understandings, fears and dreams, not in intentional and ignorant spite of those very same things.
On the side of the seeker, there is perhaps nothing more important than figuring out if we are getting all that we can and need from this time we are lucky enough to be here. Not content with simply “because it’s there,” every thought, every notion is analyzed and a place for it in our ontology is sought. Should I be sitting in this pub with my friends? What am I cultivating now, what nourishment is I receiving from this event, this thought this moment? Is this a good (viz a viz beneficial) or bad (detrimental to our quest) thought word or deed? For that matter, might there even be events that are ultimately neutral, neither good nor bad, not a learning experience yet not self destruction or should everything be categorized so that we may draw upon it when necessary?
The benefits of this angle are many. By constantly referencing what we are in the midst of with our end goals we can at any time tease out new meaning and progress. Take my quietly watching my shadow phase into and out of existence in the middle of the city, I couldn’t help but see it as a microcosm of our world – just as my shadow changes form with the sun, so too does my life each day. Sometimes it’s in sharp focus, sometimes it blends with the rest of surroundings, all things muting into the same shade of dark. We are as fleeting as the shadow, trying our best to make the greatest impact that we can while we are able. In fact, that shadow and my time spent watching it wink to and from my sight can mean anything that I need it to – it could perhaps also symbolize that the need to understand impermanence, or even that I should instead be looking up to see what the rest of world does (for they don’t disappear when the sun comes out, maybe I should people watch with my time).
But therein lies the problem,the pain within the pleasure; we can make any idea fit so long we can live with it. And we don’t have to look very far to see the obvious issue with that – the Crusades, turning Saddam + terror into a cause for war, believe that Van Helsing 2 is anything other than an abomination. There is distinct split between what we need and what we think that we need depending upon which voice is doing the analysis.
That aside, if you are the type who sees both sides of the issue, it is just so easy to become paralyzed by indecision about matters of little import. Will a chick pea or cobb salad be more beneficial than the Frech Dip, or is this the cigarette that is going to kill me? Do I tell you I appreciate you or that I love you? The fact is that as humans we are limited in the amount of processing power we have and the amount of time that we have to do it. There are simply too few hours in the day to adequately mull (or agonize or grasp at) how truly decisions like those fit into the rest of our life. I’m already down on the concept of anything other than subject truth, and even that seems almost impossible to reach, so what would then be the use?
What is the use? The problem with this line of thought grows even further once we get more towards the fundamental questions of “Oh yea?” and “So what?” A philosophy professor once told me that ultimately philosophical questions boil down to one of two ends – (you guessed it) oh yea and so what. It may seem like a flip question and trite answers, but despite the economy of words the moral behind them is perhaps most damning at all. If we cannot ultimately know if we are making the best decisions about where want to go and how those activities fit in our larger scheme at a certain point we simply have to stop caring? For instance, the question of “Is this relationship good for me?” There are so many factors, and I know (or at least hope) that we have all agonized over this question at one time or another. The possible avenues are endless: “the sex is so great”…oh yea? “ Yea, but is it covering for latent issues? “ So what? “Well, I want to be a rewarding companionship, someone who can connect with me” Oh yea? “Yes, and I think that’s what we do but how will I know that it’s real?” So what? “So what? “I’ve never seen a healthy relationship, I know it exists and I may have it now, I know what dysfunction is and I want off the merry-go-round” Oh yea?...
And so on and so forth, eventually we come to a point that is irrefutable – stop caring for a second because you ultimately don’t know and just move on. Just as you cannot know both the position and velocity of an electron at any given time, you cannot know the “truth” and the meaning of a particular experience; as you approach clarity in one you lose focus to the other. My apologies too for making the above dialogue so simple, but the idea behind it is the notion that at any time we are at risk of realizing the thing we looked so hard to find the answer too is just a game, one that can be exposed at any minute. For those skimming beneath the surface however, this feels like a failure. Unfortunately, there is no objective truth in these kinds of questions and the answer only comes when we are tired of thinking about it, when we cannot turn over any new stones of insight and we must decide, so as to no longer sit paralyzed by our lives.
I admit that I am completely ignoring some important factors in our decision about meaning and how it fits in our truth, but when you’re speaking about types it’s best to introduce too many variables at once. Our intuition, our impulses, the words of our friends and mentors, television, books and (of course) our prior experiences, all have a hand in our making decisions. And rightly so, for we are not simple machines where we can input data, crank the wheel and get simple yet complete answers. We are complex creatures and nothing happens in a vacuum but my point here, and perhaps a major point for this work in general, is that we include so much more than the rationality we think we express in our decision making that we need to take a step back and look at those activities under the lens for a minute – is our past experience a useful tool moving forward, or is it simply setting us up for disappointment? Is our web of truth in fact so, and what factors are holding that web together?
I cannot be sure yet, but perhaps work on the other side of the coin will prove fruitful. Tomorrow I plan to discuss the other side, those who simply do not care for such questions and can take the “sun is shining, wind is blowing, I’m happy” at face value without wondering whether the sun is worth the cancer, how loud they must play their guitar in order to be heard over the wind and whether or not their happiness is fleeting or eternal. It may sound like the preferred alternative after our time spent discussing the above, but I’m not so sure – taking our experiences without the admitting the underlying sophistication of life may ultimately lead us back to the quest for meaning. I personally would rather suffer with the truth and the questions then be ignorant and “blissful”*
*I subscribe that to be truly blissful you must feel how you do despite your understandings, fears and dreams, not in intentional and ignorant spite of those very same things.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
30 Hours a Day
For every gain there is a loss, yet for every loss there is at least at first only a potential gain. Over the last few months I’ve struggled with a problem that everyone else has at one time or another – the pesky problem that each day has only 24 hours. In it we hopefully do some of the following: eat, sleep, love, lust, play, relax, learn; the list is endless depending on how we want to spend it. It’s important to remember that we have only 24 hours in day, 168 in week to do everything that we hope to perhaps a bit more. But what are we sacrificing for our gain?
The problem begins with we ourselves, and at least at first the problem is a positive one. Thanks the variety of ways to waste our time here on earth*, and each of us assigns different meanings to each of the activities that we can choose, sleep that is nourishing for some may simply be a barrier to experience for another, the harp is sublime for some but uselessly cumbersome for others. Even eating, our most fundamental activity can be both a wonder of flavor and joy and for others a need that must be fought, controlled if it is to be any sort of benefit.
If you’ve been reading along, you know by now that it’s a rare time that I will assign any sort of object truth, and today is no exception, and like the pioneers of medicine I will throw myself on the table as test subject. Among other things in my life I have a stable job, a great cat, and apartment that I love when I clean it and a supreme passion for both performance music and writing among other things. I also have wonderful friends, an overactive social drive and not nearly enough hours in the day to cultivate all of those loves, let alone the books, the exercise, the quest for general well being and ultimately the quest to figure out the best way to wander around out green and blue (and increasingly brown) terrestrial rock we call home.
Now where does this all fit in? In a post currently on the cutting room floor, I explored just how the average American spends his/her time and the numbers reveal that while it may seem as though we have at least a few hours to give, that time completely evaporates under the microscope of analysis. Especially in my case, the struggle daily is to decide between which of my passions and interests to cover each day. Will I pursue my dreams of professionally performing as a musician or my dreams as a writer? Should I head out for the exercise that brings the well being that only my endorphins can create? Perhaps I should read for all that it brings: the mental exercise, the material to bring to this part of the interwebs, the sheer joy in immersing myself in a world of my creation and someone else’s design? I’m not even daring to touch how important my personal relationships are to me (although I admit my friends that I am often terrible at expressing this), or the time wonderfully spent with that rare Lady that inspires me?
There are times that I wonder if I don’t have enough interests, if perhaps bouldering or sailing or sculpture might be the next inspiration but sadly at a certain point we have to draw the line. Increasing numbers of studies are showing that with any type of professional success becomes a matter of some innate talent and hours upon hours of practice, and that what separates us and the could-have-beens from the successful is just a matter of time, practice and immersion in what you which to perfect. Sounds great, but what about those of us who are trying to become better without sacrificing our current situation? I know as I sit at this computer now there is no idea more sexy than being able to write as a career and a profession – I wonder just what the potential of these posts could be if I was able to devote hours to each one, to carefully smooth out the jagged words and comma spices, to select the word that is not just close enough, but perfect for what I mean. When I wander inside however, I will pick up my guitar and begin to work on some of the songs that have sprung from my life and my practice and become enamored with the idea of sharing my performance with a new crowd every night; to share what I see as beautiful, rockin' and just a plain ol’ good time – I imagine what I could with the appropriate time.
And all this before I mention the time spent with others, my social passion? This project so far has been quite interesting in at least so far as its ability to force my mind to open up and spill out to the rest of the world. I’m not one that really likes to talk about myself: I know how I think feel and move about this place, but I’m less sure about your similar activities and I would rather learn something new than rehash where I’ve been and what I think that I am. So out into the world I go, and with the need to never miss a moment whole days, evenings and weekends just slide by in the company of others.
I know that we all struggle with time management, but I hope that the problem become particularly clear now. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill and I would be happy to extend skills to work, friendships, housecleaning whatever; the fact is anything we hope to develop talent in we must devote ourselves to, but where to draw the line? Even worse, where do we choose what comes at the expense of what else?
Normally I would say that better time management, properly scheduling and chunking our activities and priority setting will get us where we need to go, but I cannot believe that idea. For how can I possibly choose between my twin professional desires, the time spent with loved ones and just laying in the grass on a sunny day? Research also slows that a little bit everyday does far more than larger chunks less frequently, so how am I to immerse myself wholly in all of these endeavors? At various times I’ve stolen from my other needs be it friends at the expense of sleep, music at the expense of yoga or dedication to work in lieu of time spent cultivating Enlightenment and balance? I’ll be damned if it isn’t a currently impossible task, but I guess the best we can do is try to get as much as possible into the free hours that we actually have.
In an ideal world then we would have the time to do all that we want. Perhaps we should change the perspective on our dreams and our future to focus on a life that best allows us to fit what we need most. Thinking this way can admit that we cannot do everything that we need to for our perfect situation right now while still working towards the day when that is a reality. We will obviously have to make some tough decisions about what is our primary movers are (that is, what will most quickly bring us toward this ideal life space) and just know that we will have time to fully engage with the rest of our desires at a later date.
Of course I’m not going to say which items are more important than others, except perhaps sleep and I’ll explain the importance that I see in sleep (and sometimes the intentional lack thereof) at a later time. We all have different dreams (and thank whoever for that, if we were all driving toward the same end what a crowded space it would be in our utopia) and it’s up to us to develop the chain of circumstance that will bring us to our holistic goal. As one who has seen the trouble of trying to develop one goal at the expense of the rest of life I can say that everything must stay in balance if we are to make true progress – for that which we ignore will begin to return to seed, like a flower left unattended in the pot.
I find myself wishing to go on and on on the topic, and perhaps that means that there will be a Part II at some time soon, but my other priorities are taking precedence. I need my sleep for I haven’t had enough and I need my guitar, for she hasn’t seen me in a week. In the meanwhile consider just what you are doing to push yourself where you ultimately want to go with all of yourself rather than that thing you want right now, the time is well worth the effort.
*In a very real way, I believe that we’re all just wasting time until we pass on to the next whatever, but I don’t believe in the least that this truth is a problem. Just the opposite, it sets us free. A contentious claim yes, but one I’ll flesh out later.
The problem begins with we ourselves, and at least at first the problem is a positive one. Thanks the variety of ways to waste our time here on earth*, and each of us assigns different meanings to each of the activities that we can choose, sleep that is nourishing for some may simply be a barrier to experience for another, the harp is sublime for some but uselessly cumbersome for others. Even eating, our most fundamental activity can be both a wonder of flavor and joy and for others a need that must be fought, controlled if it is to be any sort of benefit.
If you’ve been reading along, you know by now that it’s a rare time that I will assign any sort of object truth, and today is no exception, and like the pioneers of medicine I will throw myself on the table as test subject. Among other things in my life I have a stable job, a great cat, and apartment that I love when I clean it and a supreme passion for both performance music and writing among other things. I also have wonderful friends, an overactive social drive and not nearly enough hours in the day to cultivate all of those loves, let alone the books, the exercise, the quest for general well being and ultimately the quest to figure out the best way to wander around out green and blue (and increasingly brown) terrestrial rock we call home.
Now where does this all fit in? In a post currently on the cutting room floor, I explored just how the average American spends his/her time and the numbers reveal that while it may seem as though we have at least a few hours to give, that time completely evaporates under the microscope of analysis. Especially in my case, the struggle daily is to decide between which of my passions and interests to cover each day. Will I pursue my dreams of professionally performing as a musician or my dreams as a writer? Should I head out for the exercise that brings the well being that only my endorphins can create? Perhaps I should read for all that it brings: the mental exercise, the material to bring to this part of the interwebs, the sheer joy in immersing myself in a world of my creation and someone else’s design? I’m not even daring to touch how important my personal relationships are to me (although I admit my friends that I am often terrible at expressing this), or the time wonderfully spent with that rare Lady that inspires me?
There are times that I wonder if I don’t have enough interests, if perhaps bouldering or sailing or sculpture might be the next inspiration but sadly at a certain point we have to draw the line. Increasing numbers of studies are showing that with any type of professional success becomes a matter of some innate talent and hours upon hours of practice, and that what separates us and the could-have-beens from the successful is just a matter of time, practice and immersion in what you which to perfect. Sounds great, but what about those of us who are trying to become better without sacrificing our current situation? I know as I sit at this computer now there is no idea more sexy than being able to write as a career and a profession – I wonder just what the potential of these posts could be if I was able to devote hours to each one, to carefully smooth out the jagged words and comma spices, to select the word that is not just close enough, but perfect for what I mean. When I wander inside however, I will pick up my guitar and begin to work on some of the songs that have sprung from my life and my practice and become enamored with the idea of sharing my performance with a new crowd every night; to share what I see as beautiful, rockin' and just a plain ol’ good time – I imagine what I could with the appropriate time.
And all this before I mention the time spent with others, my social passion? This project so far has been quite interesting in at least so far as its ability to force my mind to open up and spill out to the rest of the world. I’m not one that really likes to talk about myself: I know how I think feel and move about this place, but I’m less sure about your similar activities and I would rather learn something new than rehash where I’ve been and what I think that I am. So out into the world I go, and with the need to never miss a moment whole days, evenings and weekends just slide by in the company of others.
I know that we all struggle with time management, but I hope that the problem become particularly clear now. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill and I would be happy to extend skills to work, friendships, housecleaning whatever; the fact is anything we hope to develop talent in we must devote ourselves to, but where to draw the line? Even worse, where do we choose what comes at the expense of what else?
Normally I would say that better time management, properly scheduling and chunking our activities and priority setting will get us where we need to go, but I cannot believe that idea. For how can I possibly choose between my twin professional desires, the time spent with loved ones and just laying in the grass on a sunny day? Research also slows that a little bit everyday does far more than larger chunks less frequently, so how am I to immerse myself wholly in all of these endeavors? At various times I’ve stolen from my other needs be it friends at the expense of sleep, music at the expense of yoga or dedication to work in lieu of time spent cultivating Enlightenment and balance? I’ll be damned if it isn’t a currently impossible task, but I guess the best we can do is try to get as much as possible into the free hours that we actually have.
In an ideal world then we would have the time to do all that we want. Perhaps we should change the perspective on our dreams and our future to focus on a life that best allows us to fit what we need most. Thinking this way can admit that we cannot do everything that we need to for our perfect situation right now while still working towards the day when that is a reality. We will obviously have to make some tough decisions about what is our primary movers are (that is, what will most quickly bring us toward this ideal life space) and just know that we will have time to fully engage with the rest of our desires at a later date.
Of course I’m not going to say which items are more important than others, except perhaps sleep and I’ll explain the importance that I see in sleep (and sometimes the intentional lack thereof) at a later time. We all have different dreams (and thank whoever for that, if we were all driving toward the same end what a crowded space it would be in our utopia) and it’s up to us to develop the chain of circumstance that will bring us to our holistic goal. As one who has seen the trouble of trying to develop one goal at the expense of the rest of life I can say that everything must stay in balance if we are to make true progress – for that which we ignore will begin to return to seed, like a flower left unattended in the pot.
I find myself wishing to go on and on on the topic, and perhaps that means that there will be a Part II at some time soon, but my other priorities are taking precedence. I need my sleep for I haven’t had enough and I need my guitar, for she hasn’t seen me in a week. In the meanwhile consider just what you are doing to push yourself where you ultimately want to go with all of yourself rather than that thing you want right now, the time is well worth the effort.
*In a very real way, I believe that we’re all just wasting time until we pass on to the next whatever, but I don’t believe in the least that this truth is a problem. Just the opposite, it sets us free. A contentious claim yes, but one I’ll flesh out later.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The first repost: Life, Good.
While I do in many ways feel bad about putting up words written from a previous iteration of myself, today is not the day for any more words. Between email both personal and business, another piece of the training manual I've begun working on and miscellaneous notes and ideas I've managed to put in at minimum of 3,000 (hopefully) unique sentences. Like the BP spill, the actual total may be much higher, somewhere in the range of 5K, so I'll suffice to say I have put in my work for the day. I didn't intend to write as much as I did, but we must roll as life requires - besides I put myself into my writings today, whole heartedly and more deeply than a blog deserves, so with the lesson learned I turn to a little time with the guitar and some much needed rest.
And with that I turn it over to me. It's quite a trip to reflect and review our earlier production - very little of it actually seems like our words. I've been both surprised and appalled in my reflections (I thought that was a good idea?), but I enjoy the topic below and hoped to soon revisit the idea. Have a lovely night all, and enjoy the November 17, 2008 edition of what was then "Enjoy your worries, you may never have them again."
What makes a good day? What makes a good week? What about a good life? Vogue questions, but what about it’s contrast? What makes for a good moment to moment? It seems that in the same vein as General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, we will end up needing separate theories for each system. Before we can however, we should really frame the problem as it stands today.
Since ancient times, the question of a good life has pervaded society. Eudaemonia, a popular study of Plato’s , concerns itself with the study of “human flourishing.” I’m generally loath to equate concepts (there are no synonyms damn it!), for my purposes we’ll assume that the good life is a “flourishing life”. What then is this eudaimonic existence? On the grand scale, what form can we put to this concept? Some would argue that it is living the golden rule, others would contend the answers lies in the service done to others. If you’re a capitalist it’s most likely who dies with the most toys and if you’re a Buddhist most likely you think that there is no question to be asked: the overwhelming joy of existence and thrill of opportunity to push aside the atmosphere we walk though for a few more minutes is plenty, even when expanded to the timeline of all existence.
I’ve pondered this question more than once in the travels of mind to the fuzzy area between philosophy and spirituality, and I’ve come to a few scenic conclusions, but unfortunately I don’t find them relevant. Not today, not here. It’s not because these aren’t important or urgent queries – otherwise there would not be a multibillion dollar self help industry. It’s not that these aren’t interesting questions, or else the philosophers and the clerics would not have concerned themselves with them. It’s not that they aren’t deeply personal – for the definition of a flourishing life touches not only an individual’s perception of the world, but also her or his actions in it, the dreams that arise from it and the goals that create those ephemeral yet addicting feelings of success and failure as we move about within it. No, the only reason to say “to hell with it” is that when we take a look at a compressed timeline, a moment or two, we realize that the questions to be answered in the minutiae are of a completely different kind.
How so? What could possibly be the difference between the two? The disparity lies in the experience of the moment, how we perceive our needs. The eudaemonic ideal changes here: it becomes not about what the soul needs but what the body needs, not what the mind needs but this body must have. I need to treat everyone with the same respect because it is what I believe – it is not only what I believe is right, but it is the world that I would like to live in (I would argue that a flourishing life is nothing more than creating the world that you would like everyone else to live in; an “if everyone behaved this way all life would be ideal” kind of thing). I’m drinking another glass of wine now because I like feeling the wrinkles of my mind relax, hopefully coaxing some inspiration from the electricity of my brain to the electricity running through the mac to the electrons holding together the server at blogspot to the photons encouraging your eyes to stimulate the thought and word identification centers of your mind causing your own circuitry to fire (just imagine how much is lost in translation!).
We simply want different things from both levels of analysis. I won’t worry about feeding the science club after school if I’m more concerned with my desire to be entertained now. When I’m trying to live a flouring existence, I know that the 4th glass of wine is not contributing to that end; it’s not conducive to my success. To attempt to compare the two is to deny their fundamental incompatibility – the stimuli that help us achieve the best “now” are entirely different than those that help us achieve the best “ever”.
Perhaps it’s just me. Perhaps there are those who truly align both their moment-to-moment ideals with their concepts of the overarching élan, and to you I say “phooey”. Think of all the urges that the body has throughout the day. Not in the gross sense of the word, but consider the flash of longing as the attractive coworker glides by, the itch to run outside as we see the rays of the setting sun glint off of any surface that will reflect, the itch of intrigue and titillation at being left speechless, (by 8:45 am, it was a good day today). The body and its immediate experience seeks the most vivid flash of stimuli, while the life lived seeks the highest ideal (whatever that ideal is changes by participant, I do not judge). I admit that this requires accepting the idea that our immediate experience is run by the body. It requires admitting that our immediate needs and wants must be treated separately from what we need and want from life. We all feel it, yet modern ideas of how to live marginalize, even demonize these impulses, the very things which make us feel most alive, right now (which I would say is the flourishing, good life in the purest sense of the notion). It’s a bit of a mind stretch to see that we have two different systems at work in the holism of our animation and beyond, but once we abstract our concepts from our reactions, I think the view becomes clearer. I realize now that this can of worms is too stuffed with annelids for one nights exposition: as always I hope to spark some debate, let me know what you think. In any case, the next time you get the itch in the moment, try scratching it and see if you aren’t better for just saying yes.
And with that I turn it over to me. It's quite a trip to reflect and review our earlier production - very little of it actually seems like our words. I've been both surprised and appalled in my reflections (I thought that was a good idea?), but I enjoy the topic below and hoped to soon revisit the idea. Have a lovely night all, and enjoy the November 17, 2008 edition of what was then "Enjoy your worries, you may never have them again."
What makes a good day? What makes a good week? What about a good life? Vogue questions, but what about it’s contrast? What makes for a good moment to moment? It seems that in the same vein as General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, we will end up needing separate theories for each system. Before we can however, we should really frame the problem as it stands today.
Since ancient times, the question of a good life has pervaded society. Eudaemonia, a popular study of Plato’s , concerns itself with the study of “human flourishing.” I’m generally loath to equate concepts (there are no synonyms damn it!), for my purposes we’ll assume that the good life is a “flourishing life”. What then is this eudaimonic existence? On the grand scale, what form can we put to this concept? Some would argue that it is living the golden rule, others would contend the answers lies in the service done to others. If you’re a capitalist it’s most likely who dies with the most toys and if you’re a Buddhist most likely you think that there is no question to be asked: the overwhelming joy of existence and thrill of opportunity to push aside the atmosphere we walk though for a few more minutes is plenty, even when expanded to the timeline of all existence.
I’ve pondered this question more than once in the travels of mind to the fuzzy area between philosophy and spirituality, and I’ve come to a few scenic conclusions, but unfortunately I don’t find them relevant. Not today, not here. It’s not because these aren’t important or urgent queries – otherwise there would not be a multibillion dollar self help industry. It’s not that these aren’t interesting questions, or else the philosophers and the clerics would not have concerned themselves with them. It’s not that they aren’t deeply personal – for the definition of a flourishing life touches not only an individual’s perception of the world, but also her or his actions in it, the dreams that arise from it and the goals that create those ephemeral yet addicting feelings of success and failure as we move about within it. No, the only reason to say “to hell with it” is that when we take a look at a compressed timeline, a moment or two, we realize that the questions to be answered in the minutiae are of a completely different kind.
How so? What could possibly be the difference between the two? The disparity lies in the experience of the moment, how we perceive our needs. The eudaemonic ideal changes here: it becomes not about what the soul needs but what the body needs, not what the mind needs but this body must have. I need to treat everyone with the same respect because it is what I believe – it is not only what I believe is right, but it is the world that I would like to live in (I would argue that a flourishing life is nothing more than creating the world that you would like everyone else to live in; an “if everyone behaved this way all life would be ideal” kind of thing). I’m drinking another glass of wine now because I like feeling the wrinkles of my mind relax, hopefully coaxing some inspiration from the electricity of my brain to the electricity running through the mac to the electrons holding together the server at blogspot to the photons encouraging your eyes to stimulate the thought and word identification centers of your mind causing your own circuitry to fire (just imagine how much is lost in translation!).
We simply want different things from both levels of analysis. I won’t worry about feeding the science club after school if I’m more concerned with my desire to be entertained now. When I’m trying to live a flouring existence, I know that the 4th glass of wine is not contributing to that end; it’s not conducive to my success. To attempt to compare the two is to deny their fundamental incompatibility – the stimuli that help us achieve the best “now” are entirely different than those that help us achieve the best “ever”.
Perhaps it’s just me. Perhaps there are those who truly align both their moment-to-moment ideals with their concepts of the overarching élan, and to you I say “phooey”. Think of all the urges that the body has throughout the day. Not in the gross sense of the word, but consider the flash of longing as the attractive coworker glides by, the itch to run outside as we see the rays of the setting sun glint off of any surface that will reflect, the itch of intrigue and titillation at being left speechless, (by 8:45 am, it was a good day today). The body and its immediate experience seeks the most vivid flash of stimuli, while the life lived seeks the highest ideal (whatever that ideal is changes by participant, I do not judge). I admit that this requires accepting the idea that our immediate experience is run by the body. It requires admitting that our immediate needs and wants must be treated separately from what we need and want from life. We all feel it, yet modern ideas of how to live marginalize, even demonize these impulses, the very things which make us feel most alive, right now (which I would say is the flourishing, good life in the purest sense of the notion). It’s a bit of a mind stretch to see that we have two different systems at work in the holism of our animation and beyond, but once we abstract our concepts from our reactions, I think the view becomes clearer. I realize now that this can of worms is too stuffed with annelids for one nights exposition: as always I hope to spark some debate, let me know what you think. In any case, the next time you get the itch in the moment, try scratching it and see if you aren’t better for just saying yes.
Monday, June 14, 2010
It could even be a landscape from What Dreams May Come
When you close your eyes, what do you see? What do you hear? Where does your focus go? While this of course varies with each passing day, I’m beginning to notice a landscape that is not often peered into, one that shapes everything we think or do but one that also sits, as truly as the word can imply, in darkness – our internal landscape.
But what does this landscape look like? If we were to picture our internal world, what would be there? Would there be castles? Do we see sages debating our thoughts over a glass of fine liquor? Or would it look more like an apocalypse – uncontrolled thoughts ideas and beliefs falling as lava or a dragon’s breath on our humble ideas and dreams?
I suspect that there is quite a great deal in the idea of our internal reality as understood as mirroring our external one, but I should probably speak a little about the idea immediately proceeding the one that spawned today’s post. I’ve been reviewing as of late all of the things that have gone into making me me, here today with everything that I have and everything that I don’t. As I reviewed the literature that I have been lucky enough to consume, my mind stumbled across the Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris (great reads, please do if you haven’t). Say what you will about Hannibal Lecter, but even if you’ve only seen the movies there’s something about the way his mind works that borders on inspiring. I’m not advocating cannibalism, but I will advocate the way he is portrayed, more specifically the way that he is written throughout the books. Supremely likeable, and perhaps the only character ever written with such perfect control of not only his faculties but those of the others around him, he controlled his world to a degree that only Anthony Hopkins at his finest (sorry, ahem, Sir Anthony Hopkins) could even attempt to portray. For the record Mr. Hopkins, whose given first name is Phillip, won just about every best acting award possible that year and I think he earned every one of them.
Digression complete, the feature of Hannibal Lecter that was simply so striking to me was the way that his mind was arranged. I forget if this was his exact term, but anytime things got tough or if he had to retreat from the world he would go to his mental library. This library wasn’t just a catalogue of information; it was a site to behold. More then one page is spent simply on description of its features – the soaring columns, the staircase to second floor, the sections lovingly arranged with each idea; each artifact in his mind is there, in the most vivid color. His ideas, memories and experiences were not merely things floating about in his mind; they were items that had substance. Items that he could pick up, could smell the paper and the ink, could feel the binding, and could touch the experience as though it was a sculpture. He also mentions his intense distress when he was unable to reach that place, when he found his library in crumbling demise (thanks to drugs his captors were using, but that’s the teaser, check it out).
This library then was not merely a convenient way of classification and order – it was a center of comfort and security, the bastion that he could always retreat to until he understood the answer, a place truly his. Now contrast that with what I imagine is the typical state of our minds, feelings and sensations – messy, chaotic. Control, understanding, beauty, architecture of our own design are not words that would typically be banded about, and are, if not rare, at least uncommon enough to leave ourselves less than jumping at the chance to dig into what’s going on when we’ve shut out ourselves from everything else.
How much more likely would we be to look inside if instead of a noisy mind, anxiety other distraction we actually had something to look at, something to touch, something to feel with our fingers instead of our racing heart. How much more likely would we be to address what’s holding us back if it had form, and features?
I know it may sound a touch daft to think of your issues of jealousy as a horrendous beast or you’re greatest moments as movies in a theatre that we can visit when we want to relax, but is it any more absurd to attempt to tell ourselves to just calm down when we are overwhelmingly affright? Just putting a form to these features makes them more known, and thus more able to be dealt with. I’m not longer just feeling the rosy glow of the moment I feel in love, I can see the way the colors became more vivid in the world, touch the coffee table as it felt. In this way you can more easily separate your internal world into distinct areas, exhibits and features to be interacted with, not just accepted as inevitable.
Once the “stuff” is given in form it should be placed in a landscape, for nothing happens unconnected to everything else. This landscape can be whatever furthers understanding best, but until you have a grounding for the things that make you tick how can you hope to shape them as you wish, make them truly your own?
Mine is forming more definitely all the time as this idea sinks more deeply into mind, and I can say without reservation that certain places are beautiful, some are as filled with mines as the Demilitarized Zone, and there are plenty of interesting critters behind glass at the facilities in the Lab. But no place in this ever forming land is unconnected to anything else. The ground is paved with the similarities that link my desires, the fields soft and green with my memories of comfort happiness, the specific good times to be dug up from the earth when needed and wanted.
The representations are endless, and the comparisons can obviously be as cheeky or profound as we wish and it may be that ultimately it’s a silly way to try to operate with what’s going on when we have just ourselves, but I pulled more than enough interest out of the idea to share. We all have things we need to deal with, and all have issues that we seem to not have the tools to resolve; it is with these problems that sometimes a fresh and perhaps initially silly approach is exactly the poke in the head to wake us up and get us back on our right track. Personally, while looking from the cliffs of my understanding I’m going to go stare across the sea a bit a more – maybe handpick a bunch of dandelions and lilacs and float them out to the waves and hope that what comes back are the answers…
But what does this landscape look like? If we were to picture our internal world, what would be there? Would there be castles? Do we see sages debating our thoughts over a glass of fine liquor? Or would it look more like an apocalypse – uncontrolled thoughts ideas and beliefs falling as lava or a dragon’s breath on our humble ideas and dreams?
I suspect that there is quite a great deal in the idea of our internal reality as understood as mirroring our external one, but I should probably speak a little about the idea immediately proceeding the one that spawned today’s post. I’ve been reviewing as of late all of the things that have gone into making me me, here today with everything that I have and everything that I don’t. As I reviewed the literature that I have been lucky enough to consume, my mind stumbled across the Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris (great reads, please do if you haven’t). Say what you will about Hannibal Lecter, but even if you’ve only seen the movies there’s something about the way his mind works that borders on inspiring. I’m not advocating cannibalism, but I will advocate the way he is portrayed, more specifically the way that he is written throughout the books. Supremely likeable, and perhaps the only character ever written with such perfect control of not only his faculties but those of the others around him, he controlled his world to a degree that only Anthony Hopkins at his finest (sorry, ahem, Sir Anthony Hopkins) could even attempt to portray. For the record Mr. Hopkins, whose given first name is Phillip, won just about every best acting award possible that year and I think he earned every one of them.
Digression complete, the feature of Hannibal Lecter that was simply so striking to me was the way that his mind was arranged. I forget if this was his exact term, but anytime things got tough or if he had to retreat from the world he would go to his mental library. This library wasn’t just a catalogue of information; it was a site to behold. More then one page is spent simply on description of its features – the soaring columns, the staircase to second floor, the sections lovingly arranged with each idea; each artifact in his mind is there, in the most vivid color. His ideas, memories and experiences were not merely things floating about in his mind; they were items that had substance. Items that he could pick up, could smell the paper and the ink, could feel the binding, and could touch the experience as though it was a sculpture. He also mentions his intense distress when he was unable to reach that place, when he found his library in crumbling demise (thanks to drugs his captors were using, but that’s the teaser, check it out).
This library then was not merely a convenient way of classification and order – it was a center of comfort and security, the bastion that he could always retreat to until he understood the answer, a place truly his. Now contrast that with what I imagine is the typical state of our minds, feelings and sensations – messy, chaotic. Control, understanding, beauty, architecture of our own design are not words that would typically be banded about, and are, if not rare, at least uncommon enough to leave ourselves less than jumping at the chance to dig into what’s going on when we’ve shut out ourselves from everything else.
How much more likely would we be to look inside if instead of a noisy mind, anxiety other distraction we actually had something to look at, something to touch, something to feel with our fingers instead of our racing heart. How much more likely would we be to address what’s holding us back if it had form, and features?
I know it may sound a touch daft to think of your issues of jealousy as a horrendous beast or you’re greatest moments as movies in a theatre that we can visit when we want to relax, but is it any more absurd to attempt to tell ourselves to just calm down when we are overwhelmingly affright? Just putting a form to these features makes them more known, and thus more able to be dealt with. I’m not longer just feeling the rosy glow of the moment I feel in love, I can see the way the colors became more vivid in the world, touch the coffee table as it felt. In this way you can more easily separate your internal world into distinct areas, exhibits and features to be interacted with, not just accepted as inevitable.
Once the “stuff” is given in form it should be placed in a landscape, for nothing happens unconnected to everything else. This landscape can be whatever furthers understanding best, but until you have a grounding for the things that make you tick how can you hope to shape them as you wish, make them truly your own?
Mine is forming more definitely all the time as this idea sinks more deeply into mind, and I can say without reservation that certain places are beautiful, some are as filled with mines as the Demilitarized Zone, and there are plenty of interesting critters behind glass at the facilities in the Lab. But no place in this ever forming land is unconnected to anything else. The ground is paved with the similarities that link my desires, the fields soft and green with my memories of comfort happiness, the specific good times to be dug up from the earth when needed and wanted.
The representations are endless, and the comparisons can obviously be as cheeky or profound as we wish and it may be that ultimately it’s a silly way to try to operate with what’s going on when we have just ourselves, but I pulled more than enough interest out of the idea to share. We all have things we need to deal with, and all have issues that we seem to not have the tools to resolve; it is with these problems that sometimes a fresh and perhaps initially silly approach is exactly the poke in the head to wake us up and get us back on our right track. Personally, while looking from the cliffs of my understanding I’m going to go stare across the sea a bit a more – maybe handpick a bunch of dandelions and lilacs and float them out to the waves and hope that what comes back are the answers…
Sunday, June 13, 2010
1,000 words will recommence tomorrow
It's been a week to end all weeks, and there just hasn't been enough of anything to be able to put the words to the page. I'll be back tomorrow, but sometimes we just have to save our words for ourselves.
For today though, thank your friends for doing what they can, love the ones you care for. Don't be afraid to open yourself - it's so easy to remember the scarring times, at the expense of what's beautiful. As one who has given away more beauty, joy and wonder than most people ever get (or pushed it away, more correctly) and has recently resorted to old ways, thoughts and means to trample some truly glorious sandcastles back into the beach - again, don't fear loving what you have. Everything ends, but with each moment you forget that all that you want and desire you already have and possess it becomes just a little harder to reach that appreciation out when you need it most.
May the sunrise be the most terrific that you have ever felt, may the sun pale to your glow, may this be the day you awake from the soma of your everyday life and mark the beginning of all that you can imagine. Don't forget to breathe, and remember to take the time to stare across the sea of your life, have you noticed the true wonder of all that you have?
For today though, thank your friends for doing what they can, love the ones you care for. Don't be afraid to open yourself - it's so easy to remember the scarring times, at the expense of what's beautiful. As one who has given away more beauty, joy and wonder than most people ever get (or pushed it away, more correctly) and has recently resorted to old ways, thoughts and means to trample some truly glorious sandcastles back into the beach - again, don't fear loving what you have. Everything ends, but with each moment you forget that all that you want and desire you already have and possess it becomes just a little harder to reach that appreciation out when you need it most.
May the sunrise be the most terrific that you have ever felt, may the sun pale to your glow, may this be the day you awake from the soma of your everyday life and mark the beginning of all that you can imagine. Don't forget to breathe, and remember to take the time to stare across the sea of your life, have you noticed the true wonder of all that you have?
Thursday, June 10, 2010
At any step of the way
I used to think that starting at a blank page was the worst moment in the writing process. Now I’m not so sure, I actually am starting to believe that it’s every moment after that just gets progressively more difficult. With a blank page you have the option of anything: humor, sadness, a technical description of the fittings in the underbelly of the 66 Shelby, anything. With a blank page you can ramble nonsense or fake words, you can refuse to pause and let your stream of consciousness take you away, spelling errors half thought ideas and all. No the trouble comes once you hope to embark on an idea, to fill the page with something that is be worth reading and enjoyable to write.
There’s just so much that can go wrong. As anyone who has ever written a paper can attest, it can be an aimless introduction, rogue conclusion, or any of the hopefully fluid paragraphs in the middle. Consider just how hard it is to have a coherent thought and hold it for a long time. Sure we all have our moments of focus, but how many times have wondered what we were thinking about a moment ago. Or lost our sunglasses on our heads, or forgot where we were in the conversation. Of course we have some aids, but considering the frequency with which our minds jump from one idea to the next it’s a wonder that we keep coherent ideas afloat long enough to actually discuss, learn or create anything.
Perhaps though, that is the reason we write in the first place. In conversation you have another mind helping to move ideas along, in music you most frequently have words to help the music (and vice versa) or other band mates, in art you have the unfinished canvas to refer to, as well as whatever it is you are capturing through paint. I would even perhaps put forth that it is because of these problems with our memory that we began writing (and painting, and music) at all. If we all had perfect recall, we would have no fundamental need to create marvelous passages of words, for we would have the event as it happened in all of its glory. I could perhaps seeing writing evolving simply as something to do, similar to Twitter, or Facebook or small talk – passes the time but without any real value.
Luckily for us, we do not have perfect memories. As time passes, either the rosy glow or dusty hate of memory sets in and we are left with a shell of moment to remember. But after having our peak moments (either the top of the world or the bottom of the well), be it first kiss or first beating, we are left with some desire to get back to that place, to feel as we did in that moment, or for that time. Some of us crave the peaks, and the others the valleys, but either way we need to feel (even you sociopaths, though you may not realize it).
There are many ways to touch this truth, but the ability to form concrete visions in the mind of the reader is unique to word itself. Music, perhaps my favorite sense pleaser of all time (from both a performance and a listening experience) captures different feelings, more abstract ones. Despite the effort of program music to nail down ideas (I’m looking at you Symphonie Fantiastiqe), there is an additional element of abstraction – I can hear the plop of the guillotined head in the bucket as played by the strings, but heard on its own I wouldn’t say that I am compelled to think of the appropriate part of the story (sorry Berlioz). Even in moments that can be described as “musically soaring passages” the emotion and vision invoked in the listener is more likely to be personal, and touch directly upon the emotion rather than an event.
Art as well is an entirely different mode of imagery. Photo-realism aside, the is a certain inherent fuzziness (technical term, I know) in art that I think allows for you to feel not what you see, but a stylized, idealized, oddly realized version of reality (tell the truth but tell it slant, you know?) While I appreciate art, it’s not in a like way to either the written word or music, so I won’t pretend to have an intelligent opinion; I will say though that there is much interpretation to be had as far as what is going on in most any work of art. This is a more contentious idea sure, but especially with the rise of modern art I think we can see the effect an artist has/is going for is blurred by our own perspectives.
But with writing, you can specifically capture an idea, and define it and talk about it, rolling it over and over with more words, more description, more structure until eventually (and ideally) the idea that you have end up with can be exactly the one you had in mind. This is most true with good technical writing, which strives to make wholly explicit the idea that it portrays. When I talk about the gently rolling lands out of the reception desk window where I now sit, I can say just so much: about the brick buildings as little commas in a run on sentence that ends only where the horizon begins. I can mention the way that Mississippi cleaves my view nearly in twain, but with a gentleness that can only come from a wound that was marked at least 100,000 years ago and has healed into a perfect scar, an enviable scar, one which continues its journey away from my line of sight, its true power held in the knowledge that the same scar that I see below me splits the country itself into pieces the same way before me.
I’m so sorry for the horrible, horrible run on but I needed to show an idea in a terribly condensed time frame (t-minus 2 minutes till this simply must be posted). Adding more and more art to an idea does not make it more defined painting. Adding more notes to the score does not imply a more compelling, concrete piece. But words do have that power, and thus the terror of a twist badly taken – if my idea strays from coherence, if my words contradict, if the imagery not suitable enough, the whole writing can fall apart. I would like to explore the unique contribution that each of the “creative arts” actually brings to our experience, but this is not the time. In fact, time is up, of the essence and for the birds. Until tomorrow.
There’s just so much that can go wrong. As anyone who has ever written a paper can attest, it can be an aimless introduction, rogue conclusion, or any of the hopefully fluid paragraphs in the middle. Consider just how hard it is to have a coherent thought and hold it for a long time. Sure we all have our moments of focus, but how many times have wondered what we were thinking about a moment ago. Or lost our sunglasses on our heads, or forgot where we were in the conversation. Of course we have some aids, but considering the frequency with which our minds jump from one idea to the next it’s a wonder that we keep coherent ideas afloat long enough to actually discuss, learn or create anything.
Perhaps though, that is the reason we write in the first place. In conversation you have another mind helping to move ideas along, in music you most frequently have words to help the music (and vice versa) or other band mates, in art you have the unfinished canvas to refer to, as well as whatever it is you are capturing through paint. I would even perhaps put forth that it is because of these problems with our memory that we began writing (and painting, and music) at all. If we all had perfect recall, we would have no fundamental need to create marvelous passages of words, for we would have the event as it happened in all of its glory. I could perhaps seeing writing evolving simply as something to do, similar to Twitter, or Facebook or small talk – passes the time but without any real value.
Luckily for us, we do not have perfect memories. As time passes, either the rosy glow or dusty hate of memory sets in and we are left with a shell of moment to remember. But after having our peak moments (either the top of the world or the bottom of the well), be it first kiss or first beating, we are left with some desire to get back to that place, to feel as we did in that moment, or for that time. Some of us crave the peaks, and the others the valleys, but either way we need to feel (even you sociopaths, though you may not realize it).
There are many ways to touch this truth, but the ability to form concrete visions in the mind of the reader is unique to word itself. Music, perhaps my favorite sense pleaser of all time (from both a performance and a listening experience) captures different feelings, more abstract ones. Despite the effort of program music to nail down ideas (I’m looking at you Symphonie Fantiastiqe), there is an additional element of abstraction – I can hear the plop of the guillotined head in the bucket as played by the strings, but heard on its own I wouldn’t say that I am compelled to think of the appropriate part of the story (sorry Berlioz). Even in moments that can be described as “musically soaring passages” the emotion and vision invoked in the listener is more likely to be personal, and touch directly upon the emotion rather than an event.
Art as well is an entirely different mode of imagery. Photo-realism aside, the is a certain inherent fuzziness (technical term, I know) in art that I think allows for you to feel not what you see, but a stylized, idealized, oddly realized version of reality (tell the truth but tell it slant, you know?) While I appreciate art, it’s not in a like way to either the written word or music, so I won’t pretend to have an intelligent opinion; I will say though that there is much interpretation to be had as far as what is going on in most any work of art. This is a more contentious idea sure, but especially with the rise of modern art I think we can see the effect an artist has/is going for is blurred by our own perspectives.
But with writing, you can specifically capture an idea, and define it and talk about it, rolling it over and over with more words, more description, more structure until eventually (and ideally) the idea that you have end up with can be exactly the one you had in mind. This is most true with good technical writing, which strives to make wholly explicit the idea that it portrays. When I talk about the gently rolling lands out of the reception desk window where I now sit, I can say just so much: about the brick buildings as little commas in a run on sentence that ends only where the horizon begins. I can mention the way that Mississippi cleaves my view nearly in twain, but with a gentleness that can only come from a wound that was marked at least 100,000 years ago and has healed into a perfect scar, an enviable scar, one which continues its journey away from my line of sight, its true power held in the knowledge that the same scar that I see below me splits the country itself into pieces the same way before me.
I’m so sorry for the horrible, horrible run on but I needed to show an idea in a terribly condensed time frame (t-minus 2 minutes till this simply must be posted). Adding more and more art to an idea does not make it more defined painting. Adding more notes to the score does not imply a more compelling, concrete piece. But words do have that power, and thus the terror of a twist badly taken – if my idea strays from coherence, if my words contradict, if the imagery not suitable enough, the whole writing can fall apart. I would like to explore the unique contribution that each of the “creative arts” actually brings to our experience, but this is not the time. In fact, time is up, of the essence and for the birds. Until tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Look and Look Again...
“But now’s the time to look and look again at what you see, is that the way it ought to stay?” A fantastic lyric from a phenomenal song from the greatest band ever assembled. I have the answer to the greatest band question, but I’ll get to that question later. Instead, it’s the words worth looking into. With the reflections from the most recent posts beginning to permeate the mind that brought them up, I realize just how few of my perceptions align any longer with the life that I’ve created. That’s not to say I was completely off base, and many of the wonderful situations I am in now are completely thanks to a little fate, dumb luck and a few opportunities I was smart enough not to pass up. That said, it becomes more apparent each day that if things are to change, for some “truth” in my perception is to emerge, a reassessment of everything is in order. Not simply a look in, but a look in that comes with pliers and wrenches. It seems almost obvious that if we aren’t where want to be we have to change what we’re doing, and it all begins with our minds: our perceptions, ideas and beliefs and the way they fit together to form our continuous reality.
And where does this whole business of our personal experience begin? It all starts with our perceptions, and to change what we are receiving we must change the what and how of all that we take in. It is from the stuff of our perceptions that we assemble moments which provide the fodder for the actions about which we judge, opine upon, love, hate etc. Without this experience, we couldn’t have the “stuff” necessary to form thoughts at all. Hard to have an opinion about something you cannot have a concept of (Philosophers and psychologists posit that there is knowledge hard wired into us, knowledge of certain mathematical concepts, the capacity for language along with a couple of other items. I don’t disagree, but to be able to think about something, math, language, whatever you need to also have some referent to apply those capacities to.)
So to change our perceptions is to change the foundation on which our experience rests. I’ve argued in a previous post that we often justify our thoughts with other thoughts, but at some point if we want to make a decision about a real world action, be it judging another for enjoying the Arizona Immigration Bill, having issue with our coworker or determining which food is the most delectable at some point we have to point “out there” to something that will provide enough proof for our mental process to be “right”. Note I have no desire here to talk about what right is, instead simply about the constituent parts of our reality.
Those constituent parts are tricky things to nail down. Is it in the moments, the events, the overarching themes, at what point do we make our perceptions that allow us to form beliefs? Funny, it seems to be all of the above, and we can easily see this reflected in the number of perspectives and types of people out there. Those who focus on the moment to moment typically do not get to see from the perspective of events – it is in the minutiae that they will find the meaning. Those who perceive in events will not notice the minute to minute, it is the sum result of the moments that make up the relevant time span, and only that total matters concerning judgments. The ones who view their experiences for the themes will gloss over both the moments and the actions, the importance rests in what she/he can take away from multiple events, the actions out there are just inspiration for the thoughts inside.
I’ve been known to say that simply minds talk about people, average minds talk about events and great minds talk about ideas, but I won’t extend that claim as far as our perceptions. It isn’t fair when talking about how you see, because it is what you do with those perceptions, what beliefs you form them into, that is most important. Besides, each of the types of perceivers has their own issues that fundamentally block their perception of “true” things.
Those who find the meaning in the moments will find themselves forever questioning the moments that have come before. Since each moment is a new moment, the information in it must be taken as paramount; it is what’s new, what’s now. The past has already occurred and the future has not yet, so the primacy of the moment is maintained. Unfortunately, no thing is perfect forever and thus the Momenter is always in danger of being shaken up about their core beliefs. Fortunately, since each moment is a new space to find meaning, the potential for “truth” is much higher.
Those who take in their meaning in events have their own unique set of potential and problems. By perceiving your truth in events, you can gloss over the moment-to-moment trauma, in effect your playing either a true/false, yes/no or bad/good game. You begin with your preconceived notions and let the action determine how you feel when it’s all said and done. The benefit of allowing more moments is a double edged sword – for depending upon the situation you can both fall more deeply into error or allow yourself to “normalize” over the sum of the experience hopefully leading to a more “truthful” view.
It’s tempting to think, from the issues with the previous two, is that event perception on the level of idea would be the most fruitful way to experience. Conflicting moments or even conflicting events that do not mesh with what you believe are no longer an issue, the vital truth is revealed in comparison with what you can see as tying the events together, the moral of the story.
Tempting but misguided for the theme perceiver has the problem of being changeless, our perceptions need not enter into our beliefs and ideals. This way of thought has all sorts of problems, the main issue being that what we believe need not have anything to do with life-as-it-is-now. Life-as-it-is-now here is just another way to admit that the world can and does change, that ideas that may have formerly been used to represent “truth” probably no longer apply.
Take the Second Amendment for instance – the right to bear arms was granted to those who mostly likely had to both hunt for a decent share of their victuals and had the added bonus to perhaps keeping some British from invading your domicile. I’m pretty sure the founding fathers did not have fully automatic custom modified assault rifles with hollow point magazines in every home. The point is that times change, ideas change. The sun used to revolve around the earth after all, that was a truth that many bright minds were killed for daring to challenge.
Admittedly most people use some combination of all three modes and often more then one in forming a given belief. It’s enough to understand that however we try to see things rightly, we’re balancing dangerously close to the edge of operating on what we pretend things to be, as opposed to what they are. And when you consider that all other minds are operating on some combination of the above, trying to discern where truth may hide seems to be getting farther away. Even if we take in the details that we believe we need, where can we turn to make sure we’re on the right track?
In the absence of something out there for us to point to, we really only have other minds as a check to our truth. And if we have other people running on other premises, all thinking that they would have the right way, where can we even begin? I wouldn’t want to say that it’s the sum total of all the minds, for the consequences of that notion have too many examples in history to list. And we can’t turn to individual people, because even the best of us have doubtful resumes - in the same way that you should kill the Buddha you see in the road, you should further distrust the merits of anyone proclaiming to have “it”. It does once again seem like we’re getting farther away from our confidence in being able to decide the right way.
And what about this nagging item lingering in the background? You know, the one that keeps asking where we get off in the first place. The one issue that all three of these ideas still rests on is the idea of being able to see what is right in the first place. If we are held by our prejudices, our past beliefs, our prior experiences then we are parsing down the infinity in all things and all moments into a form that is manageable enough for us to think about all. I don’t remember the exact figures, but from the excellent film what the bleep (don’t mind the movie, watch for the interviews) we perceive information orders of magnitude above what we can actually consciously process. Something crazy, something like 2,000 bytes is perceived when 200,000 are taken in each moment. I’m not sure where the computer-processing analog comes in, but when I research further I will absolutely share the word. At least let it be enough to raise up the notion that perhaps we should change the 2,000 we consciously work with. That’s where the truth is, somewhere in those bytes. I’ll also entertain notions that the “truth” is all 200,000, what we must discover a way to simply take in and rightly process more – I’ll also believe that the truth is in none of it, that there isn’t any to be found and we should all just keep our heads down and keep plodding like we are because anything different would be worse. Maybe there is one right way, and we should just be more concerned about who’s already got it?
I’ll entertain those, but I believe those lines would be absurd to really take seriously - my view falls somewhere in the middle. Truth, and right perception (view, experience, whatever) are terms that may be totally knowable or completely out of our reach, but it seems as though we can pass on with a relative view of truth and being right. I’m sorry that I’ve talked a lot about it without really talking towards what I think that it is, but that’s simply because the jury is ultimately still out. I’m not willing to make any claims yet, because I’m still working towards articulating the idea that truth and the right way is; perhaps it is that which gets us where we want to go, do what we want to do and be what we want to be.
And sometimes it’s best to expect progress, not perfection. Even if we ultimately come to find that we cannot hope to have a perfectly truthful mind, we can at least bring to the front just how we wrong we can expect things to be, and to further understand the effect that our perceptions ideas and ideas and beliefs have on others. So what can we say? I would say that should we be wholly fulfilled and sound in what we are and what we are doing and the change that it effects in the world, then we have found the truth. There may be an objective truth out there, and if I can find a way to see it I will most certainly tell you, but for now suffice that it’s different for everyone and most closely linked to a life in which your biggest question is how to best help others get to where you are. In the meanwhile, it’s worth a thought as to just what your beliefs just might be doing - what effect are you having here, and would you consider it to come from the (your) truth?
And where does this whole business of our personal experience begin? It all starts with our perceptions, and to change what we are receiving we must change the what and how of all that we take in. It is from the stuff of our perceptions that we assemble moments which provide the fodder for the actions about which we judge, opine upon, love, hate etc. Without this experience, we couldn’t have the “stuff” necessary to form thoughts at all. Hard to have an opinion about something you cannot have a concept of (Philosophers and psychologists posit that there is knowledge hard wired into us, knowledge of certain mathematical concepts, the capacity for language along with a couple of other items. I don’t disagree, but to be able to think about something, math, language, whatever you need to also have some referent to apply those capacities to.)
So to change our perceptions is to change the foundation on which our experience rests. I’ve argued in a previous post that we often justify our thoughts with other thoughts, but at some point if we want to make a decision about a real world action, be it judging another for enjoying the Arizona Immigration Bill, having issue with our coworker or determining which food is the most delectable at some point we have to point “out there” to something that will provide enough proof for our mental process to be “right”. Note I have no desire here to talk about what right is, instead simply about the constituent parts of our reality.
Those constituent parts are tricky things to nail down. Is it in the moments, the events, the overarching themes, at what point do we make our perceptions that allow us to form beliefs? Funny, it seems to be all of the above, and we can easily see this reflected in the number of perspectives and types of people out there. Those who focus on the moment to moment typically do not get to see from the perspective of events – it is in the minutiae that they will find the meaning. Those who perceive in events will not notice the minute to minute, it is the sum result of the moments that make up the relevant time span, and only that total matters concerning judgments. The ones who view their experiences for the themes will gloss over both the moments and the actions, the importance rests in what she/he can take away from multiple events, the actions out there are just inspiration for the thoughts inside.
I’ve been known to say that simply minds talk about people, average minds talk about events and great minds talk about ideas, but I won’t extend that claim as far as our perceptions. It isn’t fair when talking about how you see, because it is what you do with those perceptions, what beliefs you form them into, that is most important. Besides, each of the types of perceivers has their own issues that fundamentally block their perception of “true” things.
Those who find the meaning in the moments will find themselves forever questioning the moments that have come before. Since each moment is a new moment, the information in it must be taken as paramount; it is what’s new, what’s now. The past has already occurred and the future has not yet, so the primacy of the moment is maintained. Unfortunately, no thing is perfect forever and thus the Momenter is always in danger of being shaken up about their core beliefs. Fortunately, since each moment is a new space to find meaning, the potential for “truth” is much higher.
Those who take in their meaning in events have their own unique set of potential and problems. By perceiving your truth in events, you can gloss over the moment-to-moment trauma, in effect your playing either a true/false, yes/no or bad/good game. You begin with your preconceived notions and let the action determine how you feel when it’s all said and done. The benefit of allowing more moments is a double edged sword – for depending upon the situation you can both fall more deeply into error or allow yourself to “normalize” over the sum of the experience hopefully leading to a more “truthful” view.
It’s tempting to think, from the issues with the previous two, is that event perception on the level of idea would be the most fruitful way to experience. Conflicting moments or even conflicting events that do not mesh with what you believe are no longer an issue, the vital truth is revealed in comparison with what you can see as tying the events together, the moral of the story.
Tempting but misguided for the theme perceiver has the problem of being changeless, our perceptions need not enter into our beliefs and ideals. This way of thought has all sorts of problems, the main issue being that what we believe need not have anything to do with life-as-it-is-now. Life-as-it-is-now here is just another way to admit that the world can and does change, that ideas that may have formerly been used to represent “truth” probably no longer apply.
Take the Second Amendment for instance – the right to bear arms was granted to those who mostly likely had to both hunt for a decent share of their victuals and had the added bonus to perhaps keeping some British from invading your domicile. I’m pretty sure the founding fathers did not have fully automatic custom modified assault rifles with hollow point magazines in every home. The point is that times change, ideas change. The sun used to revolve around the earth after all, that was a truth that many bright minds were killed for daring to challenge.
Admittedly most people use some combination of all three modes and often more then one in forming a given belief. It’s enough to understand that however we try to see things rightly, we’re balancing dangerously close to the edge of operating on what we pretend things to be, as opposed to what they are. And when you consider that all other minds are operating on some combination of the above, trying to discern where truth may hide seems to be getting farther away. Even if we take in the details that we believe we need, where can we turn to make sure we’re on the right track?
In the absence of something out there for us to point to, we really only have other minds as a check to our truth. And if we have other people running on other premises, all thinking that they would have the right way, where can we even begin? I wouldn’t want to say that it’s the sum total of all the minds, for the consequences of that notion have too many examples in history to list. And we can’t turn to individual people, because even the best of us have doubtful resumes - in the same way that you should kill the Buddha you see in the road, you should further distrust the merits of anyone proclaiming to have “it”. It does once again seem like we’re getting farther away from our confidence in being able to decide the right way.
And what about this nagging item lingering in the background? You know, the one that keeps asking where we get off in the first place. The one issue that all three of these ideas still rests on is the idea of being able to see what is right in the first place. If we are held by our prejudices, our past beliefs, our prior experiences then we are parsing down the infinity in all things and all moments into a form that is manageable enough for us to think about all. I don’t remember the exact figures, but from the excellent film what the bleep (don’t mind the movie, watch for the interviews) we perceive information orders of magnitude above what we can actually consciously process. Something crazy, something like 2,000 bytes is perceived when 200,000 are taken in each moment. I’m not sure where the computer-processing analog comes in, but when I research further I will absolutely share the word. At least let it be enough to raise up the notion that perhaps we should change the 2,000 we consciously work with. That’s where the truth is, somewhere in those bytes. I’ll also entertain notions that the “truth” is all 200,000, what we must discover a way to simply take in and rightly process more – I’ll also believe that the truth is in none of it, that there isn’t any to be found and we should all just keep our heads down and keep plodding like we are because anything different would be worse. Maybe there is one right way, and we should just be more concerned about who’s already got it?
I’ll entertain those, but I believe those lines would be absurd to really take seriously - my view falls somewhere in the middle. Truth, and right perception (view, experience, whatever) are terms that may be totally knowable or completely out of our reach, but it seems as though we can pass on with a relative view of truth and being right. I’m sorry that I’ve talked a lot about it without really talking towards what I think that it is, but that’s simply because the jury is ultimately still out. I’m not willing to make any claims yet, because I’m still working towards articulating the idea that truth and the right way is; perhaps it is that which gets us where we want to go, do what we want to do and be what we want to be.
And sometimes it’s best to expect progress, not perfection. Even if we ultimately come to find that we cannot hope to have a perfectly truthful mind, we can at least bring to the front just how we wrong we can expect things to be, and to further understand the effect that our perceptions ideas and ideas and beliefs have on others. So what can we say? I would say that should we be wholly fulfilled and sound in what we are and what we are doing and the change that it effects in the world, then we have found the truth. There may be an objective truth out there, and if I can find a way to see it I will most certainly tell you, but for now suffice that it’s different for everyone and most closely linked to a life in which your biggest question is how to best help others get to where you are. In the meanwhile, it’s worth a thought as to just what your beliefs just might be doing - what effect are you having here, and would you consider it to come from the (your) truth?
Monday, June 07, 2010
Where do I begin?
Today’s words come tough to write. It’s funny how the more one seems to have to think about, the less energy we seem to have to make progress on any one particular idea. Perhaps it’s a problem of the weather, more likely the impending solstice has my mind once again turning to just the right way to proceed through these warmest months of the year. The days are as long as they will ever be, the weather as warm as it is going to get, clothes are at a minimum. Even staying temperate is a greater chore – the heat simply comes on in the winter, and it’s cost is included in my rent. The cool, which I pay for of course, is a much harder switch to flip. People have lived in Minnesota since at least 1858 (when it became the 32nd state); most of them simply lived with the weather, so why can’t I?
Enough about Minnesota – it, the ideas about the weather, it’s all just a distraction for a mind well versed in procrastination. A friend asked me recently how I would respond if I learned that everything that I thought was true were not. Aside from the obvious difficulties of “everything I know is wrong”, it brought back into mind a popular question that I’ve asked myself over and over throughout the years, “where do I get off?”
I won’t get stuck on the origin of that phrase (and perhaps I will advance some theories at a later date) but the idea is an important one, and intimately related to the idea of reassuring ourselves that the things we know are true are actually so. Most conflict that we see is based in one party taking an offense to another’s actions, whatever that may be. Another major factor is expectations that are or are not met, and another wedge involves having the facts, the about a particular situation. When I ask myself where I get off (or have the nerve, or the gall or the stones) it implies being reminded of just what basis I have for taking issue with something at all.
And when would that basis be fulfilled? At what time would I be right, to know exactly where I get off? I think I would rightly have to say that I had the “truth of the matter,” but what does that mean? I think it would have to imply being sure you had the relevant facts about the world and the intentions of the animal, vegetable or mineral involved and a good justification for believing these facts are true.
Why be justified? Because in a very real way we have absolutely no reason to be sure that what we see, perceive or even think about has any relation to the world out there. We can with even less certainty discern the internal landscape of some mind not out own. We would think that such an ancient problem that has been bothering thinkers since thoughts began to be thought would have some sort of advance in the idea. The trouble is, we ultimately run into one of two problems when we ultimately try to point to “this is true, beyond all doubt” – on the one hand we have only ideas to justify our ideas, and on the other hand we try to point to something that ultimately does not exist.
Why does it have to be one or the other? In practice, we simply cannot point “out there” to the truth of anything other than perhaps “rock” “tree” or “bean.” Argue if you wish but you will be hard pressed to be taken seriously when you say “look, there is the answer to reproductive rights” or “see those two? That’s love.” Once we conceptualize something we can no longer refer to it as a reason for truth. Just as a baby isn’t a miracle unless you believe it is or a coup was necessary depending on which government you back we ultimately always refer to an idea, a more deeply held belief and conviction.
And I can only look toward my own ideas, as if my ultimate reason is because someone else informed me I am falling more deeply into risk – in addition to asking where I get off I now have to ask where she/he does. I’ll steal an idea from sex ed here – was anyone besides me taught that if we sleeping with someone we’re also sleeping with every person our partner had been with and every partner’s partner and partner’s paernter’s partner and so on. As opposed to an STD however you could end up with something worse - misguided ideas that have no reflection our own experience and yet are pressed upon others without regard to the damage it may cause. I have a hard enough time dealing with my own mess, but who knows what I may have gotten from the “knowledge of others” – I hope there’s a shot for that, or at least some penicillin.
So where do I get off? Nowhere, I can’t really anymore. For as I trace the chains of the “true” beliefs I become less and less assured that I could even pretend to be right. Even the beliefs that seem most obvious still receive an unpleasantly skeptical treatment: I believe that the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated; I believe this because when I read Ghandi’s quote it simply rang true. True to me, yes, and so obvious it seems almost apodictic, but consider the populations that might disagree. Even as I look into more of Ghandi’s writings I find:
“Some of Gandhi's early South African articles are controversial. On 7 March 1908, Gandhi wrote in the Indian Opinion of his time in a South African prison: "Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals."[14] Writing on the subject of immigration in 1903, Gandhi commented: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do... We believe also that the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi).
I guess if you substitute animals for either the Kaffirs or the South African non white population you receive a cute quote about treating the inferior race well as a mark of progress. Not as flawless a source any more. Of course no one is perfect, but from so universally heralded a man of progress it’s fairly base words.
I am no way no way saying that his later work isn’t to be heralded and his words aren’t true, but where does he get off? I’ll take from his time here the passionate work he did for Independence, and I have no clue where to think that I will find truth that is not ultimately somewhat specious (even the Buddha left his wife and child in the night. Sure he mourned for them and left with the goal of Enlightenment, but it’s a dick move nonetheless). Nor am I suggesting that need run around screaming “Nothing is true in this world anymore!” and become crippled by the decision of whether to drink water or coffee, but it’s a least a call look at the origin of our beliefs. I would guess that most us refer our ideas to other ideas when we need to know its true. The trouble with that notion is that there is no answer to the question of “what if everything I thought was true was false?” – since I had only ideas to refer to, there is a very good chance that I hold something to be true that is not correct and I should not have taken for granted.
I wonder too just how far our beliefs extend into out other thoughts, just what the true reach may be. Could a fractured view of parental love get as far as our interactions with our coworkers? If we believe that hell is an option, can it prevent us from having a healthy sex life? Is the Golden Rule not enough to make a whole person? Or is the belief in something to be false as good as knowing something is true? It was after all Ghandi’s realization of the potential of the Indian nation as a self ruling party (this treatment is false, doesn’t represent what the world should be) or Siddhartha’s realization that attachment is the false knowledge that leads directly to all suffering. What role did those negative truths play in their larger web of beliefs?
And we can’t yet be sure, and it is no doubt confusing just how you find that dictates your life that ultimately falls under “because that’s how I was taught”. Conventional wisdom is only conventional because it’s old and the status quo, and especially with the drastic changes in the way the markets, society and the environment are moving and it becomes quite clear that this year’s warm weather cleaning should include the paradigms that we’ve always taken for granted. A decision is made when we’re tired of thinking about it, but little thought is further taken to make sure that decision goes into the right place in our ontology. My apologies my colleague, but I’m not sure my answer is quite interesting anymore. All I can say is that it doesn’t feel too bad, thanks to the growing suspicion that it may just have already happened, perhaps even has always been and will always continue to be. The question then, is how best to start from the place that best assures it doesn’t happen again?
Enough about Minnesota – it, the ideas about the weather, it’s all just a distraction for a mind well versed in procrastination. A friend asked me recently how I would respond if I learned that everything that I thought was true were not. Aside from the obvious difficulties of “everything I know is wrong”, it brought back into mind a popular question that I’ve asked myself over and over throughout the years, “where do I get off?”
I won’t get stuck on the origin of that phrase (and perhaps I will advance some theories at a later date) but the idea is an important one, and intimately related to the idea of reassuring ourselves that the things we know are true are actually so. Most conflict that we see is based in one party taking an offense to another’s actions, whatever that may be. Another major factor is expectations that are or are not met, and another wedge involves having the facts, the about a particular situation. When I ask myself where I get off (or have the nerve, or the gall or the stones) it implies being reminded of just what basis I have for taking issue with something at all.
And when would that basis be fulfilled? At what time would I be right, to know exactly where I get off? I think I would rightly have to say that I had the “truth of the matter,” but what does that mean? I think it would have to imply being sure you had the relevant facts about the world and the intentions of the animal, vegetable or mineral involved and a good justification for believing these facts are true.
Why be justified? Because in a very real way we have absolutely no reason to be sure that what we see, perceive or even think about has any relation to the world out there. We can with even less certainty discern the internal landscape of some mind not out own. We would think that such an ancient problem that has been bothering thinkers since thoughts began to be thought would have some sort of advance in the idea. The trouble is, we ultimately run into one of two problems when we ultimately try to point to “this is true, beyond all doubt” – on the one hand we have only ideas to justify our ideas, and on the other hand we try to point to something that ultimately does not exist.
Why does it have to be one or the other? In practice, we simply cannot point “out there” to the truth of anything other than perhaps “rock” “tree” or “bean.” Argue if you wish but you will be hard pressed to be taken seriously when you say “look, there is the answer to reproductive rights” or “see those two? That’s love.” Once we conceptualize something we can no longer refer to it as a reason for truth. Just as a baby isn’t a miracle unless you believe it is or a coup was necessary depending on which government you back we ultimately always refer to an idea, a more deeply held belief and conviction.
And I can only look toward my own ideas, as if my ultimate reason is because someone else informed me I am falling more deeply into risk – in addition to asking where I get off I now have to ask where she/he does. I’ll steal an idea from sex ed here – was anyone besides me taught that if we sleeping with someone we’re also sleeping with every person our partner had been with and every partner’s partner and partner’s paernter’s partner and so on. As opposed to an STD however you could end up with something worse - misguided ideas that have no reflection our own experience and yet are pressed upon others without regard to the damage it may cause. I have a hard enough time dealing with my own mess, but who knows what I may have gotten from the “knowledge of others” – I hope there’s a shot for that, or at least some penicillin.
So where do I get off? Nowhere, I can’t really anymore. For as I trace the chains of the “true” beliefs I become less and less assured that I could even pretend to be right. Even the beliefs that seem most obvious still receive an unpleasantly skeptical treatment: I believe that the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated; I believe this because when I read Ghandi’s quote it simply rang true. True to me, yes, and so obvious it seems almost apodictic, but consider the populations that might disagree. Even as I look into more of Ghandi’s writings I find:
“Some of Gandhi's early South African articles are controversial. On 7 March 1908, Gandhi wrote in the Indian Opinion of his time in a South African prison: "Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals."[14] Writing on the subject of immigration in 1903, Gandhi commented: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do... We believe also that the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi).
I guess if you substitute animals for either the Kaffirs or the South African non white population you receive a cute quote about treating the inferior race well as a mark of progress. Not as flawless a source any more. Of course no one is perfect, but from so universally heralded a man of progress it’s fairly base words.
I am no way no way saying that his later work isn’t to be heralded and his words aren’t true, but where does he get off? I’ll take from his time here the passionate work he did for Independence, and I have no clue where to think that I will find truth that is not ultimately somewhat specious (even the Buddha left his wife and child in the night. Sure he mourned for them and left with the goal of Enlightenment, but it’s a dick move nonetheless). Nor am I suggesting that need run around screaming “Nothing is true in this world anymore!” and become crippled by the decision of whether to drink water or coffee, but it’s a least a call look at the origin of our beliefs. I would guess that most us refer our ideas to other ideas when we need to know its true. The trouble with that notion is that there is no answer to the question of “what if everything I thought was true was false?” – since I had only ideas to refer to, there is a very good chance that I hold something to be true that is not correct and I should not have taken for granted.
I wonder too just how far our beliefs extend into out other thoughts, just what the true reach may be. Could a fractured view of parental love get as far as our interactions with our coworkers? If we believe that hell is an option, can it prevent us from having a healthy sex life? Is the Golden Rule not enough to make a whole person? Or is the belief in something to be false as good as knowing something is true? It was after all Ghandi’s realization of the potential of the Indian nation as a self ruling party (this treatment is false, doesn’t represent what the world should be) or Siddhartha’s realization that attachment is the false knowledge that leads directly to all suffering. What role did those negative truths play in their larger web of beliefs?
And we can’t yet be sure, and it is no doubt confusing just how you find that dictates your life that ultimately falls under “because that’s how I was taught”. Conventional wisdom is only conventional because it’s old and the status quo, and especially with the drastic changes in the way the markets, society and the environment are moving and it becomes quite clear that this year’s warm weather cleaning should include the paradigms that we’ve always taken for granted. A decision is made when we’re tired of thinking about it, but little thought is further taken to make sure that decision goes into the right place in our ontology. My apologies my colleague, but I’m not sure my answer is quite interesting anymore. All I can say is that it doesn’t feel too bad, thanks to the growing suspicion that it may just have already happened, perhaps even has always been and will always continue to be. The question then, is how best to start from the place that best assures it doesn’t happen again?
Sometimes there's just nothing to be done....
Author’s disclaimer: As this project continues to unfold, I hope to traverse many genres and styles, emotions and ideas. Please don’t think that all the words that hit the page are indicative of any particular thing. Just as a sad song can be created from joy and the world from a nutshell that its words, may this be a spot of many styles of entertainment; in my mind its more about what you may take away rather than my motivation behind any particular work. If you would like to know more about anything of anything you may direct all inquires to ijb@gmail.com.
Sometimes there’s just nothing to be done. This morning came and went in the same way that it seems to these days, all too short and not as intended. Despite the shopping cart blocking the door and the intermittent sun showers providing the water sucked by the consumption of the night before, the ruts in road seem to grow deeper as I trudged to my destination.
A reality that didn’t seem quite right, but what was amiss? Where was the intention for the day, where was the motivation? The period of day was still the same, the sun still shot its photons at nearly the speed of light, I still breathed the same air as ever before. Why didn’t it smell as sweet?
It’s tough to feel numb in the midst of celebration; everything the same, yet through a pall of anesthetic. The thoughts, the beliefs, the drives and desires, all the same yet without the pulse. Zombie inertia. Nothing else but the crash of years of misdirection, bubbling up from the sickly depths, provides a reminder of my position on this sphere. And not even that, all I can show myself is that something doesn’t feel, but isn’t the absence of feeling a feeling in itself? It’s all so confusing, it makes you wonder just how we get about at all? What, with our habits and our compulsions, our autopilot honed by years of overexposure to the same media that provides traction to the notion that we can substitute ire for ambivalence, where to be then?
Perhaps there is no real; perhaps we can only tap into our ideas. When I see you, what do I see? What may seem to be a set of traits, are they not defined in relation to where I’ve been? I wonder how far we can manage to extend our empathy. Say I feel you, what do I feel? Do I feel the hours you played catch in the park, or the latchkey days learning to smoke Kamel Reds from the bedroom window, trying over and over until you collapse, dizzy from the rush of the pleasure the R.J Reynolds happens to sell. Is this your life, or is it mine?
I seem to remember the days that the distinction used to be clear. You and I and the rest of the world shared the same mission, everyone digging from the many sides of the same great mountain, joined by the idea that we thrive because it is all that we know. And what a beautiful naivety, so simply in it’s existence does it live. And then we learn, somewhere, somehow that the thirst for its own sake is at best penultimate, buried between the oughts and shoulds. I feel now as if I can almost see them, chains holding me from something so beautiful yet just out of reach.
So close yet stuck in the ego, the I and the need. The need to be validated, the need to understand, the need be pleasured, the need to discern. Despite my immersion as one member of the whole, suddenly there sits a need for comfort that simply didn’t feel before. A whole host of new feelings in fact, but is it awakening or the random firings of a mind that simply is bored with being content? After all, the darkness and the light each without the other can be nothing more than a wide field of grey.
And what of these feelings that at once refuse to present yet cannot be denied. These thoughts, these motivations, they each devolve ultimately into notions with no more grounding then poorly written stage or screen. Such diversity from uniformity, yet how can we know we feel the same?
The mind raced as I noticed some no small strangeness around me. How did I end up here? What is my motivation? From where did I come and to where do I go? How will I even know if I’ve gotten there when it does? From what comes this awkward, and where will that hopefully go? I could have seen it if I had only checked in before now. This place, so familiar yet so strange – I could have sworn your eyes were blue…
But there is no time, at least not that I can see, and it gets more confusing as I swing my head about. My contemporaries, clad in a confusing range of garb seeming to represent more than outfit, but characteristics themselves. I see swagger, and desperation, and love and sadness, all wrapped around their wearers as the lines between them blur and blur, until the mizzle from my eyes joined with the sweat from my whisky and turned my landscape into a child’s watercolor.
Oh what I place to be, as tides of numb and crashes of emotion take turns battering my thoughts on the rocks until I am adrift – lost now from anywhere I had been. Staring out at the sea, the thin disapproving horizon the only mark between the blue of the sky and that of the water. I’m not sure where my raft arrived from, but it had to be mine, there’s no chance I threw someone off for more space for me?
Wait, how did, where did, what is here? Why am I so madly in love yet so blisteringly confused? Why do you call to me? I check my watch but I cannot discern the time, yet as I look for the sun I find none in a cloudless sky. How can this be, and is that a swath of nightfall I see? I must be mad, but look, is that a truly a slice of night in the day? Can you rip the canvass of what I see, and what happens on the other side? Who is in charge of this place, and how do I get back to what I remember?
And I yelled and I screamed but instead there was a void, the words trapped like antacid in the pigeon, growing and growing until I wonder if there was room for reason, room for my own life amidst this interloping reality, the edges growing more and more light as I reach for anything that will hold…
And with a start I awoke and with a shake it was gone. The emotions, the desires, the journey, it was all so real. But no, with the nuzzle of my feline and the creeping rays of dawn my visit faded, and with it the lifetime I seemed to spend in all but a few moments. Am I to learn, reflect or ignore? Perhaps the trick is to lose sight of the distinction between the two, for if we see it was it not in a very real way present to us? I couldn’t disturb the notion that there was more to it, but there’s a day to be had, no time to reflect…
Sometimes there’s just nothing to be done. This morning came and went in the same way that it seems to these days, all too short and not as intended. Despite the shopping cart blocking the door and the intermittent sun showers providing the water sucked by the consumption of the night before, the ruts in road seem to grow deeper as I trudged to my destination.
A reality that didn’t seem quite right, but what was amiss? Where was the intention for the day, where was the motivation? The period of day was still the same, the sun still shot its photons at nearly the speed of light, I still breathed the same air as ever before. Why didn’t it smell as sweet?
It’s tough to feel numb in the midst of celebration; everything the same, yet through a pall of anesthetic. The thoughts, the beliefs, the drives and desires, all the same yet without the pulse. Zombie inertia. Nothing else but the crash of years of misdirection, bubbling up from the sickly depths, provides a reminder of my position on this sphere. And not even that, all I can show myself is that something doesn’t feel, but isn’t the absence of feeling a feeling in itself? It’s all so confusing, it makes you wonder just how we get about at all? What, with our habits and our compulsions, our autopilot honed by years of overexposure to the same media that provides traction to the notion that we can substitute ire for ambivalence, where to be then?
Perhaps there is no real; perhaps we can only tap into our ideas. When I see you, what do I see? What may seem to be a set of traits, are they not defined in relation to where I’ve been? I wonder how far we can manage to extend our empathy. Say I feel you, what do I feel? Do I feel the hours you played catch in the park, or the latchkey days learning to smoke Kamel Reds from the bedroom window, trying over and over until you collapse, dizzy from the rush of the pleasure the R.J Reynolds happens to sell. Is this your life, or is it mine?
I seem to remember the days that the distinction used to be clear. You and I and the rest of the world shared the same mission, everyone digging from the many sides of the same great mountain, joined by the idea that we thrive because it is all that we know. And what a beautiful naivety, so simply in it’s existence does it live. And then we learn, somewhere, somehow that the thirst for its own sake is at best penultimate, buried between the oughts and shoulds. I feel now as if I can almost see them, chains holding me from something so beautiful yet just out of reach.
So close yet stuck in the ego, the I and the need. The need to be validated, the need to understand, the need be pleasured, the need to discern. Despite my immersion as one member of the whole, suddenly there sits a need for comfort that simply didn’t feel before. A whole host of new feelings in fact, but is it awakening or the random firings of a mind that simply is bored with being content? After all, the darkness and the light each without the other can be nothing more than a wide field of grey.
And what of these feelings that at once refuse to present yet cannot be denied. These thoughts, these motivations, they each devolve ultimately into notions with no more grounding then poorly written stage or screen. Such diversity from uniformity, yet how can we know we feel the same?
The mind raced as I noticed some no small strangeness around me. How did I end up here? What is my motivation? From where did I come and to where do I go? How will I even know if I’ve gotten there when it does? From what comes this awkward, and where will that hopefully go? I could have seen it if I had only checked in before now. This place, so familiar yet so strange – I could have sworn your eyes were blue…
But there is no time, at least not that I can see, and it gets more confusing as I swing my head about. My contemporaries, clad in a confusing range of garb seeming to represent more than outfit, but characteristics themselves. I see swagger, and desperation, and love and sadness, all wrapped around their wearers as the lines between them blur and blur, until the mizzle from my eyes joined with the sweat from my whisky and turned my landscape into a child’s watercolor.
Oh what I place to be, as tides of numb and crashes of emotion take turns battering my thoughts on the rocks until I am adrift – lost now from anywhere I had been. Staring out at the sea, the thin disapproving horizon the only mark between the blue of the sky and that of the water. I’m not sure where my raft arrived from, but it had to be mine, there’s no chance I threw someone off for more space for me?
Wait, how did, where did, what is here? Why am I so madly in love yet so blisteringly confused? Why do you call to me? I check my watch but I cannot discern the time, yet as I look for the sun I find none in a cloudless sky. How can this be, and is that a swath of nightfall I see? I must be mad, but look, is that a truly a slice of night in the day? Can you rip the canvass of what I see, and what happens on the other side? Who is in charge of this place, and how do I get back to what I remember?
And I yelled and I screamed but instead there was a void, the words trapped like antacid in the pigeon, growing and growing until I wonder if there was room for reason, room for my own life amidst this interloping reality, the edges growing more and more light as I reach for anything that will hold…
And with a start I awoke and with a shake it was gone. The emotions, the desires, the journey, it was all so real. But no, with the nuzzle of my feline and the creeping rays of dawn my visit faded, and with it the lifetime I seemed to spend in all but a few moments. Am I to learn, reflect or ignore? Perhaps the trick is to lose sight of the distinction between the two, for if we see it was it not in a very real way present to us? I couldn’t disturb the notion that there was more to it, but there’s a day to be had, no time to reflect…
Friday, June 04, 2010
By a factor of cool
As I walked by a table in the food court today on my way for some generic yet tasty Subway, I wandered by a table who conversation I could not help but overhear. The lunch itself seemed to be going well, except for the snippet that said so much in so few words, “Can you get me some more chopsticks? These aren’t working.” This seems like an innocuous request, but it was enough to compel a look at least glance at the participants in that exchange.
The difference in appearance was, well less than striking, quite noticeable. She, clad in a popular sun dress cut of the past few years with a trendy yet retro attempt at a paisley pattern; he a 30ish year old with an outfit out the bizzaro child of a Dockers and Docksiders ad, with enough wear to replace the new clothes shine and with the worn look that teenagers pay 200% more for. She sporting a somewhat trendy cut, he couldn’t have spent more than $10 on his. Please note that description was provided not just for imagery because I couldn’t help but laugh a bit as I walked to the counter trying to make sense of how she may feel privileged to ask such a favor. At most the pair sat 20 feet away from two separate locations to retrieve more utensils, and the two of them seemed also to be in similar stages in their meal. The only difference that I could tell was that she definitely thought it was not unreasonable that her meal enjoyment should come before his, from some feeling of superiority or privilege.
Now I am all for chivalry and random acts of kindness do spread well beyond their epicenter, but this could only have been something of the form “My legs are too precious to spend steps of getting something that may work better, but yours will be fine.” Perhaps Daddy treated her like a princess, perhaps she has an eye for self-esteem issues, there’s even a chance she had a badly crippled wing that I simply could not see – the only way that her tone and words added up to anything was that she just knew that a plain and average Joe such as he would be insane not to replace the chop sticks that no longer suited her eating pleasure.
Which got me to thinking about a term that many of us geeks, nerds, dorks and other general awkwards are familiar with is the “cool kids”. While the definition changes over the generations, we all know who you are and what you do. Today you’re the guys with popped, ironed collars and slicked hair, who bathe in Jagerbombs with an entire can of Ax body spray to keep you smelling like, well, whatever a man’s supposed to smell like these days. The ladies here tend to run on the “use thigh to distract from the time I spent not creating a personality,” who stay a healthy shade of bulb orange all year round and aspire to be one of the girls from the Hills. For personality one thing seems to be constant – be the highest maintenance, most arrogant, trashy don’t-give-a-&%$#-cause-I-have-the-money-don’t-need-a-mind-cause-I’ll-find-a-patsy-to-make-me-feel-good.
I admit that the above person doesn’t sound at all that enticing when stereotyped that way, because I hoped to leave out the features of the cool crowd that we all wanted to be a part of. Whether it be High School crowd who had all the great parties, the Greek life with the most toys or the clique at the Office that always seems to have suits tailored from their uncashed paychecks, there will always be a crowd that feels superior and can back up these claims with the shiniest toys and most superficially attractive lifestyle of faux-leisure. While you may not look like anything I’ve described until now, you know who you are; you’re level of smug makes the air harder for the rest of us to breathe.
I promise I’m not bitter, the effort is more to speak to the problem of style without substance. Being human, and growing up in the United States especially, we are trained to want to be more than we are. The problem arises when we crave those features that others possess that we don’t – objects as opposed to features. I would like to think that we all want to better ourselves, and further that on the inside we are all a little ADD which leads us to seek specific rewards for our good work. As social beings the easiest way to achieve this is to receive some social capital for our efforts. It is much easier to suggest “Like me, I’m tan and I have boat” then “I am a xerophile*, shall I care to tell you more about my love?”
Now for those of you who really don’t care about external social rewards for who you are and what you have, I applaud you and most likely you never bothered to consider the cool kids because you were off feeding your nemophilia (love of woods and forests) or your passion for whatever made you happy. Kudos. For the rest of us it seems ingrained that we want to keep up with the Jones’ (or the Kardashians or the Gosselins if you’re incomprehensible to my little mind) and covet that neighbors greener yard. What I realized with the chopstick couple and why I was so intrigued was the difference between an authentic existence and the one we lust after is the desire for items that can break.
It may sound simple but try breaking integrity, or knowledge, or friendship, can it be done? Yes, but the only way to do it is to bring back in the desire for things that are truly breakable (more impermanent): cars, acquaintances, a killer tan etc. The personality that defines who we are, what we are instead of what we have, those are the things that we can carry with us and always know will be present. I’m in no way saying that attractive friends, a nice car and great stereo system aren’t fun toys, but if you’re left asserting your hand in a relationship by making your S.O. (significant other for those scoring at home) get you more chopsticks, perhaps a reconsideration of priorities is in order.
I realize now that what began as a moment of inspiration regarding how to understand those who have what we don’t yet want has blossomed into a larger project of what perhaps it is we should desire when we look towards others qua our own apprehension and consumption. I began wondering just what this gentleman sees in someone who doesn’t have 20 feet of walking if it means she has to get up; I am instead feel left with more questions than when I started. What relationship dynamics do we choose to undertake, and for what end? Are we even aware of these ends, and would making them transparent to ourselves change our behavior? How easily could we slide into the collar poppin’ trucker hat miniskirt top down holler out money in the bank lifestyle, and honestly what is so wrong with that, other than my personal distaste for the style over substance argument? For that matter, what of cultivating the ideas of integrity and personality and the less “breakable” qualities I pointed towards– is it not more important to fulfill your goals, whatever that may be?
I used to wonder if these questions were even important, but I think they’re the necessary next step in our evolution as both people and as a society. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been afforded the opportunity to accumulate whatever we need assuming we have or can acquire the resources to attain what we want. We know what things are out there we cannot help but see them on TV, and billboards, and at sporting events, concert venue walls and every site that the internet seems to offer. Even inner peace has become a commodity – if the self-help market grew any larger it would require a self help manual on how properly help the self. We have all the things that we need, 20 times over, and in a future post I’ll share why I think we had all the stuff that we’ve needed we’ve had since the Renaissance; suffice it to say the only place we can truly break new ground is updating ourselves and our faculties. How is that not the new I-don’t-give-a&$%#? Pretty sure I’m the only one who has my particular sense of self expression, now look what it will do…
*For the record, Xerophilia is defined as the love of hot, dry places. Cheers.
The difference in appearance was, well less than striking, quite noticeable. She, clad in a popular sun dress cut of the past few years with a trendy yet retro attempt at a paisley pattern; he a 30ish year old with an outfit out the bizzaro child of a Dockers and Docksiders ad, with enough wear to replace the new clothes shine and with the worn look that teenagers pay 200% more for. She sporting a somewhat trendy cut, he couldn’t have spent more than $10 on his. Please note that description was provided not just for imagery because I couldn’t help but laugh a bit as I walked to the counter trying to make sense of how she may feel privileged to ask such a favor. At most the pair sat 20 feet away from two separate locations to retrieve more utensils, and the two of them seemed also to be in similar stages in their meal. The only difference that I could tell was that she definitely thought it was not unreasonable that her meal enjoyment should come before his, from some feeling of superiority or privilege.
Now I am all for chivalry and random acts of kindness do spread well beyond their epicenter, but this could only have been something of the form “My legs are too precious to spend steps of getting something that may work better, but yours will be fine.” Perhaps Daddy treated her like a princess, perhaps she has an eye for self-esteem issues, there’s even a chance she had a badly crippled wing that I simply could not see – the only way that her tone and words added up to anything was that she just knew that a plain and average Joe such as he would be insane not to replace the chop sticks that no longer suited her eating pleasure.
Which got me to thinking about a term that many of us geeks, nerds, dorks and other general awkwards are familiar with is the “cool kids”. While the definition changes over the generations, we all know who you are and what you do. Today you’re the guys with popped, ironed collars and slicked hair, who bathe in Jagerbombs with an entire can of Ax body spray to keep you smelling like, well, whatever a man’s supposed to smell like these days. The ladies here tend to run on the “use thigh to distract from the time I spent not creating a personality,” who stay a healthy shade of bulb orange all year round and aspire to be one of the girls from the Hills. For personality one thing seems to be constant – be the highest maintenance, most arrogant, trashy don’t-give-a-&%$#-cause-I-have-the-money-don’t-need-a-mind-cause-I’ll-find-a-patsy-to-make-me-feel-good.
I admit that the above person doesn’t sound at all that enticing when stereotyped that way, because I hoped to leave out the features of the cool crowd that we all wanted to be a part of. Whether it be High School crowd who had all the great parties, the Greek life with the most toys or the clique at the Office that always seems to have suits tailored from their uncashed paychecks, there will always be a crowd that feels superior and can back up these claims with the shiniest toys and most superficially attractive lifestyle of faux-leisure. While you may not look like anything I’ve described until now, you know who you are; you’re level of smug makes the air harder for the rest of us to breathe.
I promise I’m not bitter, the effort is more to speak to the problem of style without substance. Being human, and growing up in the United States especially, we are trained to want to be more than we are. The problem arises when we crave those features that others possess that we don’t – objects as opposed to features. I would like to think that we all want to better ourselves, and further that on the inside we are all a little ADD which leads us to seek specific rewards for our good work. As social beings the easiest way to achieve this is to receive some social capital for our efforts. It is much easier to suggest “Like me, I’m tan and I have boat” then “I am a xerophile*, shall I care to tell you more about my love?”
Now for those of you who really don’t care about external social rewards for who you are and what you have, I applaud you and most likely you never bothered to consider the cool kids because you were off feeding your nemophilia (love of woods and forests) or your passion for whatever made you happy. Kudos. For the rest of us it seems ingrained that we want to keep up with the Jones’ (or the Kardashians or the Gosselins if you’re incomprehensible to my little mind) and covet that neighbors greener yard. What I realized with the chopstick couple and why I was so intrigued was the difference between an authentic existence and the one we lust after is the desire for items that can break.
It may sound simple but try breaking integrity, or knowledge, or friendship, can it be done? Yes, but the only way to do it is to bring back in the desire for things that are truly breakable (more impermanent): cars, acquaintances, a killer tan etc. The personality that defines who we are, what we are instead of what we have, those are the things that we can carry with us and always know will be present. I’m in no way saying that attractive friends, a nice car and great stereo system aren’t fun toys, but if you’re left asserting your hand in a relationship by making your S.O. (significant other for those scoring at home) get you more chopsticks, perhaps a reconsideration of priorities is in order.
I realize now that what began as a moment of inspiration regarding how to understand those who have what we don’t yet want has blossomed into a larger project of what perhaps it is we should desire when we look towards others qua our own apprehension and consumption. I began wondering just what this gentleman sees in someone who doesn’t have 20 feet of walking if it means she has to get up; I am instead feel left with more questions than when I started. What relationship dynamics do we choose to undertake, and for what end? Are we even aware of these ends, and would making them transparent to ourselves change our behavior? How easily could we slide into the collar poppin’ trucker hat miniskirt top down holler out money in the bank lifestyle, and honestly what is so wrong with that, other than my personal distaste for the style over substance argument? For that matter, what of cultivating the ideas of integrity and personality and the less “breakable” qualities I pointed towards– is it not more important to fulfill your goals, whatever that may be?
I used to wonder if these questions were even important, but I think they’re the necessary next step in our evolution as both people and as a society. Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been afforded the opportunity to accumulate whatever we need assuming we have or can acquire the resources to attain what we want. We know what things are out there we cannot help but see them on TV, and billboards, and at sporting events, concert venue walls and every site that the internet seems to offer. Even inner peace has become a commodity – if the self-help market grew any larger it would require a self help manual on how properly help the self. We have all the things that we need, 20 times over, and in a future post I’ll share why I think we had all the stuff that we’ve needed we’ve had since the Renaissance; suffice it to say the only place we can truly break new ground is updating ourselves and our faculties. How is that not the new I-don’t-give-a&$%#? Pretty sure I’m the only one who has my particular sense of self expression, now look what it will do…
*For the record, Xerophilia is defined as the love of hot, dry places. Cheers.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Deadlines Aren't So Bad
One, two…1,000. After stealing some time before work and making solid use of my breaks I managed to craft 800 hopefully enjoyable words before the end of the workday. Then, in a flash of brilliance I wandered home without emailing my quasi-completed work home with me to finish before the clock strikes midnight and my little dream turns into a pumpkin. I thought about heading back, but I’m hopeful that only 3 days in there may be an extra 1,000 running around somewhere in the mind. I was considering at some point allowing myself the occasional hiatus, for both my sanity and the quality of the words that spill forth, but it’s waaayyy too early to begin tinkering with the rules. Besides, working under a deadline, no matter how self imposed seems to be a skill worth cultivating any time, and I guess now might be a good time to step up to work with what I believe. I wish I could say that this second edition was an inspirational moment of triumph for the endurance of the human spirit , but when I think that way all I see is “Deadline: The Movie” and wonder if I couldn’t slap together a decent enough screenplay for some exec to purchase and put in the vault for when they consider making “Stretch Armstrong 2” or “Girls Gone Mild: Utah edition”.
How would someone even consider what deadline would be the antagonist? Would it be a decision about a marriage proposal? Would the other decision be to stop cheating on this deadline with the application for the protagonist’s dream job? Who then would be the comic relief? How about the insider knowledge that buying 30 subscriptions to Sports Illustrated would ensure victory in the Publisher’s Clearing House? Very Hollywood yes, but I then foresee the plot twist being a night out in Vegas that derails every deadline and leaves our hero naked but for shoes about 100 miles outside of Tijuana and the delusion that deadlines are just optional and he should run off with his new hippy wife to make special bread out of Quinoa and Love.
Now that I reread that, I’ve no doubt that this could easily be better than “Van Helsing” but is the story above really that different from any of real life, literature or film? Perhaps the book should come first, so that Hollywood could really take it and run – I would love to see just how thin a concept could evolve. Then my little series could join the ranks of the Adaptations, Covers and Reworks, and we would have one more thing to talk about besides the weather and just how dumb our world seems to get. Even better, I could only hope it would join the ranks of Fight Club or Requiem for a Dream – books so savagely depressing that a standard movie goer would leave in a bit of shock. Just think of the crushing deadlines, “a true investigation of the human spirit caught in a world that fights to tether it from the infinity and the heights that it is capable of soaring.”
On the level though, that review (sorry New York Times Book Review, those words in that order are mine copyright 2010) does actually speak to a truth that has become more and more clear as time passes: we truly are tethered to and are shaped and defined by the deadlines that we set. I would even argue that they seem to provide the structure to our experience and existence. Deadlines that we fulfill allow us to set another deadline for a project that is more in line with our goals, those that we miss either become renewed motivation to reset and try again, or to find another area that we can set new deadlines in order to progress, leaving the goals of those projects as “learning experiences” (or ideally, learning what we don’t like).
The longer I sit with the idea, the more that I see the before hidden deadlines that accompany all of our motivations, be they craft mastery, bringing pleasure, relaxation, money, etc. In fact, as long as we have expectations we have deadlines set both for ourselves and for others: we get angry at a loved one when they are late, or do not follow through on what they say (and implicitly, by the time they say they will it), we get down on ourselves when we don’t master a skill or get the answer to trivia (in the appropriate amount of time), or more obviously when we get that sneaking suspicion that we are not the people that we are supposed to be, which also says “I should have been by now”. Even the act of forgetting – there are few things more frustrating to me than when I’ve forgotten that perfect word to polish off the idea or that perfect melody to go with the song I’ve written. Given a long enough timeline I know I would get it back, but I needed it be there now, damn it!
So then is the trick to being kinder to with our world and is to realize that 1. We are always setting these timeframes for people, objects and skills without acknowledging that in many circumstances we simply don’t have the raw materials necessary for success and 2. Others are setting these timeframes for us. I’ve argued earlier that we know the difference between a poor effort and an impossible project, yet we fail to distinguish between what is practically possible and what would happen in an ideal world. I know it’s absolutely the basis of me perfectionism – I expect all 8 cylinders to work when I need them to, and to give the quality that I expect from my top work. Of course this is a mindset that just begs for unhappiness, because the minute you need other resources (people, learning, money) you move out of that ideal space and into the realm where success is dependent on having the right tools at that time, tools which simply may not be available.
From there the question becomes one of understanding just what deadlines we’ve set for ourselves that we may not have realized. Unfortunately for my fellow frustrated doers and I out there we do not have what we need until the exact moment that we have it, and not a second before. They say (and one day I will figure out and expose who they actually are) that it takes 30 consecutive days to make a habit, and of course 10,000 hours to master a skill. Luckily, we seem to pick up skills that we aren’t aware we’re acquiring (see the idea of the “Head fake” from Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture”), ones which will come to aid when we need them most. The only thing we can really do then is keep doing trying to add new tools to our kit so the next time we’re up against a deadline that perhaps we have not seen we will achieve it with skills we didn’t know we had. Good luck.
How would someone even consider what deadline would be the antagonist? Would it be a decision about a marriage proposal? Would the other decision be to stop cheating on this deadline with the application for the protagonist’s dream job? Who then would be the comic relief? How about the insider knowledge that buying 30 subscriptions to Sports Illustrated would ensure victory in the Publisher’s Clearing House? Very Hollywood yes, but I then foresee the plot twist being a night out in Vegas that derails every deadline and leaves our hero naked but for shoes about 100 miles outside of Tijuana and the delusion that deadlines are just optional and he should run off with his new hippy wife to make special bread out of Quinoa and Love.
Now that I reread that, I’ve no doubt that this could easily be better than “Van Helsing” but is the story above really that different from any of real life, literature or film? Perhaps the book should come first, so that Hollywood could really take it and run – I would love to see just how thin a concept could evolve. Then my little series could join the ranks of the Adaptations, Covers and Reworks, and we would have one more thing to talk about besides the weather and just how dumb our world seems to get. Even better, I could only hope it would join the ranks of Fight Club or Requiem for a Dream – books so savagely depressing that a standard movie goer would leave in a bit of shock. Just think of the crushing deadlines, “a true investigation of the human spirit caught in a world that fights to tether it from the infinity and the heights that it is capable of soaring.”
On the level though, that review (sorry New York Times Book Review, those words in that order are mine copyright 2010) does actually speak to a truth that has become more and more clear as time passes: we truly are tethered to and are shaped and defined by the deadlines that we set. I would even argue that they seem to provide the structure to our experience and existence. Deadlines that we fulfill allow us to set another deadline for a project that is more in line with our goals, those that we miss either become renewed motivation to reset and try again, or to find another area that we can set new deadlines in order to progress, leaving the goals of those projects as “learning experiences” (or ideally, learning what we don’t like).
The longer I sit with the idea, the more that I see the before hidden deadlines that accompany all of our motivations, be they craft mastery, bringing pleasure, relaxation, money, etc. In fact, as long as we have expectations we have deadlines set both for ourselves and for others: we get angry at a loved one when they are late, or do not follow through on what they say (and implicitly, by the time they say they will it), we get down on ourselves when we don’t master a skill or get the answer to trivia (in the appropriate amount of time), or more obviously when we get that sneaking suspicion that we are not the people that we are supposed to be, which also says “I should have been by now”. Even the act of forgetting – there are few things more frustrating to me than when I’ve forgotten that perfect word to polish off the idea or that perfect melody to go with the song I’ve written. Given a long enough timeline I know I would get it back, but I needed it be there now, damn it!
So then is the trick to being kinder to with our world and is to realize that 1. We are always setting these timeframes for people, objects and skills without acknowledging that in many circumstances we simply don’t have the raw materials necessary for success and 2. Others are setting these timeframes for us. I’ve argued earlier that we know the difference between a poor effort and an impossible project, yet we fail to distinguish between what is practically possible and what would happen in an ideal world. I know it’s absolutely the basis of me perfectionism – I expect all 8 cylinders to work when I need them to, and to give the quality that I expect from my top work. Of course this is a mindset that just begs for unhappiness, because the minute you need other resources (people, learning, money) you move out of that ideal space and into the realm where success is dependent on having the right tools at that time, tools which simply may not be available.
From there the question becomes one of understanding just what deadlines we’ve set for ourselves that we may not have realized. Unfortunately for my fellow frustrated doers and I out there we do not have what we need until the exact moment that we have it, and not a second before. They say (and one day I will figure out and expose who they actually are) that it takes 30 consecutive days to make a habit, and of course 10,000 hours to master a skill. Luckily, we seem to pick up skills that we aren’t aware we’re acquiring (see the idea of the “Head fake” from Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture”), ones which will come to aid when we need them most. The only thing we can really do then is keep doing trying to add new tools to our kit so the next time we’re up against a deadline that perhaps we have not seen we will achieve it with skills we didn’t know we had. Good luck.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Thoughts about thinking
1,000 words. They say that a picture is worth it, and that professional writers should shoot for it. If those words were money it’s an interesting amount – enough to be of great assistance yet not nearly enough for comfort. To write 1,000 words in an hour means 16 and two-thirds words a minute, including revisions. Doesn’t sound like much, especially when you consider that an even somewhat competent typist can word through at least 45 words per minute; that is until I actually I started to word count my own mind.
While it’s always interesting to think about thinking, says the philosophy major, actually counting the number of words that comprise our thoughts can be a strangely revealing exercise. Before I could count though, I had to figure out what qualifies as a countable word at all. It’s just so tempting to think the “Ow!” that comes with a stubbed toe may count, and that even more useful is the constant running dialogue that most of have (Freud, the Buddhists and the New Agers would call it the Ego). These words however are what I would consider white noise and as such have absolutely no place in what I was trying to do.
The problem lies in the fact that it has become apparent as of late that there seems to be a distinct lack of thought; plenty of response and reaction, yet not much thinking to go along with it. Consider the internal dialogue, the one that seems to tumble through our minds independent of our wills. The one that says “You can/can’t do this”, “You are/aren’t good enough” etc. – it seems to me that we aren’t actually telling ourselves anything and instead are simply receiving unsolicited advice for our self perception. Debatably important, but not really thoughtful – this voice runs as a reaction to the stimuli presented to our world through the filter of what we believe that we are capable of.
What then is the kind of thought then do I believe is ‘countable’? Since I’m new to this project, tired, and still getting into things, I’ll simply use the idea of conscious, constructive thought. Thought that is conscious in that it is self directed – our minds aren’t speaking with us, we’re choosing to think with it. Constructive in that it’s a thought that is goal directed and meant to make some sort of progress towards an end.
What then about daydreaming? I would absolutely argue that it should count, as long as you’re daydreaming in words as opposed to images. I’m not sure anyone would think that we would be able or want to word count our representation of a sunset on the beach, strikes me as similar to trying to word count a television program. The Boston Globe has a bit more about the kind of daydreaming I’m talking about (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/08/31/daydream_achiever/) but the crux of the story is that daydreaming comes in multiple varieties, but at minimum we have the “I need to get away from the present” and the “I need my mind to solve a problem” varieties. The former is a response to the unsatisfactory present while the latter is using the incredible power of the mind to process. We each in our minds have more potential neuron connections that there are believed to be stars in the sky.
Read that again: we have more possible connections between the neurons in our minds as there are stars in the sky. The trouble with our common thought is that to prevent being overwhelmed by our daily routine we must reinforce certain connections and use them as the basic, unchanging constituents of our lives. Imagine if you had to discover anew the best way to use your toothbrush, or had to continuously find new motivations to find your fantasies appealing; I know that the last thing I want is to be paralyzed by which color expo marker I’m planning to write on the whiteboard with. The downside of this efficiency is that we are missing out on other potentials that we cannot see because we are afraid of getting too far afield from the issue at hand – since the mind has about 100 billion neurons, if each one fired one at a time with a unique neighbor once per second it would take 3,170.98 years to run through them all. Factor in our habits, and the ability of each neuron to interact with almost any number of the others nearby, and it quickly becomes clear that we simply do not have the power to think all of the thoughts that have yet to be thought; especially when you consider that at least to my knowledge we have very little understanding of just how powerful an individual neuron can be. If each one can ultimately be responsible for multiple ideas, then the sun will burn out before humanity can truly exhaust all that is out there.
Now hopefully this will help make the ‘countable’ version of daydreaming accessible, and with all the features that a more traditional countable thought would also be. Rather than being random, daydreaming of a more constructive kind involves a hunt and peck method of trying to open of new avenues of thought; not passive, goal oriented. The mind will Look toward new synthesis, unique integrations of other ideas, and sui generis modes of understanding trying to take advantage of the genius that we all necessarily possess.
So, daydreaming, traditional problem solving, creative focused word countable ideas, at what rate per minute do we think in this fashion? It’s funny, 700 words later the question seems much less pressing than it did before. Tied in with the question of its importance is the real world value of such a thing. We all know people who think quickly and present worthless ideas, others who think very carefully yet thoroughly and everything in between. Sitting at the other end of the no longer blank page the important question seems to be no longer “how fast” but “the fact that we are” truly thinking and not simply reacting.
While the idea that we spend much of our mental life in some sort of hibernation mode, engaged in what I don’t even particularly consider thinking is interesting, it is also to be left for another day. However, my plan is to try to think of solutions rather than worry about the problem, and if it works for even just one problem I need to solve then my 12.0 words per minute thought count will be a success after all - fun or fruitful remains to be seen, yet never a dull moment.
While it’s always interesting to think about thinking, says the philosophy major, actually counting the number of words that comprise our thoughts can be a strangely revealing exercise. Before I could count though, I had to figure out what qualifies as a countable word at all. It’s just so tempting to think the “Ow!” that comes with a stubbed toe may count, and that even more useful is the constant running dialogue that most of have (Freud, the Buddhists and the New Agers would call it the Ego). These words however are what I would consider white noise and as such have absolutely no place in what I was trying to do.
The problem lies in the fact that it has become apparent as of late that there seems to be a distinct lack of thought; plenty of response and reaction, yet not much thinking to go along with it. Consider the internal dialogue, the one that seems to tumble through our minds independent of our wills. The one that says “You can/can’t do this”, “You are/aren’t good enough” etc. – it seems to me that we aren’t actually telling ourselves anything and instead are simply receiving unsolicited advice for our self perception. Debatably important, but not really thoughtful – this voice runs as a reaction to the stimuli presented to our world through the filter of what we believe that we are capable of.
What then is the kind of thought then do I believe is ‘countable’? Since I’m new to this project, tired, and still getting into things, I’ll simply use the idea of conscious, constructive thought. Thought that is conscious in that it is self directed – our minds aren’t speaking with us, we’re choosing to think with it. Constructive in that it’s a thought that is goal directed and meant to make some sort of progress towards an end.
What then about daydreaming? I would absolutely argue that it should count, as long as you’re daydreaming in words as opposed to images. I’m not sure anyone would think that we would be able or want to word count our representation of a sunset on the beach, strikes me as similar to trying to word count a television program. The Boston Globe has a bit more about the kind of daydreaming I’m talking about (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/08/31/daydream_achiever/) but the crux of the story is that daydreaming comes in multiple varieties, but at minimum we have the “I need to get away from the present” and the “I need my mind to solve a problem” varieties. The former is a response to the unsatisfactory present while the latter is using the incredible power of the mind to process. We each in our minds have more potential neuron connections that there are believed to be stars in the sky.
Read that again: we have more possible connections between the neurons in our minds as there are stars in the sky. The trouble with our common thought is that to prevent being overwhelmed by our daily routine we must reinforce certain connections and use them as the basic, unchanging constituents of our lives. Imagine if you had to discover anew the best way to use your toothbrush, or had to continuously find new motivations to find your fantasies appealing; I know that the last thing I want is to be paralyzed by which color expo marker I’m planning to write on the whiteboard with. The downside of this efficiency is that we are missing out on other potentials that we cannot see because we are afraid of getting too far afield from the issue at hand – since the mind has about 100 billion neurons, if each one fired one at a time with a unique neighbor once per second it would take 3,170.98 years to run through them all. Factor in our habits, and the ability of each neuron to interact with almost any number of the others nearby, and it quickly becomes clear that we simply do not have the power to think all of the thoughts that have yet to be thought; especially when you consider that at least to my knowledge we have very little understanding of just how powerful an individual neuron can be. If each one can ultimately be responsible for multiple ideas, then the sun will burn out before humanity can truly exhaust all that is out there.
Now hopefully this will help make the ‘countable’ version of daydreaming accessible, and with all the features that a more traditional countable thought would also be. Rather than being random, daydreaming of a more constructive kind involves a hunt and peck method of trying to open of new avenues of thought; not passive, goal oriented. The mind will Look toward new synthesis, unique integrations of other ideas, and sui generis modes of understanding trying to take advantage of the genius that we all necessarily possess.
So, daydreaming, traditional problem solving, creative focused word countable ideas, at what rate per minute do we think in this fashion? It’s funny, 700 words later the question seems much less pressing than it did before. Tied in with the question of its importance is the real world value of such a thing. We all know people who think quickly and present worthless ideas, others who think very carefully yet thoroughly and everything in between. Sitting at the other end of the no longer blank page the important question seems to be no longer “how fast” but “the fact that we are” truly thinking and not simply reacting.
While the idea that we spend much of our mental life in some sort of hibernation mode, engaged in what I don’t even particularly consider thinking is interesting, it is also to be left for another day. However, my plan is to try to think of solutions rather than worry about the problem, and if it works for even just one problem I need to solve then my 12.0 words per minute thought count will be a success after all - fun or fruitful remains to be seen, yet never a dull moment.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Pilot - 1,000 words a day until...
The daily activities we all undertake: eating, drinking, growing hair. Hopefully in my case, I can add to that list 1,000 words a day until I can manage to change my profession from cube monkey service lackey to professional writer. I’ve had some excellent forays in the past, and my love of our language could in fact be the only thing that’s held constant since high school (other than of course a distrust of grey dress slacks and love of those who may wear grey pleated skirts, thank you Catholic school).
I wish that I could say more about what this hopeful rekindling with the written word will ultimately be, born and burning as it currently is with the frustration of being an inquiring mind stuck in a position that is anything but. Thanks to an unfortunate economy, some serious career inertia and an immodest amount of time spent in the bars and the porches hoping to beat the sun’s rise in favor of at least some semblance of restful slumber I seem to stare out the window more than I probably should. Granted that view looks out for at least 75 miles in all directions and encompassing the new Twins Stadium, the Mississippi River some other excellent sites…but I digress.
This plans to be a place of ideas, reflections and hopefully some lively exposition concerning things more important than failblog or making bets on when the next weirdo with a samurai sword charges into a church in Texas. No disrespect to either activity, as both have been pleasant distractions for many hours I could otherwise have been doing anything more productive. Perhaps I’m trying to make up for those hours, there’s a chance I’m just preventing my mind from atrophying ahead of the mental destruction I cause on my own, I might even believe that I’m creating an antidote for the brain suck that interwebs can be. Chances are stronger though that I’m probably just using Tom Robbins’ vision of art as basically finding something that you would like to see but hasn’t been created yet, and create it. What is that beautiful thing? Let’s find that out day by day.
I hope also that aside from the words a more dedicated reader may also see something that is not heralded properly in our mental food of today – progression. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a new skill, but along the way there would seem to be many interesting plateaus and progresses, style shifts, withheld judgements, and subtle thought and improvements in form that can hopefully serve as some reminder that it is practice makes perfect, practice develops interest, practice may create some new connections.
On a personal level, I’m looking forward to seeing the larger effect that 1,000 words a day will create in my own life outside of the scope of the ideas that make it here. Will daily writing bleed into the rest of my modes of communication, and how so? For that matter, how long will it take for the themes of the posts to form some semblence of a larger project? I definitely don’t think that I can keep this at all approaching random, despite what Newton may say – so I wonder then how far the “Just Do it” mentality can actually go.
To be fair, there should probably be rules, although I will at some point make liberal use of the elastic clause in order to get to that magic 1K a day. In fact, until the next rules committee meeting I would like to call that the only rule to be that thoughts here never become unyielding or inflexible. They say that intelligence is the ability to hold simultaneous conflicting opinions about the same topic; whether or not that’s true it’s still a good rule, and would seem to avoid many of the serious issues that we seem to be staring at in the world these days. As a former devotee to the un-rule of Calvinball, and someone who continually fights with keeping things interesting in his long term endeavours, I can’t help but think that even the rule of elasticity seems to be a bit much.
Besides, I think that the primary force of this hopefully buoyant little endeavor will be honesty. Honesty may even be the most important ideal that we can work to achieve and maintain, if for no other reason than there seems to be so little of in about. In addition to the large scale dishonesty that we’ve nearly come to expect (5,000 barrels a day? Have a feeling you’re off by at least a factor of 4…) there is also the subtler yet even more pernicious form – self deception. This latter type can pervade all our actions because we for the most part have absolutely no idea that we aren’t being transparent to ourselves. Whether it be the belief that we are still just a few seasons away from being a pro athlete or thinking that what we’ve done successfully before will work again we are all under this mild delusion. Just how successful this self-honesty is is unfortunately only discernable in retrospect – how close were we to what is actually true.
Anyone who knows me at all will quickly realize that the preceding few sentences would drive me absolutely batty were I to read them elsewhere. How does that definition of honesty work compared to colloquial use? Where do I get off calling us all delusional? How can being honest be something that is in relation to time as well, with an apparent element of truth (as in, this is objectively right)? All great questions, and all questions that I intend to suss out, but for the time being it might just be important today to give the wholly unsatisfactory “Quick, look over here!” and move on; perhaps some about fuzzy bunnies, or shiny things, or perhaps a fuzzy shiny bunny. Eh? Eh?
I admit that this is quite the ambitious project, especially for someone who normally can’t consistently do anything for longer than 45 days or so – even that would be excellent. Really, I hope that this will become a reminder of what can happen when you just DO something that you enjoy, do it consistently with no expectations and only a few hopes, and just have the belief that if it’s meant to be, it absolutely will. We’re all part of the same moment in time, this one, so let’s make it transparent, interesting, and just the right amount of irreverent. Now is too important to be taken seriously, so let’s give ourselves that break.
Until tomorrow.
I wish that I could say more about what this hopeful rekindling with the written word will ultimately be, born and burning as it currently is with the frustration of being an inquiring mind stuck in a position that is anything but. Thanks to an unfortunate economy, some serious career inertia and an immodest amount of time spent in the bars and the porches hoping to beat the sun’s rise in favor of at least some semblance of restful slumber I seem to stare out the window more than I probably should. Granted that view looks out for at least 75 miles in all directions and encompassing the new Twins Stadium, the Mississippi River some other excellent sites…but I digress.
This plans to be a place of ideas, reflections and hopefully some lively exposition concerning things more important than failblog or making bets on when the next weirdo with a samurai sword charges into a church in Texas. No disrespect to either activity, as both have been pleasant distractions for many hours I could otherwise have been doing anything more productive. Perhaps I’m trying to make up for those hours, there’s a chance I’m just preventing my mind from atrophying ahead of the mental destruction I cause on my own, I might even believe that I’m creating an antidote for the brain suck that interwebs can be. Chances are stronger though that I’m probably just using Tom Robbins’ vision of art as basically finding something that you would like to see but hasn’t been created yet, and create it. What is that beautiful thing? Let’s find that out day by day.
I hope also that aside from the words a more dedicated reader may also see something that is not heralded properly in our mental food of today – progression. They say it takes 10,000 hours to master a new skill, but along the way there would seem to be many interesting plateaus and progresses, style shifts, withheld judgements, and subtle thought and improvements in form that can hopefully serve as some reminder that it is practice makes perfect, practice develops interest, practice may create some new connections.
On a personal level, I’m looking forward to seeing the larger effect that 1,000 words a day will create in my own life outside of the scope of the ideas that make it here. Will daily writing bleed into the rest of my modes of communication, and how so? For that matter, how long will it take for the themes of the posts to form some semblence of a larger project? I definitely don’t think that I can keep this at all approaching random, despite what Newton may say – so I wonder then how far the “Just Do it” mentality can actually go.
To be fair, there should probably be rules, although I will at some point make liberal use of the elastic clause in order to get to that magic 1K a day. In fact, until the next rules committee meeting I would like to call that the only rule to be that thoughts here never become unyielding or inflexible. They say that intelligence is the ability to hold simultaneous conflicting opinions about the same topic; whether or not that’s true it’s still a good rule, and would seem to avoid many of the serious issues that we seem to be staring at in the world these days. As a former devotee to the un-rule of Calvinball, and someone who continually fights with keeping things interesting in his long term endeavours, I can’t help but think that even the rule of elasticity seems to be a bit much.
Besides, I think that the primary force of this hopefully buoyant little endeavor will be honesty. Honesty may even be the most important ideal that we can work to achieve and maintain, if for no other reason than there seems to be so little of in about. In addition to the large scale dishonesty that we’ve nearly come to expect (5,000 barrels a day? Have a feeling you’re off by at least a factor of 4…) there is also the subtler yet even more pernicious form – self deception. This latter type can pervade all our actions because we for the most part have absolutely no idea that we aren’t being transparent to ourselves. Whether it be the belief that we are still just a few seasons away from being a pro athlete or thinking that what we’ve done successfully before will work again we are all under this mild delusion. Just how successful this self-honesty is is unfortunately only discernable in retrospect – how close were we to what is actually true.
Anyone who knows me at all will quickly realize that the preceding few sentences would drive me absolutely batty were I to read them elsewhere. How does that definition of honesty work compared to colloquial use? Where do I get off calling us all delusional? How can being honest be something that is in relation to time as well, with an apparent element of truth (as in, this is objectively right)? All great questions, and all questions that I intend to suss out, but for the time being it might just be important today to give the wholly unsatisfactory “Quick, look over here!” and move on; perhaps some about fuzzy bunnies, or shiny things, or perhaps a fuzzy shiny bunny. Eh? Eh?
I admit that this is quite the ambitious project, especially for someone who normally can’t consistently do anything for longer than 45 days or so – even that would be excellent. Really, I hope that this will become a reminder of what can happen when you just DO something that you enjoy, do it consistently with no expectations and only a few hopes, and just have the belief that if it’s meant to be, it absolutely will. We’re all part of the same moment in time, this one, so let’s make it transparent, interesting, and just the right amount of irreverent. Now is too important to be taken seriously, so let’s give ourselves that break.
Until tomorrow.
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