-saIN-

Sustainble Agriculture in Mainland China

2011-03-06T05:14:00.001-07:00

Two great links:
One fantastic interview and a super article (browse the site for more).

2010-12-14T08:07:00.004-07:00

How can we re-structure our energy system to allow for the benefits of modern technology while not destroying the basis for our existence?
Efficient Cogeneration

How can we save our forests?
Warming is causing disastrous forest death

We can't prevent climate change, but can we change our forests?
Edible Forests and Permaculture

After all, humans have been at it a long time!
Re-thinking Pre-European Landfall Native Americans

Letter to the President.

2009-04-30T22:41:00.001-06:00

It's a comment on the state of the econmony in the US and my opinion, as a US citizen, as to what might be done about it.

I hold the opinion that selfish buisnessmen using corperate entities for their own means, a consumer driven appreciation for trash products, abuse of workers in other countries, and devaluation of work through over availibiliy of credit has sapped our economy of both it's blood (money) and spirit (faith, and will). I will spare the details as I'm sure you can figure out where I get these notions.

1. To stop abuse of workers, and industries as a whole I suggest that more people support individually owned and run establishments.
The hope being that personal attachment to an entity and an appreciation for the work that went into it will encourage integrity and indeed reward hard work that individuals and groups of individuals do.

2. In light of the recognition that wasted energy and resources are both an economic and environmental burden, I suggest that people make purcheses with quality, the long run and even carbon footprint (including shipping) in mind, rather than cheapness, convenience.

3. Work is work no matter where it's done and who does it, it should be valued as such. I belive humans inside and outside the United States should be valued equally. On this basis, it's just more practical to support local labor because without taking advantage of the disadvantaged, it's much more expensive to have something manufactured on the other side of the world.

4. The value of work needs to be re-assesed.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_19/b4130040117561.htm?campaign_id=rss_null
People don't lack jobs because they can't find work, it's because they don't want to take the work they can find.
Companies should be willing ot train driven employees and employees should be hard working and driven.

The gut of my opinion is this:
I didn't vote because I don't think policy is what changes the world, or a country.
It's attitude. The attitude of every indidivudal.

Obama has an amazing thing with his hope campaign, but I hope he doesn't think that hope will actually make the economy improve.
Hope is only the first step. Hope can spur change.
However, for a change of course, we need a change in attitude. Attitude towards work, attitude towards life.
A change in attitude about what's actually important.

I think most people don't care enough ideals like equality, and truth. They don't want to know what it takes to have what they have.

I've read alot in the past few days about policies coming out of the Obama administration.
Most people don't speak in terms of policy. Policy=laws=things made for breaking; things there to get in the way of, avoid, or take advantage of.

Policy may be a necessary front, but the real change isn't going to happen because of policy, it's going to happen because of people.
Policy can be made by policitcal machines, changing people is what takes real art.

Frankly, I hope that you can put this in a pile of emails that all say the same thing and you guys listen to this.
CJ

PS:
Obama: "Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over."
Does science not fall under ideology?
An ideaology that evidence is important? That reason works and sense is sensible?
I think looking to science is the result of an ideology, not in any way seperate from.
What is the ideaology the US needs to find it's economic self in the swamps of credit, juggles of morgages and ... well I'm no economist so I can't really finish the analogy, but you get it.

I get stoned and wind up on a bikeride across the city.

2009-04-27T09:42:00.005-06:00

"The President is committed to restoring integrity to science policy, and making decisions on the basis of evidence, rather than ideology."
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/04/obama-at-academ.html
"On March 9th, I signed an executive memorandum with a clear message: Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. Our progress as a nation – and our values as a nation – are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy."
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/04/obama-at-the-ac-2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology

Is taking science for what it's worth giving ideology a back seat?

I think the man's on the right track though.

I realized that China is teaching it's next generation how to 1. cooperate 2. how to follow directions.

This the next generation could either become incredibly efficient citizens (see Japan). Or fit right into a military state.

The number one answer to the question of:
"What did you do XXTIMEXX?"
is:
"I did my homework."
Matched only by:
"I played computer games."

about 95%

There is no life outside of your test scores.

Where is the culture in the new generation?

an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

Copy-Cat pop songs?
Western liturature classics from the 1800's?
The clubing body bounces and rolls as dance?
Is buying and selling culture?
Is KTV and prostitution culture?

Research in Progress...

What can an individual do without culture?
What can a country do without culture?
What purpose, has money, without culture?
Can you think without creating culture?

What remains to be see is how the next generation will fill China's culture void.

2009-01-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

2009-01-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

2009-01-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

Universities.

2008-11-07T00:48:00.002-07:00

My college days were quite interesting. The story truly begins with my graduation from High School. Through much of High School I lived with my parents in a city called Longmont; an hour’s drive away was my school, in Louisville, called Monarch K-12. However, when I graduated I moved out, in with a friend who lived with his parents in Louisville; because all of my friends lived in Louisville or Boulder, a near by city, it made sense to live near them. For the whole summer I just worked as a swim instructor, and skateboarded. My friend and his parents were very gracious, I was allowed to use space, use their internet, and even eat their food, and all for only a small amount of money. However, this idle life was not satisfied. I tried to picture myself living the same life for the rest of my life and thought I would be unhappy. I remembered how much I loved to learn. So I decided to set myself to learning the only way I knew how: school.

My first two semesters were at Front Range Community College in the city of Westminster. Before I started school I moved into a new room I sublet (rented) from a lady who used to be a teacher but was now disabled. I paid $400 a month. The house was in Superior, only five minutes from Louisville and thirty minutes from Westminster. To pay for my living expenses I continued to work as a lifeguard in Broomfield (which is five minutes from Westminster). To pay for my school I took $1,300 in school loans. I only lived with the lady for three months, which was the first semester of school, but they were hectic times for me. I spent a lot of time with my friends in Boulder who were attending the University of Colorado at Boulder. We spent a lot of time on the CU Boulder campus, drinking (alcohol), and meeting people, but we also went to house parties and raves (very large, wild dances).
My second semester I moved back to Longmont to live with my parents because my aunt had offered to let me visit her in Mongolia and to do that I needed to save money. Although living with my parents was challenging because I lived much farther away, it was still cheaper because I did not have to pay rent. During this time I worked much more. I usually woke up at 4 am, then drove an hour to work, worked until 10 or 11 am, then went to school, before returning to work and finally going home. At a Community College you can only get a two year Associates Degree. After getting an Associates Degree most people then transfer to a four year University (like the University of Boulder at Boulder, aka: CU Boulder). While I did very much enjoy the art classes at community college, most of the classes were very easy and quite boring. Because I was becoming more and more interested in Chinese culture and philosophy I decided that when I returned I would study Linguistics at the CU Boulder. That way I could study both Chinese, and Philosophy, because Linguistics combines many disciplines.

When I returned from my three month trip to China and Mongolia I was to begin school at the CU Boulder. (You can find pictures of my trip at http://sainlog.blogspot.com .) For the whole year I was attending the Community College most of my social life had been spent with them on the CU campus, and before I left on my trip I actually lived in my friend’s dorm room for two weeks. So, when I returned from my trip I decided not to live in the dormitories for two reasons: it was too expensive (I didn’t have the money, and didn’t want the waste the money), and because I had already experienced the dorms, and thought the whole thing was silly. Instead I lived with my brother. We shared a room and I rode my motorcycle to work and school for the first two months; but honestly, I only slept and cooked at his house: When I was not at school or work, I was studying in the library or rock climbing at the climbing gym.
After buying a large van from my step-mother, I soon moved out my brother’s house into the city of Boulder. I easily acquired a job at a sandwich shop and began taking yoga classes at Corepower Yoga. Every morning I woke up at 5:30am, went to yoga at 6am, went to class all morning, then went rock climbing or took another yoga class, and finally worked or studied. Because I had eaten so much food in China I had started to exercise a lot. By the end of the half way through the semester I was rock climbing every day for three hours and by the end I was climbing six days a week for two hours, and doing yoga every day. My exercise regimen allowed me quite a diet: I would drink a half gallon of milk with protein shake after yoga and before class ($3). Then I would eat a sandwich from the restaurant I worked at for lunch ($2.50), I would have a small glass of milk with protein shake before rock climbing, and finally I would either eat a large burrito ($10), or another sandwich (this time for free) for dinner. Meanwhile I was taking Chinese 1 (part 1), Introduction to Linguistics, British Literature, and General Psychology.
That first semester at University passed well but I decided that my time spent rock climbing was wasted because I was not actually interested in becoming a professional rock climber. I was more interested in general physical fitness, martial arts and performance. So I dropped my membership at the climbing gym and added a Dance major. That next semester I took three Dance classes, Chinese 1 (part 2), Phonetics, and American Literature; but these classes did not satisfy me, I also enrolled in a class with another University (Naropa University) on prose writing. Throughout this time I continued to do yoga, and dance, but changed my diet. I stopped drinking milk and instead ate copious amounts of yogurt with cereal ($6). For lunch I ate canned fish with rice ($6), and for dinner I either ate a large burrito ($10) or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ($5).
What was ironic about the classes I was in was that I learned so much from them but they ultimately convinced me that to continue taking classes was a waste of time for me. From my classes I learned many things. In Improvisational Dance I saw that creativity is one of the hardest things in the world, but probably the most satisfying. Rhythms and Accompaniment made me realize that almost anything can be learned with committed practice. I also took African dance, which reminded me that I was actually interested in martial arts, not dance. The most important thing I learned from the dance department, though, was that you must be committed to what you are studying if you plan on paying money for your studies. I realized that Universities offer amazing resources but if you are not focused enough to take advantage of them you are not only wasting your money but your time. In writing classes I learned saw the bad side of Academia: my teacher’s favorite author was the philosopher Thoroue, whom he taught but did not believe. Because I was concurrently enrolled in another writing class I found myself wishing that I could write more creatively and less critically in my American Literature class; I also found it discouraging to find so many apathetic classmates. I would hazard (guess) that in the average American University up to half of the students are only at University because their parents want them to be, and so, are not honestly interested in learning. I found that, while I was interested in learning, I was not interested in learning precisely what could be learned in university. First I wanted to learn other things.
So, I decided I should study Chinese by coming to China. I decided to use my Linguistic knowledge and love of teaching to teach the ultimate subject: communication; interaction. It took me a year to finally make it here but in the mean time I also began many new studies: of music, dance, cooking, art and friendship. I also continued to attend some university classes despite not being enrolled (Chinese 2, and Morphology and Syntax). What I have had the most trouble with is cultivating discipline with regard to independent study. Teaching does not make learning: action makes learning, not university study. I came out of the affair with 9 grand in debt and an understanding that I needed to learn how to do what I wanted to do.

你可以看照片在这里：

2008-11-03T03:38:00.002-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30187003&id=1219272250&ref=nf#/album.php?page=1&aid=2010783&id=1219272250

我的秦皇岛之旅

2008-10-16T23:33:00.019-06:00

去过一些天过了太好了。星期一我买了很多东西到我的课一那总是可以满足你。可是更加的我结识了新人。我的自行车链条坏了，之后我在走了我察觉到有一个人的自行车也坏了。我说了一个小话儿有关我们的相同的状况。也我们开始说点儿，我问了他做什么工作，和他问我从哪儿，可是我听不懂了他的答。还有他问了什么事我在做，所以我告诉了他:"在去买东西：一个时钟，一些很大的叶和一些别的东西。” 他告诉了我那他想帮我，因为我想认识人我觉得是好，和让了他跟我去。那过了好，他帮助了我帮得好，以后我回家跟我的新教课日用品。在家我工作一点，入装了，然后去了学校到会李韵以致我们一起在很好吃的阿拉伯条面饭馆到吃饭。吃了吃得好以后我们去到火车站和他帮我上车。我不可以等到我可以自己做东西。
The last few days went quite well. On Monday I bought some stuff for my classes, spending money always satisfies you. But even better, I met a new person. My bike's chain broke, and while I was walking my bike I noticed someone else with a broken bike walking right next to me! I commented on our common situation. We started talking: I asked what he did for work and he asked where I was from; but I didn't understand his reply. Then he asked me what I was on my way to do, so I told him: "I'm going to buy some things: a clock, some big paper, and some other stuff." He told me that he wanted to help me. I acquiesced because, after all, I do like to meet new people. Everything went well, he helped me and afterward I went home with my new supplies. At home I worked a little more，packed my bags, and headed over to the school to meet Amily - a friend and coworker - at the school. She was to show me to the train station, but first I took her to a noodle place: Lan zhou noodles! There are many Muslims in northern china and they have a plethora of fine food establishments, namely these thin, tasty noodles cooked in beef broth. As for the train station: it went off without a hitch, but I can't wait until I'm able to do these things myself - actually I think I could have, but I'm rarely given a chance because of how helpful the Chinese (and my employers, admittedly per the contract) are.

在火车有了很多人我可以用中文跟他们聊天儿。一个更会说英文，因此他帮助了我跟别的人话很多。那们中国人问了我很多问题，可是一个有了我以前答辩过了可是刚发现了一个新回答到，那个问题是了：“中国比美国怎么不同？” 我告诉他了他们我觉得中国人比美国少拘谨；例如我就看了两个人聊天儿而且我没懂何在觉得了他们是很好的朋友，可是他们真的刚认识了！我常常看过了那个现象。我也说了这有听吧：在美国的火车是很轻声，因为平常人不想认识新人和跟新人一起聊天儿。别意思的时候聊天儿我们说了有关蒙古因为我想去过了也想去哪儿，于是一个人察觉一个女孩子高颧骨：我马上说了那我觉得是漂亮。证明为他真的是蒙古的国籍和既会说蒙语又会写蒙文，非凡他也这会说非常好发音的英文。他正在去了秦皇岛的路上重新开始她的研究学。那个晚上我睡觉了太好。

On the train there were many people I could practice my Chinese with. One person even spoke English (with the usual Chinese flavor of dis-fluency :p Actually, he spoke quite well. Many Chinese have fine vocabularies but I would hazard most can only speak three quarters to half of the words they know); anyhow, he helped me speak with the other Chinese, translating questions across that familiar barrier - and boy did they have questions! But there's one that was of particular interest because I had been asked it before but had only just come to realize a new answer: "How is China different than America?" I told them I thought Chinese are less inhibited. I didn't mention the obvious throngs of people who are not afraid to display lack of wealth or the Chinese tendency toward spitting, perhaps I think these things go without saying. I told them how I had just seen two people talking, been unable to understand their conversation, but considered them the best of friends, only to find out (after asking) that they had only just met. This was by no means the first time I had witnessed such an occurrence either: perhaps I'm chancing upon some finer folk, but it defiantly seems to be a pervasive tendency. Consider trains in America: Conversations are constipated. Anyhow, I didn't say it in so many words, for I'm still gimp here; healing from birth defects, so we quickly moved on, and inevitably we came to Mongolia (something that happens whenever you get me talking about anything more than the food and weather). And so, someone pointed out a Mongolian's high cheek bones - to my knee jerk reaction is: beautiful high cheeck bones! Ah! Those rosy cheeks! - and so I said it. Turns out she was beautiful, and spoke magnificent english; but not only that! She spoke and wrote Mongolian as well. That night I slept well.

那其次天早上我起床一点早。平时我五点半起床，但是因为一些人得下车，他们说点儿及做噪音因此我起床了四点半。我联系了打太极经过使形象化的及聊天有关学习语言跟一个男孩子。然后，虽然我开始感觉了一点不好，我觉得我不应该未抓住这几回到更认识那位美丽的蒙古国籍姑娘，所以我问了他有关他的学习因为那永远有意思，因为他的妈妈在一个特别的学校工作又问了他有关他的家和那个中国的教育。就前我们下车我问到他的电话好，我希望了我们可以与一起保持聊络。
The next morning I woke up early: I usually rise blindly out of bed at 5:30am, but this morning I came to slowly and couldn't avoid getting up after 4:30am; compliments of some noisy folk readying to 下车（get off the train). So, I went to the end of the car and practiced taiji (using my imagination: have you heard of the basketball experiment? apparently imagining practicing is the next best thing to physically doing it!), and chatted with a Chinese guy about studying languages. Then, although I was feeling a bit sick (perhaps do to cold, or change of climate, or simple the inevitable), I felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get to know that fair Mongolian lady at least a little more. I asked her about her studies (returning to QinHuangDao to resume her graduate studies), her family (father: translator and mother:teacher), and attempted the intricacies of the Chinese school system (I wonder how I will ever begin to understand it.) We parted after getting off the train: with her number in my pocket; not a novel thing since everybody under 30 wants to give their contact info to a foreigner.

以后我下车Nico开会我然后我们去了一个中国检疫检验局。那个步骤很简单。在这个时时哪儿那个真的玩笑开时。我们去了那个秦皇岛的英孚教育学校，可是以前到一下看一个美术画廊里。然后我认识两个英孚槊售货员姑娘和Simon。我学了一点然额开一点所以问了他们有关我们的吃饭的计划告诉了我：Simon要到我们自己做饭和你跟我们售货员跟一起吃；可是我们得等到十二点。我就找到了：Simon会做太好的饭！我告诉了他可能一改再饭馆工作！以后学习了我想去打太极。所以问了：一个公园在哪儿？他们答了：任命公园里学校附近，可是我得自己找到因为他们得工作。所有我去了也的时候我不一定问了一些人。我看见了一个市集很有意思 – 再有了很多海产食品，面包，香料和别东西。我早找到那个公园然后找到了一个地方到打太极。我就玩了一个人在漫游我的附近里像他想跟我说，所以我自己介绍给他。我问了她在做什么。他答了：在去滑旱冰。我很喜欢滑旱冰所以我显然决定了去。在滑旱冰场我认识很多年经Highschool的岁孩子，和他们教我也我教他们。从他们我学了：摔了。一个孩子问了我如果我觉得中文姑娘是漂亮也要是我想一个中国女朋友。我感觉很高兴那我能了会告诉他什么我觉得；我告诉了他：对，我觉得他们很漂亮！可是，我真的觉得很多人是漂亮。如果我来知道他们和他们是太好的人我平时开觉得他们是漂亮。可是，不是足够那他们是漂亮或者太好的人，我们得有像心像想 – 我们得想做像的东西。我完了好，然后去回来学校，可是看一些人在玩篮球和我想足部建立一点汗。所以问了如果我可以跟他们玩。他们说了好，我玩了一点然后回去学校。
Afterward, a boy Nico picked me up and showed me to the place I came to visit: the government building where they deal with resident permits. They took my picture and I was done. And so the real fun began: On the way back we popped into an art gallery and I saw a beautiful watercolor by an artist from HuHeHaoTe， ZhouBo (周波). I have no idea if I'll ever be able to find more of his art here in Hohot. At the school I met some sales girls and Simon, and set myself to work (reading a book on teaching): which went slowly. I found myself hungry (I sometimes wonder if hunger is a physiological euphemism for boredom, or fear - which I also suspect to be somehow related), so I asked about lunch. I was beyond pleased to discover Simon was planning to cook for us! "But you have to wait until 12, is that ok?" I think I need to learn new ways to express excitement in Chinese. He soon brought out nice dishes of perfectly... words fail me... ricy bowls of rice, a platter of crossectionally sliced pork (whole centimeters of fat between each layer of meat) in a light brown sauce, and three bowls of a very light veggie-eggdrop soup: You don't not know what Chinese food is. I was pleased, and asked Simon if he had ever been a professional cook.
Afterwords, I found myself wanting to practice taiji, so I asked about a park, discovered (not surprisingly there was one) and set out to find it. On my way I found myself a nice market with QinHuangDao's trademark seafood (it squirms and clicks, of course). At the park I found myself a nice plot and satisfied myself. As I finished I noticed a goofy kid walking awkwardly around me. He obviously wanted to talk so I introduced myself and found out he was heading to rollerblade... or skate. In my formative years (6 years old to 11 or 12) I was an avid fruitbooter and so couldn't say no to to an opportunity. I decided, however, to spring for the roller skates because of their retro appeal and my relative inexperience (always looking for a challenge). There were a number of highschool aged youth around, and they didn't hesitate to shout and gawk, and then talk with me. One asked me if I thought Chinese girls were pretty, and if I wanted a girlfriend. I was happy that could express myself; I said, I think they're pretty, but I generally think everyone's pretty, or at least most nice people are. (The truth of the matter is, to me nice people are happy people, happy people don't usually try too hard to look pretty. I generally think ugliness comes from trying too hard and thinking to much rather than just doing.) And, that I don't really want a Chinese girlfriend, I just want a girlfriend, from any country, the catch is that we've got to be the same, not only in heart and mind, but in what we want to do. After all I want to do some pretty unusual things. I'd hate to drag someone along on all that. Anyhow, they also taught me some Chinese, and I give them the name of my favorite band (well... at least one I really, really like), then I headed back to the school. However! On my way I saw some basketball players and felt the need to work up a sweat, so I played a lil' before, this time for real, heading back to the school.

在学校我给了玮罕（我的新朋友从那个火车）打电话和我们去了到老太太笨鸡店。我们跟一起有那个英文说很多。我多屏蔽他说了多，可是我觉得是了好因为我不在乎由于我平时那么兴奋和有太多东西我想做我永不用完东西那我可以有关说。还有我感觉他觉得什么我说有关有意思。可是，我还没再给他打电话，我觉得我很早应该！
At the school I called Susan (my new friend from the train), and we went out to dinner at "Old Missis Stupid's Chicken shop" or maybe... Stupid Old Missus's Chicken Shop, I 'm not really sure. We talked a bunch in English, or rather, I talked a bunch, and I think she was interested so I didn't mind: I'm so excited all the time it's really my pleasure. It went well... but I haven't called her again yet (largely owing to the fact that we are in different cities, though HohHot is her hometown). I will call her eventually. I should call her soon.

无论从什么角度，以后又在学校我跟Grace聊天儿了有关很多东西，再我觉得我又做了最多的那说话。我看了一些的“Life of Pie”因为他吻了我：我怎么为学英文？我告诉了他，当然你应该说很多可是你也应该看很多的书跟一个人再说所以你可以听哪个队发音。真的，我觉得中文比英文的翻印更容易因为一旦你可以说好你值得看那个拼音就你可以说好，然而英文总是有别的，不一样的发音也虽然英文用语音的字，真的不是复印的字！你得听那个字或者看那个真的语音的发音以前你可以说好。我现在觉得要是你想学一个语言你还有应该写很多和找到一个人可以编辑它。
In any event, back at the school I chatted with Grace (a sales lady) about many things, and wound up reading "Lie of Pie", because she asked me about how she should study English (the Chinese who can speak any English have studied for 9 years after majoring in English and still don't think they can speak - and most of them can't.) I told her she should read more, especially text she can listen to while she reads. After all, English words have only slightly more correlation to their sound than Chinese words - at least Chinese has pinyin to help us poor gimps. I also told her to write more, especially if she can find someone to edit her writing. I hope I can find someone to edit mine.

最后我找到了自己在不耐烦地等回来；觉得我催促了Simon一些因为饿我问他的时候要去一些次也以后我们只在火车站等了代替在别的地方。最后我走了火车到呼和浩特我学了很多和没有问题之外那平时的中古男人哪像我们的外国人跟他们喝酒。
Finally I found myself impatiently waiting to return home. I think I annoyed Simon by asking when we will go 3 or 4 too many times, but I did eventually find myself waiting at the train station (I suppose it didn't matter how much I asked when, I was still going to wait). I made it back with no problems but the usual Chinese men, always trying to get the 外国人 to drink with them. I did drink a little with them, and I should have, they helped me write a fair portion of this. When I returned I was sick. Now I am better.

从圣佛朗西斯科到北京！

2008-10-15T23:54:00.004-06:00

过去几天里，时间要比平时常多，因为开始了用中国时钟和我过去在了旅行。由于有时差的问题。第一天的我的旅行，我等到很晚才睡觉，是美国时间早上七点可是我睡觉的并不好，因为我的老爷人在早上制造了很大的噪音。所以十一点钟我就起床，在完了把我的书装入行李里。然后两点我们开了车到火车站。我乘坐的火车花了六个小时，再我转了三次才到飞机场。因为我得了转那么多和在第一的火车认识一些中国人我没能睡觉点儿，但还那整个事花费我只三十美国块钱 – 也我不管怎样在火车多半不能过了睡觉。
那个早上我接了一个日本人，他是一个建筑师也很亲切。来到美国因为他赢了一个建筑的比赛。我们一早从左右四点到九点的时候我们可以登机聊天儿了和跟一起去到我们的飞机人口。
最后我上飞机幸好了我没有难题跟我的行李；我觉了的我可能因为我有了我的班卓琴那是很大，而且还只能睡觉一些不好的小时。但是我不应该埋怨因为我吃得很好和认识了一个友好的印度医生。我到了北京，一个女孩儿名字叫Lisa叫我起床了坐公共汽车到秦皇岛所以一个医生可以给我做检查。那个中国的医学检查不步骤简单。
后来做一个大巴回到北京在大巴上我和一个二十二岁的中国男孩子有感电影的话题。然后做那个飞机到呼和浩特在认识了两个我的新同事。

Too Much Napping

2006-07-09T02:56:00.000-06:00

So one day me and my lil' bro Matty get home. There's no way I'd ever let him drive my car but he really wants to drive someone's car, so he does. A nice black VW get reversed full speed up two l0ng flights of concrete townhome steps and onto some partments porch.
How does a car fit on an townhome complex's porche? Much less get driven backwards up two long flights of concrete steps by an un-licensed little brother? I'm dreaming.
But reguardless, he gets out and the car just hardly slips off the edge of the porche and the dangerously shotty handrailing that ever housing complex has mangles the front left door panel/wheel well. Matty walks over with a bit of a smile.
"Holy shit Matt. That was pretty amazingly uneccissary! WTF?"
*Unknown dialogue*
There are stirrings of a front door only seconds later. I dart behind a pillar to make sure my brother is the first one seen. Astounded Guy walks out and finds his car in his driveway. He walks around the thing and findd Matt's back strutting down the walk. "Um... How did this happen?!?" He asks, obviously perplexed. I hop out from behind the pillar in the hopes of facilitating any needed damage control. But alas, I'm must have gotten distracted or something here because the world sorta goes to hell.
Matt talks himself back into the car (because the guy doesn't want to drive it down all the steps?!?) His front door sorta turns into a garage door and and like... disappeares; now you can back the car off the sidewalk and it's in a parking spot, as Matt now does full speed. He flys into a coldesack and turns 90*. Now, by some gymnasic feat of drousy logic Nathan is now with me. Maybe he lives with me in this townhome dreamworld, maybe next door with the numerous chubby rocklovers dancing at this very moment in the slushy colde-sac, or maybe we were meeting at my place all along, but now Nathan leaves me with the Calmly astounded Guy. Before we know it Nathan has jumped onto the rack of the black Jetta and Matty is doing backwards doughnuts in the colde-sac. At this point I don't really know what to do for the guy other than offer him some sort of an explination of their persona. 19 and 16 I say, as if that explains it...
Matt speeds off into the city streets with Nathan clinging (for dear life?) onto the car rack.

I can only guess at the psychological pressures that would produce such a freak sotry. Anyhow, the real question is who the fuck doesn't get pissed when some random unlicensed 16 year old some how manages to get his key, damn near destroy his car and then joyride it. Apparently this Calmly Astounded Dude is in my head; I'll have to get to know him better.

2006-06-20T08:07:00.001-06:00

2006-06-10T17:56:00.000-06:00

We spent nearly a week in UB before we headed out for Bayan-Olgii. On the recommendation of a US grad student visiting his home here in Mongolia (and for lack of much else to do) we went to check out the clubs. Since we don't have a car we obviously have to walk everywhere. Along the way you always find at least two or three uncovered manholes scattered around the streets and sidewalks. Crossing the street can be quite dangerous as there are rarely and stoplights, most people pay no attention to the crosswalk law and the nicest most will do if they're about to hit you is swerve - you will get a few that will slow down for you but most do expect you to watch for them. The country is quite poor. Though you might not guess it from a lineup of the exceedingly fashionable people the standard of living is low and there are a fair number of homeless. Our first encounter was with a guy who tried to pass some story about his ger being burned which he accompanied with a startling preformance of despair (I wish I could have taken a picture of his face - maybe I'll try to find him and pay him for a photo.) Aside from him there are lots of children and my aunt explained about one family with a few children. The oldest is perhaps 15 though he's about the hight of a ten or eleven year old because of malnutrition. Apparently though aid groups have tried to help the family who's mother and father are alcoholics. For instance, they bought them a ger which was burned for firewood. And so the family sleeps in an abandoned Soviet build apartment building (most people live in occupied Soviet built apartment buildings). Lastly there are the police and prostitutes. The police are quite intimidating - and not in the way US police may be. These police look like rogue police. They are in black and wear baggy-ish pants and cargo boots. I can't tell what their relation is with the hoes but when walking back late from clubs you'll invariably see both - often within blogs of each other. The prostitutes start to show around 9-10pm when the sun starts to go down and their soliciting increases quickly according to the hour of the night and even faster in the morning hours. They all know basic english like: "Hello, how are you?" and "Night, Night". I had one even come up and walk arm in arm with me for a few paces. I'll give some pictures of this city sometime before I leave back to China on the 23rd. But no more pictures until I get back from my camping/hotspring/homestay/sandboarding/horseriding/hiking trip on the 15th, I leave later this morning (it's 9:25 on the 11th).

So then, after our first week in UB we went to Bayan-Olgii, which I supplied the map of, to see my aunt Barbara, the Mongolian Kazak population and Sogo's up and coming Kindergarten. We hooked up with Alan Flux, a British born voulenteer designer who was working with the UN in Olgii/Ulaankhus/Sogo, to ride to the airport and out to Olgii. The airport was plain. They did have security but it was all quite haphazard compared to US airports. They charged you 2500 tugrug per kilo of baggage after the first 15 - roughly 2 American dollars. We took a bus out to the smallish propeller plane and settled in for the ~3 hour flight. The food was pretty terrible. Half of the sandwich tasted like sushi and the other half freak mayo. The drinks were normal at least - actually they had fancier juices - like peach and pineapple (plus your regular orange juice). Eventually we arrived and were picked up by my aunt and her friend Kapitan who doubled as our driver most of the trip. The airport was a good ways out of the city and had no plumbing, I think adam took a picture of the toilet. We followed an intertwining field of dirt roads back to the quarter paved city center of Olgii and arrived at the apartment (or flat is you're British) we were lent by another friend of Barbara's. Then we went out for a preliminary tour of the city. There are only a few apartment buildings in the whole city - most people live outside of the city center in adobe houses or Kizigwees (the Kazak ger) with little yards where they dig their toilets and the like (our apartments had a flush toilet, though the water would turn off occasionally). The town has a Soviet built square, five Soviet built schools (named by number), a police station, parks office (seems to be closed), one turkish resturaunt, one mexican resturaunt (that didn't have any of the non-Kazak food afterall), a few kazak resturaunts, one post office, a video store (with rooms to watch, per the custom) a bazar, two or three outdoor pool halls, two dialup internet cafe's and probably fifty little cornerstores. They don't have a trash dump, you just burn your trash in your home or publich dumpsters; the #1 place for dog and cow scavangers. Anyhow the city wasn't so bad. It was kinda nice to walk around the residential districts were you can see family's playing in their yards, kids causing ruckus, and people welding on cars. In this part of town there's also climbing gym that's being built in part by a guy who's training locals in mountaineering and climbing so they can be guides.

Anyhow, that's that and I'll tell about my fun trip to Sogo when I get back.

Beijing to UB

2006-06-10T07:12:00.000-06:00

A big long train ride

2006-06-10T03:46:00.000-06:00

Rewind back to when I was in Tianjin and we leave for Beijing the afternoon before our morning train tickets to UB. Adam, his cousin and I take a taxi to the Tiajin train station where we eat at the chinese fastfood resturaunt pictured below and find a freelance car ride to Beijing (faster than the train because we don't have to wait for it.) We stayed in a hotel for the night and left on the train in the morning.
I had thought the train ride would be over at 2pm the same day but the truth was it was 2pm the NEXT day. But no problem, I had plenty of books and of course you can move around on trains so I was able to exercise a little too. We ate noodle bowls and boiled eggs bought from the train platforms along the way. Around midnight we reached the border were they had to change the wheels on the train so that they could run on the Mongol tracks. Then they kept us up longer with the customs ruckus.
The next day we arrived in UB and were picked up by my uncle Greg. The parking lot was mayhem and the driving just as bad. There are some pictures of the intersection outside my Aunt's house to give you an idea. To be fair it is one of the worst.

I can read the map!

2006-06-06T07:57:00.000-06:00

We have tickets back to Beijing on the 23rd so that means over two more weeks in UB. And so I'm learning Mongolian. Hopefully I'll be able to exchange help w/ English for help w/ Mongolian. There's a 14 year old who's studying English and applying for a US visa that will stay with us for a while and some Mongolian girl whose also studying english gave me her number at a club. So far though I've only began the alphabet (same as Russian ie. cyrillic), a few numbers and directions for a cab. But I've realized (with the help of my aunt) that I was wrong on the map. On the below map I've circled Sogo (C = s the half T = g) and the city on the way to the circled dot is Ulaankhus, and the circled dot is Olgii. You can see the dot is situated one contour line higher than the Sogo river. The dot is the Soviet built school my aunt is helping organize a Kindergarten for. It's ~60 years old. I stayed with a family a couple houses away from it (or a five minute walk).

Where is Olgii?

2006-06-05T07:50:00.000-06:00

Apparently it's hard to find so here we are:
UB (aka Ulaanbaatar) is in the Southish East of Mongolia. Far across to the West snuggled up against Russia and China is the ethnically Kazak Bayan-Olgii.
Here's a map of the province I stole and marked up. I hope I don't get shutdown.

It's in Russian, or Mongolian, or Kazak (see the Cyrillic?) so I can't read it but the circled area should be the capical Olgii, a smaller city Ulaanhuse (mispelled) and a baag (small town) called Sogog. The roads are dirt trails that run through beautiful valleys and rocky hills. I'll get ya'll some pictures soon.

Very Late

2006-05-27T01:04:00.000-06:00

Pictures from China. You can check the titles for more information.

And a picture of my room two years ago for good measure.

2006-05-25T22:15:00.001-06:00

We were stuck in the airport for a few hours. Later we found out that the number Adam’s parents had given us for his cousin was wrongL Luckily we were able to contact his grandparents to help us out. So we sat with next to our bags and some Chinese people on a row of those black and silver airport chairs. A big group of African people came around and met a few Chinese people with some little flags with some logo on it. With the group were two pageant participants with those big sashes. All the Chinese people sorta started as they walked by till their heads didn’t turn comfortably anymore. Some even stopped and one even wanted a picture with one of the pageant ladies. I don’t see how they could have known who they were but who knows. There was a facilities lady who was supposed to put the luggage carts away and probably clean messes that got a kick out of watching them while she was putting carts away and from her post by the wall. The air outside was supa-thick and the sky was a solid murky white.

His cousin and uncle finally came and we drove for a few hours to get to Tianjin. It took forever to get out of Beijing. The freeway was a lot like in the US but there were very few SUV’s and no Semis; instead they had almost military looking trucks with tarps over them or heavy duty storage boxes. The fronts of the trucks had a vertical windshield and the engine was under/behind the driver. There was a lot of construction in Tianjin. It was night now but I could see some people working on the road when we were detoured through metal walled corridors. The intersections were huge and seemed pretty unsafe. Actually most of the driving seemed pretty unsafe. There was much less regard for lines on the road and everyone loved to honk for all sorts of warnings or urgings. Late I figured out that the intersections are so big because they have extra lanes on most of the larger roads (not freeways or super small roads) were people ride their bikes. On the smaller roads there are less cars and more bikers. Eventually we got to their house. We pulled into a little gateway (with no gate) and up a narrow alley lined with cars, snuck between a pole and a car underneath some pipes and parked farther down next to the curb surrounded by apartment buildings. They lived on the fourth floor of a concrete building with a compact indoor stairwell that had doors on two sides at the top of every flight.

His aunt had prepared some dumpling-ish things and some veggies which were in bowls on the round collapsible table. There was also sea weed noodles and moist peanuts in their shells and dry peanuts out of their shells and we had some water. The dumpling things were really good. And yes, we ate with chopsticks.

In the morning before his cousin went off to work we walked out around the corner and down the street to the little morning market. At the first corner there was an old man watering his plants inside his locked gate. He had a little pond with fish and some craggly rocks w/ a little fake fisherman and some other decorations. Lots of bamboo, and a host of plants I know nothing about. All down the apartment building there were little gardens that grew up the fence or on little dried bamboo frames with string keeping it together or pots of plants. Then we got to some shops and eventually to people selling clothes and fish (which flopped) next to crabs (whose legs went and went like a crabs legs would if it was stuck on it’s back), and long fish that were shaped more like an eel than a fish (but were defiantly slivery fish) and lots of veggies and some fruit. And there was on with neat plants like cactus and flowers and a bonsai tree and nick nacks. And carts that sold you food they were making right there. There was one that made an egg tortilla by putting some egg-mix down and emtepying an egg onto the big circular grill that had coals under it and he pushed the egg around in circles until it was cooked then he put a bunch of stuff inside it with some brown sauce and folded it up. There was a place that cooked an egg in a little bread pattie and then folded it around some meat and spicy sauce and green veggies. And one that cooked meat on skewers and put it with some sauce and veggies. The first day we ate in a restaurant that had some spicey tofu soup. We used their metal spoon and the bowl was covered in plastic (with the soup in the plastic in the bowl) and the spoon cut the super soft tofu which floated around in the soup really easily. There were a few little green things. We had some dumplingies again but the filling was differing. And we had some little bread things with stuff inside the spurted out and got the dish of soy sauce all oily. They were a little too big to eat in one bite and might burn you if you did so I dripped a lot. Sometimes I could do it without dripping but I couldn’t decide if it was worth eating it with such tact or not. They were pretty tasty. Another day we had some soy soup that tasted like oatmeal but was just solid white stuff. It was real good. I could probably drink it every morning. One thing that sucked was that there was no milk. Only powdered milk. WTF! Nasty powdered milk. It may have been were I was staying though, it was poor. Maybe they have milk in other places.

I went for a run some of the mornings. The air was always thick and always smelled like whatever crazy mix of smells happened to be in that area (it changed every twenty feet or so but there was always some sort of smell going on. Sometimes nasty, sometimes not so much. Rarely did it smell good though. The kids all went to school early in the morning in their green and white jumpsuite type uniforms. Most of them rode bikes to school. A lot of the people looked at me when I ran by and for the most part I looked at them for lack of anything else to do. It was sorta weird and rarely did they smile. Maybe my smile was bad or maybe they were just too confused, I have no idea. Usually I ran around this block with a big war memorial on it (and a big round thing like the Epcot center but smaller) and some concerete apartment buildings and some shops on it. It was a really, really big block. There were also two parks on this block, one for the war memorial that had weird scraggly rocks that looked like they might have been made by shrapnel or something (I have no idea) but was mostly just grass with some trees (it did have a little playground and some weird stone arches with a path around it) and one that had lots of shrubs and was much smaller and had tile walkways and some steps with a little messed up picture made out of tiles (what are those called again… maybe it starts with an m?). Anyhow I ran around that block along the street which had a wall with ships and planes behind it and a wall with garbage heaping out of the little dirt roads coming out of it. Then up a little slope and over and down a big rock slope and along a path next to a stinky, mossy river with people fishing and little gardens. One time there was a guy in a wild purple jump suite that said “Hi” really loud as he ran by barefoot swinging his arms in big slow circles all the while. I said “Hey” back. He had to be some sort of Kung Fu master modern-hermit man or something. Then I ran back down the other side of the block through the second garden. Sometimes I went along the street and sometimes I cut into the block and took some little brick alleys. The military guys always smiled at me and pointed me out to their buddy. There weren’t very many or anything though. Just a couple.

For dinner we went out with Adam’s cousin’s ex-girlfriend. His cousin always asked Adam what stuff was in English, like “ex-girlfriend”. We went to a place were they put this big round thing on your table and boiled water w/ a coal and you cooked your raw meat and fish and veggies and noodles and tripe in it. The fish was ground up and packed into little frozen balls. I managed to do the impossible and pick one up with chopsticks out of the boiling water, put it into my bowl and then eat it. I got good enough that I could do it after having three big beers (pretty high alcohol content too). I was pretty drunk. But the trick is to get he chopstick wide enough on your fingers that when put it around the white slippery fishball they are parallel (not slanted so the ball slips away from your hand). Besides that you need an strong fingers and the chopsticks gotta be on perfectly opposite ends of the ball. When we left we went to a club and I had to pee soooo bad. Then we played some drining game with Carona. You each had five dice and you roll them in a cup and look at them (but don’t show them) and you guess how many of X number you have between the two of you. You always have to go up on the number of X number and when you think it’s impossible there’s that many or more you say “Ta” or “BS” and count how many of the X number dice there are. If there’s that number or more you drink. One’s are wild. We played in Chinese. Yi (yee), er (aer), san, si (Suu), wu, liu (li-o), qi (kinda like chi but not), ba, jiu (ji-o), shi (shiu ...sorta). Chinese uses tones and not only do I not know how to type them but I’m not real good at them yet. That’s sorta how you count to ten though but you’ll probably look stupid if you try from that. I probably sound stupid counting to ten in Chinese. Another time we went to dinner and got meat skewers that we cooked and seasoned on our own little box w/ coals. It was very tasty but the bathroom at the place was a hole in the ground. Like PVC poking out of the tile. Pretty terrible. Then we went to an internet café. People were playing some dance game and Dioabl II and Warcraft III and WoW. It was Windows XP in Chinese. We played some counterstrike. There was some good lookin Chinese chick doing her homework too. God I wish I spoke Chinese.

Anyhow, now I’m in a Mongolian Internet Café. People honk even more here but that’s because there’s always traffic jams or people walking across the street. There’s probably like ten stoplights in the whole of Ulanbataar.

PS. WILL ADD PICTURES TOMMOROW.

2006-04-25T11:38:00.000-06:00

Something Worth Doing

Am I an artist? Can I make myself an artist? Do I have what it takes? These questions may appear absurd, but I don’t doubt that they are asked often. Many suppose that artists are divinely “struck” by inspiration and mystically “spoken” to by the muse. You may ask: How can you hope to (dare to?) create these apparently divine effects? The idea that artists depend on their suffering to produce is well known. Why would you hope to be a troubled being? Some might say that if I have to ask if I’m an artist, then the answer is already apparent: I’m not an artist. Actually I think those who object are at least partly correct: one cannot exactly manufacture their inspiration, should not revel in their suffering and cannot hope to be when they doubt what they are. In investigating creative drives, processes and people I found that creativity at its best is how you discover who you are and alleviate the suffering that’s always a part of life.
Much of the confusion about creativity stems from misunderstanding. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a significant voice in the field of psychology and professor at the University of Chicago, makes a helpful distinction between three different levels of creativity in people. Csikszentmihalyi calls strictly intelligent or brilliant people, who may interesting and stimulating to be around but do not make super-fancy creative works, simply brilliant. People who approach the world in novel and original ways and who make important personal discoveries are personally creative. These people may also be considered brilliant but, in a sense, they just take it to the next level. They are the types of people who make great discoveries, though not all get recognized for them. The final disambiguation of creativity sets aside those personally creative people who do get recognized for their discoveries. These people are people who do and “have what it takes” to go down in history as creative people. These people who have changed the way a culture thinks are creative in the broadest sense. Dean Simonton, another researcher of creativity makes a similar distinction between a creative genius and your run of the mill genius with an IQ over 140. His creative genius’ are the people who become famous for their art and ideas. In this essay we will explore the drives, mind and basis of creative people.
Csikszentmihalyi explains creativity in terms of a domain, field and person. The domain is the symbolic system of rules and procedures that the person learns to express their ideas through. Examples are: math, writing, painting, and just about any other hobby or intellectual pursuit you could think of. The field is composed of the “gatekeepers” of the domain or the people who understand the symbols of the domain and are able to evaluate the domain’s ideas. An example would be the field of neuroscience, which is the group of scientists who understand our modern interpretation of the brain. Some might even say that parenting is a creative domain in which the field is other parents and even the children themselves. In order for a person to be successfully creative (as opposed to just weird and new) a field must recognize the person’s novel idea as a legitimate contribution to their domain. To be personally creative they must themselves be a person that contains a field that can filter their own ideas. By internalizing a domain a person gains a better sense of what ideas are novel and worthwhile. Most creative individuals reach this level of domain mastery before putting their ideas out into the real domain’s field.
John Gardner, a famed creative writing teacher and author, explains the intricacies and history of his domain in different terms; but there is no doubt that both interpretations approach the same concept, simply, from different angles. To see the congruity we’ve only got to see the domain of writing in terms of Csikszentmihalyi’s vocabulary. In fiction writing the field is the audience, which is a mish-mash of various writers, critics and casual readers, during the writing the field is the writer. The person is of course the writer him or her self. In Gardner’s first section, Notes on Literary-Aesthetic Theory, he explains Aesthetic Law and Artistic Mystery (also the title of the first chapter) of writing. The whole chapter stresses a balance between doing your own thing and following the rules of the domain, or adhering to Aesthetic Law. The truth about Aesthetic Law, Gardner explains, is that for the great writer his unique Artistic Mastery is his Aestheic Law. The writer uses his own law and is still accepted by the field will likely turn out a great artist and Creative person. Gardner explains the cause of creative atrophy: “When one begins to be persuaded that certain things must never be done in fiction and certain other things must always be done, one has entered the first stage of aesthetic arthritis” (3). In other words, when you start to confine yourself to a certain formula you reduce yourself to imitation fiction – writing devoid of creativity. He is also critical of formulaic writing that produces publishable, but not real fiction. As much as Gardner advocates doing your own thing, he does implore that a writer get a writing education if he wishes to be a great writer:
If one studies the work of the self educated … what one notices at once is the spottiness and therefore awkwardness of their knowledge. One forgives the fault, but the fact remains that it distracts and makes the work less than it might have been. One finds, for instance, naively excited and lengthy discussions of ideas that are commonplace or have been long discredited… (12)
An example of the necessity of education and creative rule breaking in writing can be found in Gardner’s second chapter which impresses the importance of creating a convincing and continuous “dream world” in your fiction. He explains that the idea of all fiction is that the audience becomes absorbed in your fiction; in your “dream world”. But he also notes the existence of metafiction which breaks even this most basic rule of fiction and is still considered good, creative fiction. The last chapter in this section, “Metafiction, Deconstruction, and Jazzing Around”, explains that the idea behind metafiction is to making you aware of how a story’s telling effects your impression. The importance of Artistic Mastery is seen in this example. After all, without a good understanding of writing’s dream world and the techniques used to create, maintain and change it, one would be hard pressed to create effective metafiction. Gardner’s perspective on creative writing blends smoothly with Csikszentmihalyi’s domain/field/person interpretation of creativity.
Psychologist Dean Keith Simonton gives a statistical and instantiative analysis of the creative works of people throughout their lives that also jives with Csikszentmihalyi and Gardner’s interpretations. What he found when analyzing the output of eminent geniuses (i.e. individual recognized for creative successes) is that their careers followed similar output patterns according to the number of years spent in their domain. Their peak successful output was barely under twenty years into their career, and it declined thereafter. If we consider the progression of what Gardner would call artistic mastery, it would make sense that output that breaks the rules would become rarer as the rules of a domain become more ingrained and internalized in the persons’ mind through practice and experience. So here we have a statistical reformulation of Gardner’s theory of aesthetic arthritis. As the rules become harder to escape, so does creativity become harder to achieve. Of course, it should be realized that Simonton’s statistical finding was an average of many careers and that exceptions do exist, this does not discredit the interpretation. Csikszentmihalyi also cites a similar example of creative atrophy. He tells of the many universities have physicists and mathematicians who everyone knows are past their creative prime – though they are often great teachers because of their profluence in their domain.
But that’s not all: Alice Flaherty, a neurologist and writer, begins her investigation of creativity with an exploration of a disease characterized by compulsive writing called hypergraphia. She notes that not all hypergraphics are good writers, while there are a number of good writers both famous and unheard that are hypergraphic. The difference is their sense of aesthetic, which comes from understanding the domain of writing and poetry. Every expert in the field of creativity would agree that without knowing the rules of your domain, you cannot be creative. Gardner likens creativity to taking the ideas of old and forging them into the ideas of the new. This is the mark of a creative idea. It takes the old and makes it new, better, and novel.
One would expect breaking the rules to be easy, but still, people struggle with being creative. In truth it is not as simple as I have made it sound. An artist must break the rules in a way that improves the idea. In asking if I have what it takes I’ve got to know what it takes. All three research oriented books I read mentioned Edison’s “99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration” assessment of creativity. I don’t think this can be chalked up to coincidence.
We’ll start with the hard part; inspiration. Most of what allows a person to be creative is their mastery of a domain. All experts agree that, next to dumb luck, a vivid understanding of your domain is paramount to being successfully creative. The reason for this is in how the brain works. In his book on creativity Csikszentmihalyi found that his previously developed concept of flow applied perfectly to his interviewees descriptions of practicing their trade. Flow is defined as an “optimal experience” that includes nine specific elements that were related to him by all of many interviewees. These nine elements are: The existence of clear goals every step of the way, of immediate feedback for one’s actions, of a balance between challenges and skills, when action and awareness become merged, distractions are excluded from consciousness, there is no worry of failure, there is no self-consciousness, the sense of time becomes distorted, and finally the task is autotelic or enjoyable only for the sake of doing it, not for the sake of a reward. These elements are not only what make an activity fun but what allow you to be the most creative. When in the state of flow you are more focused and your brain is more fully engaged. It is having your brain fully engaged that leads to inspiration.
Flaherty, the medical neurologist, and Simonton, the theoretical psychologist have ideas about the origin of inspiration that are vastly different but tantalizingly agreeable. Flaherty presents the idea that the inspiration of creativity comes from the inner voice. She considers the possibility that the inner voice is often misunderstood as the voice of the muse, hallucinations (in schizophrenics), and even the voice of God in the religious. This idea is prefaced with an explanation of the limbic system and metaphor. The idea is that metaphor allows us to tap into our limbic brain through sensual imagery. The closing of her book criticizes science for its cold cortical approach to understanding. Her request is that we realize the “tyranny of the cortical” (227) and come to appreciate our limbic, or instinctive, understanding; in other words, that we engage our whole brain. Simonton presents a theory of cognitive regression in which a person regresses along continuity from entirely logical and conscious thought to a maximum level of completely unconscious thought. First, he explains behavioral experiments in which pigeons try to get food by putting together a sort of puzzle. He notes that they do not switch from repetition of previously learned behaviors to new or combined behaviors but rather proceeds slowly from the known to combinations of the unknown to entirely unknown until something works. He then explains Freud’s theory of primary and secondary thought. Secondary thought is conscious and primary unconscious, much like Flaherty’s limbic (the primitive, unconscious) and cortical (the logical, conscious) distinction. Finally he compares this to human accounts of problem solving such as certain calculus problems that require a student to learn a rule of thumb and eventually get a sense for how to solve the problem; as opposed to elementary arithmetic which employs a strict algorithmic approach. He points out one scientist who would wake up in the middle of the night with his ideas and write them down. Sometimes they were off, sometimes they were surprisingly accurate and resulted in discovery; all from his dreams, or in other words, his subconscious thought. Simonton’s method for producing variation, like “listening” to the unconscious in Freud’s free association, may well be identical to listening to the inner voice or muse as Flaherty presents. Flaherty supposes, man works best, that is to say, he is most creative, when he uses strict scientific and artistic intuitive thought. Indeed, Flaherty even likens the frenzy of inspired work to Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow. This interpretation gives us one trait that may be recognizable in a person who can be creative: it is dictated by a proper balance of cortical and limbic based action.
Perhaps not surprisingly this is just what Csikszentmihalyi found when he interviewed nearly a hundred creative individuals. He found that the creative personality is one of opposites. They are somehow both energetic and restful. They are smart and aware but at times naïve and unaware. They are both playful and disciplined. They alternate between imagining and fantasizing and being rooted strongly in reality. They are often introverted but also manage an important extroversion to share ideas. They are both humble and proud. They defy their gender roles – the males are surprisingly feminine while the females surprisingly masculine – not to say that their sexuality is so but their personality. They are often rebellious and independent but also heavily dependent in that they learn from the past generations and appreciate a domain. They are passionate about their work but also objective and realistic in their appraisal. They also appreciate much enjoyment as well as suffering in their work and life.
“[W]hat is important to keep in mind that these conflicting traits – or any conflicting traits – are usually difficult to find in the same person. Yet without the second pole, new ideas will not be recognized. And without the first, they will not be developed to the point of acceptance. Therefore, the novelty that survives to change a domain is usually the work of someone who can operate at both ends of these polarities – and that is the kind of person we call ‘creative’” (Csikszentmihalyi 76).
One might wonder what causes this sort of confused personality. Csikszentmihalyi and Simonton have some theories. Three out of ten men and two out of ten women in Csikszentmihalyi’s sample had lost their father at a young age. The idea is that the effect of the loss is both liberation, from the parent’s critical eye, and a responsibility to live up to what they parent would have wanted. Simonton also found a high correlation between creativity and early parent loss. But not all creative individuals lost a parent. The other seven of ten men and eight of ten women had another thing in common: generally good parents. So character can be build through positive experience as well. It could also be that, in the same way losing a father forces responsibility and freedom, having a good father figure and loving mother made the child aware of their dual nature – the accepting and the critical, the demanding and the forgiving.
There’s one more twist on this theory of personality. Creative individuals seem to do much better if they have experience with many cultures, or across domains. Aside from noting the open minded ness of creative individuals, Csikszentmihalyi cites the example of Jonas Salk who helped in the development of the flu vaccine by relating information across fields. He also cites the successfully creative use of mathematics in the field of biology which before had been devoid of statistical analysis. Csikszentmihalyi points out George Klien’s “process of connecting seemingly disparate ideas” (281) as a source of creativity and enjoyment. Dean Simonton also connects diverse experiences and understanding to creativity. He describes the creative personality as “[displaying] a wide range of interests, including interests that extend beyond their immediate domain of creative activity” (87). Indeed the poster child of creativity is Leonardo da Vinci who did everything from painting and anatomy to war machines and flying contraptions.
After looking at the many possible sources of inspiration it is clear what the important aspects are. First, you must learn a domain. Weather creativity really is listening to your inner voice or not it does involve using your complex brain function. Learning a domain well is the only way to engage your brain efficiently. Second, you must have the openness to accept your new ideas and the ideas of others as well as the mind to reject them. The last aspect has hardly been addressed but it is what separates the personally creative from the creative; would be artists from the actual artists. That final piece is drive; a reason to work.
Perhaps it’s all a function of the personality Csikszentmihalyi and Simonton outline. The responsibility that comes with losing a father dooms a person to being driven. But it cannot be that for everyone; so what else drives people? Flaherty points out some sure fire sources of motivation: Freud’s use of cocaine defiantly helped stimulate his productivity. And the hypergraphia disease (the compulsion to write) would also be a drive. But disease and drug use can hardly explain the progress in human history. Neither can Csikszentmihalyi flow, which is recognized as a wildly fun activity (after all people risk their lives to experience it).
Dean Simonton offers some theories for creativity that are based on evolutionary needs. One theory originally provided by Geoffrey Miller argues that creativity is an evolutionary advantage. “Proteanism” is “the capacity to be unpredictable when necessary in a given social situation” (Simonton 107). Simonton also presents a theory that the novelty of creative achievements can lead to easier mating. Mihaly Csikzsentmihalyi states a similar theory citing the safety offered by being valued as a creative individual, and a sense of immortality that can be achieved through creative works that go down in history. But those are cake compared to Flaherty’s book which explored, in depth, the drives of writers and general communication. Her idea is that communication is a primal drive of human beings. Along side evidence like the existence of portions of the human brain that are exclusively related to communication and the more obvious indicator that all humans communicate in some way, Flaherty quotes Jane Goodall, a famous primate observer, to support her neurological assertion that communication is driven by emotion. Goodall’s quote explains that the simplest primates cannot communicate without an emotion that coincides with their signal and further, it’s a challenge to suppress their urge to communicate when an emotion is aroused. Ultimately this understanding points to an instinctive urge because emotion is centered in the limbic system, which is the evolutionary precursor to the higher brain function. Flaherty points out that the most unemotional human communication, such as scientific and political writing, takes much practice to master while basic communications such as babies crying is clearly insrinctive. The more broad theory she has for communication is that it is a cry for help. This builds off of her emotional basis and is again supported by primate related evidence:
“In the rhesus monkey room, the head veterinarian could easily tell when a monkey had a headache, because it held its head in its hands. In the squirrel monkey room, he warned me, the animals gave far fewer clues that they were in pain, so the veterinarians had to be careful to avoid under treating them. Squirrel monkeys spend less time in social groups that rhesus monkeys do, so a pain behavior such as holding one’s head tends not to be useful. It is less likely to attract the attention of a concerned tribe member, and more likely to signal to predators the presence of easy prey.”
She also cites personal experience. After an injury she was put up in the hospital and was in severe pain. She couldn’t help but talk to anyone about anything, and she “talked until her jaw hurt” (208). It helped most to talk to someone who she was emotionally attached to and less to others, such as the nurses. When she wasn’t talking the pain would “surge back”. When night came and she couldn’t talk to anyone she would write instead. She said it helped less than talking but still helped. The idea is that the instinct comes from the release of opiates for communication. The release of this pain killing neurotransmitter may well tie into a desire to communicate, weather it relieve suffering or help others. She cites an experiment in which opiates helped quell the need to communicate. So if we take creativity as a form of self expression or communication as many would call it then it helps alleviate a base need for humans, to communicate or get help. If we couple this with the fame that can be garnished from creative success, it makes even more sense. Of course the idea is that this system of desires takes place on a subconscious level so people would rarely recognize it in these terms unless, perhaps, they strove to understand their need. Soren Kierkegaard describes a poet as:
“an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music… And men crowd around the poet and say to him: ‘sing for us soon again’; that is as much to say: ‘May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be so formed as before; for the cries would only frighten us, but the music is delicious’” (Flaherty 208).
There is also evidence to suggest that creativity can help you “find your true self” or something of that nature. Lets be honest, who hasn’t had doubt about their true nature? This is perhaps similar to what Maslow meant by “self actualization” in his Hierarchy of Needs. Flaherty cites more than a few famous writers including Anais Nin and E. M. Foster:
“’The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say,’ wrote Anais Nin, ‘but what we are unable to say.’ And the writer is often not only struggling to say it to others but to herself. To quote E. M. Foster’s well known phrase, ‘how do I know what I think until I see what I say?’” (218).
If satisfying your need for fun, subconscious primal drives, immorality or suppressed personal problems isn’t at the top of your list there’s still reason to be creative; but beware, studies say external rewards actually decrease performance. If you’re still looking for something extra, there’s the obvious case where creative approaches grant success in a domain and if that domain is your job, you get more money. Corporations across the globe are looking for ways to make their companies more productive and effective; in such a market creativity is a commodity. If money isn’t your drive, there’s tons of instantiative evidence to state that creativity can help humanity as a whole, either in new solutions to global warming that focus on corporate economy rather than government restriction or a new a new form of communication like e-mail. Creativity is the key to progress. If helping people is a valid goal your creative release can range from theoretical physics to architecture to office politics.
So I’ll wonder once more, do I have what it takes to be an artist? Do I even want to be an artist? When you consider that creativity can get you fun, food and shelter, give you a place to make a different (the domain), and give yourself the merit of respect ; I wonder what more could be wanted. If creativity, rightly applied, can provide everything you need in life I wonder if creativity is more about finding answers to any and all of life’s questions than it is about success in a domain. If this is the case of course I want to be an artist – what else is there to be? And of course I have what it takes: if anyone is going to be able to use my brain it’ll be me. The question is really: Where do I apply myself? And the answer can only be found by first putting yourself to work.

“I’ve never had a dream in my life ‘cuz a dream is what you ‘wanna do but still haven’t pursued. I knew what I wanted and did it till it was done so I’ve been the dream that I wanted to be since day one” (Aesop Rock “No Regrets”).

Works Cited

"Creativity." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 25 Apr 2006, 07:18 UTC. 25 Apr 2006,
16:01 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Creativity&oldid=50050440>.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and
Invention. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997.

Flaherty, Alice. The Midnight Disease: The drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the
Creative Brain. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. New York: Vintage
books, 1991.

Rock, Aesop. No Regrets. Definitive Jux, 2001.

Simonton, Dean. Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity. New York:
Oxford, 1999.

App essay Rev.2 EDIT 1

2006-03-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

All I ever wanted back when I was in middle school was proof of my brilliant mind, to have some good friends, to be a more ballsy skater, and, in time, to become a master martial artist and future sensei. These were my big worries and my time was spent with them in mind. The big thing with humans is that we always want something, and we always want to get what we want. As long as we think were on our way to getting what we want, we're doing' fine. Everyone learns to cope with their problem of will, or of desire, in different ways. Buddhists practice wanting good stuff but expecting everything, the Taoists practice not wanting anything but what the mysterious Tao will provide, Christians practice wanting good stuff but expecting what God wants, Stoics practice wanting what's practical and expecting what's feasible. Some people don't practice but happen to have good habits and other people are real selfish about their wanting and get all bent out of shape because of selfish expectations. If there's any big question in the world it seems like it's quite simply: What do you want?

In high school all I wanted was to know what I wanted, or to be happy not knowing what I wanted, or to be happy knowing what I wanted without being able to get it. I'm not really sure which, anyways they all put you in the same place; an unhappy one. There were some huge changes from middle school to high school and I was left unable to pursue some of my goals. I was quite miserable at the time. The reasons were complex, there was enough blame for everyone and and it all boiled down to one thing: I was unable do, or get, what I wanted and it sucked. It would seem that what one wills about someone somehow defines their relationship. In love and friendship you wish for the other's safety and fulfillment. In hate you wish that they be thwarted or destroyed. Weather the will is just a figment of our collective imagination or the currency of existence does not matter. The will is the currency of human interaction and it does one well to understand the exchange rates. Respect is all about how much you value someone's will, including your own.

Now all I want is to improve my mind, to find a promising girlfriend, to figure out how to deftly walk on my hands, and, in time, become a master and and sensei of the subject that matters most. It took a long time to pull myself out of the deficit I developed early in high school. By senior year I was stable and once I graduated it was just a matter of looking around. When I moved out of my parents house the summer after I graduated it was, as you might expect, liberating.

2006-02-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

Just the other day I finished the marathon that is Crime and Punishment. I started reading a little more fiction because I felt my brain was lacking an appreciation for it's intuition and creativity. I think I was right. The book is great. Raskolnikov's character is compellingly offcenter. Aspiring to be a great and noble man, even to rival the likes of Napoleon he ruminates the material of such a man. With a skittering theory about those with a right to commit crimes for a just cause - the noble men, as opposed to mundane man - he is left with listless hope that he is a great man who does not hesitate when he must commit in order to succeed in his feats. This theory's contemplation of justice is one of the more intresting. What he says would seem true except he does not offer a way to see if one is one of the nobel few or ignoble million. In truth this is his perdicament. Upon considering his thoery and finding himself in a poor position he begins to wonder if he has what it takes to step over, without hesitation. But that is his very problem, he is wondering if he is of the material. He is searching for proof and he seeks to create it. In his theory a noble man does what is just in the greater scheme, rather than the lesser. There is no other way and he does what must be done in order to follow through with is still to be collosal action. Raskolikov creates, to an exent his situation, and forces himself on the situation of killing, with this realization in his subconcious mind he makes himself pay the price.

And so now in our understanding of what a noble man actually would look like we move to a more modern study of justice. Boondock Saints is movie about two Irish brothers who live in a cold, crappy pad in the slummy mob controlled reaches of New York. Their community is being hassled, if not for them destroyed, by new and old mob influences. The day following a playful barfight with two large Russians who threatened to have the bar shut down they are tommorow targeted by the same two. In the nick of time one brother ushers miraculous strength to tear out a toilet, drop it on one Russians head from the fifth floor of his building and jump onto the back of the other, quickly cleaning the mess and taking his brother to safety. This scene quickly befuddles the local police until the hotshot organized crime detective comes in to do justice.
Still in their bathrobes the two brothers soon waltz into the police station explaining the whole affair and apologizing for their killings (which in truth were in defence, despite their obvious victory). They ask to sleep in a cell to recover and in the middle of the night bother have the same dream in their crappy cell, apparently prompted buy two synchronous drops of weather that strike their faces. The dream includes their remembering a host of sermons and interactions with priests that perfectly explain their situation and what the right path is before they bother have a convulsive waking. It leaves you wondering what could possibly create a pair of twins that apparently sin justly. It must either be a flukish upbringing or devine intervention, perhaps they are hte same. The two continue to organize a mob hit team of two before taking on a third man which bungles up hteir act and the surely pay their price, as does that man - though he seemingly has a purpose in getting the hotshot organized crime detective off their back, even on their side. By the end they are united with their apparently long lost father who used to preform the same sort of just crimes in his day. They kill those who the incompetent law cannot convict but everyone knows does wrong, and what's more, they give them a proper death, in some ways.

So here we have two examples, one of a man forcing his position as one of his ill defined noble few and others taking what falls into their laps and doing what is apparently right.

"It is not a quesiton of how far you need to go, it is a question of weather or not you have the constitution to go as far as is necissary."

This quote, said by the brothers' father ends the film. It's clear that either Raskolikov does not have the constitution, or more likely, he was not doing what was necissary.

2006-02-28T05:39:00.000-07:00

Is all fair in love and war?

2006-02-24T06:54:00.000-07:00

When should anything go? To be fair it would reason that anything goes only when everyone agrees that anything goes... but what if no one can agree? Boxing and Stockbroking are set withing the realms of their rings but what is the stage on which love and war are made? Life is their stage; nature is their stage. Their primal forces have been at work for all of life's long, or short?, existance. You might even say the forces have been at work for all of existance. Can you set them parallel creation and destruction, yin and yang, Good and Evil? Are love and war the complex manifestations of nature's apparent laws and does this justify such a natural set of rules?
I guess it depends on how nice you are. Or perhaps how willing to suffer you are?

2006-02-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine paints a grim portrait of America. He illudes to many hypocracies and subjects the country to a harsh comparison, but in doing so he selectivly presents his evidence. He suggests but does not prove the insanity of guns sold at a bank, implies, without proof, that tradedies would not have happened in other cities. He frames the whole gun issue, if not all of America, with a hateful and extremist mind with selective examples of militia and IRA representatives.

Michael Moore's fallicious, suggestive logic and selectitive evidence makes his movie Bowling for Columbine a deceptive account of America's problems.

Though he suggests far too much and presents a slanted history what he does say explicity is true and there's still a long shot too outright fabrication.

Michale Moore's film Bowling for Columbine presents a weighty arguement for the existance of a fear and gun problem in America. He draws from the American past, bother recent and far as well as the present. He displays the ignorance and irresponsibility of the gun lovers in America and even compares the American situation to that of our somewhat similar Canadian Neighbor. He says nothing entirely untrue and it's quite obvious that the world does have problems.

Though he presents true information he includes many suggestions that may or may not be true and even presses the audience to overlook evidence through crafty presentation.

2006-02-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

Adhom: George W. Bush is a monkey so he should't be president.
Hastey G: Because Woo Suk Hwang's lied all Korean scientists are frauds!!!
Careless Causaul: Iraq harbors terrorists and makes WMDs so they did 9/11 and we should attack them.
Slippery Slope: If we allow people to harvest stem cell's they'll be killing babies in no time!
Faulty Analogies: Parents manufacture WMDs to sell and it's just the same as kids killing other kids w/ guns in cold blood.
Circular Argument: So and so is a good painter so they will make good paintings.

2006-02-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

I thought I was unbias and objective about myself but I've found time and time again that I am swayed far easier by unknown personal forces than I would have imagined. My reasoning can flex according to my mood and what I managed to remember and it's really a sad thing. I suppose I should simply accept this fact about myself but it seems a hard thing to embrace. I bet I can do it. I'm rightly subjective. No surprise, nothing is absolute.

I once thought I understood the state of absolute truth: It exists but cannot be found. But now I must wonder if perhaps no absolute exists seperate and this is why it cannot be found. I think now that no absolute truth exists seperate from the whole, I wonder if I will find I'm wrong.

App Essay EDIT 2

2006-02-14T05:27:00.000-07:00

It seems that no matter your place in society you can count on the importance of one thing; respect. The terms may differ but no matter the time or place it’s value is universal. From the black ghetto’s and cooperate offices to the Bushido of Japan or the Knights of the Middle Ages respect is an important part of the community and is necessary to keep things running with a level of probity. The Colorado Creed is clearly an elucidation of this universal but still somewhat abstruse concept. To have respect for someone is to avoid violating them, to have reconciled your actions with their subtler needs. In order to gain respect from others you must not only respect others but retain respect for yourself in doing so. It’s a tough path to tread. It is a path that neither violates your ideals, nor the ideals of others and it requires the utmost moral integrity. Personal respect requires that you pay attention to the effects of your actions on everyone; including yourself and that you are responsible for them. The Colorado Creed begs you to respect others and hold yourself accountable in your interactions with others all the while harboring a personal interest in the good of the community. In other words the Colorado Creeds asks you not only to respect others but to respect yourself enough to value your contribution to the community. Throughout my entire life I've had a surprising sense of propriety about, though perhaps not always an honest respect for, the ideals and rights of others. However it was not until this last year that I really began to understand the often subtle importance of respect in relationships and my life on the whole.When I was beginning high school four and a half years ago my family was going through some though times. My mom and stepfather had just divorced when my mother was laid off. We went from a seventy thousand dollar salary to unemployment and were forced to live on what little savings she was left with after her savings was lost when her previous employer went under. Because of the income loss we had to move away from my friends, though I was thankfully able to continue at the same school. I had been doing Karate for years at the time and was able to continue it without paying much by teaching younger kids instead. I also mountain biked, bmx'ed and skated often. Drawing was my favorite past time of all but I had a lot of trouble being inspired. The career loss which directly followed the divorce was a huge emotional injury to my mother who was unable to find a stable job for long after the telecommunications industry crashed. Because I had no one to skate or bike with I ended up finding a new hobby of sorts, over clocking computers. This new hobby began to consume all of my time. I spent it on my computer reading forums and it quickly destroyed my sleep patterns but replaced my exercise, and my love for karate soon faded as I was unable to keep up my previous skill. It's hard to pinpoint everything that contributed but I'm sure my failure in karate, drawing and other sports not to mention the decline of my grades were large factors in this downward spiral; my self respect was destroyed. I couldn't see myself being successful at anything worthwhile and I had created a resilient net of excuses around my failures. I don't know how resilient my self image was even before the unfortunate procession but this was the stage from which my recovery was played.Eventually our financial situation changed for the better and my mother's crushed ego was recovering thanks to the support of her new husband. I too had started to make new friends. Fellow geeks from programming and the sleep deprived back row. Now I lived in Longmont and commuted to Louisville everyday for school; it at least guaranteed me a car and kept me as independent as I had already become. I was steadying along side my mother and by senior year I had become very close friends with Nathan, who I had shared four of five classes with. Our friendship, however, was somewhat tainted. I had become friends with Nathan because of his, I supposed, equally (to my own) Herculean, but better expressed intellect. As our friendship progressed I was competitive with him in many areas and it wasn't entirely mutual. Eventually it got to the point were I would find anything I could to throw in his face, and he pretty much took it. Our friendship was rampant with bickering and underlying animosity. No one can say who was smarter and in fact I now think it's not worth saying at all but then I tried at every turn to prove my superiority. In hindsight I can see that it was the same lack of self respect that kept me from continuing karate and being successful at anything else substantial that also led to my pugnacious attitude with Nathan. I felt the need to prove myself, and it eventually became obvious that I was the one who I was trying to convince, not Nathan or anyone else. The exploit never really paid off and I eventually came to realize the situation.The following summer I began to try to straighten myself out. Since I graduated I had decided to take some time off from school before going to college. Despite being accepted to CU I was unsure of weather admissions would rescind my admittance in light of my sub par second semester grades. That worry and the more salient doubt of my ability to commit to school and succeed prompted my decision to take some time off. So I moved out of my house and had a great summer working full time and skateboarding the rest of the time. The new freedom was a great high but it was funny how quickly I realized that I should do something with this freedom. I couldn't even imagine piddling my time away as I was for the rest of life. I always had some sort of an idea of what I wanted to do with my life but before I hadn't the slightest notion of how to start, more to the point I didn’t know that I could start. Now that I had complete control of my own time I realized how easy it really was to find out what I needed to do and to simply get started; I realized just how tangible my goals were. I quickly discovered the merit in a structured, endorsed university education. Without one it would be very hard to get a job and besides, it’d be less work than trying to self-educate myself. In order to gain confidence in my ability to succeed in a structured setting I decided to test out my skills in a cheaper, lower pressure setting. Front Range Community College was a good way to get some cheap credits towards a degree, get some confidence doing it while also easily investigating the details of were I wanted to end up. I entered the classes and assignments with full confidence in my ability and found that in truth buckling down to do assignments wasn’t as hard as I had previously made it. If you have a good reason to do it and you know you can it becomes a very simple task and can even be fun. My first experience living completely on my own helped me realize how much freedom to accomplish I really had. It drastically changed the value of my time and effort and helped me form a coherent and attainable vision of my goals.Throughout my life I’ve had many challenges, as anyone, and from them I have learned that, in order to have success in your goals, have rewarding friendships, and perhaps more broadly be happy with yourself you must respect yourself and you must respect others. Without a belief in the importance of your own opinion and worth of your effort you cannot apply yourself to your maximum and you will not be able to accept others openly either, for fear of what it could mean about you. When you respect yourself you are not afraid to compare others to yourself and more importantly, not afraid to improve yourself if found wanting. Likewise it is important that you respect others as yourself, after all their right to self respect is just as important as yours and their abilities can be equally surprising if you both allow them to be.During the first portion of my senior year in high school I had a phenomenal academic standing because I felt reason to succeed, however the second semester that drive had left me and I was left drifting. Again undecided about what to do and were to go, my grades reflected my lack of interest. Upon graduating and moving out I again found personal reason to commit to a goal, but this time the reason was solidly based within myself, instead of on others. I had discovered just how much I can do if I just focus and assert myself. My new vision is not yet concrete but it is coherent, and more importantly it’s solid because it’s my own and it is contingent only on myself. I plan to major in Linguistics and study Chinese, and will likely double major in Linguistics and Chinese Language and Literature so that I can later teach English, Chinese or both. I am also considering a minor in physics, partly so I could teach physics and partly because of a curiosity over the philosophy involved in quantum physics. Originally my plan was to continue at Front Range for another semester but after more consideration and two semesters here I’ve conquered my doubts about fully committing myself to school and am ready and rearing to begin a more challenging and comprehensive regimen.

2006-02-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

Our culture uses many methods to convince us of things, the most common methods are undoubtedly found in advertisement and often work on fallicious logic like ad populum or appeals to authority and simply false premises, or no premises. In advertisments people are often presented with unsupported appeals that claim it will fix their finanical, health, beauty, family etc problems. One of the most surprising methods of conversion is aesthetics - adds simply looking pretty, or perhaps just pretty convincing can do the trick. Another dismaying sales purport that works wonderously is humor. More rarely people actually use evidence to convince, such would be the case in the science field. Unfortunately the media and corperate worlds do not hold themselfs to the same standards and this can lead to people being convinced of something blatently false.

Intro to Application essay: EDIT 1

2006-02-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

It seems that no matter your place in society you can count on one thing to be important; respect. The methods may differ but weather it’s the past present or, I presume, the future the importance of respect will be universal. From the black ghetto’s to middle class white collar to the bushido of Japan or the Knights of the Middle Ages respect is an important part of the community and is necessary to keep things running smoothly and with a sense of probity. The Colorado Creed seems like a simple elucidation of this universal respect. To have respect for someone is to form your actions around them and their ideals. In order to gain respect from others you must respect them as well as yourself. It’s a fine line to follow. It is a path that violates neither your ideals nor the ideals of others, and it requires the upmost moral integrity. Your actions effects on everyone, including yourself, are important and you hold yourself accountable for them. It’s clear that the respect blah blah

Short Story - EDIT1

2006-02-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

“I always hated putting up tents!” sputtered Kyle as he inspected the fresh scratch in his Gortex coat. Annoyed by the damaged he continued to awkwardly assemble the poly-carbon frame of his new ACS (All-Angle Capture System). Despite his troubles he soon had the dome assembled. He quickly snapped in the camera tracks and mounted the three cameras. As he searched his pocket for the remote he noticed an irregular humming.

As you might expect out of a seasoned nature photographer he quickly had his primary camera ready to shoot. He stepped away from his recently erected apparatus which surrounded a new breed of Arctic Columbine. His eyes found the hummingbird and he positioned himself to shoot.

“Pretty little guy” he thought, admiring the erratic white speckling that decorated the bird's dark coat. It had a bright blue throat.

Wiki-Wiki-Wikipedia article.

2006-02-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

I write an article for wikipedia about the human connectome... yay for wikipedia, right?

The Human Connectome is the name proposed by Olaf Sporns of Indiana University at Bloomington and his team for a map of the human brain's structure. The hope for the project is that it would lend a hand the our understanding of just how the brain works to create the human consciousness. With the well supported theory that consciousness derives from a network across many parts of the brain the need for a model to understand this network becomes obvious should we want to progress our understanding of human thought. The project is currently only a proposition with exploration of the possible methods for data collection, organization and use.

Content:
Possible organization scheme
Possible scales
Application

The proposition of Sporns and his team is to create a dataset which has two primary groupings of information; neural elements and neural connections. The neural elements portion would contain primarily location references and weather there is a connection between neurons and the neural connections portion would contain information about connections.

The name is a play on the billion dollar project to map the human genome. The human brain is a vastly complicated structure with roughly 1011 neurons and perhaps more than 1014 possible connections, when you note that the brain works in four dimensions (three spacial and one time) it becomes clear that this project is much larger. It is unlikely that the model would work on the microscale of a single neuron or synapse due simply to the computing power and storage it would require. The scales that could prove more practical are macroscale, generally the scale of the brain regions and pathways and mesoscale, the scale of minicolums and their connection patters.

Luckily the brain's structure above the synaptic scale is similar pan-human and does not change much over time. Within the synaptic scale however, the structure varies greatly per individual and the reasons are both genetic and the result of life experience and development. The precise uses for such a mapping are not yet understood but understanding the precise structure of the brain would undoubtedly prove helpful.

Die airy

2006-01-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

The other day I started writing a diary. For some reason it had become, without warning, a dandy idea. Why I wonder? The suggestion of a friend describing the curious understanding gained when re-reading. My realization that I cannot confirm my conceptions of self discapline. I can hardly recall cogent reasons for my attested moods. My obvious lack of logistical management. The undeniable psychological aid of conceptualization and even internal honesty. My wonder about evaluating my true personal success and developing an honest belief in my abailities to cope with what bothers me. Reading another person's diary entry and his fractured memory of that past. All this catalized quite eloquently in the last few days to create my new embrace of the diary.

2006-01-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Prompt: Think about were you are academically and were you wan to go.
I see myself very advanced academically. I've entertained diverse futures including designing revolutionary schooling cirriculums and starting my own fancy private schools to developing nice new ways of teaching advanced/Quantum physics. I've considered translating ancient chinese philosophy and creating a new langauge that's better in every way than our current one. I've considered scientific research and story writing, teaching in public schools and teaching martial arts.

Prompt: What type of writing and you exect in this area? On your way there?
Pretty much any and all sorts of writing. Philosophical tretises to childerens stories, research papers and emails. I suppose now I should write more. Hopefully I can devise a good way of blogging for myself, get myself to work on story writing and become clever and precise writer.

Prompt: What thing do you NOT know about writing in this place were you're headed?
I don't know the exact formats of the writing possiblities or the publication processes.

Prompt: What's a question we can ask about writing and our path?
Am I prepared?

Prompt: How is writing important?
You gotta be able to write to get your job, communicate your research or suggestions, organize projects, and help people understand. These can be applied to scientists, teachers, translators, and administrators alike.
What skills should I develop in order to be an engaging writer weather I want to be a scientist, teacher, translator, and administrator?

Prompt: Who will I interview for the research?
I'm thinking my highschool physics teacher. He's a cool guy. Good teacher who's been teaching for many years. He'll also be able to tell me what I need to be able to teach physics, which is something I was wondering. I may also need to interview a language teacher but we will see.

2006-01-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest problems I have with blogging is, beyond simply thinking of what to say, wanting to keep saying it once the deed is done. I wonder: Can I regulairily find blogworthy inspiration and devise a system to produce presently, and foreverafter, blogworthy posts?

For the method I think it's easiest to note what's said in compostion no less than once or twice a day:
purpose, audience and genera are important.
Or I can use a method reminiscent of the scientific one:
hypothesis, experiemnt, conclusion: expiriment and correlation. In other words: Figure what I want to say. Figure how I want to say it by saying it lots and lots of times in lots of way. Finally, say it proper like by sorting through my expirimental writing to find were they correlate with eachother and with what I want to say.

Perhaps some blog tips can give me some method inspiration, or places to look for more general inspiration:
http://www.netguide.co.nz/magazine/pulp/79/blog47tips.php

Reading some of the blogs on that website I see that they sometimes pull news or have a gimmicky thing they do. Perhaps I can pull news I read from Wikinews, digg, NewScientist.
Put a futuristic spin on the news articles? Were could they go? Short storeies? Who knows.

2006-01-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

I wonder what I should major in.
Quantum physics has some impressive philosophical ramifications I'd like to explore, plus the field has an appleaing humble scientific nature. The question is weather a major or even minor necissary, much less desireable, in order to explore the field?

Linguistics is a very encompassing subject which promises much language learning (Chinese is assured and greek and latin may follow easily). I feel as if I should know more about exactly what I would want to do in the field and were it can take me carreer wise.

Education is undoubtedly a desire of mine but I hope that I can put it off to a Phd or Masters Degree so that I can be well versed and certified in my career field of choice. Cirriculum Development or Educational Psychology are promising fields. Why just when to start is the big question.

Psychology I have a feeling most of my research in this field can be conducted ad-hoc (?) so no worries here.

Neuro-psychology and Cognative psychology/sciences. It would be a good idea to figure out just how much this field is of intrest, how much it correlates with Linguistics and the Education career uses.

Linguistics and Neuro-psychology/Cognative psychology/Cognative Science BA/MA
Physics Minor
MA/PhD. Cirriculum Development.

Paper Due Tuesday, in hand.

2005-12-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

Daoism is like the best philosophy in the universe: SeigeA’s exploration and negotiation of an Eastern conceptual ‘science’ and Western sciences.

Foreword:

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. - William James

Part I: The best philosophy in the universe.

Section I: Daoism

Since this essay is about the philosophy of Daoism I think you ought to know a little something about it. Daoism is thought to have originated in China during the life of Laozi, around 600BCE. As the story goes Laozi was fed up with the Zhou Dynasty’s practices and decided to leave his job as an archivist for the Imperial library. At the last imperial check point on Laozi’s way into the wilderness an imperial soldier asked him to put his wisdom into writing and so the Dao De Jing was born.

Since Daoism is a Chinese philosophy its texts (obviously) must be translated form Chinese. While this can cause lots of confusion it’s all confusion that can be overcome with proper research and understanding. One ready source of confusion among those unfamiliar with Chinese comes from the Romanized rendering of Chinese words. There are two very common methods of transcription, however one is technically outdated. Pinyin is the officially accepted method and enjoys endorsement form most Chinese speaking countries and Western academic establishments. Unfortunately the older Wade-Giles system is used in many older books and in some even today, especially in translations of Dao De Jing, or as you most likely have seen; Tao Te Ching. To help you see some difference and perhaps integrate your past knowledge here are some common terms in their pinyin then Wade-Giles transcriptions: Laozi/Lao Tzu, Zhuangzi/Chang Tzu, and of course Dao De Jing/Tao Te Ching.

The modern Chinese version of Dao De Jing is derived from traditional as well as archeological Chinese texts. It is also often referred to as Laozi and translated to English as “The Book of the Way”. Exact translations vary greatly from person to person and often employ heavy use of prose to capture the complex meaning of the terse Chinese poetry. Unfortunately prose always loses the original poetic beauty and sometimes overall tone of the writing; though it may or may not improve comprehension this is of course the goal. As you may know the single most important concept in Daoism is that of the Dao. The translation issue rears its head here in particular, though oddly it may be to the benefit of comprehension. Dao means literally road or pathway but is most often rendered “The Way” or just “Way” and in many cases is simply left as Dao. Also in the title the Chinese word de is usually translated “virtue” or “power” but it means literally “proceed” or “climb”; jing means simply “book”. From these words an awkward but perhaps enlightening interpretation of the title Dao de Jing might be “book of the function/method of the way/path”, you can see why it’s usually put more simply: “The Book of the Way”.

Dao De Jing is a vague but profound mixture of statements advising on action, value or meaning, and perspective that conglom into what can be thought of as a description of the Dao and its ways – indeed this fits with the title. You might say it’s an explanation of how to live best but that wouldn’t quite capture its depth. Daoism is generally rebellious toward establishment ideas (or perhaps establishing ideas altogether) and notoriously opposed to Confucianism which emphasizes established social and political functions and methods. Historically the philosophies have competed as well as coexisted within China and the Far East via personal Dao based practice and public practice based in Confucian.

My experience with Taoism is somewhat brief in time but despite that I think is surprisingly comprehensive. I have read three translations of the 81 poetic stanzas that make up that make up the Dao de Jing as well as the texts of Zhuangzi and contextual explanations of both texts. I Ching is often considered a Taoist text but its true association is intensely blurred by thousands of years of Chinese philosophical and cultural development; many philosophies incorporate the I Ching.

Section II: Why Philosophy Matters.

What is philosophy? The answer to that question would often depend on who you ask and how you ask it. For this paper however, philosophy is simply a set of beliefs that a person holds. It’s the premises you, he or me act on every day. Its how we understand the world we live in and it essentially tells us how to act. Everything you believe, no matter how insignificant is a pillar in your philosophy – short or tall, big or small; even if you aren’t aware of them. Everyone’s philosophy has some things in common; from the belief/premise that you won’t float off the face of the earth to our requirement for sleep. Even with those apparent similarities there can be vast differences. Christians believe in God’s creations and atheists don’t even consider a divine creator a possibility. Philosophy extends as far as the human mind can fathom and that’s its only limit. Until you think shooting yourself won’t cause death. It’s obviously bound by our experiences in the real world as well; our experiences define the sane mind’s playground. They define how we experience. People believe in god because of miracles they’ve witnessed or reject him on the lack of those miraculous proofs. Your philosophy is what you believe and consequently decides how you act.

Weather you know it or not every one of us is a philosopher in their own right. You may not publish papers or debate with friends; you might not even know how to speak a language; anyone and everyone who thinks is in truth a philosopher. Thought; decisions; comparing, contrasting, searching and discovering are all the realm of philosophy. Of course some philosophers surely raise it to a higher form. The classic philosopher’s stereotype is lost in thought and their search of ultimate truth; doubting everything from free ice cream to their very existence and yet remaining sure of the merit in their pursuit. This paper is designed to explore the elusive concept of philosophy, its goals and its methods; all with very specific relation to Taoism and a various Western ideas.

So what makes a philosophy the best; what’s the point of philosophy? That depends on your philosophy. But if it depends on your philosophy how are you going to say what the best philosophy is? I’m not. Before we go any further let me explain the intent of this essay. “Taoism is like the best philosophy in the world.” I’m no valley girl – when I say like I mean like or; similar to. “Taoism is similar to the best philosophy in the world.” My idea being, since we can’t decide on what the best philosophy in the world is, we can at least agree on what the best philosophy in the world would accomplish for a human being since that quality (the quality of being a human being) is likely the only thing we all have in common.

So what do you think the best philosophy in the world would accomplish for a human being? I think the best philosophy in the world would accomplish one simple thing: Enduring happiness. That’s it. That’s all. Of course this could (but may not) entail any number of functions, personal beliefs and consequent actions. Some common concepts that plan to address are a philosophy’s ability to function in a situation without any sort of other philosophical homogeny (read: you don’t need a utopian/perfect world were everyone acts the same for this to work), a sort of moral system, a agreeable understanding of death, and perhaps most important for someone were philosophy is of interest; epistemological accuracy (read: that the philosophy is true).

Can we agree that this is a worthwhile goal? In the ensuing paper I will bend your beliefs to my own mold using my comprehensive and definitive logical skills!!!! Mwahahah. Jk. I’ll just convince you that following the philosophy of Taoism can give you enduring happiness because of its practical, psychological and epistemological implications and that in that respect it is like the best philosophy on the planet. :

Part II: Philosophy

Section I: How a philosophy provides Enduring Happiness.

While it may be true that the measure of happiness can be found in the direct and immediate physiological effects of an activity or belief it’s important to remember our goal of Enduring Happiness. Immediate effects cannot be the only (and may in fact not even be a factor) in such a goal. With this is mind I think it’s quite obvious that a person’s goal of Enduring Happiness has requisites in two main areas of their life: the body and the mind. Psychological and physiological requirements must be fulfilled in order for each to support each other and ultimately to support a human being’s Enduring Happiness. The definitions of both mental health and physical health are very conditional and at first glance may not seem helpful at all:

Physical health is the ability to cope with everyday activities. Less broadly this could be explained as the ability to cope with any physical activity that is integral to a person’s life. Physical health is tied to being free from physical illnesses.

Mental health is defined as a state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life. This can also be explained as a person’s ability to cope with any mental activity that is integral to their life. It too is tied to being free form mental illness, or in other words retaining sanity.

Fortunately, with a little thought we can see that they actually help us understand our goal of Enduring Happiness very well. Let’s look at one other important term:

Clinically depression is a psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, anhedonia, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death. It is also understood outside of psychiatry as a reduction in activity or force and in common understanding it is the condition of feeling sad or despondent. It’s a synonym for sadness.

As you can probably see, Enduring Depression would be the antithesis of our goal.

To be considered Clinical Depression a depression must be long term and recurring. When this is the case it is considered a mental illness because it detracts from mental health, or in other words it detracts from a person’s ability to function in society and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life. Regular depressions are much less detrimental but like their more sever sibling do in fact detract from a person’s function, or mental health. This relation brings into light the similar relation of physical health/illness and gives us a very good method to measure a philosophy’s effectiveness at granting Enduring Happiness aside from direct and immediate physiological effects (like those of sex and many drugs which often detract from ultimate happiness because of their masking of a person’s true health needs). That understood you should agree that the way a philosophy provides E.H. is through providing both mental and physical health. This is the measure of a philosophy.

With this in mind we can restate the requirements of a philosophy that provides E.H so that they lend themselves better to philosophical discussion. I think it’s most manageably stated in two connected aspects of a person’s action: True Premise and Effective Method. A True Premise is a true basis for decision making; it’s what you use to decide what to do. An Effective Method is how you do what you decided using your True Premise. You might notice that the two are inter-dependent. Your premises include your abilities or your methods, and your methods depend equally on your premises. It may be that Effective Method is a redundancy since you could deduce the Effective Method from True Premises but I’m including this second aspect to make myself more clear (if redundant) by allowing easy emphasis of the two mental and physical aspects of Enduring Happiness. Also, most philosophies themselves go through some of the extrapolation steps to help in understanding and adoption so this is also consistent with the common method of philosophies (including Taoism). It should be realized that thought philosophies do make some aspects of their True Premise and Effective Method explicit, they also leave a lot to be implied, and both the explicit and implied are the topic of this essay. By now I hope that you understand that in order to be conducive to physical and mental health and further to Enduring Happiness, a philosophy must provide True Premises and Effective Methods for any necessary action. In other words it must accurately explain what to do and how to do it. Without further adieu…

Section II: How Taoism provides Enduring Happiness or The Main Topic of This Essay.

From here on out the main focus will be explaining why and how Taoism provides True Premise and Effective Method. Since Taoism is above all a philosophy I will address the philosophical support of my claim before continuing to the scientific, psychological and predominantly practical reasons for Taoism’s great function. Philosophy is derived from the Greek root phil- which you may know translations to having love/affinity for, and -soph which translates to wise or wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to discern what is true, right, or lasting. As this might suggest philosophy deals heavily with knowledge and existence or Epistemology and Ontology. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity and Ontology is the more broad study of existence.

I think one of Taoism’s greatest strengths is its plain stance on Truth and existence. The first stanza of Dao De Jing, and probably the most quoted section of the whole book is this:

“The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The nameless is the beginning of all existence

The named is the mother of the Ten Thousand Things

….”

-Brian Walker translation

This opening statement is a very clear statement of Taoism’s Epistemological position. It says quite plainly that the Tao, or The Way of Things cannot be expressed through words or concepts. It goes on to hint at the ontological stance which is that of dialectical monism. This idea is further detailed in stanza 42:

“The number one of the [Dao] was born.

A duad from this monad formed.

The duad next a triad made;

The triad bred the myriad,

Each holding yang

And held by yin,

Whose powers’ balanced interaction

Brings all Ten Thousand to fruition.

….”

-Moss Roberts translation

This is a somewhat complex translation but it pinpoints the Dao’s dialectically monist stance by incorporating the dualism of yin and yang, and the oneness or completeness of the Dao, from which all things came. With this clear insight you should also be able to see the reference in the first passage; “the nameless is the beginning of all existence; the named is the mother of the Ten Thousand Things.” The Ten Thousand Things can be are our names for anything and everything, none of which capture the thing’s true nature which is integrated into the single Dao – the metaphorical mother.

How can you get more humble and true than realizing that everything is connected and further, that we cannot capture its completeness with human conception which is, of course, a fraction of the single and complete Dao; one of our recognized Ten Thousand Things?

The opening passage also dubs the Dao eternal. While this may or may not mean imply infinite time (depending on how you think of eternal and of time) it definitely implies that the Dao always exists; independent of change it’s form stays the same, unlike all of its [by contrast] transient parts. This establishes the Dao philosophy – follow, or conform to the Dao (the Way of the Dao; the Way; the Supreme Way)

So, while not entirely definite, the True Premise is not false. If Daoism denies definite Truth what then is the True Premise; the basis for decisions? That everything but the elusive Dao is transient. While the Dao De Jing does not mention will in the Western sense I think relating it will help understanding. It’s similar to saying the will of the Dao transcends all of wills in the end. It’s very important, however, to note why will is not used. Will implies desire and the Dao does not have desire; it just is.

The Effective Method portion is (obviously) derived from this viewpoint. The Dao De Jing counsels many things but they all point towards non-action, or at least minimal action. As Zhuangzi explains the idea Daoist would prefer to lay and do nothing, think nothing and continue to live none the less. Wuwei or non-action and wei wu wei or “action no action”/”doing without doing”. These terms would best be understood as “minimal action” for wuwei and for wei wu wei “doing without consciously acting.” The idea is that you should release yourself to the Dao, or align yourself with the Dao’s way. This is the same as releasing desires and not scheming to have one thing rise to the top, both are advised. “Heaven and earth refuse kin-kindedness; ….; wise rulers too refuse kin-kindedness” (Moss Roberts trans.) advising you not to be sentimental or connected to individual things because, after all everything is transient, except the one Dao. Nearly every stanza alludes to or explicitly states these concepts. The first 20 stanzas are spent explaining the paradoxical and dual nature of the way and describing how a wise man/ruler acts, in tune with the way, to be successful. In the first three pages all of the above concepts are directly covered. The idea being that the way is eternal so sticking to it means you too are eternal. This also says a little something about morality. It advises that you treat everything and everybody equally, without favoritism. When coupled with minimal action and the blatant denial of violence and war in Dao De Jing you can see that the moral issue of Daoism is comprehensive though simple.

There is another aspect of Daoism that is particularly hard to understand were it counsels the rejection of knowledge and refinement. Saying that “too much talk about [the dao] evaporates understanding” (Brian Walker trans.) and advising to empty the mind (also connected to wei wu wei). Even as direct as “refuse the wise and dismiss the intellects” (Moss Roberts trans.) This, however, can be misleading. “Refuse the wise and dismiss the intellects” means do not take their advise and to not follow the dogma of the intellects but, rather, heed the Dao. In a sense it is saying experience for your self and stay with the Dao.

The entire philosophy is based on the Dao or The Way which I think is best understood as an all inclusive term for all of existence; a noun that is transient and includes everything that exists and the function of everything that exists. It’s very similar (if not the same as) what most people think about as the material universe. The Dao is everything that exists in every sense possible. The Dao is Daoism’s True Premise and by understanding the Dao the advised Effective Method can also be understood

Section III: How The Philosophy of Science and Daoism Agree

Or How The Philosophy of Science Supports Daoism’s True Premise.

Science is a system of acquiring knowledge based on empiricism, experimentation, and methodological naturalism aimed at finding out the truth. A very important aspect of science is peer review, or making it easy for everyone to be able to review your findings and ideally, test and experience them themselves. While science’s only goal is truth many methods are adapted from the knowledge it yields.

Despite Daoism’s apparent rejection of knowledge it does advise, and strongly so, experiencing the way. The idea is that only though first hand experience can you understand the way. When you couple this with the understanding that the Dao is in fact all of existence, Science and Daoism are actually surprisingly well aligned they simply have different goals. Science’s goal is to know truth and Daoism’s goal is to conform to the Dao in order to exist best. Their methods are similar in a one important way; they both depend on direct experience. You might see Science as a sacrilege to Daoism because it strives to conceptualize everything, something Daoism holds as impossible and in fact advises against. But I think this is not so because when science is put into action it acts dependent of the scientific knowledge but in tune with the laws of nature which are analogous to the Dao since nature is of course, material existence. Take for example a bridge. Once a bridge is built it is used oblivious to the physics and chemistry put into its eloquent design; only on account science’s understanding of the way could it be built but when used it is used without awareness – doing without doing. Science actually allows for refinement of wuwei (minimal action) and wei wu wei (doing w/o acting). It is simply objective and communicable study of the Dao.

Science’s search for truth is actually less opposite than it may seem as well. Of course Taoism holds that truth cannot be found but science is beginning to agree with this! With the new advances in quantum physics the Theory of Relativity and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal re-define science’s notion of a knowable and determinate universe.

As you can see science supports Daoism’s True Premise and its Effective action because they are in fact exceedingly similar. There are even books relating the two; such as the Tao of Physics.

Part III: Psychology: Analytical Psychology. Psycho Analysis, Buddhist Psychology and the idea of the Self Image

Psychology as we know it today is heavily influenced by Eastern philosophy so in all reality it makes sense that Daoism and Psychology coincide. Here I will talk about a few forms of psychology; the goal of all of them is in one way or another mental health.

Section I: Analytical Psychology and Daoism or Archetypes in Daoism.

Analytical Psychology was developed by Carl Jung, an associate and protégé of Freud in the early twentieth century. The short of the long, Analytical Psychology says, is that all humans are decidedly similar in a very important aspect. This connection is called the Collective Unconscious – it’s not telepathy but rather a similarity of mental structure. The most useful manifestations of the collective unconscious are the archetypes which reoccur in Literate from the dawn of history. The archetypes are often thought of as energies that people access in their lives. They have many names but are standard in their nature. Male or Animus archetypes are the King, Lover, Warrior and Magician. Female or Anima archetypes are the Mother, Seducer, Amazon/Feminist, and Loner. A mature person amply accesses all of the archetypes, both male and female. Every archetype must be kept in balance if any one becomes too unbalanced the person will be immature in some way and may even become psychotic. It’s important to realize that archetypes are not meant to be physical things but rather conceptual tools to explain the function of the mind (not the brain). A well known example of a malformed archetype is dubbed the Trickster. The Trickster is a Shadow of the Magician archetype and uses the Magician’s ample intellect and special knowledge to trick others because they feel they the must prove their worth and enjoy coming out on top to the detriment of others. There are also Boy/Girl archetypes (as opposed to Man Women) but I will not go into that as, while Daoism may point them out they are not to be strived for. Here I will focus how the positive aspects of Daoist philosophy exemplify the archetypes. Because the male and female archetypes are actually very similar and I am by far more familiar with the male archetypes I will only link the Animus set of archetypes to Daoism but I guarantee you all are there.

The King and Lover archetypes are in a way one and in a way opposed. The Lover is known for its connected and whole understanding and openness, an inexhaustible source. The King on the other hand gives order and meaning or creates, in his prime he is omnipotent and draws from all the other archetypes for his power. The King requires the Lover for his source, without the lover he has no meaning. Conversely the Lover is lost and useless without the King to create order the Lover. In Daoism the Dao is both the King archetype and the Lover archetype. From the Dao comes the Ten Thousand things, comes order but at the same time the Dao is “like a kiln-bellows and air pipes; which through emptying is not exhausted; and activated pours forth more.” (Moss Roberts trans.) The Warrior and Magician have a similar dichotomy. The Warrior is disciplined and .decisive in action, he does what he does without hesitation or need for second thought. The Magician on the other hand does little to nothing but has a great understanding of his world. The Warrior depends on the Magician for direction in his action and the Magician on the Warrior for his ability to act with efficiency. The Magician is one who understands the Dao; the sage, wise ruler or ancient one that the texts speak of – the one that understand the way and acts in accordance. In Zhuangzi’s texts there is reference to a massive tree that is so knurled and crooked that it’s of no use for to a carpenter – that is how it has survived so long, to grow so big. This is the Magician manifest. The Warrior archetype comes through in the same tree example – what thought does a tree give to its existence? None. A is a tree and exists as such without effort or thought. Wei wu wei is the way of the Warrior and wuwei the way of the Magician.

Another important part of analytical psychology is proper self boundaries. One way to have a malformed archetypal manifestation is through over-associating. Believing that you are actually the King and not simply accessing the archetype’s energy. In Analytical psychology the ideal Self Image is only a conduit for archetypal energy and nothing more. Daoism also advises against attributing anything to a Self Image, in fact having no Self image:

“At fabvor (as disgrace) take fright:

Honors to the self bring woe.”

“Explain ‘At favor (as disgrace) take fright.”

“What could be more dire than favor?

It’s gain – or loss – betokens danger.

Such is meaning”

“Explain ‘Honors to the self bring woe.’”

“Our selfs are why we suffer harm;

Without them what harm would be there?

So to the one

Who honors self above the word

Confide its care;

To the one

Who holds the self more dear than it

Entrust its care.”

-Moss Roberts translation

Section II: Psycho Analysis, Buddhist Psychology and Daoism or Dao and Self Image

Buddhism is another Psychology that advises against the self and is in fact in tune with Daoism. The goal of Buddhism is to achieve nirvana or perfect contentment (essentially Enduring Happiness) by realizing that there is in fact no self. Buddhist meditation is intensive training that focuses on investigating the human’s Self Image to find its falseness. The end goal and primary practice is having an open, receptive mind that is clear of all judgment and attachment. This is perfectly analogous to an idealized state of wei wu wei. While Dao de Jing never explicitly mentions meditation it surely implies it through the concepts of minimal action and action without thought. The Zhuangzi texts do go so far as to mention a Daoist sage who was in a meditative trance and reprimanded a disciple for interrupting him.

In the book Thoughts Without a Thinker Mark Epstein explains the similarities between modern Psycho Analysis and Buddhism, namely the receptive and non-judgmental state of both patient and therapist that provides for the best advancement as well similarity in goals. He says does however declare an important difference in the goals as well. In psycho analysis is to reconstruct the self so that it’s healthier while in Buddhism the goal is to completely deconstruct the self for a comparatively transcendent happiness and functionality.

What does Daoism offer over Buddhism? The difference between Taoism and Buddhism is their focus. The focus of Buddhism is a person’s perspective and how it leads to happiness whiles the focus of Daoism on a much larger scale. Daoism includes Buddhism’s focus and seeks to explain more broad Ontological and Epistemological questions; the nature of all things, not just all things as we experience them. In this sense Buddhism is a stepping stone to Daoism.

Section III: Scientific support for the Dao’s Efficient Method and happiness.

There are a number of Dao aspects that lend themselves to effective human function and happiness.

First, a healthy Self (or lack there of) in terms of the afore mentioned psychological perspectives has lots of evidence towards getting and maintaining happiness in the form of Buddhist and Psychoanalytic success stories.

Positive psychology is a field that focuses on what is right with people as opposed to what is wrong with them, the focus of all of the previously mentioned psychological perspectives. Martin Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness outlines the three categories of positive emotions; the past, present and future. Again the Dao concept of wei wu wei provides the answer. Essentially living in the now this limits you to the present emotions which are explained with these examples: enjoying the taste of food, glee at listening to music, absorption in reading, and company of people you like. Because of the Buddhist like focus on experience means that the experience of everything sensual (including food and music) is maximized. Absorption in your activity (reading is just an example) is maximized as well. The company of people or things you like is broadened to everything because of the Dao receptivity.

Another bit of evidence that sings the same tune as this psychological description is physiological. There is much scientific evidence from studies on meditation and general neurology that point to focus like meditation or the absorption of reading as providing happiness. Activity in the prefrontal cortex, which meditation increase is the most supported. A similar euphoria can be seen with stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall which are used to treat ADD and stimulate the prefrontal cortex. Dopamine also causes happiness and is stimulated by novelty or surprise which is supposed to be a common theme during meditating due the intense and receptive attention. Another byproduct of Buddhist/Dao focus is an actual increase of grey brain matter, mostly in the prefrontal cortex as which is linked to the reported increase in the ability to focus. Meditation is also a known method for remedying some of the problems associated with ADD.

Clearly the Dao perspective is conducive to happiness on many levels and is also conducive to productive action, or Effective Method.

Part IV: The Practical

Section I: How can this be applied in real life?

By embracing the Dao perspective you can be more productive because of the emphasis on focus and efficiency of action. The perspective also makes you more content and less disappointed because you understand that despite the lack of immediate results, conforming to the Dao is better in the long run. This has many physical and mental benefits like relaxation and increased focus abilities. The best part about Taoism is that it does not have any prerequisites. Communism, for example is notorious for being a great idea that does not function. Daoism is completely independent and personal, it’s sole requirement is the inescapable Dao.

Another practical benefit of the Dao philosophy can be seen in diet. If Dao’s minimal and efficient action is applied here your food intake should match your body’s nutritional needs, but not exceed them. There is much evidence to show that over eating can cause serious health problems. A particularly inspiring example is that of a man who at 35 was obese and in generally bad physical health. At that age he made a very strict diet change. His new diet was nutritious but included very little food; 12 ounces a day! Very soon the man was in surprising health and lived well into his nineties on his 12 ounce diet. The Dao’s attention to desire can also help with the trials of dieting.

Section II: A Self Help Comparison or Psycho-cybernetics and Daoism

A popular self help book called psycho-cybernetics bears a close resemblance to Daoism. It advocates a reformation of the self image that gets rid of the attribution of your actions (mostly failures) to your self image, practicing a attention to detail, acting without consciously thinking about what you are doing but with a previously developed understanding of what’s necessary and keeping a positive frame of mind. Similarly Daoism advocates not attributing anything to your self image, practicing pure attention to details of the Dao, wei wu wei and wuwei which when combined demand understanding of Dao and unconscious action, and lastly includes a very positive perspective.

Both diet, and the self help example display the potential of the Dao perspective with regard to Effective Method and True Premise.

Part V: Daoism is like the best philosophy in the Universe

As I have shown Enduring Happiness can be had with a philosophy that provides True Premise and Effective Method. Based on Philosophical, Scientific and Psychological evidence that prove Daoism’s flexible application and true basis the conclusion can be made that Daoism provides both True Premise and Effective Method. Therefore Daoism is like the best philosophy in the universe in that it provides for Enduring Happiness no matter your worldly situation!

But there is another matter that I’ve alluded to here. Is Daoism actually the best philosophy in the world? Finding this would be a massive undertaking comparing every philosophy’s positives and negatives to eventually measure their worth on the True Premise/Effective Method scale. I think Daoism would be in the running because of it’s short and topical presentation as well as the obvious truth it holds.

Bibliography.

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 15 Dec. 2005. Wikimedia Foundation. 2005 .

I used many wikipedia articles including the following: Carl Jung, Psychology, Science, Philosophy, Epistemology, Ontology, Analytical Psychology, Psychoanalysis, diet, nutrition, Taoism, Laozi, Tao De Jing

Dictionary.com. 15 Dec. 2005. Lexico Publishing Group. 2005

Walker, Brian. The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995.

Roberts, Moss. Dao De Jing: The Book of the Way. Berkeley and Los Angles: Regents of the University of California Press, 2001.

Moore, Robert and Gillette, Douglas. King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the archetypes of the Mature Masculine. New Work: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.

Epstein M.D., Mark. Thoughts Without a Thinker. New York: BasicsdBooks, 1995

Maltz M.D., Maxwell. Psycho-cybernetics. New York: Princeton Hall, 1960.

This has been a somewhat detailed explanation of Daoist philosophy. For the best understanding I suggest that you just take the time to read Tao de Ching your self. It can easily be done in one morning (over tea?). I highly suggest the translation by Brian Walker (of Boulder, CO no less) but if you’re a more analytical person you’d defiantly appreciate the (much) more complex but true to the Chinese translation by Moss Roberts (Laozi / Dao de Jing / The Book of the Way). In the case you don’t want to read it for yourself the style is very poetic and emphasizes the paradoxical and contrasting nature of things. It uses many examples, metaphors, analogies and moves to address everything with most every statement.

2005-11-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

Tough Stuff
It's a hard time in my life I suppose. At least that's what I just thought to write.
My understanding won't stand still. I've said it a million times consistency would be the best blessing I could ever hope to recieve. Alas it would seem that surely impossible.
So what is there to do?

Embrace change.
Once I spent hours searching greek and latin dictionararies for an 'acceptable transalation'. "A tattoo" I thought "perhaps".
But how am I to do this? How do I act?

Taoism
One sickly morning I lay out with Troat Coat tea in hand to read Tao De Ching. Three cups and hours later I had found a superb sort of answer. It connects my previous searches. A great guide for embracing Tao. But I wonder if I should be more doubtful. I wonder of the opposition's merit.
If only I could be more sure.

Meaning and Emotion.
My body's on the fritz but working fine. The state of me is never solid and yet I rest solidly upon it. From there the mental aim is also too narrow. Conceptual pyrimids of cause and effect; recognition and creation is the scattery process. The thoughts continue as best they can no matter the circumstance; wavery they chase their elusive tails; aware of the elusive truth but bound by themselfs. The mental function is natural but the mental product should not hope to be so infinite.
Perhaps this is the crux? Hope to completion?
Nay it cannot be. Again the lense distorts. Beggining and end are products of our thought; for when have you corpereally experienced creation? Is not every creation or destruction only a material change and a comprehensible avowal?
I do wonder if the conciousness is a curse or a blessing. Is it controlled or unbridled that it would flourish best? East or West I wonder which; or how to both.
Indeed it would seemby experience the only path is through ascription though it is forever a dead end. I cannot escape my recognitive labyrinth's dynamic appeals. If only I could forget the past and future but still be assured a worthy path. Then again, what is worthy anyways?
Perhaps a path should not be followed by made? Perhaps not even that.
Aye herin lies the rub but can we understand our creation? I think the key lies there but I wonder what is behind the door. Sigh.
Fuck meaning. Oh wait... no it's my direction. I couldn't go it alone?

2005-09-23T00:37:00.000-06:00

Governmentium
A major research institution (MRI) has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named Governmentium. Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of three years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

lol

2005-08-22T23:25:00.000-06:00

Waterworld with my cousin today! yae yae
got to teach my lil cousin how to swim:D
And go down the fancy 'toilet bowl with a tube' ride.
Good stuff, happy day.

And it turns out I dooo get to live here through Sept. Another month will be nice:D

But alas, there are problems. But I don't want to think about them atm... lol @ problems.

At least there's a really healthy lifestyle.. cept for um... some of the stuff lol.
and good music. Like Prefuse 73, C-rayz Walz, The Books, a Muse Discography, the newfound Ikara Colt, and much much more. Oh, and um... all that Jazz. no joke

2005-08-21T09:37:00.000-06:00

So I was talking to nathan the other day and he mentioned me living in my car while I find a place. As a joke of course - but you know? That would be fun. I think I wanna do it for a lil while. Prolly next summer though, not this one... unless I had to? eep.
Anyways, I start school tuesday. Drawing I and Composition I. If all goes as expected it will be a breeze. Drawing on tuesdays and thursdays and Writing fridays.
The tough part is money. With any luck I'll have a job at P.F. Chang's as a server as well as the usual lifeguarding and teaching swimming lessons. That should do it.
God I hope it will. It's looking like I'm gonna have to move out of matt's at the end of the mo. So... do I choose Boulder or Broomfield? under 400? Over 400? Alone? With a roomy?
To be honest I'm leaning towards broomfield and alone. I want more freedome and privacy. Broomfield's real close to work which is great, and too, it's very close to a girl:D I just hope all goes well her parents are so protective. She had to ask if I could come in and have a sandwhich because no one was home :p Funny stuff but I think it will work. I suppose we shall see.
If I move into broomfield I think I can get a lil cash bonus too!!! yaya.

I'm also gonna start rock climbing again as soon as I get shoes which is as soon as the 100 dollars I spent makes it's way back. The skatings been going well but it makes me hurt. And while I learned a new trick biking it's tough and makes my shoulders and neck look too big. I need to get my abbs and lower back back in shape... go go gadjet rock climbing. yaya.
I foudn this band that i think kicks ass too. Ikara Colt. yea. bye.

supaiku.deviantart.com

2005-07-25T20:49:00.000-06:00

so I've been having a tough time with understanding personal human relations. What is the deal with liking people. I can't quite figure out what fits where with what.
People in general; you spend time with them ( [insert person] ) for what reason?
I don't mean the ideal reason; why you should or ought. No I mean why is it really. What compells you? I can't entirely remember in the past and the current is what's making me doubt. I have doubts to the nececissity of the whole thing.
But I think it's very likely that my oppinion would differ (though with rival perplexity) were I in a differnt social situation (ie. alone). Although I wonder exactly how... and why. Sigh.

alas, the questions of life.

I used to think that intelligence took you so far. It's funny how the whole notion seems to have come up and continued to go up for so long. Funny how school perpetuated it, I'm sure. Intelligence has so much less to do with everything in life. Unless perhaps you are one of the top dogs - or maybe the top dogs are just empersonal and thus incomplete, heros to us.
Who's to say.
I'm sure they weren't happy all the time.

Buddhism seems like a mix between the way to go and just another shitty type fix with some structure and a lil' true rep (and alota embellishments) to back it up. I can't decide, don't ahve time.

It's so hard to find destinct phases in your life, and further to create them the way you would like. A Perfect routine would be desired but it's so hard to come by it would seem.

The flitty nature of thoughts actions and desires is quite excruciating. Fucks your shit up.
Working all the time sucks too. Sigh.

I need some www.imaginaryfs.com
jk.

Curses. Time to cleary my mind with some Cowboy Bebop - another one of those hopeful transient developmental pastimes. Who's to say.

God it's sad. (Not cowboy bebop - acutally it really is pretty fucking sad too. It's like... life! Holy shit. It's like the Liturature of cartoons, bitch.)

Which makes me wonder. Why don't women watch anime? Seriously only the weird ones enjoy it (you may think they arn't weird but they are when you get to know them well enough - it's weird... weird. Not weird good in my experiences).

Man, fuck it.
endless endevor eternally evicting your sense of what is should be and will be
fucking bad luck cause effect wow shit

Straight up and Straight down

If not a stick in your spoke then a wobble in your rims and goofy brakes to pair.
Sometimes just a shitty ass path.
Never the perfect ride when you take a look back.

Alas I must stop or I never will. Ta ta.

2005-07-10T06:46:00.000-06:00

Right, so I just got my ap test scores back today... to my surprise I got a 4 on BOTH the mechanics and AB tests not to mention a 3 on the BC test. HOLY. SHIT.

Like wow. I cannot even belive it. I got a fucking 4 on the fucking calc TEST. A FOUR! (AND A THREE!!!!)

although I did get a one on the E&M... but who cares, I thought I was gonna get a one on ALL of them. I'm absolutly astounded.
It makes me think it's too bad I'm over rocking the front range... at least I'm going to be completly emancipated (I meant it figurativly, but I relize now it's literally also) from my parents before the year is out. Speaking of front range... Comp I and Drawing. lol... I wanted to take BIO as well (which is STILL lol...) but I was told that 3 college classes is acutally alot when youare working aswell. eh, should be entertaining.

A fucking four, I feel like I have to email felki...

2005-07-01T08:25:00.000-06:00

Oh... and I quit smoking the reefer... for a while. And was 'diagnosed' with ADD, oh and my parents suck ass so I have no money atm and will be moving out asap, ie. ~ August 1st. Thank the lord.
Hopefully, despite not having any money, I will still be able to have a fun time in the coming weeks. I guess I'll just have to imagine my fun, which, in the right mindset ;) , just might be better.

I'm reading this book, The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare. Got it for four bucks at Red Letter books, it's very intresting (that doesn't even come close to doing the book justice). I also scored a 700 (or so) page compilation of short stories (which has the first 74 pages twice) for TWO DOLLARS. Great authors too... classicaly famous type authors. And Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (and other selected prose)... for just a dollar. Score.

Oh and while I'm on what is happening in my life, I've found tons of new (to me) music. Yay for jazz, classical, new Pigface CDs, and other music that I'm too embarassed to admit to (well... I'll admit this, the powerpuff girls soundtrack is entertaining. Featuring songs like: Go Monkey Go, Sgnal in the Sky, Walk and Chew Gum, and B.L.O.S.S.O.M. So... yea. no joke.). Oh oh, and yay for my new hat?
Oh, and Sorry Lauren Klepac. If, by chance, you read this that girl I thought was that other girl was not. But not only did I fail while trying to talk to her she had a man anyways (or I failed THAT bad... eep). Emily was her name (I think... god I hope. I'm really bad with names.) But now I'm her friend, so I can talk to her at pennywise anytime. If I can work up the courage to WANT to have a conversation with people I don't know. sigh.

2005-07-01T08:21:00.000-06:00

Riiiight. I'm back (from Ireland).

2005-06-11T03:14:00.000-06:00

Right... so I'm far too tired to go for a run this morning... yesterday in addition to being dead from the run I had to walk all the fuck over dublin and my legs hurt... plus jacking off strains the calfs... You know during the crucial moment and all... lol ANNNYways...
lets see... Trinity college is pretty cool... a few spicy senoritas though there are less than a ton over here... But the ones that are are great... esp this one at the internet cafe mmmm mmm good... Lip piercing and all hottt!! oh god.
As for my goal of having a hightened alcohol tolerence... I guess it's off to a slow start. One Guinness gets me just a tiny bit drunk if I drink it quick. But my alchi-sense is tingling... I'm off to the guinness brewery later today for my complimentary pint.
Oh, and I'm gonna try to find this place to play some Magic (the Gathering... biatch!) too. But my time runs out in a few so I'll be back some other time.

2005-06-10T12:09:00.000-06:00

Out of time, another day... or tonight. I do hope I get to play magic tommorow though. I brought my deck and I'm ready to frustrate some peeps.

2005-06-09T04:29:00.000-06:00

So then, yesterday I got into Ireland at something like 8 in the morning. I had left at say... two the day before. I had some really tastey food on the airplane though. Some vegetable/potato/chicken stuff, and cheese and crackers and cheesecake too. Supatastey. I've pretty much just gotten to my hotel, a small two bed 1 1/2 room oven with one small window and no apparent air circulation otherwise. I love european bathroom fixtures though. All the uranals are teardrop shaped and much more practical than here and the shower in my hotel is pretty neat too... minimal I guess.
I bought some shoes before I went too and I went for a nice half hour+ run in the part. St. Peter's green I guess is the local park right near to Trinity College. I like how they have well established nice parks around in big cities... but nothing near the awsome mountain trails we got up in boulder. I've had all of two guiness so far and I think I'll get accustom to the beer (taste) soon enough. It still tastes less than savory.
My grandpa wanted to stop by a tackle shop earlier today and the guy at the counter spoke with such a thick accent only about half of what he said could be understood and even then only after running it by your sentence processing to try to pull recognizable strings of meaning out of it. And his helper guy looked like the skinny long haired guy w/ the handlebar mustache from Spinal Tap (the movie thing...) Yea... pretty comical esp the picture of him with a little hat holding a Pike half his size. Oh god the humor.
And lets see... We were commissioned (minus the money) by a friend of my granddaddy's to find out about a bill spent in a pub here in Dublin. As the story goes, after the end of WWII some ships docked in Dublin. This guy was down at a pub, wasted on good ale and he busted out his Republic of Texas 100 dollar bill. That's right, republic of texas. Of course it was a fake. Well they got the next group of men who came in to say ''yes''. So he used the new men to convinced the bartender that the bill was real. For change he bought to whole bar a round of beer. I guess the bartender put the bill up on his wall with some prestige - despite (obviously) having been conned.
So we went to what I guess is the last of a good number of pubs right along the Liffey river were the ships would have docked. It had money all up on the walls from all over (an American 2 dollar bill too) and seemed a little promising - it had been established in 1810 (er.. was it 1910? I think 18). But alas, no bill and the bartender said he figured it'd be long gone, most of the pubs had closed (there was TONS of construction down there) and even this one had changed hands many a time. So I think we've all but given up on it. Oh well - I had some tastey food there - mmm potatoes roast beef and colifour with mmmm mmm good gravey allover it. And of course a pint of Guiness. Did you know that they have horses that people own inside Dublin even now? ANd up till the 1960's they still brought milk and the like on carts pulled by horses?
I'm supposed to go out to the start of a yatch race with mi gramps soon here.

2005-04-27T07:32:00.000-06:00

So my MOM read my BLOG this morning after I specifically told her not to. Her reply to my chiding was "It was months ago!1" /me shakes my fist at my mother.

But she's not really mad or anything, luckily, but not really suprisingly. However I'd bet that she does stuff about it despite her saying she isn't going to. I was planning on telling her whenever I got around to moving out but whatever. Silly parents, COBY, did you leave it open on purpose? And are you reading this? Because you guys said you weren't going to you know.

2005-04-26T23:44:00.000-06:00

I'm gonna write a book!~ *does a jig*

But apparently my occasion system is threatened. Too bad really, but you know? It seemed like an exception! I'm too good at convincing myself of what I know is not the "default good" choice for many situations. I think it leads to my lazieness. Not really sure what all that actually implies though.*vague reference to my new 'system' for er... usage. Smoke on occasions, when it seems entirely and surely worthwhile in an attempt to lessen useage.*

I had a nifty conversation w/ nathan about quantum physics. I suggest people read the following.
Logical Positivism
Copenhagen interpertation of Physics. Quantum mechanics and uncertainty.
And what it all started from. At least my posts/discourse, they start on page 2.

Again I express hopes that this summer be fun, it's my last bit of time as I kid I guess... at least [acceptably so] in society. Hopefully I get/fix some new traits and skills and have a good, intresting while. I it could be said the start of the entire thing would be my return to skating, biking and drawing as well as a move, perhaps return, to a intellectual dream and say... less... strictly pragmatic person.

................................
.......Things Falling Apart.............................We're in This Together, Pt. 3

2005-04-25T01:02:00.000-06:00

http://www.onlinedebate.net/forums/search.php?searchid=32145

I've been too busy.
Also, I stand by my pervious assertions that girls are a fucking pain in the ass.

Oh, but I DID fix my bmx bike today and I went for a ride, in the rain, and in 15 min of trying I nailed a wussy feeble grind and a super solid feeble stall... the easiest trick in the book, I know, but nice none the less. I havn't so much as bunnyhopped on a BMX bike in like 3 years. *brag* *brag*

*fancy album cover*
Coheed and Cambria
Godsend some stuff and things

2005-04-20T06:07:00.000-06:00

A 'logical' Structure for the Brain

Perhaps you could occupy yourself with the thing at the bottom before you read, and then, if you need to reference....

Do you think love is just one of a few (perhaps many) human concepts created to desrcibe a pehaps.. surprisingly, relativily, simple view of feelings. They vary in many ways depending on your preconcieved conciousness (conciousness: a set of deffinitions and truths that can be 'viewed' and 'navigated' and are the basis for decisions.) and your actualy thinking system which dependent on the developed(ing) brain structure

Think of it as a breakdown of all of the components. It's over simplified, of course, and very one track/incomplete.

=Pertinent sections of the brain's logical structure=
Compex Feeling of Love (a concept)
..basic feeling(s) (concepts/descriptions/rationalizations for the chemical affects) (relative to the concept of love, simple; but still abstract)
...conciousness (our... your 'existance'. truths)
....values or 'premises' (logical placemarks?)
...thought/processing(logic-ish? Perhaps, personal logic?)
....processing structure (physical logic "mental circuts")
.....emotion (mental state)
......physical
.......effects of emotions
.......affects emotional tendencies
........physical makeup/condition... tendencies
......rational (from conciousness)
.......effects of emotions
.......affects emotional definitions
........strict concepts; abundant premises

Thought
.Conciousness (a set of somewhat abstract premises or truths. "accesed" by the "processor" lol)
-Descriptions of emotional states
-ideas
--logical/conceptual
---processes and functions

----recognition/dimensional rendering (?)
----social complexities (?)
----language devices
----math

-factual
---facts
----visuals
----simple concepts (language?)
----math

.Processing (Your logic system. it's physical)
Emotion
-Affects of Emotion
--Chemical based changes
-Effects on Emotion
--Changes in physical states based on a structural tendencies

Again, they are little sections plucked out, only a few levels deep.

Consider the two 'realms' of the brain. Perhaps like Plato's ideal thoughts, or wispy spirit or whatever... The realm of your concepts and ideas and theoretical oversimplifications and the world that creates that and makes that function, the physical. Two sides of the same coin... your brain...Mwwaa ha ha ha! or something. It starts with love, purely conceptual and begins to break it down, where it's derived from. Both stem partially and simotaniously from each other (and the world around them!), but ultimatly in the physical realm. However, both do makeup what we consider the brain and thought.
Again, premises, conceptual 'facts, truths, ideas stored in the brain are 'used' (navigated) by the physically based

It could be that the system is actualy a system based on interconnected paths and efficient shortcuts (with occasional drawbacks) of processing through some mix of concept navigation/association w/ sections of the brain, a blending of the two realms into a purely physically based process (of thought... emotion. Human conciousness. perhaps similarily for other levels of conciousness... like a dolphin's!).

...thinking

Remember the differnce between effects and affects you will persons.

**Alert** A lucid erratic Randome Thought
Consider a thinking experience. ... ... guiding -> art... mental and physical liturature. Guiding the reader's thought deep tought and appealing perfectly to their emotions.
Just a thought.

Oh, and also consider the detail. If it could be intentional it is, just not effectivly. *cries*
**Alert**

That's human brains and logic.

So... where/n will philosophy's petals revelating bloom resume full force (d(bloom)/dt is large) again in some dandy quarter century movment... associated tightly with art, as alsways but now also with science... that gets a really fancy lable...?
From a realization of common ground within the field of neuroscience.

Daily Nietzche by -saIn-.
*hey, look at me* /me does a overacted revolutionary face and body position.*blah blah...*
*Nietzche says dogmatization sucks!!! chant...*
Those silly defining, limiting standards. They are only for practicality's sake, they can be disregaurded, and should be to attain a maximum form. Push yourself in every way, it's the only way to atain it. Don't be wussy, mr man!

Lol, that's my guess of nietzche, but I've only started so I dunno. It fits my idea of probable misconceptions about the roots of nietzsche's thoeries (if I were acting as a guy who was paraphrazing view similar to nietzsche. A wild revolutionary paraphrasing!)

A philosophers job should only be to make you think. How they make you think is the best gague for their success, not the validity of their ideas. Yup yup!

All thinkers, original thinkers are philosophers, some are just damned good and have a loud-type voice. (and some fucking suck.)

Philosophy and science only differ in their consequent depths and stringancy of premises and thought.
It's because it's all up in your head, more managable in that form (conceptual that is)... That's due, of course, to human oversimplifications.

Oh, I have this idea... for a book. A perfectly logical (and functional) schitzophrenic? describes, thoughts and rationalizations from both personalities about life, in mental diaolague and scene narration.
The character would be the same person but with two mental persons. They have mental diolague, often in an empty car to music or while high. They are seperate entities in the mind, both of which the person identifies with, however. Not differnt, occasionally oppiosing siblings, but the same, yet definedly seperate. Hey, he's crazy, insane. But they settle their differences pragmaticaly and the world is oblivious. Even the physical 'host' of sorts knows, for he is them, but functions despite, and actually dependant on, the two opposing but constant mental states/beings.
They talk alot about philosophy, life and their life(s) and ooze with depth and good, sensical and entertaining cause/effects links.

Sorry if I overexplain. I think I might. Also sory for the very weird style on the little brain trees... or whatever
And sorry much for any incompleteness, I'm tired.

2005-04-19T19:08:00.000-06:00

Atheism, mmmm mmm good.
http://www.onlinedebate.net/forums/showthread.php?p=77697#post77697

Led Zepplin
In My Time Of Dying

2005-04-17T21:46:00.000-06:00

So that tread there... consider it a post. I'd copy it but it'd just take up space and lose context. So go look at it. I had an occasion earlier today, had to pick up some stuff for wendsday...

The Fragile

2005-04-17T12:12:00.000-06:00

http://www.debateforums.net/showthread.php?p=70349#post70349
So I have alot of homework, and I HATE homework.

But at least I have a new car. Dark green1993 Volvo 850 GTO.
Nice headunit too, and a 6 disc CD changer
:drool:
*wipes up drool and goes for a drive*
Score

I've also decided only to smoke on occasion, for a while at least. The crisp, clean and clear headed life seems really nice ATM.

I might put up my homework, though. It's journal entry type thingies on Beyond Good and Evil (go go gadjet Nietzsche!)

The Tarantino Connection (Soundtrack Anthology) [Pulp Fiction]
Chuck Berry
You Never Can Tell

2005-04-10T16:11:00.000-06:00

I've been pretty busy lately and what's more, I've finding other ways to entertain myself. Just havn't wanted to do this too much. But it will happen again.

Entertainment is a weird thing though. It's funny exactly what entertains someone, and why somethings don't entertain others. The standards for entertainment that people try to set for themselfs. What is good entertainment... What is healty and wholesome and beneficial and what is unhealthy entertainment? Why do we need entertainment?

What's the measure... of anything? What is good and evil? Happy and sad?

And more imporatantly, is my wrist broken, still sprained or can I go climbing again? :cry:

2005-03-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

Half of two thirds of a half of all my hopes and dreams have been crushed!
I don't know how I'll get through the day.
But then again, when's the last time you knew how your day would go?

Ah, lifes troubles.

Hysteria

2005-03-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

I think I decided to start skateboarding again too. Been a long while but I did managed a boardslide and a couple of um... some sort of little toe stall thingies...
I never skated in a park though, I'm not sure how I feel about actual pipes and the like. Pain isn't really all that nice.
I was listening to some music that I usually don't today too...
Immortal Technique = teh l33t3st rapper ever... or something. I recommend to anyone, it's at least entertaining.
Marilyn Manson - I rarely listen but I'm always pleasently surprised when I do
Incubus (Enjoy) - yea... good CD, no doubt
Switchfoot - yea, they suck. I can only listen to about half of any of their songs... and some of them are like 2 min long. I think little 5=10 seconds snippets of it would work out great though! They have some neato little guitar thingies...
Fugazi - very goofy type music. I can't decide if I LOVE it or HATE it... I think it's more towards the like side but I'm quite torn.
Foo Fighters - good stuff there... I wish I could have them somehow get thrown into what I listen too more... I never want to listen to them but when I do it's always nice.

2005-03-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

So I built my new bike today and it's so damned neato. I'd say it's the most neato thing in town but it's really not. Now I just need to find the time to ride it around, I dunno if I want to do all that practicing though. It can hurt. Sigh.

2005-03-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

Wow. (No, NOT World of Warcraft you fiend!) So this is the forum equivolant of CJ's ramblings.
Some fun

You should actually read it. Consider it a blog post (esp the stuff at the bottom).
Really. If it wasn't going to be such a hassle and lose so much 'in translation' I'd do it, but I wont.
You just need to read the first and second post.

2005-03-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

So I have to do this homework stuff... homework sucks. I think it might be the root of all evil. It's definitely synonymous for devil. Yup yup.

In any event, waay too much stuff is a pain in the ass.
There's girls, and money, and me, and belonging, and people, and food, and gaaah. So much annoying shit. Just annoying. Gah.
pssssssspspsspspsppspps.

In any event, forums are so GOD DAMNED ENTERTAINING!
and, God,fails

Prefuse 73
One Word Extinguisher
Choking You

2005-03-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

some forums

Besides that, pretty much I fail hardcore style. yup yup.

2005-03-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Monarch State Penetentury.
A metaphore for life?

The other day I was talking with Wang and he mentioned how highschool is pretty much a terrible thing. He was like: "Ok, so here's what it is." "Ok, it's a bunch of kids, from like 13 to 18; they all have differnt problems and are at differnt points in their life, and you put them all together." They're all trying to figure out differnt things in differnt stages and you make them do a bunch of shit that they don't want to. Teaching them the importance of superficial achievment and success through achedemics and sports while glossing over the fundamental personal mental health. Further the ignorance of that aspect on behalf of the school forces the other struggling students to double as help for their peers. Dependance on those who themselfs lack (similariliy) experience and knowledge - on many levels and in many ways.
What's even funnier now that I think back is that under that interpertation that's like life and society. Really it makes sense that it is to. Highschool is really just an introduction to life (of sorts). It takes some parts and leaves others, puts it on a smaller scale and in a differnt situation. But really it works quite similarily.
The students, lost and confused, developing into adulthood, are the people in life. We are all stuck here, left to learn only from our peers and those before us. We have no real higher anything to teach us. Everyone is building on their own incomplete and slanted experience and can only take advice from others who are also stuck in the same sort of still developing and heavily biased frame of reference. In the search for any sort of truth we have no guides and knowledge, understanding deffinatly seems like a fundamental of life to me (even if not in an intellectual or scientific sense). Our only guides are just as lost as we are.
Stumbling around in the dark with only grainy and incomplete mental images to guide and reference. Over time the picture has become more and more completle in only the most simple ways. We've developed outlines and reference points for civilization but they only begin to describe the surface of what matters most.
The school system - Highschool is the 'machine' of society. I only use machine because of it's familiarity. But really it'd be a misnomer. Society is not a system designed, created, or implimented with intent to destroy. It's a system of simplification to allow decent functioning. Society sets rules of sorts that allow for easy function. The rules arn't always right but they have worked. This is why they're so hard to change.
Back to the Highschool metaphore - there are rules that can be bent or broken depending on teh circumstances but are necissary to the working. These similar to society's rules (on the scale of life). They are established because the work, no doubt, but they arn't always right. Sometimes they are wrong, or incomplete - but the fact that they work are what make them hard to change. The rules are made to simplify and revolutionaries are likely those that have seen the misjustices of those simplifications. Sometimes they are sever enough to require change, and other times they are simplifications that only create small pockets of injustice.
Part of what makes this metaphore of highschool and life similar is the fact that highschool does in fact exist in life. Highschool (in real life, what we create the metaphore with) is defined by the very sort of society and system that we are using it to describe in the metaphore. It in fact is a part of life where differnt aspects of society and it's workings manifest themselfs.
Perhaps it'd be worthwhile to extrapolate a little and realize the limitations and merits of society. It's important to take not of both sides.

Btw, the 'welcome to monarch state..' was inspired by a valdal who left the note in the boys bathroom of my school. He did misspell penitentiary.

Something that this made me note is how some people who realize this make no effort to escape it and may even submerge themselfs in it while others strive to escape it. Others attempt to find a mix of conformity and personal realization. I wonder what causes this and what the best way about dealing with the 'issue' is.

The limits of art.
Balancing intent, chance, and depth.

A case study. Pending time.

The Impossibles
Back for the Attack
Plan B

2005-03-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

So I just had quite the talk with my mom. She told me all the stuff that she thought about my situation and I wasn't the least surprised at what she said. Or that she got frustrated when I posed the questions of HOW? WHY? How to I fix that? Avoiding the real solution, the issue is what needs fixing, not how the problem manifests itself. No one ever has the answers to that! So frustrating - for everyone.
But it was funny, I was in a neato mood and eating food and talking with them. Humor.

Muse
Megalomania

2005-03-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

Warning, potentially unintresting subject(s). Perhaps even boring.
(read: /me stamps this blog post with a potentially intresting stamp. Perhaps this will make it be worthwhile.)
Title. Exploring complex cause/effect paths of an ri,
a Random Incident

A Situational Case Study

So when matt-man broke his piece I tried to hurry the night along so that it didn't die and get all shitty. I overdid it a little but behind that bursty and annoyingly forceful exterior I was simply trying to help matt get over the pipe. It was in a hurry just because I didn't want the mood spoiled and due to 'the influences of the moment' I didn't really take the mental time to properly think the methods over. At one point nathan tried to make the point that I didn't even know what it was like (to lose a piece). In the moment I was very offended and I was also quite sure that I knew what it was like as well. But when he said that and I knew I hadn't; I was worried to see my thoughts hashing out vague and desperate tails of thought. I was trying to rationalize my thoughts and I was having trouble too; to much trouble perhaps. Now that I think back it seems that the thing I was searching for, to validate this claim, was likley this. This being that I do understand loss pretty well (hrm... sad that I'm using this phrase from the psycologist lady). I figure that perhaps I've become alright at dealing with loss because of learning from experiences. I can relate the necissary parts and perhaps even see a way to um... "perspectivise" (for the better) the situation [of loss]. How to get over it. At least those are the hopes. The peice, though very attached, is a much more recent and are generally not personality developing aspects (ie. really hard to get out of because of attachment). Perhaps like girlfriend type love... Though the piece is 'nothing like' a girlfriend (Well, I'd hope not. That'd be sad,) it does have an important similarity. The sort of removal (read: a process) this takes, though in a less sever amount, consists (in part) of an important 'type'. 'recent' (ie. not deeply integrated - read: a classification) ones. They arn't tightly integrated into your personality quite yet but they have gained importance (though a differnt type and amount for the piece than your girlfriend that you loved, and lost, it tends to function the same, for simplicity's sake we'll leave it there for while. The sort of assocation for love would seem as if it rests more on some deeply seated, and not wholly realized [or they're obsesive, maybe both] importance to you.) You get over them by realizing why you were attached and why you don't need that (any more, or ever, or whatever). Perhaps you have seen that the situation was actually worthwhile despite this loss (for whatever reason). And realizing exactly what you lost and how much you still have (gained). Or maybe you see that the situation was not good anyways and you at least learned that from it. Any underlying (perhaps unhealthy, perhaps...) attachments you have. Cut the strings (read: logically weak connections that you are attempting to 'perspectivize' and cut loose) to that thing as necissary, and hopefully also learn (and doubly so, learn properly) from it. That's all I was trying to show him. But who knows? I'm sure it's far enough off to cause troubles. Though I hope not too much trouble [on it's path]. And the way I went about it sure caused some ruckus in the minds of others too. I didn't even realize until it was quite late. But alas I now return to completly to the story (because I'm tired! and my fucking amp just half cut out again *hate*) and say... Whoops. Shux damn. sorry:D Or something like that..

Developing Love(s) and Friendships. A step past the stigma of human emotions,
de-mystifying (inter-)personal connections

A case study

Pending time.

Death. Absense of Nothing. Infinite Nothing.
apparent opposites in a spectrum of concepts
connotative analysys of and through developed labels

A case study

Pending time.

BTW (read: casual PS)
Am I using the read grammatical/language "function" wrong? Cuz I only have how I think it would and seems to work to go by and I'm not real sure (ie. history [of it] would be nice). Someone should tell me.

Floggin Molly, Nine Inch Nails, Ping Floyd (the Gnome), Evanescense, Pigface (Binary Stream and The loneliest sound I've ever heard), Fugazi, The Beatles, Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix, Paul Okienfold, KMFDM, Marilyn Manson, Nirvana, No Doubt

Lately: Immortal Technique, Gorillaz, Ugly Duckling, and Jedi Mind Tricks

Kidney Thieves - Trickster - Pretty

You might want to try listening to Immortal Technique's "Poverty Of Philosophy" striaght through with special attention to his message. It's very intresting when you think about how he says it (in more than just the rapping aspect) and how that may have developed, how you think it could be wrong (or right) and why. Just why why why is verytinging. It puts you in a good mood to think with the song as a focus. But remember you are in fact slightly into a mood by way of the song (perhaps). Anyways, It's entertaining stuff.

2005-03-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

Yea, so just before and leading into the start of last week I was feeling great. Absolutely amazing. Just so happy find and dandy about everything. Ahh, smoking the bud (of nothing illegal I mean!). But then I smoked too much too often and I'm pretty sure it's started to bring me down overall. Funny how that works.
I can't quite figure it out but it does seem like smoking makes you feel great at first, just oh so high (like most similar things), but then as you do it more and more it quickly leaves you desiring the feeling.
I know when I was smoking every night I would find myself terribly depressed around the close most every day. The thoughts were all bad. Not really worth detailing here and now but it was, without a doubt, depression.
Perhaps smoking appeased (wow... Euro history and WWII effecting my readied vocabulary is it?) the need (weather more physical or psychological is really beside the point - I'd hazard a mild mix of the two) for the whole day after before it started to drift off in the afternoon/evening.

Perhaps I should start a log of my habits, moods and misc. effects. Like Froid did for cocaine perhaps... But that'd be so much work. Sigh.
Then

I was talking with Kay today when she mentioned falling asleep without fixing herself up for her period. I didn't ask anything more about that, but it did lead to a little thought (and entertaining, but not entirely pertinent, discussion) about women's situation with regard to...

Two things I wouldn't like about being a girl (um... don't get me wrong... and that should be all I need to say here) that were brought to my attention in the conversation are 1. having a period (and the discomfort, mood swings and inconveniences that it creates) 2. having to be held by far mostly responsible for becoming (and the possibility of becoming) pregnant.
I'll address the first one (since it's what I was getting at in the first place) and then I'll go into the second.
Mainly the issue is the mood swings. All the afore mentioned parts would suck but the mood swings are what I can relate best to. From day to day and hour to hour my mood changes quite noticeably already. As it is it's already too much.
The issue is just the change in mood really.
I go think through one complex social issue during the morning and later in the day come to a completely different "conclusion" on the exact same issue - no more input, just different processing. One day I find myself on top of the world, complete badass; bustin' out all the right moves, rockin' the bitches and just good on average. Then just the next I feel like pure shit; every thought is a failure, every failure signals even more failing aspects of my self and each thing carries an apparently definitive importance.
As it cycles hour to hour, day to day, week to week, hell - month to month? I have come to realize that my reasoning is definitely tainted. It first occurred to me on the negative half. I found my position so terrible that it was simply unbelievable. How could I be failing THIS badly? I'm pretty sure I wasn't and usually am not (or at least it makes me feel better to think not).
So I thought about it. I realized that just the day before I didn't find the parts I was looking at as important - or in some cases I couldn't even rationalize the feelings I was having. It was a terrible feeling without cause! No real changes had occurred in my external situation and yet I HAD changed.
Of course, I'd rather not go into the alternate end - happy 'tainted' thoughts? - since it generally doesn't lead to anything but a bit too much fun. Unless, perhaps it leads to just that... TOO MUCH fun (like the drugs - so much fun you the lack is hard to deal with?)
Anyways, it's the change that causes problems. I could deal if it was at least consistent, but NOOOO, it has to change from time to time. Just switch everything up - turn my world upside down why don't you. Bitch. It's that change in reasoning (caused by the 'mood' change) combined with coping with the general bad feeling that it may change to that makes things so tough though. If it were consistent I could at least be content (even if it means a level of ignorance) with my decisions but as it is I'm not even content (and probably still just as ignorant as if they were consistent) with them before the impacts occur (much less after, if the effects are bad).
It makes you wonder where the medium lies... where do you as a person sit on your scale? What really is the best decision based on what you know? And what is it REALLY? Just how much do you fail? Or succeed. Sigh.
But really that change probably also checks ignorance in some way. I suppose if you were bad all the time you might come to the conclusion that you should just kill yourself, or if you were more good all the time you might overlook all your bad and become an arrogant (not to say that arrogant people are so because they are happy, I'd hazard not – at least not often) because of your ignorance to your bad parts. I can't be sure though – what would put me in a better position? Static or Flux? Sigh.
In any event I can't exactly choose one or the other. At least not precisely. But I wonder if I can devise a system to minimize the the change. I supposed that'd entail an understanding and/or control of lots of aspects in your life... diet, types of thoughts, your personal hormonal system, drug use and I'm sure a ton more things... it does seem doable though. At least a minimization and coping so that you can find a happy enough medium. Sigh.
So to come back to the prompt: I wouldn't want to be a girl because it's fucking hard enough to figure my shit out as it is - relativly stable. Having more hormones coming along from time to time to fuck shit up even more would NOT be very dandy.

For lack of a better segue, the second thing (I wouldn't like about being a girl) lead to abortion. While there's deffinatly more to women's respnsibility for pregnancy (that I wouldn't want to be THAT directly responsible for) this is the really intresting issue.
To be honest I'm slightly undecided on the issue. I think I'll just detail the important parts of what factor into my stance of choice (pro-choice that is ;) and you can be like: "oh, hey that makes sense" Or tell me what doesn't and we can have a good ole discussion. I demand entertainment!.
-God does not exist (arbitray sins be gone!).
-People are really, really, really, really complex biological machines that have very advanced thought and empathize very well (that part's important to being "human" [read: that traditional special type human - which happens to be a misnomer]), but they arn't much more.
-(I'm pretty DAMNED sure) A fetus is just a serverly underdeveloped human... so under-developed it lacks the ability to feel (pain), and even if not that,, conciousness, and even if not that, memory, and even if not that the ability to comprehend anything that happens to it. The point? It's not going to care, it's unable to care, know it should, or remember if it could. And further it's not the traditional human yet. [footnote1]
-To me it's obvious that abortion should be done as early as possible. The earlier the better - why wait? Don't; it just muddles the murky water even more! There's some time I'm sure but it's easier for now to just say "as early as fucking possible so help us God! (or we will get ruined in complaints and maybe even physical threats from fundamental freaks"
-Kids have the ability to fuck up lives - in many ways (for all the good they can bring). It's not always good for the kid or the parent(s) to default to yes (or, of course, no - duh)
-A woman should be able to decide for herself if she wants to be an incubator for something that she's essentially gonna have to keep incubating for 18 years thereafter.
-And for anyone stupid enough to think so, they shouldn't be punished for screwing up either. Punishment is to teach a lesson... the lesson shouldn't change their entire fucking life, they won't even have a chance to repeat the mistake. The "punishment" doesn't fit the "crime" (in serverity) and it's not even close to a good way to go about teaching them a lesson.
In other words: You're not actually killing anything much (esp anything that cares or knows or will EVER know the differnce), and the woman has the decision about what she wants to do with her life and her body, she should be the one that makes it.
The oppostion:
-"But what about the kids life." you say. "How would you feel if you had been aborted."
Repy:Go ask a featus how it feels. Oh, it doesn't? Oh, ok. I wouldn't know the fucking differnce.
-However I will admit that destroying that potential life is a little sad.
Reply: Ironicly some theist's denial of contraception has given me a little peek into the truth of this one: So you can't have abortions because it's denying a baby. Next, you can't have sex w/ a condom (other contraception) because you're denying a baby. Well isn't not having sex doing the same? If the idea is to not deny life then why not mandate constant sex and babies? There WILL BE CHILLINS! They just won't be that lady's (who doesn't even want one for heaven's sake!)
And I do realize that I butched the reasons for no contraception/sex/abortions. I left out the parts that didn't pertain for simplicitie's sake (I just kept the parts that addressed denying the possiblity of life which is the only potentially perplexing aspect of it all).
-God said "blah blah blah"...(Reply:) man fuck god. Up the ass. With a very large, GAY dildo. And be sure there's a gay hermaphradite doing it! Just to piss him off. He doesn't exist, and I'm sorry you think he does.
-You're killing a baby!
Reply: Wow... it's amazing the shock value invoulved with killing, maiming or really any sort of injury to a baby.
This is actually a very blurry area though... I mean babies might actually carry (or rather lack) the same important characteristics of the abortable featus I mentioned... Questioning death/killing is not something I want to do today (and probably not something humans will get around to properly addressing for a VERY long time.)
I'm just going to gloss over the large underlying box (can) of smelly, smelly, smelly shit (worms) and answer with this: The important differnce between a baby and an abortable featus is that the baby is already outside of the mommy. That's right, I said it. Touchy issue.

The fact is the woman's needs outweigh the unborn featus's.
But I do think that abortion should be taken serious. It should REQUIRE serious thought and be associated with much professional guidance, help and some more help and guidance to go with it.

Future prompts:
Which makes me wonder... the human capacity to contain info...
emotions. depressed thinking.

The quote of the day is:
All things in moderation.
Ah yes, Aristotle.
What a useless idea! It never ceases to prove true but it always ceases to help when you start to ask how. So very useless.

It's much like the advice: “"Just be yourself."”
Though not entirely on topic, it reminds me of I (heart) Huckabees. “"How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How AM I not myself? How am i not myself? HOW am I not myself?"” You know... ok, right.
It doesn't help with how to be yourself in that particular (and often nervracking and crucial) situation, if yourself is really good enough (though chances are it does need to be), if you should try to change yourself (for reasons unaddressed), which "yourself" should you be?
Again, so useless. It tells you so much without giving you anything helpful to work with.

Which brings me to the next topic.
People should be more accepting/forgiving. People care FAR too much about shit that doesn't matter. They should realize other people's situations more (and their own) and do a better job of forgiving the details. What makes someone lame and uncool? Stupid shit.
Why do people shun others? There are a few prominent reasons as I see it:
They are weirded out by what they don't understand.
They see the person as uncool/lame and don't want to be associated w/ that. (ie. to look cool themselfs)
They find the person annoying/unpleasent.

The last one is pretty reasonable, some peope are undeniably annoying or unpleasent.
Mike Hack is an example. He invokes so much pity it's really unpleasent to be around him. It makes you sad... and annoyed. I feel bad because I want to burst into laughter every time he does anything or because I see how terribly imature he is being and he's completly oblivious. Pity isn't really fun - for anyone.
Nick Giggy - Holy christ... what an asshole. True, I have some more personal issue with the kid but pretty much everyone I know hates him because he is an ASSHOLE.
It seems like there are three general primary catagories - the pity ones, the asshole ones and the ones where there is a fundamental differnce between two people and they don't get along. (like maybe, one is intensly religious and another is not at all.. that MIGHT creat some problems and I wouldn't expect someone to change when it's that big of a deal... though I personly don't think religion should be an issue like that but just think something that deep and important.)
These I all consider reasonable reasons not to like/want to be around someone.

The other two, especially the second, are what I take issue with.

First: Being sheltered is not an excuse not to like somone... get some friends!
"Oh God, I'm so afraid because that person has some peirceing, I don't understand!" Yea yea quitchur bitchen, I have no sympathy.
This is just an extreme that is bad to have. I don't want people to accept everything but don't be a fucking wussy either, have some sense and get some experience.

Second...

Ok I'm tired of that. The little tirade isn't really worth finishing... but I don't really want to remove it either so take it as some half senseless bitching about the situation of the world and think about it yourself.

Here are some (of the) good songs I heard in the process:

The Beatles
Rubber Soul
Girls

Nine Inch Nails
Downward Spiral
The Becoming

I beat my machine it’s a part of me it’s inside of me
I’m stuck in this dream it’s changing me I am becoming
The me that you know had some second thoughts
He’s covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
The me that you know doesn’t come around much
That part of me isn’t here anymore
All pain disappears it’s the nature of my circuitry
Drowns out all I hear there’s no escape from this my new consciousness
That me that you know used to have feelings
But the blood has stopped pumping and he’s left to decay
The me that you know is now made up of wires
And even when I’m right with you I’m so far away
I can try to get away but I’ve strapped myself in
I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears
I can see it killing away all my bad parts
I don’t want to listen but it’s all too clear
Hiding backwards inside of me I feel so unafraid
Annie, hold a little tighter I might just slip away

It won’t give up it wants me dead
Goddamn this noise inside my head

2005-03-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

I've been posting on debateforums.net alot. entertainment!!!1
I also got accepted to CU. (and CSU). Both, however, are qualified; I have to get good grades this semester. Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. *anger* *hate* *death* *massive destruction* *the holocaust* *bad stuff* *more bad stuff* *some other bad stuff* *that bad thing over there* *ok I'm not really this angry* *aaaaah! runaway, emote humor!*

So do you know how to drive a joke into the ground? Cuz your mom does!

Funki Porcini
The Empty Million Pounds
Theme From Sugar Daddy

2005-03-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is intresting but so is alot of stuff...

Creative sigs are also intresting:

At age 4 .... success is .... not peeing in your pants.
At age 12 .... success is .... having friends.
At age 17 .... success is .... having a driving licence.
At age 20 .... success is .... having sex.
At age 35 .... success is .... having money.
At age 50 .... success is .... having money.
At age 60 .... success is .... having sex.
At age 70 .... success is .... having a driving licence.
At age 75 .... success is .... having friends.
At age 80 .... success is .... not peeing in your pants

2005-03-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

Hey, Mr Man... Look at this?!?

Over-Analyse your this! BITCH!
{could he be serious?!?}
(about as serious as your mom (was last night)!)

I love my speakers. They're so dandy and nifty and just sound damned good too... I'm a little spoiled on my car soundsystem so it's hard to find good bass elsewhere but their base is just surprisingly good. For their size and all it's just really neat to hear and very satisfying considering I built them. /me pets speaker.
On the other hand my damned up sucks balls. One channel often cuts out and I can usualy fix it with a quick few flicks of the power switch but sometimes not... very annoying. But then, it was a couple hundred dollars worth of amp that I got for free.
I want two or three of one of these:

(sooo badass... in every way an amp could be)
and a nice sub amp...
And some extra tens... lol

At least Sammy Camp just finished:D I have that.
*crie... I'll always have that*

Hey. Look behind you.

Thanks.

So my piece... of moldy chicken... is really cool but

The hopes? CJ Core... or maybe it's CJ Kore... like the stem I'm thinking it will be Core most of the time but occasionally switch to Kore... seems like the most reasonable least reasonable way. *I said it![. bitch!]* The expectations... entertainment for myself. But deffinatly fucking hardcore... hardcore badass! Or something.

Sooo... I keep getting this mental representation of my thoughts drifting by the tide... a current... Pretty primative, but beatiful representation... It's nothing like the current of the sea, but it does have it's own sort of current - Which reminds me of two things. Connotation and blending. Metaphores. The Way We Think.

You should consider reading the reviews.
(I wonder, will any decide to go back and 'look' for the link and indavertently stumble upon the very neato look inside link? Are they going to now if there weren't?)

Btw... curse the amp...

I need to finish that god damned book (note. God doen't exist, he can't actually damn the book. I know this, so I'm not worried. And neither did I mean it in spirit despite this book. I do not have an imaginaryily abusive relationship with the book... just a saying, you know. The amp on th other hand... I keep it around only because I do not have a replacment.)
Anyways, the point? Logic is the structure and it sways with your emotion, they cause problems in infintily connected and effecting logical structure and it results in the visual equivalent of waves. But the cause of the waves (in the metaphore) is obviously very, very differnt. Just my (primative - and perhaps vicariously and consquently artistic) attempt to explain. Consider a multidimentional, perhaps infinite dimensional cause/effect/possibility (logic) structure that goes on into infinity, swaying in every (infinite) dimension to the assocciated 'direction' (infintie dimensional) of the (combination of) each emotion.

And then say CJ's a badass.

(wait no... SeigeA's a badass... :p)

*I said it!*
just like I said your mom (last night)!

If you want you can even put artistic twists to it!

Ok. So I'm listening to this song "powerbookfiend" by Kid 606.
It does seem exactly like how they mean in the title. Like they are showing you the feeling he has or he gets from 'exeriencing' (in a strictly sensical sense:p)

Like "extacy mothafucker", I bet they are making a song that makes extacy really really really fucking good (the simple) or giving their musical interpertation of what it's like... Hope fully both. Never done; can't tell.
"if I had a happy place" duh.
"parenthood" Perhaps a slanted (by state) idea of the feelings...

Perhaps, just maybe, your mom.

But anyways, the point. I imagined a powerbook fiend. What does a powerbook fiend look like? Well consider this: an indie man, gone techno (but he hearkening back to his roots of course). In a semi-bent "looking cool" pose/position. (It's a photo - still frame. - but only in concept, it's not a physical picture. Go away borders.) Now take that and have it start doing VERY simple (repetative and non-variety) dance movments. But the man is actually doing them. And then the songs kicks in more, move movments. With every added sound (in this fast pased candy techno there are alot of sounds, going fast.), melody, etc. (I don't know music) a new damnce move or combo is created, then at a climax all the pieces of him do an explosion -like thing during their dance moves and then all come back in quick-like, bu the thing has come loose. Now pieces of the picture begin to dance the same way but slightly seperated - now they each slowly become independant pieces that interact with the music on their own while the picture still has it's effect (regional effect of the images of the man moving during their respective - to the powerbook fiend's body - dance moves).
I got the notion when I started doing a little "dancing" - in a very loose concept of dancing - and it was a rather intense experience... One of the "Holy fucking Shit" things you get everytime you are waaay out of it.

I was wondering, does it make you feel good and generally attached to get to know someone really well? Like lets say there was a person that very easily let people get to know him - or at least gave them taht impression (I'd prefer the actual way). Keeps track, not to let himself get taken advantage of (you know... when people know alot about you). Making sure everyone gets a dose of the entire personality while still leaving some parts to the imagination... just the right parts.
Would that be enough to make him a generally and quickly pleasant person? Like he walks into a room and meets people and they have a feeling that they got to know him better than most people the first time you meet. And then they meet again and they have just a feeling that they understand the person better than most people on their second meating. And it continues ad infinitum... or whatever.
You know... even people people hate USUALLY get more accepted after they get to know that WHOLE person... connections, empathy, etc. And how well do good friends understand their friends? Shouldn't everything like that apply in some way to all relations - just a matter of extent.

Go! My friends! And do the funky chicken.

(Speaking of chicken...)
My piece of... moldy chicken, is really neato, but then not quite me. I can't figure it out. Why EXACTLY did I think it was intresting enough... I was moderatly preasured at the time but still.. why did I like it that much...
Anyways, it's neato. Some snakes (yes, I do mean on the moldy chicken) that have weirdly colored backgrounds on a dark, dark orange... I wonder if it's still getting better - I'm really not sure. The color isn't as thick as matt's that's for sure but his is older (yes, the piece of moldy chicken, silly)

Perhaps the problem is ther ablitly to overgeneraly...

Nine Inch Nails - Things Falling Apart - 10 Miles High

The Kidney Theives kick 4ss.

2005-03-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

Fucking Finally I get CD burning working in Linux. I guess all I needed was a good enough reason.

Marilyn Manson
Killer Wasps [The Real Ultra Rare Tracks]
Kill House
(wrong Album cover)

WTF?^

2005-03-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

As a preface: Context makes or breakes everything. EVERYTHING.

Apokalupsis
Greek for "revealing the unseen", or "lifting off the cover to reveal what lays beneath".
Sophon/Sopho
Something about wise or something

So, first order of bissuness. Nine Inch Nails rock your socks. Yes, that's right.
No, actually I have to get CD Burning working.
Speaking of that, it brings me vicariously to the topic at hand.
Kay said "No one wants to read the philosophies of a 17 year old"
Yea... I'm 18, but "Yea, that's why I'm not writing the book." cracked smirky smile.

I seem to be on a bit of a forum tangent so I'll just post some links here in a minute, I'll skip the copying and pasting this time though (see bottom). You should have a peek anyways; you lazy bastard.

The point? Well, I've decided that I'm gonna fabricate a bit of my forum personality. I suppose it will likly go over something like this:
"There's that kid and his halfcocked, nutty and overweighted theories again."
Just toss up laden and laced with my, in fact, halfcocked theories on anything and everything.

Enter: Forum Posts.
@ thoughtfulness? @ morality, again @ Atheism, again
@ Political alignment @ Faith, Ateism and all that jazz
You should probably read the pertinent parts of the thread for context and the like. Hey, maybe it's interesting too.

Anyone play D&D? I didn't, but like any good poser (eh?) I know my stuff.
Prompt
Test
Product:

True Neutral Elf Ranger

True Neutral characters are very rare. They do their very best to objectivly evaluate the situation and tend to change alliences as necissary, rather than based on their personal attachments. Though Nuetral characthers are known to toss in their own personal touch. Afterall, very little, if anything is absoulte and determinable.

Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. Due to their long lives they develop very unique personalities that are often very likeable and rounded. However, there is the occasional drab elf who has lost his personality through erosion of his/her (perhaps arguably) good minor flaws and maybe a development of extreme apathy (thousands of years will do that to you). After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy because they realize it's importance and that understanding something so important to our existance, not to mention such an accessible reasource, should be kept in good working order
;p

Anyways, I might more later tonight, I just lost intrest.
But before I go. I smoked a bunch this weekend and it's funny how clear things have been this evening (posting), but I still do the same stupid shit I'd do anyways when I'm type though :/ But it does seem to come out a little better... or something.

Before I forget; I should talk about Nathan and I's converstation. Man,,, fucking grammar, I hate you. I hate you sooo much.

Oh, and: Revision 1. But first: can I get a w00t for my nin tickets? w00t!~

Physical (You're So)
Kinda I want to
closer (precursor)
Suck
The Only Time
Sanctified
reptile
Sin (Long)
closer (deviation)
Get Down Make love

Something I can Never have (and all that could have been version)
A warm place
hurt
closer (further away)
Help Me I am In Hell
Ringfinger
Eraser (Polite)
The Day The World Went Away (quite)
Adrift and at peace (and all that could have been version)
The Fragile (and all that could have been version)
The becoming (and all that could have been version)
Still (and all that could have been version)
And all that could have been (and all that could have been version.. duh)
Leaving Hope (and all that could have been version.. I think)

closer
Last
burn
Wish
Gave Up
all the pigs, all lined up
Eraser (Dianal , Realization)
The Perfect Drug (Were in this together cd3)
Deep

Self Destruction Final
memorabilia
closer (internal)
I do not want this
Down In it (shred)
Gave Up (remix)
Wish (remix)
The Beauty Of Being Numb
Were in this together now
Complications of the Flesh
Slipping Away
10 Miles High
The Art of Self Destruction Part 1
The Art of Self Destruction Part 2
That's What I get

The Fragile (right and left)

Self Degredation. A way to avoid criticizm, or find compliments? but what else... bleh

Holy Fucking Waste of time batman! *continues*

Thievery Corporation - DJ Kicks - A Forest Mighty Black: Rebirth; Funki Porcini - Love, Pussycats & Carwrecks - Going Down; Funki Porcini - The Ultimately Empty Million Pounds - Reboot; The Tarantino Connection - New Title - Love Is;Nirvana - From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkaw - Lithium; Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire - People Of The Sun; Chemical Brothers - Singles 93 - 03 Bonus Disc - Morning Lemon; Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral - The Downward Spiral; Cake - Fashion Nugget - race car ya-yas; Green Day - American Idiot - Letterbomb; Therapy? - High Anxiety - Limbo; Zero 7 - When It Falls - In Time; Pigface - The Best of Pigface - Divebomber

2005-03-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

/me does the fucking awsome, incredible and damned nifty dance

I am going with Matt n' Kay to the nin concert in May... the third.

Skippity Diddly Day!

Orgy
Candyass
Fiend

2005-03-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

@ morality ... Thread

Nieztche said that Kant explained with the very question that was asked. With his catagorical emperatives (er whatever) Niezche said that he said it is "done by a faculty". The means is done through a means. He gives the end of that means, the catagorical emperative, but he does not give how he does it... That's what you did.
I think that it's one of two things. A mix of perfect utilitariansm and personal care or pure ideal utilitariansm. Either way the human condition is the source of problems.either the pure utilitarian approach is not understandable by we humans, hence the confusion. That's some complex cause/effect there... or the same effects the first idea and THEN you have to factor in the unknown presonal care - a sort of selfish side.The only reason i think of that mix is because morality is such a human concept. It's heavlity tainted by human religion, social opportunties and their artifacts on thought and understanding. I'm really not sure where morality stands... over as a social measure, or a deeper, more complete measure... It seems mostly like a social matter but it sure is hard to tell. Perhaps one of the largest problems people have w/ it is a misunderstaing in application. Everyone chooses a differnt perspective and uses that one... not to mention their personal differnce on what is morally ok (their 'flaws'). Pretty sure it's a pretty inheringly human thing.
But one thing Nieztche didn't seem to realize was that everyone does that to some extent. Assumptions and Axioms... Problems often arise when finite players try to play infinite games with the only rules they know. Kant just tried to pass shit off as an answer without realizing it wasn't.

2005-03-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things.... It doesn't frighten me.
~ Richard Feynman

Nice quote I found about 37 seconds ago.

Radiohead
Unplugged/Acoustic
Just
(wrong alum art)

2005-03-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

emerge: (24 of 96) x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.0-r4 Compile

Radiohead
Lost Treasures 2
Meeting In The Isle
(wrong album art)

2005-03-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

Eh. So I was in the shower and I was reminded of a quote I once read. I don't remember the quote exactly and I'm far too lazy to go find it but it hit at something along the lines of this; smart, wise people are often also characterized by a sorta... happy go lucky mood... Or something like that... I wish I could find the quote - not enough to look though.
So what's this mean to me? Well, I do agree. I deffinatly seem to think that a good humored fun type person who is also mature is often actually more mature than people really realize, and that in some ways it's a high level of maturity, because of the balance. It seems like being able to measure when things matter (and you have to be mature) and when things do not matter (so you're maturity need not be applied). Now it's not as simple as just on or off 'apply' but rather regulating the amount (of maturity) but that's how it came to find first :/ I think that the sterotype for maturity is very straight laced and mature so more people realize that (type of person) as mature and some people might even strive for it, but really that's not maturity. Knowing the 'mature' way to act and doing it in the right amount at the right time is mature. As for what exactly maturity is and what the real mature way to act is, another time - just think about the stereotype maturity and compare this aspect to it... [footnote1] The point is that I think that maturity is best served by realizing when to be mature.
But then I also realized that maturity could very actually well be a measure of how responsible to act in a given situation, again based on how much it effects - and that the stereotype and it's effects on the rest of the versions of maturity are what I was still working under. But then I realized that I actually have the same sort of 'immature' things finding themselfs into my reasoning. I noticed many instances where they were 'poisioning' it (labels! - come to think of it, that's what makes Nieztche intresting [footnote1].) You see, that's one of the main reasons for bad logic - whatever the reasons behind it.

The other day I was having a chat with Lauren Klepac about looking into stuff. I really don't think she looks into things enough. She finds what she accepts and then agrees to disagree on too much. Falling into the trappings of ignorance too soon. But you know, I do the same - just at a point farther down the line.
It brought about the question of why ignorance is bad. And frankly I can't come up with an answer, not a real one.
I can only offer examples (that are over-stigma'ed anyways) - like the matrix. Sypher 'breaks down' and gives into the 'dark side' of ignorance and bliss over the real world. But no real explinations. I can also see, besides the stigma, another pre-disposition I have. My 'elitest intelegence' one slips into the system too I think - why is knowledge good? Because I can get it (understand and know) and often rock w/ it? or is there a real reason?

Just last night me and Nathan were talking and I guess I did something a little aggrivating. It was overanalyzing. I get accused (and complimented to some extent - in other situations) on that pretty often. I think that there's a generally undue connotation with overanalyzing of being just bad. People jump to the conclusion I think. While it's true that actually analyzing too much would be bad I do question where that line should be drawn. I think people are too quick to slap the negative label where I don't think it's due. But then again it's hard to tell, and I am the one who's supposedly doing it in these situations.

Which brings me to what really prompted all this.
It's really amazing how much of what you do is effected by slightly illogical pre-dispositions and emotions. It factors into your small unconcious tendencies and mannerisms and more surprisingly your complex semi-logical decisions. Otherwise logical social decisions and often shrouded (in logic) decisions on action. All those illogical assumptions created by you pre-dispositions, the negative, posative and indiffernt, are what make you up. If you look from the strict sense of reason then what makes up a person is their flaws and impracticalaties. But what of maturity? Is maturity just a measure of reason and
fun. You make worthwhile sacrifices in the name of fun.
But even attemps at that can fail under the influence of a person. Another perspective at the same human nature.

What I find amazing is the depth of the effects.

Misunderstanding. The tyrannical subversion of labels.
Labels are much more inadequate than people really do realize. It's practical, do doubt and perfectly adequate in the every day life. But when you try to explain our universe and things more complex than we are currently near understanding the label's accuracy quicly fades. Context is lost. The markers left by labels are unclear, they lose their follower on the trail. The follower might find his way back but a part of what matters is the path taken. Cause and effect. It forces people to work in sterotypes or cope with undue pre-dispositions.
Not to mention keeping track... who the fuck has full control of their word database at any given moment? Lemme just say not me... That'd be nice though - instantanseous recolection and understanding.

[footnote1:]
Neiztche is like so much, as in he's intresting and pleasent to read because he puts so much of his own feeling into it. While he's giving his 'objective oppinion' on how philosophers work - by rationalization (essentially) and their other demeriting attributes he uses specific word choice to portay what I can only imagine is his own pre-dispositions with reguard to the subject. As can be expected - he's human, but ironic? Yes. However the real reason people like him is because of his knack (I wonder how much the translation effects this... should I learn german?) for explination. He says everything with so much more meaning included. It's so elegant and dense. Not the dry textbook density but his own style of meaning, an intresting mix of verbiage and perfect word choice. It just makes you think about what he's saying.

[footnote2:]
It deffinatly seems like at this level of thought you are forced to realize your small fallicious logical connections and potential pre-disposed (and untrue) tendencies that wriggle their way in... Understanding yourself on a very low level would help so much. Understanding the brain and our limitations would go so far to understanding philosophical questions. They invoulve 'human nature' which is really comprised of our actions - everything inside our head and body. There isn't anythying outside just [currently] suddle complexities that we are only now scratching hte surface of. How we think, how emotions effect us, how our recognizably flawed 'immaturities' develop (lables slacking off again!), how our language and other coping systems effect the outcomes. To me the largest concept in human nature is that of finity. We are inherently finite beings trying to comprehend an inherently infinite - and completly so - universe. We have to understand the mechanisms that have developed for us to cope with that difference in both the cognative and 'purely practical' [labels strike again!] aspects. What I still can't say is weather or not I think that understanding that will give us any more insight into that infinity or if we will get stuck up againts a wall where it is our condidtion that limits us. All we are left to do is make vague suppositions with no way of knowing or ever understanding the extra exspance. But you should remember the reason why I can't say... it's because that point is so far away, for matter of mass understanding and being near it in understanding ourselfs [seigeA's bad explinations strike again!].

Some redundancy? I think so... too much to organize perfectly, it's all so interrelated. Sorry... I'm pretty lazy...

Love Psycodelic - Early Times - Rosy; Serial Experiments Lain - S-peEd; Coheed and Cambria - Penelope [Performed As Shabutie] Lyrics - Kinderwhore (wrong album art); Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 - Ugly (wrong album art); Serial Experiments Lain ; The Jesus And Mary Chain - Psychocandy - Never Understand; The Toasters - I'm Running Right Through The World; The Impossibles - Back for the Attack - Widowmaker; Snake River Conspiracy - Pitiful (album art???); Marilyn Manson - Portrait of an American Family - Sweet Tooth; Green Day - Nimrod - King For a Day; Velvet Revoulver - Contraband - Set Me Free; Boy Hits Car - I'm a Cloud; Marilyn Manson - Track 3 [footnote3]; Pink Floyed - Animals - Pigs (Three Different kinds); Love Psychedelico - Early Times - Your Song; A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms - Renholder; Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People - Cryptorchid; Paul Okeinfold - Swordfish OST - Dope Smugglaz / The Word; Liquid - Recoil - Track 4 (tacky but almost good); Jedi Mind Tricks - Visions Of Gandhi - The Boondock Saints Interlude; Nine Inch Nails - Things Falling Apart - Starfuckers; Radiohead - Ok Computer - Karma Police; Smashing Pumpkins - Judas - Slow Down (album art); Rage Against The Machine - Rare Live Import - Hadda Be Playing On The Jukebox {live}; Pigface - The Greatest Hits - Suck (Trent Reznor collaboration of some sort... see here); 16 volt - Wisdom - Filth Love of Fire

[footnote3:]
not sure about the real name... it has Charlie and the Choclate factory sound effects... Nobody every goes in, nobody ever comes out... Wrong album art

2005-03-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

@ Objectivism Thread

I'll just toss up at c)

I think that everything is based on reason/logic/cause/effect type stuff. I'm not quite sure what to call it other than rational. HOWEVER, I make a destinction between the knowable and the rational (just to call it something, not sure if that fits like I think it does.) It pretty much sounds like the Objectivist thing (never actually read the stuff though...)

The concept is simple but there are some problems. While everything is rational it would seem like everything is also infinite. (We deffinatly make progress in understanding, always finding new things - changing ideas - but we also never really reach an end... Though it's true that we only have a few thousand years of experience...) Humans deffinatly don't have infinite capabilities. So can we understand everything? I'd hazard not (but hey, what else is there to do?)

I'd say our best bet at it would be to reverse engineer our universe. Physics anyone? Chemistry? Eh? eh? But when you get to a certain point you start to realize how much your preception matters. Microwaves (can we see them? no...)? Reletivity (do things look differnt from another way... ya...)? Related, yes.
I think one of the next big steps to understand everything, even the oddball sciences is understanding ourselfs. Humans and more about how we work and think. We understand our physical limits just as we do physics, but our theoretical and conceptual limits? They are still just that - theoretical and conceptual, they arn't real sciences... yet.
Another big step is the ability to have larger studies and comprehend and handle larger amounts of data. You know psycology is so tough? That shit's complicated and we don't understand it yet. Nothing more. Social sciences... hey we don't even udnerstand one person yet... much less hundreds of thousands. Economy? Government... again... lots of people and groups of people and other theories...eep! complication!!! Evolution... shit, we only have a snapshot, we can't hash that sort of thing out well enough yet.

Philosophy is the science of the future in some respects...

_______________________

@ What is normal?
Thread

Well, people are pretty alike. For all our differences we have many similarites. Put that together with a necessity to be social (for the most part) and you will end up with norms. In societies you have to be able to get along, without standards you can't do that. The normal is what is not offending or scournful. It's the standard. It's what make people like you.
There are two interrelating parts. The group part and the individual part. The group is the mass of individual parts. As said above (except they arn't actually opposing).
The variance in tolerences and differnt belifs are part of what the normal comes from. But, the normal is just what the most (powerful) portion has in common and tends to agree to accept. What matters most to most in many ways. Really everyone fits in differnt amounts. Some don't at all, some do, but for different reasons and all to differnt exents an in differnt ways. Really no-one is normal. No-one is the same as most, in fact most arn't the same as any. But if you take large enough things about people you can deffinatly find common ground. That's the normal of the group and it effects the group. But it's also made from the individuals. And individuals all develop differently, but still have their hand in the norm. That's part of why it changes.
But it's not all numbers, but power. While the majority often has the most power, power is still the important part, not simple numbers. When someone who alot of people like (and accept), and especially so, emulate, changes something (even if it deviates from the norm - just because people like to be normal doesn't mean they only like what is PERFECTLY normal too...) then people might just change after them.
Really it's all about social tendencies and fitting in; being liked. Functioning in society. Everyone values that differntly but when you get down to it it's what's generally important to peoples that makes the normal.

The two are not completly seperate. They are parts to a whole and both effect each other in many differnt ways.
I'd say the social deffinition of normal is something like; what's most generally accepted. Attributes held by most people in a group.
The subtext is how they are decided and what they effect, and that's the intresting part.

Personally I care very little about the normal. I try to go with what makes the most sense, and then I add my own personal touch. A print of my fundamental (and in some cases flawed) values and then (I suppose a sub-section of the first) I do what I can to include deviations in the area's I find unimportant. But I do make an effort to conform when something is not important to me and it seems important to the normal.
I hope that's all coherent and the like. You might say I'm a little incapacitated? at the moment.

_______________________

Radiohead
Amnesiac
Dollars and Cents

2005-03-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

So I made some long forum posts tonight; had some fun with it.

@ Forgivness. Thread

_________________________

[QUOTE=Steven]I was thinking about this a little bit earlier. It seems often times it goes against human nature to be a forgiving person. Most of the time it would be tremendously easier to just blow someone off when they piss you off! But in the long run, being a forgiving person brings a lot more inner peace -- for me, at least. So my question for you is, do you consider yourself a very forgiving person? Is forgiveness an important value for you? To what extent should we forgive those who hurt or anger us?[/QUOTE]

It makes sense for a social animal to have social tendencies. That's the human's nature. However I'm sure there are tons of other things that factor into it.
Forgiving helps make others like you - which makes you feel good, not to mention you have probably learned that forgivness is good so you feel good (or maybe it's not bad... :p) when you do it. Plus it's generally a good trait and all...

Julia i think you make some good points as usual.
Manners are mostly superficial anyways, and rarely concious. That's the important part. Unless they are seriously disruptive I really don't see what the big deal is.

Lemme just say before I continue... I'm entertaining myself. And it's late at night.
I consider myself a pretty darn forgiving person. It's hard to tell what you would and wouldn't forgive for before you are really in the situation but I'd forgive alot. Not anythinb but alot.
It seems like forgivness for me is pretty calculated. I pride myself (and well... obviously I guess, I think justly) for pretty good objectivity and level headedness. Of course I have my slants - it's hard to break out of the influences of your childhood - but I do a pretty darn good job and it has me forgive alot too. Which I guess is good..
Anyways, it does make for a few... well, maybe just two types of forgivness.
Then there's sorta an asshole catagory. It's really a spectrum... It's basicly levels of selfishness (which really seems like it's the basis for what is good in people). If you conciously do things that are selfish or outright mean (like you really get no gain but it's really mean) you're pretty terrible. Depending on the things severity it's harder to forgive.
And then there's a forgivness for the little things... manners type stuff I guess. While I look for manners, bad ones are easilty forgiven. They're a superficial nothing. For the most part arbitrary or excessive. Unless they are particulairly annoying I don't attribute much to them. Really lack of or excess of is amusing. I pretty much for give anything having to do with this. You might say this is a check for hypocracy, because that's selfish (to some extent) and generally bad (goes along with forgivness I think).
It seems almost like there's really two opposing spectrums that sorta work against each other to find the 'value' of forgivness. One is selfishness and the other is a check for hypocracy and empathy. Ya, alot more like that. And then of course what you truely fogive is effected by YOU and your values as well - however objective you may be you're still human and the like.
True forgivness sorta brings up another thing to remember. There's a differnce between forgiving someone because you feel like you should (just saying it) and not really forgiving them. (Where you factor it into their person as a negative, or outright lie and don't trust them, or whatever it is.) And when you actually forgive someone for something. Who cares about the first, it's wussy.

And, breaking off isn't really directly related either. It's sorta like there are two catagories; and one relates to forgivness directly. One where I'd break off because I can't forgive and I just don't want to be near them, and one where, while I forgive, it doesn't seem prudent to stick around - but of course; it's a mix - a spectrum?

Back to the question, forgivness is an important part of being a good person. And it's a sign and aid for understanding and learning. The stuff that counts I think - at least something that counts.
I think I already explined the extent? :p

I think it's funny how much more I see as I grow up about people's situations. It changes alot of dislike into just pity as you start to realize how much people's situation's effect them. Which can still make them unpleasent...And realize more about how you once were or still are.

_______________

@ Science vs. Philosphy.Thread

_____________________

The other day on the way back from illegal pete's a friend and I had a conversation. The pertinent part was about something along the lines of this...

Lemme just say it's late at night and I'm entertaining myself here...

There is a fundamental, but simply dividing differnence between science and philosophy.
Science is the emperical. It's the proven and demonstarted. We'll go ahead and call it the far right side of the spectrum. Everything is proven and demonstateable. There are theories, but they are always validated using strict and stringent methods. It produces reliable and specific information about the world we live in.
Philosophy is the realm of the logical. The idealized playground for theories on the world we live in. The difference, of which the effects are very, very widespread, is that of reliablity and specific information (not to be confused with detailed). This method, for the same end - though perhaps on a distant and definably vague 'other level' - uses a differnt means. It's a means of guessing. When you deleve into the complexities that Philosophy deals with you cannot (yet?) isolate and experiment. You cannot even develop defined methods. In this realm we peer outside our limits, we cannot, as humans, cope with the many of the complexities faced. For instance, communicational, capacital (eh?), and perceptual barriers. Those barriers only serve to confuse in it's understanding, as a concept (akin to science even...). They help muddle up the waters even more than the simple (and wrong) assumptions and bad logic. Overlooked and confused causes and effects create the problms. But those assumptions and (unfortunate, but necissary) simplifications are what allow it to dive so deep. Attempt to tackle the 'deep'. That which we do not even nearly understand.
Movment, Forces, Electricty, weight, Gravity, mass, chemical reactions, molecules, bacteria, plants, animals, brain(s)?, virii, life?, quantum mechanics, Energy, string theory?, time?... our preception...
You know, you get a Ph. D. in Physics.
And ot QUITE from a whole nother catagory, but not quite the same; Policy, Social sciences of many sorts, psycology, economics; government, morality, meaning... art? Truth?
Perhaps all parts to a whole - a variety of appearences and adapted (origination?) functions as well as methods.
The point is they're a parts of a whole idea, differnt, but more similar than they first appear.
I'd hazard taht they both came about similarily, developing along the way into what they are now. Growing (with us) more and more complex but in very differnt ways.

Isn't it ironic?

____________________

Evanescence
Fallen (Publicity Promo)
Taking Over Me (Demo)

2005-02-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

Pretty terrible and revolutionary (good? we will see) day. So fuck it sorta...

I shouldn't do this but I will. Twice because my computer is a fucking dumb shit.

Ten random things about me::

1. Cuteness makes me happier than anyhting else - except maybe thinking... maybe.
2. I really want to be a badass
3. I used to inline skate, bmx, skateboard, mountain bike and ski. I did the mechanic type stuff for them to, but now computers has replaced them.
4. I think I have ADD, but I'm not really sure.
5. I havn't seen my dad since I was about 9.
6. When I was four my mom got in a car accident in which she nearly died and was paralyzed (she got better; unexpectedly). I drew a picture of her at one end of a rainbow all broken and the other all fixed. She framed it with what I said to her when I presented it. The figures had a combined torso and head.
7. I used to be a pretty decent artist
8. I often think I might be just a little bit crazy
9. I REALLY like to think because it's like getting away. The same thing as ecstatic happyness, sex, drugs and a ton of other things. Just more productive than most - sorta.
10. I used to read a TON. Like while walking to the bus stop, on the bus, in class, in the halls, in bed, and more. Usually not in the car though.

Nine ways to win my heart::

1. Be unique
2. Be sincere
3. Be cute
4. Be comforting to be 'with' (hrm... can't describe accuratly)
5. And be very open minded
6. Be pretty good looking (stfu, you know it matters)
7. Be pretty smart.
8. Think sex is great
9. Have me in your heart.

Eight things I want to do before I die::

1. Be a badass
2. Be well self educated on lots of really intresting stuffs
3. Raise some amazing kids
4. Have mindblowingly awesome sex, nightly
5. Make a really good piece of art
6. Write a book
7. Be a bum (no commitment) in Europe
8. Do a number of drugs at least once

Seven ways to annoy me::

1. Be closed minded
2. Don't listen to reason
3. Be transparently insecure and make a show of it
4. Never shut up about yourself (see above)
5. Be really, really, really pitiful (see above??)
6. Be an asshole
7. Be excessivly fake

Six of my current favorite songs::

1. Nine Inch Nails - Something I Can Never Have (Still version)
2. Shelly Fabares - Johnny Angel
3. Incubus - Azwethinkweiz
4. Pigface - Sweetmeat
5. Radiohead - Packed Like Sardinces in a Crushed Tin Box
6. Most Nine Inch Nails songs - like say... Ten Miles High.

Five things I am afraid of::

1. Confirmed Failure
2. Confirmed Failure
3. Confirmed Failure
4. Confirmed Failure
5. Confirmed Failure

Four favorite items in my room::

1. My set of speakers I made with Chris
2. My stack of books I need to finish reading
3. My uber-l33t ass fucking computer :p
4. My ole' 'leather' chair.

Three things I do everyday::

1. Listen to music
2. Think about intresting stuff
3. Think about less than happy stuff

Two things I want to do right now::

1. Not have to do homework
2. Be comforted

One person I want to see right now::

1. Someone comforting. I have one person in mind at this moment but there are many alternatives. Unfortunatly none of them can be had in the capacity I'd like.

2005-02-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

Link of the day:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6993215/

So I have been sing these damned little surveys on all the blogs and to be honest they are terrible. But I saw this one and it was not quite so bad so I figured I'd give in - but attempt to keep some dignity.

What is your favorite:
gum: Anyone with very little sugar that leaves your mouth feeling so fresh and so clean.
restaurant: Most in the upper fast food class (burrito joints, sub joints, Noodles, Tokyo Joe's, etc)
drink: Milk, Juice, Water. Pago (I think?) strawbery juice, Lemonade, Dole Strawbery-kiwi juice. Minute Made juices are also very good - in an addicting sort of way "Crack Juice".
season: mid-Late spring and late winter.
type of weather : cool but sunny with clouds but a bright blue sky and a touch of rain.
emotion: Happyness and excitemtn, espcially when prompted by cuteness, thought, sexual arousal or um... love? Lables strike again.
thing to do on a half day: If by favorite you mean the perfect example: Something very productive, esp. intellectually. If by favorite you mean what I actually tend to do: Something terribly unproductive and borderline useless and wasteful.
late-night activity: Thinking. Prompts often include forums, blogs, reading, music, and movies. May be influenced by the ganj.
sport: Rock climbing.
city: Boulder and/or Amsterdam
store: Barnes and Noble and/or McGuckins
When was the last time you:
cried: A good bit ago.
played a sport : Tommorow afternoon.
laughed: At all? a few hours ago. Genuinly? Last night. More than ever before? The Refrigerator.
BTW, inside jokes are the best.
hugged someone: Can't remember.
kissed someone: Too long.
been depressed: Depends on how much. This afternoon was very mild. A week or few ago I was feelin' a little down too.
felt elated: The forensics meet on a few occasions (not related at all to forensics, just people.)
felt overworked: I always feel like I'm not doing enough work. And like there is too much to be done. I think that should answer the question well enough.
faked sick: Never successfully and hardly ever before - probably since sometime my mom got a divorce.
lied: Deliberatly and with actual intent to decieve? I rarely do... I can't remember the last time off the top of my head though.
What was the last...
word you said: I don't remember.
thing you ate: Pizza crust.
song you listened to: Pigface - Hips Tits Lips Power
thing you drank: milk
place you went to: Work - PDRC
movie you saw: Gattica (today)
movie you rented:
concert you attended: Dave Mathews Band
Who was the last person you...
hugged: Nathan.
OH MY GOD. That is sad, I need to fix that.
cried over: Sara
kissed: Sara
danced with: my mind
shared a secret with: Nathan-san and friends. I deal in secrets about myself though - about the principals I work on. I don't have gossipy, simple secrets.
had a sleepover with: Matt... 'sleepover' is the wrong way to put it though.
called: Kay
went to a movie with: Um... Lauren Jessie and Allie... I think.
saw: Ben and his son Body.
were angry with: Annoyed by Coby but angry with um... myself? Perhaps... Ya, I can't remember. Probably Coby.
couldn't take your eyes off of : It's not a matter of inability but simply desire. I didn't want to take my eyes off of Kay at one point the other day, and that really hot fairy chick, and also Lisa and Lauren a few times yesterday.
obsessed over: I had a mini-fantasy about Rose the other day, but besides that Ori. Then Kay. Then Sara.
Have you ever...
danced in the rain: ya
kissed someone: yes
done drugs: yes
drank alcohol: yes
slept around: no
partied 'til the sun came up: only a LAN party.
had a movie marathon: no
gone too far on a dare: lol... no
spun until you were immensely dizzy: yup
taken a survey quite like this before: yup

Theory Of Trance
Rabid Transit

2005-02-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

Topics for the night.
Infinity: Human Limits, Language, and Understanding.
Mind, Body and their Empathy ~ Emotions. Morality.
A tribute to Perplexing Perspective.
Paradoxes? Time?
Science and noble psuedo-science.
Desire and Flaws. -My random blog reading epsidodes and fun from fucking with people.

...

Ugly Duckling
Fresh Mode
Einstein's Takin Off

2005-02-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

I keep getting this notion of having a terribly irresponsible, impulsive, emotional hardcore love-style relationship with someone. Dunno who... just someone good.
It's a little weird. I have seen alot of bad relationships and more importantly thought alot about them so this idea seems pretty terrible. I feel like relationships should be much more serious and monitored than that. But then... love is pretty amazing. And sex is awsome too. So intense love and sex - completly wrapped up in the moment and your emotions... hrm. Sounds fucking great. But then... But... Then...

Anyways, all day i've been feeling a little weird. That tobacco I smoked with all that bud perhaps? Whatever.
I had this really relativly intense feeling that I wanted to hang out with someone - girl in particular but anyone would fix the feeling at least a little. I could recognize the feeling as how I used to feel with forums and playing games. Like I had to do something to fix this insatiable need - almost. It was a little funny that it was with hanging out with people though, I can't really remember feeling like that for a while... just a few times.

I feel like everything is gonna end up getting fucked up. I have so much stuff I havn't done that i really need to - so much to keep track of and so unintesting - I just don't really wanna do it.

Enough for now.

Actually... did you ever wonder where the rabbit with the pancake on the head came from? I did, and I just happened by it...
http://www.h6.dion.ne.jp/~yuebing/

Queens Of The Stone Age
Songs For The Deaf
Song For The Deaf

2005-02-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

Girls are such a pain. You have to do all this shit and then all this shit doesn't work out and you have to do more shit and then you think about it and maybe worry about it and it's just so much shit that you gotta do. It sucks.
Sigh.

But at least NIN kicks ass.

Nine Inch Nails
And All That Could Have Been - Still
And All That Could Have Been

2005-02-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

Wow... I'm so poor.

Something to be read and explored (with excitment and anticiaption rather than with doubt) when you are in a neato mood. You might say it's nearly scientific. Scientific in goal but not really technically sience.

Anyways, looking in the mirror when you're high is so amazing. And the funniest part is why. I had this crazy notion when I was there about evolutionary causes (but by this I mean the 'small scale' approach to it where the strain still had mistakes and small-ish variations withing one group, like humans) reasons that things were rewarded - first in general and then specifically in the instance of what happens when you smoke) was because everything was made more intresting by way of surprise and also because of truely intresting and differnt sensory function and overal preception. Surprise that either creates or is coupled with a general happy feeling.

--The reason for the surprise is because of an increased attention around you (ie. detail. Shown by the intense and full visual presentation and increase in feeling) and a decreased attention span. Keep in mind, all this is being done on chemical reactions that lead to other chemical changes and a general effect on thought.--

So how does that realate to evolution? Well food causes either the same or similar (I forget... some TechTV show...) reaction, chemically, but it's far, far, far more intense and perhaps slightly differnt. So it's a greater reward for proper care, the ones that have this greater reward (though not by much) slowly, very slowly, but eventually began to come out on top. And then the drug is just a way to increase that reward enough to analyze it.

This all came from an idea about.. I forget.

MiNd on DrUgs
When you think, and think about how you think, it seems initially that all your minds are faster, that perhaps you are even more insightful. But first lookback tells you that that's a load of crap. People GET stupider when they are on DrUgs. Everyone knows. But then I wonder... I wonder about why they get stupider, or appear so. Surely it's not as simple as the 'dumb factor' kicks up. It's comlicated. But how so? People seem to lose their abilty to comunitate well, be claer. That's the reason they seem dumb, and depending on how you define dumb, maybe they really do become dumb - or maybe not. Beside the point, I'm unintrested. Why? Well, the shortened attention span has alot to do with it. And then there's the increased senses (as mentioned above). Factor in excitment or more intense emotional effects (ie. chemical changes that tend somehow to effect or sway your decisions - often away from logic, but not always) Along with a greater importance of quick decisions (sort of like a less effective - more leeway - but quicker filter system.) Perhaps due to the changes in attention span (that's less time commited in all processing, not just highly concious processing.) So your decisions are in fact slightly worse. Quick ones, and if you think about things you might end up getting very deep (hyperfocus - like ADD people sometimes, the same sort of attention span effect(s)) and most importantly when you do try to explain it comes out badly because of those very same reasons. (I will add in that I admit to resenting the 'stupid' idea... but still.) Then there's also the much more external expected effect aspect, when someone knows you're on DrUgs they may look much harder for the effects and even create them due to the expectation and often intrest and associations. So basicly your thoughts are more swayed by your emotions and the moment (and also invoulve less good processing) and you are bad at explaining. And you also tend to think some larger theories through less.
On another note it feels like your thoughts speed up. But I think it's more like thoughts 'slow down' and because you notice more and your thoughts are made quicker and with less attention (before you move on) - this is similar to speeding up because you seem to complete more (esp. in a while on drugs shortsighted analzysis, and you notice your thoughts and more things about them because of the sensory-type effect), but only because you move on quicker, however it's really a 'slow down' because of the loss of effectivness in a given amount of time.

Good point Nieztche.
Niezche made a good point about 'maybe' philosophers I think.
And about the nature of philosphers:
"They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through self development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic (as opposed to a mystecs of vevery rank, who are more honest and doltish - and talk of 'inspiration'); while at the bottom of the assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of 'inspiration' - most of a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract - that they defend eith reasons they have sought after the fact."
He hits the nail on the head I think. I honestly could not have even nearly matched is words. The detail; the use of every asset available in (nearly...) measured and precise amounts. Beside and behind his proposed 'truths' he even incorperates his own personal touch (his more 'personal' and oppinionative oppinion), and I do think he realizes this, and perhaps enhances it (conciously or not, he does it well).
It's really great to read, everything has so much in it, so much thought! But it's hard to keep on it... I drift around... sorta like a small raft in a large but calm sea following a line on the botton that twists and turves (cept not:p); a path; but forgetting to row at times and drifing slow off, and then overcorrecting but eventually returning only to be lost in thought again and absentmindedly forget to keep paddling on the way. {!:p wow.
Anyways... Every human must raise their hand.

Next order of buisiness.
Reading into things.
First, there are two unfortunatly indestinct types. First, reading into things where you are wrong, simply. And reading into things when you are 'looking into it too far', And of course the invariable, inconsistent and confusing mix of the two (however they do graviate when attempts to understand are made - to polars intead of bells :p?).
Well to the first.. unfortunate. However I think often mistaken for a truth of the second. And to the second I ask "What's wrong with learning, understanding and knowledge?" Especially if it's all in good fun aswell (forgive a possible? misuse?) And the third is just an opening addition - an unsimplifcation and hinting explination at the real inifity of our universe - not actually a real third catagory of the same sense.

--Infinite infinity. eep! Powerful concepts... infinite 'dimensional' (in every... even infinite... aspect), not just infinite in time or space or matter... infinite in nature and in every other aspect of.--

'Sorry'
sorry...
There are two sorts of sorry I think. And I think the same (though for a differnt reason) unfortunate indestinction - or in this case at least confusion - as above. First, that third catagory... it's really just what the two catagories simplify into (for we understanders... a simple byproduct of language) The Second is the catagory where you really mean to say that you are sorry "and feel genuinly bad about it and wish that time could turn back and things could be better"... or something along those lines. The Third is where you are sorry as in you can sympathize, empahtize or at least understand their situation.
Just think destictions should be made, some people do and others take offence and needless sorry's or become confused (weather they realize or not is another matter) when interperting.
um... sorry ..

What watchamahey says... I froget...

Nine Inch Nails
The Day The World Went Away
The Day the World Went Away (quiet)

2005-02-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting around here at school. Having a boring and intresting time at the same...
The morning after a massive smoke session is always fun. Best thought around.

Anyways. I'm stuck on a lil' something. But I don't think it'd be prudent to go into that.

I was gonna ask bela about where she knew that hot chick from... and then the hot chick poped up. It was like holy crap. That's ironic. Wow. And damn is she fine! aaaiyeee!

The other day Nathan said a little something about me having a stunted social development, I had never quite looked at that so directly. It's completly true. Though I'm still tossing the implications and weather or not it even matters around in my head.

It's quite amazing how Nietzche writes. He doesn't say things directly, he makes it so much more intresting. Everything he says has a non-literal meaning. It requires interpertation and thought. Harnessing the real power of feeling - againts reason eh? It permiates all his writing.
This is the good kind of dense. It's the dense where every sentence has not just one or two but many many layers of meaning. Every line requires you to process it with reguard to everything else. It's not just pure facts and statments dense. Not a exorbitant amount of straighforward information but huge amounts of implied thought.

I wonder if the best way for a philosopher to write would be through thought prompting. Don't explain your situation. Beg the questions. Lead them to your answer; but only lead. Allow for deviation and full understanding. Force them to think for themselfs. Force them to think. Force THEM to find the truth.
I think so.
You gotta use your whole bag of tricks. Working on every level in every way to guide and influence their thought's path. It'd be a true form of art.
Sigh.

Ok, well I'm off to do a little more nothing here in the library.

2005-02-22T03:03:00.000-07:00

Coheed and Cambira -
Man, I got mad munchies.... so here's some for your mind.
Think of how it would be like to be your best friend.
How differently you would look at the world. How exactly would you think. What other things would you see, or miss. What would you know about family? Love? Sex? Food? Themselves? Consider everything.
Now, what would it be like to be a mid evil peasant. Don't think back to your data banks for history and scour for how they lived and then leave it at that. No, exactly how do you live? How have you lived? How has this made you, you? Your essence. Your thought down to it's finest assumptions and tiniest tendencies. Your soul? (Ah, labels. Ruining intent since the dawn of thought. But making lots of stuff real apparent too.) Now, take that data from the banks and create the same for that person. As best you can, and then compare. How different would it be? How many people does that peasant know? What sorts of lovers? How much does he know, about anything. What does he know about everything?

Anyways...
Wow, good times. I dealied up a lil' piece of art that I'm gonna sit on for a lil while. They always seem to be so lame though. Funny.

Art really is neato. I'd say that it's strongest merit is, quite obviously, it's ability to capture and convey feeling. No doubt. But what exactly is that human touch? What produces it? What makes art, art – something, anything that MEANS something; something universal, something MORE, something deep, something to relate to; to empathize with, to think about, to get wrapped up in.

Here follows an amusing oversimplification and classification with the hopes of more truth that you might think. Of course, we work predominantly in stereotypes, an unfortunate but necessary shortcut in the name of practicality and efficiency. A painter is a stereotype artist. The concept might just hold true for everything if you hash it out deeply enough. We are discovering the meaning not creating it.

Conception. A moment of importance that sets the stage for the idea's growth and development. Universal feelings are found through the emotional sways on the details captured by the artist in this moment. Doubtlessly this effects the entire piece in far-reaching and always unexpected ways.

Creation.
Process one
The first process is that of emotion. Emotions, caused by chemical fluctuations due to ranges of varieties of a veritable plethora of causes all cross effecting and building to the final and inexplicably complex Emotion. Each lesser sentiment, the building block of those complex emotions factors in in the exact same manner as above. The same works in the other direction, the causes of those causes. Now, with each decision the infinitely complex emotions have sway. They carry into every brush stroke, every modification and by the moment decision. This factors into all things done at every point from here on out. It effects everything we think about and consider, doubtlessly in far-reaching and always unexpected ways. It also carries over time, it is not an epiphanic instant like Conception, rather a condition. You might even be able to say that it is this is really the base of the entire system because it creates those very sways that contribute to making the Conception quality.

Process two.
The second, and variably (as in w/ respect to variables) dependent :p process is that of working out the picture's details.

Meaning – Conception as well as the later attributed meanings and reasons. Th later comes after mulling the Concepted around for a while. Those conscious meanings are what make the conscious part of intent.

Intent
The conscious: Working out the way you will do every intentional influence on the picture. It comes from the Meaning these intentional influences are the intent in the art, but not actually art. Art is something, anything, that means something, but there are degrees; aesthetics and merit as well. Damned labels again! Never complex enough.
The subconscious – the feelings: This classifies the small motions and subconscious decisions that take place in the meaning and actual creation of the piece. Emotionally inspired, these small things effect the picture as a whole in far-reaching and always unexpected ways.

Luck.
Man this has got a shit load to do with it. You see, you have to find a good balance, and have the emotion, the MEANING universally, or at least meanly accepted. You have to make sure that the piece gets seen, and realized. That poop as art... hey maybe,; or maybe it wasn't universal enough. Art to one person may still be art... though perhaps it should be considered insane art.

So that's an outline of the way it works... or something. So you just have to apply everything per-case in how it fits in. Damn the labels and the laziness.

For my goofy formatting and syntax.
Really no perfect format in this linear single dimension form.
Syntax is free-associative like a lot of the word choice.
Also, these traits can be found elsewhere – perhaps everywhere in the human method, art is just their playground.

I'm far too lazy to even read the ramblings above... whatever.

Topic Prompts.
Infinity words – complex system of language
Human body sucks – understanding our limitations is the key to true objectivity? So is more truth understanding (in some manner) of infinity.
Language first, brain second etc.

2005-02-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

So, four day weekend eh? Meh.
Some highlights... or something.
The Lazer light shows at Fisk really suck hardcore compared to good ole' xmms visualizations. They're just simple and boring.
Don't laugh at all when you get pulled over by a cop. Don't be high either. Or have drugs in the car. Oh, and don't leave the lights off in the first place. Oh, and make sure you don't do anything really stupid. And saying someone has been drinking under-aged isn't the best excuse for why they aren't driving. You lost the rock paper scissors game IS though. But alas, we narrowly escaped so who cares.
Wang is a dick, he needs to drop those asses he hangs out with. Sigh. Too bad really. I wanted my stuffs but noooo. *shakes fist* no benefits at all.
On the other hand, sexy skinny dipping girls ARE great... eep! Lemme just say very nice boobies, no doubt.
*hopes for some nice new route's at the climbing gym on monday*
Oh, also Jack-person seriously makes THE BEST jokes around... So funny... I was shocked and astounded. Damned clever.

Sunday mornings at work are always a good time. Unlike saturday afternoons where it's always abnormally busy (yes, I know) and filled with the weirdest people ever, Sunday mornings involve good family time and few people. That means parents watch their kids (easy to guard without a doubt) and everyone is happy AND there are lots of little kids. So cute... There was this little girl with all these little freckles and a nice little smile... Cuteness is the best thing on the planet, it can't help but make you smile. Anyways, all that makes for a good mood and having nothing very engaging to actually do along with a smoking "hangover" makes for alot of good thought. Sundays always seem to go so fast, it's very nice.
Anyways, the thought... I remembered way back when in fifth grade when I had to take some sort of test to get into some sort of math program called Megus... or something. It was at this science/math magnet school I was going too... Gah Florida and their failing education policies - beside the point. Anyways, I didn't do so well I guess, I didn't get to go into the class with my friend, Emery... that kid was cool. So then I went into the regular math class... I'm pretty sure I didn't learn anything... in fact now that I think back the ONLY thing I remember was the first day when the teacher said something about a google being the number w/ a hundred zeros after it. Although I DID move back out here to Colorado midway though that year but still... You see, now that I think about it I'm pretty sure that was the start of my resentment for math. And then in addition to that failure the fact that I HATED, well... hate, homework and the math teachers are always so anal about it just went to re-enforce my hate for math. And the saga only continued throughout my math career. When I was in 8th grade I had trouble... no homework and bad test taking = bad grades = hate. But I did sorta like it cuz I ALWAYS understood when I did put my mind to it, even if I did bad on the test. This is where my self-confidence coping mechanism comes in... heh. Sigh.
So I guess I'll go into that a little then. It's the laziness. It's a way to make myself look good... I'll explain.
Let me preface with a touch on my underlying philosophies in life. I never really cared about traditional looks and values and all that. Of course, I was a hypocrite, but I hated them in many respects and most importantly I acted against them in some way or another constantly. An example; all my l33t shit (and by l33t I mean it's ghetto, but bad fucking ass – yes, that's right) is a manifestation of this really... 'Who the fuck cares what it looks like? It's better than your's and what's more is I did it myself! Bitch.' Is what I thought about that sort of stuff. And that sort of philosophy (it's “sort” for my lack of motivation to write a complete and easy explanation of it) is the/an underlying trait to much of how I am. But most of all it is component to the laziness I so flaunt. Another important aspect of my philosophy was elitism. It burned strong hidden well beneath. I felt so damned cool cuz I was so smart... so ya, underlying motives and worries.
I'd also like to point out that this is past reasoning and nowadays I'm working it all out with the best end in mind... whatever that means. Past, present, transition, change. Different. - End preface.
My logic was (very) roughly this: I know I'm smart, and I love being complimented on it. And what's better than compliments? Knowing you did all that without trying! So, how can I assure compliments (and surprise!) without the need for much work AND with a backup plan to get me out of criticism I care about? Well, being lazy is the answer. I mean damn... it works so well. I do no work, have mild success and people are left to only wonder what you can do. But there are two LARGE problems a naive child would miss. Second, and equally important; there are things you have to try at. Yeah... no, really. I'm serious.
You see the things school teaches you? All throughout elementary school I never had to do anything to get nearly all A's (and it was always nearly). It was always all A's and a B, but hey, I wasn't trying so... Still a bad ass I thought. All I did was read my Superman book, flip through those Micheal Criton movie books and draw neato fighter jets! Still a badass. And then I moved back to Colorado.
When I entered seventh grade I was put in regular LA... OMG. I HATED IT. STUPID PEOPLE SUCK! I felt like stabbing my eyes out... the only thing I actually learned in that class is a bunch of stuff about Stephen Hawking... who is a badass. Did you know that when he was young (before he became immobilized by whatever problem that was) he was a lazy, and overall bad student? (amount a bunch of smart people but hey, I'm smart right?) He was very active too, liked sports... Anyways, when his disease hit for whatever reason he became way smarter... You see, those lazy people with hidden potential! Haha! Confidence boost. That guy's a badass, and so I am - even if I'm not that good, but you never know!
So anyways, at semester I got put into Advanced LA much to my delight. FINALLY smart people! Mrs. Humphrey was awesome too. That's where I met Fitz... man... Fitz. I'll just leave it at that... that kid, heh. Anyways, one day Mrs. Humphrey figured me all out... she was amazing... really amazing. I was doing so bad in the class and the like at the time. We had a little talk about I don't know what and I ended up crying like the little wussy I am - she said something along the lines of this: "You're afraid that people are going to realize that you arn't as smart as they think you are... but you aren't.. yadayada" All of a sudden-like everything was crystal clear. She had figured me out exactly. I was amazed. Lost for words. But the implied is what really got me. Not only was I afraid that it was the case for others (what she had said explicitly) but even more so I was afraid that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was. The real question is why exactly that is... if only I could figure it out. (I think it may well be related to having ADD, or some other fucking problem. I dunno though. Another topic for another time) Sigh. That theme has continued to this day, with unrelated ups and downs on the school end of it. It'd be so nice if I could be sure.
The first thing I missed I have already touched on. Being lazy leaves everything with regard to you're intelligence to question. When you do fail it doesn't hurt so much, and success is greater but no-one outside or inside really knows how good you are. You cannot judge yourself. It leaves you in a constantly flip-flopping position of uncertainty and insecurity. Though I'm not real sure that trying your best really results in a better situation – I can you really tell? Whatever.
So without all the apparently off topic but truly insightful blather above it comes down to laziness being my way to keep the compliments coming and the question un-answered.
So, now the juicy stuff – or rather the mini-diatribe on what triggered this discourse. Review: Why did I think that laziness would have these results? Experience! School, if it had taught me anything it was that I could do nothing and do well enough. It got me everything I wanted from being lazy. Score one for the standardized school system. Score two was the Megus thingy... that combined with doing badly all of a sudden-like in middle/high school because my previous system (laziness), which I learned from them, was failing me made me hate math. The dirty bastards ruined perfectly good tool for me. Score three was when I made me hate reading, writing and the arts – All that work I never wanted to do (because of my misleading experience in school) made me fail LA. And those teachers who didn't get my writing. Sigh. You see, now I suck. This here is an ample example. It's gonna be hard to make that time back up.
But to be completely honest it's really not that bad. It's definitely the most efficient and practical way, even if it did ruin stuff up for a few. But those aren't really the school's fault either. Sigh. They definitely failed up a wild, wild hurricane on me though, and I'm annoyed.

So, I'd like to touch on the ideals I mentioned earlier. I have a feeling that my insecurity, (and thus ironic - or explained, I'm not really sure) elitism, and that idea against tradition/establishment etc all came from Chris. My "um... ex-stepdad?" (as I consistently refer to him... oh god the humor) I got it all from him – but the ADD/other helped it along. It's rather obvious really, I looked up to him a ton and he reeked of the traits. What's amazing is how deeply they penetrate. It really makes me want to say that people should HAVE to wait until they are really prepared to have kids... But then that's not quite right. But then, that's some pretty hardcore indoctrination... if I honestly picked up all the insecurity from him and all... Sigh, too hard to tell the specific extent but damn.

If there's one thing I wish it's that a few certain things could be for sure. *shakes fist at the world*

One of those things is intelligence. It really would be nice (for intelligence-type elitist little me - not [so much] anymore) to know for sure. But alas, you cannot. You see, I used to think that the measure for a person was intelligence. Of course, I did know that there were other important things, but by far the most important was intelligence – but I did realize that there were other things (but intelligence is most important!). You get the idea. I also thought that I rocked everyone but a few in that category, but oh well. Neither's the case.
The thought really splits right here. First I will go into judging intelligence just because I've tossed stuff around before and just the other day it came up, then I'll continue about judging people.

Intelligence is a tough thing. You know the search for g – the general intelligence? It's basically what all the IQ tests find a PART of and what they all wish they could do. The educationally unbiased value of learning – the coefficient of learning for 'intelligence' or 'knowledge' in some ways. But you see, all those tests have some large flaws. 1. They account for previous experience – even if they have a system for coping with the limitation it's very hard to know for sure. 2. They all lend themselves best to a number of specific categories more than others – and we don't even understand what and how. 3. The testing conditions mess stuff up – different people different conditions different different different. All those factor in so heavily and deeply that it's really impossible to be precise and accurate at all. You can get ideas but not be sure. Well, all of those things, of course, carry over when you do personal evaluations too. As a note, this is, of course, related to the laziness bit above too... eh. Anyways, for lack of a good transition I'll just jump in. Matt has this wild notion that I'm smarter than Nathan. I'll just offer up my analysis.
Before I begin I need to bring intelligence into the light. What is intelligence really? Who knows. But I do see a large gap between intelligence and knowledge (wiseness to some extent). It seems to me that the most apt explanation is to say that intelligence is how well you figure things out. How well you process things. Much like the speed of a computer. Knowledge differs in that it's facts and experience. A small child can be smarter than an mentally retarded adult but the adult can probably still teach the child a few things. That's the difference between knowledge and intelligence. I doubt I need to elaborate any more. Nathan is without a doubt more knowledgeable than I in the academic sense for SURE (but here it also gets hard to tell – there are more areas than academics and they are all harder and most importantly different to measure). On we go.
First, you can't really trust people's self appraisals – Nathan, true or not thinks he's smarter than most everyone, and I do too (Definitely to less of an extent now though) – I just never say it.
And I think Matt's influenced by personal sentiments too, a touch of resentment towards Mr. Smartypants Nathan and the establishment too. God, it's so hard to explain feelings I hate it. /me fails.
-So, now. On to Nathan. No doubt smart. But lets look at what can most effect how this shows up. A dictionary. He remembers EVERYTHING... like omg. I wish I could do that so much. I mean damn. He remembers random and completely pertinent facts all over the place. Like a fact sponge as Matt said. Also, he has had doing well in school as a relatively pertinent goal in life. For the most part he pays attention in school and cares much about what he learns.
-Me, I'm very selective (I'm not sure about the criteria though) about what I pay attention to and manage to remember. You know how I forget names? I fucking forget everything. You know, I'm really like a sponge too... a real one (from the ocean-like) thats dead and hard; were the water would just go trough and maybe get stuck in a few little pockets randomly. Ya, that's me. And I don't make much of an effort to learn the content in school unless it's interesting. But I DO make an effort to understand it at least once (different from actually LEARNING it).
So, now the measuring sticks. We have SAT scores, grades – which I'll throw out right now, and appearances.
SAT scores. 1360 for me and 1480 or something for him. Now, something on SAT scores. They do no reflect grades. For this the often get labeled as IQ test equivalent, but that's not the case. The SAT is not an IQ test. It tests your knowledge of the school curriculum (though on a very, very basic level that's far below where most juniors I know are), and of course, your test taking skills. So while it much better reflects your 'intelligence' than your 'knowlege' when compared to grades, it is still heavily based on your 'knowlege'. And Nathan rocks me on the knowlege without a doubt. He also has more experience with writing and reading analysis (in school I mean) – he also reads a shit load which helps with the words. And the math part – I rarely managed to figure out how to do the probability ones – it's so much work and I'm not sure if I'm on the right track so I often give up. While I'm pretty sure Nathan remembers that algebra 2 and other probability stuff for the most part – but I'm not really sure. So what's that mean when you factor it all in with the scores? Can't tell.
Now, for the appearances. Ya... I really don't know but I do know that I am one of the worst explainer persons ever. I rarely care enough and I use words that explain for ME and not for others – it's free-associative in some respects. And even on that I flip-flop. Who knows. Nathan on the other hand radiates intelligence for a number of reasons.
And IQ... I forget what Nathan's is but read intelligence and think about that. Dunno what test he's taken, or me, don't know don't know don't know.
-Rumor has it nathan has never taken an IQ test. So this one doesn't really matter.
Really, it's too hard to tell. I'm pretty sure all you can do is decide merits that relate, but still don't completly encompass.

So, anyways – back to judging people or whatever. Now that I've realized that there's more than intelligence I'm trying to figure out how to judge people's worth... hrm. Impossible I'm sure, but still, you should be able to get a general idea right? Well, people are very different and terribly complex. I've begun to find that the more you get to know a person the more you find out about them from both sides - obviously. But it's like EVERYONE has their merits and flaws... an impossible mix. Dunno where to look, how to look, what to look, don't know everything. :rolleyes: It sure makes shit tough. It makes me wonder if everyone happens to be exactly the same on the worth or goodness or merit scale... but that's not right either. It makes a massive assumption on no real grounds (but convenience) and Hitler was pretty fucking bad you know... But then again, I didn't know him... Sigh. I suppose it just falls back to being too complex to ever figure... but that's so fucking annoying.

You know... it seems like EVERYTHING I think about, no matter the actual prompt is actually related to EVERYTHING ELSE I think about. Funny how the world works...

So when I was working on Saturday night, with all those very weird patrons around, it got me thinking about something that I had been tossing around for a while. Frankly it's quite obvious that alot of the patrons that come on Saturday nights are not exactly the cream of the crop... In fact many of them are right down there near the bottom (of course, relatively speaking and only in the apparent respects - alot is apparent when you're getting payed to watch people though). Between being endlessly surprised by where, how, and who you learn things [from] and the sorts of things I was thinking about them I felt like I was being a little stupid. So I figured from now on I'd try to make a conscious effort to find good things about people instead of offhandedly tossing their negatives around in my head. I figure if I'm gonna go tossing around anything about people it should be positives instead of negatives... or both at least. But this is pretty tough, I mean it's not exactly a conscious thing to realize people's flaws... I think it will be a very hard thing to do... I'm almost not sure how to go about it.

You know, when I think about it everything I put how here seems so much more elementary than when I think about it.
I wonder if that's because when I think about it I get into more detail but am unable to express that level (because the human language fails in so many ways) or if it's just because I get all up in the moment and don't realize that I'm thinking about something fucking stupid.

I was thinking about this Sunday at work, as it relates to a certain someone but I'll just genericize it. I ain't got no skills. I don't have much to offer in the way of being interesting and impressive. I mean I'm not that funny, I can't make any sort of art... hrm... um... Sigh. I dunno. I can't shake the feeling as silly as it is... What's interesting n' good? Who knows. Oh well.

On another note: I have THE SHORTEST attention span ever. I took a break almost every other sentence while writing this... It's funny when you realize stuff like that while you're doing it.

Here are songs that I thought to put in here that played when I was working on this.

New Blood Revival - OMG... this guy complains about the fucking chicks ALL THE TIME. But it's good music and pretty easy to relate to (even if you havn't had the situation) so it's ok.
Enya - lol, accapela/techno classical music is neato I tell you.
KMFDM - Always rockin'... they really get me goin', it's nice.
Nine Inch Nails - Yup, they kick ass. No doubt.
Pink Floyd - Interstellar Overdrive - I usally don't like Pink Floyd cuz it's too weird and early 80's-techno-synth sounding, but this song is pretty good... worth mentioning even! (it makes me so sad that no one gets Hackers references :( )
Gravity Kills - Aye, very cool but slightly lame at the same time.
Radiohead - Ya... they kick ass. Quite simply.
Ugly Duckling – Underground Hip hop? It's pretty good.
Classical – MMMMMmmmm Goood!

Evanescence
Demos 2001-2002
Tourniquet v.1

Chick singers are SO hot... Like Evanescence would be quite mediocre without HER... They add a nice style to the music, it's good.

2005-02-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.onlinedebate.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2440
Holy moldy chicken batman!

2005-02-18T02:52:00.000-07:00

So it's been an awsome night. Neato moods are all the rage [it's a lie].
I just watched Fight Club, that movie is awsome. Absolutly fucking great. Is that spelled wrong?
It's funny how almost everything I talked about tonight was linked together somehow - in some matter, a link exists. Everything I've thought about. I'm sure I don't even realize. An infinite network, system, spreading veings of endless possiblity. A mere representation of all that could be known. And then the real. The real truth following past it. Infinite unrelation and relation exists everywhere in the network on which it runs at the whim of the human structure. The limited yet not limited form that the world must be seen from. We are bound by it but by our very muse we are unbound.
It's called truth and it's out there. Somewhere.
Have you ever had a moment, where in the heat of the moment you did something rash? And you thought, for only a few short seconds (yes, those are in fact short seconds - unimportant yes fundamentally inspired and as such important). Why DID I do that? Why DID I do that? You thought back and looked at who you are, what you belive, what you used to belive. What you would regret loseing. It's the part of you that you would have kept in that little box you kept because it has a part of where you came from. That want to do something. Just a little thing - but that justified and pushed away feeling to do something. You usually push it back but for that moment you decide to consider it just a little bit longer. You explore those possiblities. And you realize. You're a little kid. You do shit for NO GOOD REASON. These arn't your simple OCD tendencies. No it's everything you do that is not intentionaly and logically calculated. It's the decisions you make on the details - it's in every part of every part of every decision you make and action you take. The things not worth the time for your full brain power. It may be a little extra emphasis or the meaning of life - it just depends on how fucking nuts you are. [not really. Fucking nuts is a misnomer, just a human label - it explains the logical flaw of emotion. ] You are on a path trying out the possiblities on the metaphysical karma of truth. [Don't worry, I'm sure alot is getting lost in translation. I just can't be specific enough] Everything is connected. Those emotional whims that make their way at times through to the surface are the irreproducable addition of the human touch.
It's not just one understanding flowing through the murky paths of truth, but an infinite number. It's like the bell curve. In the center, where your senses allow the most penetration the averages are high. Sucessful interpertation of the truth comes easy. But out on the edges is where it gets though. Things get harder to find. Your senses begin to hinder you. You being to see the effects of being bound by the very thing you are trying to comprehend.
And you laugh, because really, you're a little kid, who can't control itself. You revert back to where you used to be, those things you tucked away in that little box for reasons you don't want to admit. You see this all, al the reasons and you laugh. You laugh at everything. It's FUNny. AAAhhhh, humor.
It really is like the blocks in I Heart Huckabee's. An infinite alternation of seemingly opposing and quantumly seperate blocks. But there is something holding the blocks together. It's the opposite. An infinite blend of opposites alternating, one holding the other and so on. Even this very process is in the mix. It continues in all dimentions. All Truth is infinite, in every way - an infinite. It's beyond the understanding of those who are bound by it because we cannot get out of the box. [point to nathan!] But that's no reason not to try.
The difference between us, and I do not understand it, seems to be that if our... inclination to understanding. Specificly to understanding infinite. It's the difference between infinite SOMETHING and infinite NOTHING. Infinity means both, I'm not really sure what that means though. That infinity! Gets you every time.
I dream to get as far ahead as possible, and be sure to have a good time with it. Let those emotions take hold! While others are stuck back in the tedium of proving.
I respect both.
I think I should add that, although I say both I really mean the infinite spectrum of infinite-dimensional greys.

We were talking about art.
First it was nathans room. It clashed. Like a picture of Einstien it was a mixture of discomfort and confusion. How einstien's hair sat and how unsetteling everything he stands for as an icon of science. That's the feeling it has. Of course to a FFAARR less degreee but I would like to think that it's a manifestation of the same type of meaningful trait. A trait that shows a sign to that sort of truth finding greatness. Ah, the unkept corners of logic, how odd they can be. It's untouched territory. Things left back to save time for what was being brought to the front. These coreners are the next level. What grows in these coreners, what spreads with their existence in your ever-finite understanding is immaturity. Lost in translatoin. Over and over and over again. Corrupted, saved, forgotten, reborn, rebuilt. Everything gets lost in translation to become the great works and hanis tradgedies of the human race. it's immorality and immaturity. It's everything all at once coming together into a shrinking point as someong reaches the bring of this level and recedes into - or attains another level.
Anyways, art. Nathans room got me in the mood. He showed me this picture. I though it looked like a little kids drawing. I see the symbolism and I could understand the possibility of a feeling but I couldn't relate. It seemed fake, simplified and too linked to the past. [Duality and Infinity;opposing but in some way innate | limits and boundaries] It seemed lame - yes, that was it lame. And the other one. A painting of the vastness of space, infinity, likened to god by a well placed church [as nathan infered or said]. It gave you a feeling of comfort. It wasn't just comfort though. It was comfort with meaning. Meaning you cannot describe in a word. It may take a sentence or a paragraph or an essay. But it's REAL meaning. it's artistic meaning. That's a pole of the spectrum. It's the one that looks ahead. It's the one you push into the coners. Using it but not caring to care for it. It's this misuse that leads to the unreliable nature of the method of art - of feeling. This unreliable nature, the [now] inexplicable [because of our human form and only in the sense of explaining for another, not in it's own, inherent consistency] decisions are what create the human touch. They are what create art and creativity of all sorts. They are what we call human. The effects of our limited nature, our limited presense, infinity's effects. [Wow, that won't read right the first few billion times.]
But I still think the picture is lame, necissary, worthwhile, but not badass. Badass would be the jamming of all things you can possibly include in the hopes that somewhere, someone, or two, or hundred, or billion will understand more and more of your emotion. More and more of what it's like to be you. Perhaps you could understand the experince... but true objectivity can only come from outside. You cannot be outside the universe. You cannot be outside the human condition. You cannot be outside your universe. That'd be bad ass. Now, it's time for one of those laughs I mentioned. man.. I'm silly.

Also, I'd like to say that nathan realized how much I actually apply meaning to some of the words I use. it's there, it's just lost intranslation. I seem to be a bit of an extreme case. It's not good, but the point is that despite how much I DON'T care about how much people miss, i do care, enough to point this out. At least to the people I want to know. And then laugh. Again. Sigh. [That's a pronounced sigh. The best kind.]

Everything is lost in translation a little bit. Small parts of our world are conveyed with every motion, all lost.

Wow, this was quite the night. Alot of fun thinking.

Anyways, you should realize that I'm not in a perfectly coherent state of mind, but be aware also that that does not mean things are COMPETLLY unreliable. Feelings have more grasp but they can still be right. Simply be cautious, and very attentive. The feelings of another human are always foreign, they are always unknown in some way - no matter how close - infinity. Anyways, I'm aware of apparent contradictions, but to be honest I doubt they are actually there for the MOSt part. I will also come back and re-read this one... maybe even re-work it. Good times that thought.

Anyways, that was fun, time for sleep:D

Nine Inch Nails
Were In This Together #3
Complications of the Flesh