"Most philosophers concede that whether others experience consciousness is strictly unknowable. Some take this one step further and argue that consciousness and perfect simulation of consciousness are the same thing. Here most people object. You probably feel that there is a difference between consciousness and the lack thereof, even while admitting that no possible observation or experiment would establish it. Is this a rational objection?"
~ from "Labyrinths of Reason", William Poundstone
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Upon Finding a Reason
One way to tell the story of a person is developmentally, through the events that have shaped their life. And although it would be endlessly interesting to tell this story in an absolute sense to someone who was unfamiliar with the common tenets of human behavioral and social development, it is more reasonable to tell the story of the aberrations.
It is impossible to talk about developmental aberrations without talking about childhood, because our early development informs so much of our ingrained behavioral stock. In many cases, we will carry these behaviors with us our entire lives. And usually, the best we can hope to do with an unwanted behavior is to bury it beneath newer and more 'mature' behavioral patterns. Long and winding is the path that leads us 'home'. But which is the greater illusion?
I believe that mystery adds to our existence to a profound degree. Understanding through the existence of strong theoretical frameworks and the rigor of inferential deduction is inspiring and powerful, but it removes the mystery from the world. Mystery is the source of awe and wonder, and what do we pursue besides these things? Perhaps pleasure; enjoyment. How much of these feelings do the average person receive from the ego and not the id? Maybe today's learning machines can penetrate to the meaning of the universe through one-dimensional accomplishments. I grew bored with such games long ago, but perhaps I am in the minority to count existential awe as the greatest goal.
Buffett has said, "It's not greed that runs the world; it's envy." Perhaps therein is the answer. It is so much easier to envy things that appear to us to be objective: money, possessions. Much more difficult to envy a mental state or a belief system.
I have always remembered that the locus of reality for a living creature is the perception the creature possesses for the world around it, NOT the ultimate objective reality of the living world (is such a thing even knowable, except as a belief?). In other words, I have always believed in the absoluteness of subjectivity. The universe as we know it begins at conception, and ceases at death; it does not persist. To quote Huxley:
"We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."
Subjective insight has always strangely held lower currency, perhaps for the simple reason that it is non-transferable. I value it highly enough to devote myself to it, regardless. It has pained me for as long as I can remember that this conversation is necessarily solitary. Who would relate to me, and for what, anyways? What could another person offer me? What existential insight can ever release a person from isolation?
What do two people ever offer each other? Amusement, love, time, money? A relationship is a transaction, whether the currency is subjective or not. And it is surely easy to desire shallow things. Hell, if for no other reason than that they can be found. The true nature of existence is personal and unrelatable.
Let's call this an incomplete thought.
It is impossible to talk about developmental aberrations without talking about childhood, because our early development informs so much of our ingrained behavioral stock. In many cases, we will carry these behaviors with us our entire lives. And usually, the best we can hope to do with an unwanted behavior is to bury it beneath newer and more 'mature' behavioral patterns. Long and winding is the path that leads us 'home'. But which is the greater illusion?
I believe that mystery adds to our existence to a profound degree. Understanding through the existence of strong theoretical frameworks and the rigor of inferential deduction is inspiring and powerful, but it removes the mystery from the world. Mystery is the source of awe and wonder, and what do we pursue besides these things? Perhaps pleasure; enjoyment. How much of these feelings do the average person receive from the ego and not the id? Maybe today's learning machines can penetrate to the meaning of the universe through one-dimensional accomplishments. I grew bored with such games long ago, but perhaps I am in the minority to count existential awe as the greatest goal.
Buffett has said, "It's not greed that runs the world; it's envy." Perhaps therein is the answer. It is so much easier to envy things that appear to us to be objective: money, possessions. Much more difficult to envy a mental state or a belief system.
I have always remembered that the locus of reality for a living creature is the perception the creature possesses for the world around it, NOT the ultimate objective reality of the living world (is such a thing even knowable, except as a belief?). In other words, I have always believed in the absoluteness of subjectivity. The universe as we know it begins at conception, and ceases at death; it does not persist. To quote Huxley:
"We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."
Subjective insight has always strangely held lower currency, perhaps for the simple reason that it is non-transferable. I value it highly enough to devote myself to it, regardless. It has pained me for as long as I can remember that this conversation is necessarily solitary. Who would relate to me, and for what, anyways? What could another person offer me? What existential insight can ever release a person from isolation?
What do two people ever offer each other? Amusement, love, time, money? A relationship is a transaction, whether the currency is subjective or not. And it is surely easy to desire shallow things. Hell, if for no other reason than that they can be found. The true nature of existence is personal and unrelatable.
Let's call this an incomplete thought.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Carl Jung: The Point Where The Wave Broke
Carl Jung will live forever in a general obscurity, as the man who built one of the most natural and complete bridges between science and spirituality, between objectivity and subjectivity, in the abbreviated history of human civilization. Unfortunately, people ceased having widely public discourse on spirituality years ago. There was some false impression of unsolvable ambiguity (as if anything subjective can ever be unsolvable to the individual, or ever avoid being socially ambiguous). That, or perhaps a constant stream of other comforts pummeled us gently and inevitably into a shallower reality. After all, who cares about spirituality when all we have to do here is live and die, and hurry up while you're at it, right? More commonly, who cares about intelligent discussion when it produces better results by our shallow measures to relate to our neighbors through common acknowledgment of ignorance?
The idea that Sigmund Freud maintains some degree of cultural currency, while Jung enjoys relative anonymity, is an example of the power of memetic simplicity (the idea of Freud is an order of magnitude simpler than the idea of Jung; in fact, Jung - like many thinkers who systematically refuse the use of simplifying assumptions in their work and embrace the inevitable complexity of reality - almost completely defies memetic representation). He also provides a working example of society's inability to judge critical ideas as a whole, or to selectively disseminate ideas based on the credulity of the source. In personal experience:
I would consider myself well-educated on a handful of topics where there is a prevailing effect of knowledge isolation (a small educated population amidst a much larger, relatively uninformed population). But the suggested social dynamics beget the reality: remove a few of my close friends, and I fail when I attempt to recall a single occasion when someone uninformed has shown a desire for knowledge, even that being freely offered. Perhaps free knowledge portends deception: is the assumption that surely the disseminator must stand to gain? Not that simple, though. I suppose that a whole list of psychological predispositions is required to explain this; but, let that be a lesson. Simple psychological predispositions don't necessarily have a diffusive effect on each other; they may indeed have an amplifying effect.
I believe that the most identifiable change in humanity's recent priorities is the need to manage time. Then, should we be surprised that people are unwilling to learn lessons that may take a great deal of time, even when the payoff could be great? We are so great at managing risk in some ways and so astoundingly poor at it in others. We won't spend the time to teach ourselves things that may enrich us - because they may not, and why risk the time? But we are notoriously poor at managing the risks of our own health, for instance. Do people do it because they don't know, or they are skeptical, or they are lazy? Do people do it because they are too afraid, or too comfortable?
The issues are deeply psychological. Of course, Jung wasn't much interested in these simple predispositions; go read Adler. But Jung's body of ideas is both strikingly spiritual and reinforced by Jung's life spent psychoanalyzing thousands upon thousands of patients. His theories are also complex beings to mimic the workings of our complex minds. They're not easy for people to hold on to; certainly not to appreciate or relate to after a quick read. It may actually be an intuitive sense of their correctness that allows anyone short of an academician to respond to them at all.
I think it was Jung's idea of the Shadow that first resonated for me. It is one thing to understand that people see unlikeable figures in dreams; but to understand that the feelings behind those figures transcend people or even ideas is extraordinary. The shadow is a manifestation of repressed weaknesses. Perhaps more interestingly, Jung said: "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity."
Perhaps modern life will twist our Shadows into something that desires a more spiritual connection to life. I doubt we would listen anyway, which is not an admonition; just an observance. But I do hope that Jung is remembered by our progeny.
The idea that Sigmund Freud maintains some degree of cultural currency, while Jung enjoys relative anonymity, is an example of the power of memetic simplicity (the idea of Freud is an order of magnitude simpler than the idea of Jung; in fact, Jung - like many thinkers who systematically refuse the use of simplifying assumptions in their work and embrace the inevitable complexity of reality - almost completely defies memetic representation). He also provides a working example of society's inability to judge critical ideas as a whole, or to selectively disseminate ideas based on the credulity of the source. In personal experience:
I would consider myself well-educated on a handful of topics where there is a prevailing effect of knowledge isolation (a small educated population amidst a much larger, relatively uninformed population). But the suggested social dynamics beget the reality: remove a few of my close friends, and I fail when I attempt to recall a single occasion when someone uninformed has shown a desire for knowledge, even that being freely offered. Perhaps free knowledge portends deception: is the assumption that surely the disseminator must stand to gain? Not that simple, though. I suppose that a whole list of psychological predispositions is required to explain this; but, let that be a lesson. Simple psychological predispositions don't necessarily have a diffusive effect on each other; they may indeed have an amplifying effect.
I believe that the most identifiable change in humanity's recent priorities is the need to manage time. Then, should we be surprised that people are unwilling to learn lessons that may take a great deal of time, even when the payoff could be great? We are so great at managing risk in some ways and so astoundingly poor at it in others. We won't spend the time to teach ourselves things that may enrich us - because they may not, and why risk the time? But we are notoriously poor at managing the risks of our own health, for instance. Do people do it because they don't know, or they are skeptical, or they are lazy? Do people do it because they are too afraid, or too comfortable?
The issues are deeply psychological. Of course, Jung wasn't much interested in these simple predispositions; go read Adler. But Jung's body of ideas is both strikingly spiritual and reinforced by Jung's life spent psychoanalyzing thousands upon thousands of patients. His theories are also complex beings to mimic the workings of our complex minds. They're not easy for people to hold on to; certainly not to appreciate or relate to after a quick read. It may actually be an intuitive sense of their correctness that allows anyone short of an academician to respond to them at all.
I think it was Jung's idea of the Shadow that first resonated for me. It is one thing to understand that people see unlikeable figures in dreams; but to understand that the feelings behind those figures transcend people or even ideas is extraordinary. The shadow is a manifestation of repressed weaknesses. Perhaps more interestingly, Jung said: "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity."
Perhaps modern life will twist our Shadows into something that desires a more spiritual connection to life. I doubt we would listen anyway, which is not an admonition; just an observance. But I do hope that Jung is remembered by our progeny.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Behavioral medications and the failure of exclusive verifiability
As all of our outcomes are determined by risk, all of our decisions must be informed as strongly as possible by it. The medical community has a long and proud tradition of utilizing the basic tenets of the scientific method to provide confidence of both risk and reward in the application of modern medical practice, including the use of pharmaceuticals. This is not unwarranted; the presence of this tradition is the sole credit upon which we can place millions of lives that have been either improved or outright saved by the more informed application of medicine and medical practice.
I have been on behavioral medications intermittently for nine years and consistently for periods of up to five years. Like any US-sold medication, they were screened to FDA standards to ensure that side effects were identified and quantified to ensure that the users would enjoy benefits to more than offset any of these effects. Unfortunately, the complexity of the human body, our lack of complete understanding regarding its working, and the nature of statistical confidence conspire to create practical limits to the testing process. If you assume that a stated statistical confidence can make us reasonably “certain” of the presence or absence of a specific side effect, then you can also understand that the frequency of various side effects can make us only so “certain” of the presence of any side effect at all, as our testing, by its nature, must be exclusive. Ultimately, the end users of a medication often become the first legitimately comprehensive test group, and even then, such a statement is still technically a generalization. Such is the nature of statistical observance in science.
I feel very confident in regard to the following, which I unmistakably admit to be conjecture. The causes I suggest are guesses, and I am not educated in the field of neuroscience (a single read of my descriptive language will attest to this). The effects that I describe are very real and give me as much (and no more) confidence than any single case can give, which is perhaps not much in the plight of a scientific mind.
I believe simply that the behavioral medication I have taken has had three effects:
1) To directly alleviate the symptoms for which the medication exists; namely, depression and attention-deficit disorder. This is, of course, both expected and great.
2) To promote feedback loops in chemical brain activity that exacerbates the symptoms in the absence of the medication. The testing that the medication went through would statistically deny these effects; however, such a conclusion assumes that the testing period was sufficient to allow brain chemistry to reach a new equilibrium. I could name half a dozen mechanisms that would support a theory of long-duration disequilibrium and rebalancing, but it would do no more good than I can do by evoking the concept: the brain is far too complex in composition and process to play upon with reductionist theories of cause and effect.
3) To promote mental activity that rebalances neural pathways and firing patterns in an imperfect way, so that the end result is not to fix the undesirable behavioral problems but to produce some approximate common effects in a way that interferes with or fails to compliment other brain activities. Here, although the common pop-understanding is that “a behavioral tic is a neural firing pattern”, the truth is that the firing pattern is sufficiently complex that we can more productively think of it as a sequence and interplay of many interrelated firing sequences. Again, in a reductionist fashion, a simple thought might be that a firing pattern has been made to happen “too often”, as in, “repeat too fast”. This is easy to picture, and then we assume that the end result is that the behavioral tic recurs too often. However, imagine instead that our over-active firing pattern is one of the many firing sequences that comprise a much larger firing pattern. What will the effects be? More likely than direct over-activity, the effect will act to diversify the full pattern’s outcome. Poker hands will always be dealt in the same way from a deck organized in a certain sequence, until you begin randomizing the position of a single card throughout the deck on each deal. At this point, the outcome will not marginally diversify - in many cases, it will become completely unrecognizable.
I think that by this point, my lament would be predictable, and so I will resist crossing this discussion into the personal. But the idea of a blind spot in behavioral medicine, due to the enormously more complex workings of the brain than the balance of our physiology, is worrisome and finally unfortunate, and I offer no solutions.
Have the benefits of the medicine outweighed the costs? I don’t expect to ever know.
I have been on behavioral medications intermittently for nine years and consistently for periods of up to five years. Like any US-sold medication, they were screened to FDA standards to ensure that side effects were identified and quantified to ensure that the users would enjoy benefits to more than offset any of these effects. Unfortunately, the complexity of the human body, our lack of complete understanding regarding its working, and the nature of statistical confidence conspire to create practical limits to the testing process. If you assume that a stated statistical confidence can make us reasonably “certain” of the presence or absence of a specific side effect, then you can also understand that the frequency of various side effects can make us only so “certain” of the presence of any side effect at all, as our testing, by its nature, must be exclusive. Ultimately, the end users of a medication often become the first legitimately comprehensive test group, and even then, such a statement is still technically a generalization. Such is the nature of statistical observance in science.
I feel very confident in regard to the following, which I unmistakably admit to be conjecture. The causes I suggest are guesses, and I am not educated in the field of neuroscience (a single read of my descriptive language will attest to this). The effects that I describe are very real and give me as much (and no more) confidence than any single case can give, which is perhaps not much in the plight of a scientific mind.
I believe simply that the behavioral medication I have taken has had three effects:
1) To directly alleviate the symptoms for which the medication exists; namely, depression and attention-deficit disorder. This is, of course, both expected and great.
2) To promote feedback loops in chemical brain activity that exacerbates the symptoms in the absence of the medication. The testing that the medication went through would statistically deny these effects; however, such a conclusion assumes that the testing period was sufficient to allow brain chemistry to reach a new equilibrium. I could name half a dozen mechanisms that would support a theory of long-duration disequilibrium and rebalancing, but it would do no more good than I can do by evoking the concept: the brain is far too complex in composition and process to play upon with reductionist theories of cause and effect.
3) To promote mental activity that rebalances neural pathways and firing patterns in an imperfect way, so that the end result is not to fix the undesirable behavioral problems but to produce some approximate common effects in a way that interferes with or fails to compliment other brain activities. Here, although the common pop-understanding is that “a behavioral tic is a neural firing pattern”, the truth is that the firing pattern is sufficiently complex that we can more productively think of it as a sequence and interplay of many interrelated firing sequences. Again, in a reductionist fashion, a simple thought might be that a firing pattern has been made to happen “too often”, as in, “repeat too fast”. This is easy to picture, and then we assume that the end result is that the behavioral tic recurs too often. However, imagine instead that our over-active firing pattern is one of the many firing sequences that comprise a much larger firing pattern. What will the effects be? More likely than direct over-activity, the effect will act to diversify the full pattern’s outcome. Poker hands will always be dealt in the same way from a deck organized in a certain sequence, until you begin randomizing the position of a single card throughout the deck on each deal. At this point, the outcome will not marginally diversify - in many cases, it will become completely unrecognizable.
I think that by this point, my lament would be predictable, and so I will resist crossing this discussion into the personal. But the idea of a blind spot in behavioral medicine, due to the enormously more complex workings of the brain than the balance of our physiology, is worrisome and finally unfortunate, and I offer no solutions.
Have the benefits of the medicine outweighed the costs? I don’t expect to ever know.
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Sheltering Sky
I just finished The Sheltering Sky, and it is important. That is the highest praise I give books; I really don't know what else would mean more. I should let it sink in before I claim things like that, but it's the inner world of the book, and not the outer world, that is most impressive. Like McCarthy, the book exists in layers, and the bottom-most layer must always be the Ultimate Truth of the Universe. (I capitalize because this ultimate truth is a worldview specific to the book - not our objective reality, and this way it feels like another literary component, equal with Plot or Characters, for instance.) The book's jacket insists that the book is about the ways "in which [the characters'] incomprehension destroys them." I think that's both overly dramatic and completely misses the essence the book obviously makes a specific effort to convey. Maybe this is because I believe that all books written in layers must finally and necessarily reduce to the bottom-most. All else is a vehicle; or, at best, all else is ostensible. I would say the book is about the delusions we carry regarding the nature of time and our passage through it.
Some symbols are powerful and immovable in our perception. The relationship of the earth with the sky is one. Day and night is another. The stars; darkness. This book made me remember the idea of a landscape that is part of no living thing, great or small. The idea of lifelessness in anything can be terrifying if we carry around with us a perception of fundamental divinity in the world. Do you remember the first time you wondered what exactly you were looking at when you looked at the sky? I remember something quite close to that the first time I saw a shooting star: it appeared from nothingness, streaked, broke in two, and disappeared again into nothingness. Life is short.
Some symbols are powerful and immovable in our perception. The relationship of the earth with the sky is one. Day and night is another. The stars; darkness. This book made me remember the idea of a landscape that is part of no living thing, great or small. The idea of lifelessness in anything can be terrifying if we carry around with us a perception of fundamental divinity in the world. Do you remember the first time you wondered what exactly you were looking at when you looked at the sky? I remember something quite close to that the first time I saw a shooting star: it appeared from nothingness, streaked, broke in two, and disappeared again into nothingness. Life is short.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Krona In Time
It is cold, rainy, and windy, and I have found it impossible to fall asleep. Too much mid-afternoon coffee, perhaps, or more likely the heavy clip I got my mind working at this evening, combined with the immodestly late hour at which I got out of bed this morning. I finished Bryson's "Neither Here Nor There", a vapid exercise that I undertook to compare Europe twenty years ago with my experience earlier this year. The book, for its part, attempts to compare Europe forty years ago and twenty years ago, and be something of a travelogue. Mostly, Bryson exercises his ability to wrestle a certain kind of exaggerated, inelegant sarcasm out of every situation. In this narrow enterprise, I suppose he has succeeded.
I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about Europe. Living there for five months, however, might have less to do with it than my state lately, which could be described as the intersection of intent and malaise, in most everything that I devote my time to. I have tried forcing myself to construct process and means of success - in school, music, investing, even making friends. But a consistent drive I can only find for investing, which I easily overload on, blowing a fuse and short-circuiting my hunger for learning for a few days at a time.
Perhaps I am drifting away from rationality. I have been taking out student loans, and the Europe trip erased any urgency I had to get back to 'business as usual' by finding a second-rate job after my first-rate prospects fell through. Cost of capital is low, investing bargains abound, it is easy to dream of returns on invested capital that can make up for a lack of primary income. The very thought of this occurring, at my age, is quite absurd, frankly.
I had a dream last night that I was at Club Opera in Stockholm (I never went there, but we talked about it enough to paint a vivid portrait), and was quite lost. The room was full of the people I... well, I believe the sense was that it was the people that I went to school with there (in the dream). Even in the dream there was a sort of cognitive dissonance going on, and the feeling of satisfaction combined with an insistent feeling that I was supposed to be somewhere else. I felt like I had spent quite enough time where I was and should be purposefully moving on to another bar (although the feeling was quite real, too, that another bar was akin to another city; this was firmly counter to my conscious feelings; I miss Stockholm more than any place in Europe). Anyway, this whole big charade was a rather obvious metaphor that I am ready to be done with Omaha, and even the feeling in the dream that I am going to the next bar to meet other friends seems a brusque way of my subconscious to reassure me that I will meet new people again. I am 1) least surprised to see my subconscious use bars as a metaphor for stages of my life; and 2) most offended to see Omaha be represented by a classy club that I probably could never afford.
We did go to some bars in Stockholm that were very cool, most notably Spy Bar late one night. I would learn later about the reputation it has: a place people go to do 'celebrity spotting', with the supposedly most difficult club doors to get inside in the city. I recall a group of several underage girls from our hostel having no trouble, whatsoever; I don't even recall that the bouncer felt a need to check their ID's; however, the seemed convinced for some time that my friend and I were actually not at the head of the line that started fourteen inches in front of him with me.
Once we were inside, it was like the world's best house party, in an 18th century mansion with a DJ who had my own music collection. I didn't know that there were nightclubs in the world that actually played Hercules and Love Affair, and D.A.N.C.E., and Cut Copy. Also, the superexpensive drinks actually seemed to enhance the experience somehow, as if it gave some validity to having this fantastic time.
Lady Patricia - a club on a boat in the lake - became something archetypal, as we tried and failed to reach it night after night. A forgotten ID or denial due to public intoxication seemed only one extraneously expensive cab ride away, a problem exacerbated when you have a whole group of irresponsible people that are committed to not splitting up.
Not splitting up proved its worth when we were in Stockholm, if even through failure. The one night that I attempted to walk anywhere alone (home from Spy Bar in the middle of the night, incidentally), a car pulled up to the curb, and four guys got out, identifying themselves as police and asking me for identification. When I wouldn't show them, they told me to get in their car. I was lucky that other people were walking by whose attention I could divert to the situation occurring around me. I was so shaken by the situation that I walked around the city for three hours lost, looking for our hostel.
The next day, walking through a particularly classy urban section of town, I saw the words "Spy Bar". I had a flashback. Wait a minute, I thought, I remember that name. I pulled the tourist info pamphlet from my back pocket. "Yep, here it is, Spy Bar. The one with the celebrities." I suggested to my friends that we go there that night. One of them then, without pride or ridicule, informed me that we had already been there.
Finally, Stockholm, to the best of my recollection, is the only place where I've ever been denied entry to a bar because I was too drunk. This is a special memory that I can savor vividly, thanks to the fact that I was sober.
I feel a heaviness of eyelids coming on. Wish me luck.
I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about Europe. Living there for five months, however, might have less to do with it than my state lately, which could be described as the intersection of intent and malaise, in most everything that I devote my time to. I have tried forcing myself to construct process and means of success - in school, music, investing, even making friends. But a consistent drive I can only find for investing, which I easily overload on, blowing a fuse and short-circuiting my hunger for learning for a few days at a time.
Perhaps I am drifting away from rationality. I have been taking out student loans, and the Europe trip erased any urgency I had to get back to 'business as usual' by finding a second-rate job after my first-rate prospects fell through. Cost of capital is low, investing bargains abound, it is easy to dream of returns on invested capital that can make up for a lack of primary income. The very thought of this occurring, at my age, is quite absurd, frankly.
I had a dream last night that I was at Club Opera in Stockholm (I never went there, but we talked about it enough to paint a vivid portrait), and was quite lost. The room was full of the people I... well, I believe the sense was that it was the people that I went to school with there (in the dream). Even in the dream there was a sort of cognitive dissonance going on, and the feeling of satisfaction combined with an insistent feeling that I was supposed to be somewhere else. I felt like I had spent quite enough time where I was and should be purposefully moving on to another bar (although the feeling was quite real, too, that another bar was akin to another city; this was firmly counter to my conscious feelings; I miss Stockholm more than any place in Europe). Anyway, this whole big charade was a rather obvious metaphor that I am ready to be done with Omaha, and even the feeling in the dream that I am going to the next bar to meet other friends seems a brusque way of my subconscious to reassure me that I will meet new people again. I am 1) least surprised to see my subconscious use bars as a metaphor for stages of my life; and 2) most offended to see Omaha be represented by a classy club that I probably could never afford.
We did go to some bars in Stockholm that were very cool, most notably Spy Bar late one night. I would learn later about the reputation it has: a place people go to do 'celebrity spotting', with the supposedly most difficult club doors to get inside in the city. I recall a group of several underage girls from our hostel having no trouble, whatsoever; I don't even recall that the bouncer felt a need to check their ID's; however, the seemed convinced for some time that my friend and I were actually not at the head of the line that started fourteen inches in front of him with me.
Once we were inside, it was like the world's best house party, in an 18th century mansion with a DJ who had my own music collection. I didn't know that there were nightclubs in the world that actually played Hercules and Love Affair, and D.A.N.C.E., and Cut Copy. Also, the superexpensive drinks actually seemed to enhance the experience somehow, as if it gave some validity to having this fantastic time.
Lady Patricia - a club on a boat in the lake - became something archetypal, as we tried and failed to reach it night after night. A forgotten ID or denial due to public intoxication seemed only one extraneously expensive cab ride away, a problem exacerbated when you have a whole group of irresponsible people that are committed to not splitting up.
Not splitting up proved its worth when we were in Stockholm, if even through failure. The one night that I attempted to walk anywhere alone (home from Spy Bar in the middle of the night, incidentally), a car pulled up to the curb, and four guys got out, identifying themselves as police and asking me for identification. When I wouldn't show them, they told me to get in their car. I was lucky that other people were walking by whose attention I could divert to the situation occurring around me. I was so shaken by the situation that I walked around the city for three hours lost, looking for our hostel.
The next day, walking through a particularly classy urban section of town, I saw the words "Spy Bar". I had a flashback. Wait a minute, I thought, I remember that name. I pulled the tourist info pamphlet from my back pocket. "Yep, here it is, Spy Bar. The one with the celebrities." I suggested to my friends that we go there that night. One of them then, without pride or ridicule, informed me that we had already been there.
Finally, Stockholm, to the best of my recollection, is the only place where I've ever been denied entry to a bar because I was too drunk. This is a special memory that I can savor vividly, thanks to the fact that I was sober.
I feel a heaviness of eyelids coming on. Wish me luck.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
My Two Favorite Books
I'll contradict myself immediately, to set the bar low. The idea of a 'favorite' book is counterproductive; it is unnecessarily reductionist when there are uncountable charms to uncountable books.
My second-favorite book right now is House of Leaves. As I will soon explain in a more complicated way, this is not necessarily a literary comment. In the way it makes its artistic statements, House of Leaves is the proverbial sledgehammer used to open an aspirin bottle. Trapped inside the bloated text is a stunningly immersive and compelling novel that has been partially strangled of impact by unnecessary complexity, some unnecessary formalistic elements, and an obsession with creating a mythology that rewards people willing to play a glorified version of connect-the-dots to research obscure references and vague clues. All of these limits also reinforce the book for me, though, because I am obsessed with personal and private mythologies. I also tend to give some leeway to ambitious works of art when they partially fail.
The central story in House of Leaves (the one you really care about) is surreal, terrifying, and ambitious to a degree that I have almost never encountered. It is also very fundamentally original, which is a trait that gets more rare each year. There is a passage where the protagonist finds a copy of the book itself and begins reading, and we see that the multiple levels of narrative in the book have begun performing the same effect that occurs when two mirrors slowly line up on opposite sides of our self. Symbolism is supposed to be handled in an elegant and subtle manner in literature, and here the book breaks that rule severely. It is necessary, though; there is no way to go about making this statement subtly, and I thought the effect was worth it.
I have read reviews online that describe House of Leaves as a commentary on the discipline of literary criticism. I think that is missing the point. The irrationality of the terror that the protagonist discovers is most effectively brought into relief through the use of an overly rational approach. I will put myself out there and say that I do not think that House of Leaves is a horror story. It is a Borgesian world, rational in itself but twisted from our world. We approach this world objectively and see that the subject of the story, incidentally, is the nature of horror itself.
My favorite book, in most every way that I know how to judge a book, is Fugitive Pieces. Michaels has a great and unique command of the language, and the the pace and flow make it obvious that she was a poet first. The first ten pages will tell anyone whether this book is for them or not.
The story does justice to the style. There are so many moments that have stuck with me since I first read it. For a person who did not grow up with a sister, I felt closer to understanding when reading this book than at any other time in my life. It also taught me a lot about the nature and dynamics of the places where we find emotional safety. Maybe more than anything, it reminded me that everything happens exactly once; foremost, our lives.
The way the story shifts perspective two-thirds of the way through disappointed me the first time I read it, because I was so absorbed and in love with the story I was already reading. After reading the book a couple times, I started to see the ways that the counterpoint of the second story improved the book as a whole. The immense gravity of the first story is brought into perspective only when we see that the first story's truths extend to us all, and furthermore, when we see how ready so many of us are to ignore them.
My favorite books have changed over the years so many times that I see little point in even sorting them in such a way, except that it helps me to identify what I like so well about them. With many books I read, I never stop long enough to do this; for me, it is quite a task to unwind such a tangle of thread. I believe I fear making mistakes in such a process - the task of understanding concepts, styles, themes, hidden and overt messages is daunting in such a liquid medium.
My second-favorite book right now is House of Leaves. As I will soon explain in a more complicated way, this is not necessarily a literary comment. In the way it makes its artistic statements, House of Leaves is the proverbial sledgehammer used to open an aspirin bottle. Trapped inside the bloated text is a stunningly immersive and compelling novel that has been partially strangled of impact by unnecessary complexity, some unnecessary formalistic elements, and an obsession with creating a mythology that rewards people willing to play a glorified version of connect-the-dots to research obscure references and vague clues. All of these limits also reinforce the book for me, though, because I am obsessed with personal and private mythologies. I also tend to give some leeway to ambitious works of art when they partially fail.
The central story in House of Leaves (the one you really care about) is surreal, terrifying, and ambitious to a degree that I have almost never encountered. It is also very fundamentally original, which is a trait that gets more rare each year. There is a passage where the protagonist finds a copy of the book itself and begins reading, and we see that the multiple levels of narrative in the book have begun performing the same effect that occurs when two mirrors slowly line up on opposite sides of our self. Symbolism is supposed to be handled in an elegant and subtle manner in literature, and here the book breaks that rule severely. It is necessary, though; there is no way to go about making this statement subtly, and I thought the effect was worth it.
I have read reviews online that describe House of Leaves as a commentary on the discipline of literary criticism. I think that is missing the point. The irrationality of the terror that the protagonist discovers is most effectively brought into relief through the use of an overly rational approach. I will put myself out there and say that I do not think that House of Leaves is a horror story. It is a Borgesian world, rational in itself but twisted from our world. We approach this world objectively and see that the subject of the story, incidentally, is the nature of horror itself.
My favorite book, in most every way that I know how to judge a book, is Fugitive Pieces. Michaels has a great and unique command of the language, and the the pace and flow make it obvious that she was a poet first. The first ten pages will tell anyone whether this book is for them or not.
The story does justice to the style. There are so many moments that have stuck with me since I first read it. For a person who did not grow up with a sister, I felt closer to understanding when reading this book than at any other time in my life. It also taught me a lot about the nature and dynamics of the places where we find emotional safety. Maybe more than anything, it reminded me that everything happens exactly once; foremost, our lives.
The way the story shifts perspective two-thirds of the way through disappointed me the first time I read it, because I was so absorbed and in love with the story I was already reading. After reading the book a couple times, I started to see the ways that the counterpoint of the second story improved the book as a whole. The immense gravity of the first story is brought into perspective only when we see that the first story's truths extend to us all, and furthermore, when we see how ready so many of us are to ignore them.
My favorite books have changed over the years so many times that I see little point in even sorting them in such a way, except that it helps me to identify what I like so well about them. With many books I read, I never stop long enough to do this; for me, it is quite a task to unwind such a tangle of thread. I believe I fear making mistakes in such a process - the task of understanding concepts, styles, themes, hidden and overt messages is daunting in such a liquid medium.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Brain Dump #001
Mystical thought can best be described as a system of focusing the meaning of some unexplainable portion of the world onto the process of its experience, in lieu of a explanation for its cause.
I am equally excited to turn Only Son's 'Sleepyface' and Fleet Foxes' 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song' into sparse, cold guitar torch songs.
I believe that I have fully assimilated the concept of capital allocation into my asset decisions, but I am afraid to apply it to lesser consumption decisions for fear of emptying the enjoyment completely from the process of consuming. (i.e. the moment that I attempt to calculate whether the extra $1.50 I spend for a 6-pack of a certain microbrew is proportionately more enjoyable as a percent of the total cost, can I really enjoy it at all?)
Based on the songs and parts of songs that I most like, Jonny more closely approximates my love for Radiohead's melodic presence than Thom. Although, not by much. (See: Wolf at the Door, The Tourist, evidence from 'There Will Be Blood')
The most important quality for the people I will surround myself with in the coming years to possess is a systematic (or at least rational) approach to self-improvement in the innermost sense.
I need to reverse my slide away from regular exercise.
I am getting too old for 'this shit.'
I am equally excited to turn Only Son's 'Sleepyface' and Fleet Foxes' 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song' into sparse, cold guitar torch songs.
I believe that I have fully assimilated the concept of capital allocation into my asset decisions, but I am afraid to apply it to lesser consumption decisions for fear of emptying the enjoyment completely from the process of consuming. (i.e. the moment that I attempt to calculate whether the extra $1.50 I spend for a 6-pack of a certain microbrew is proportionately more enjoyable as a percent of the total cost, can I really enjoy it at all?)
Based on the songs and parts of songs that I most like, Jonny more closely approximates my love for Radiohead's melodic presence than Thom. Although, not by much. (See: Wolf at the Door, The Tourist, evidence from 'There Will Be Blood')
The most important quality for the people I will surround myself with in the coming years to possess is a systematic (or at least rational) approach to self-improvement in the innermost sense.
I need to reverse my slide away from regular exercise.
I am getting too old for 'this shit.'
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Heavy Surf - 2/20/09
I reminded myself a number of years ago to always pay attention to the essence of the day; as much as the blinders of our routine can make the sequence seem uniform, it is an illusion... What we experience is neither a repetition nor rewindable. It is hard when we move quickly through life, and the days seem to lose sequence altogether; easier when we retain enough touchstones that we can see our relationships to all things twist and reshape. Home, I feel now, is all the places where the twisting has changed us. Natural, maybe, that so much of it will happen in a house; in houses; aging is an anesthesia but it is also the slowest, most inevitably certain agent of change. Sit in an empty room, and you will not remain the same; every day for a hundred years you will change - expand or contract, opening yourself to the inexorable peace of universal wisdom. At the end (the end of wisdom, not existence...), having a 'personality' is merely the story of how you attained such wisdom and when...
In perception, the trust in the constancy of memory is much like the trust in the constancy of time before Einstein's General Theory of Relativity proved light to be the universe's true constant; and memory's true constant, ironically enough, is time... While we believe that any moment, person, or idea can remain in us any length of time unchanged, all we can truly rely on is that they cannot; or rather, that the entropy of all things in time will make this impossible.
In perception, the trust in the constancy of memory is much like the trust in the constancy of time before Einstein's General Theory of Relativity proved light to be the universe's true constant; and memory's true constant, ironically enough, is time... While we believe that any moment, person, or idea can remain in us any length of time unchanged, all we can truly rely on is that they cannot; or rather, that the entropy of all things in time will make this impossible.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Thoughts Upon Returning Home
I have arrived home from Europe and begun the process of re-establishing a life here. It is strange to look back on a process that I attempted to gain such a grip in planning; I felt the roads through Germany and the sound of church bells in the old city squares, and the heat of the Southern Portugal sun on my skin long before I left Finland, and now those desires are informed with the [wildly differing] reality of my travels. How long does it take for the two to become one? I have infinite patience to discover the answer.
I finished reading "The Winter Vault", which I had really looked forward to. It can't even approach the uniqueness of Michaels' earlier novel, "Fugitive Pieces" (how many books can?), but it is still very strong. I am a little annoyed with some of Michaels' repeated literary and grammatical effects, but the story and themes are all well-drawn. I was left thinking about authenticity of place, and authenticity of purpose even more... And I can't help but think this is important for me right now...
On a separate note, it was amazing to read a novel where the most poignant imagery took place in a location I recently visited - Warsaw. The history of the city during World War II is both horrific as well as unique in a terrifying sense. Certainly the fact that the city was rebuilt to look identical to its pre-war state is fascinating from the standpoint of authenticity. Michaels asks, is such an act meant to heal the living, or the dead?
In Warsaw, there is a memorial garden to the uprising that contains lots of large, high-resolution pictures of the city taken from planes during the destruction of the city. The stories these pictures tell are fascinating, and the later pictures, where the city stands almost completely destroyed (not a roof remaining on any building) are stunning. I can't even begin to imagine the way these people were affected.
-------------------------------------------------------
Before I left for my exchange trip, I attended a pre-exchange meeting at school where we were warned that a sense of depression is quite rare on departure, and quite common on return. It has taken no more than one week of living at home to play out this thesis. Despite efforts towards regaining employment and arranging school plans, I feel listless. None of my pre-exchange occupations of time feel worthwhile or enjoyable. I am more idealistic in my goals and no better equipped to attain them. If anything, I have moved backwards.
Where does such a series of events end? I believe I must explore new avenues and meet new people, two things that have always been difficult for me.
I finished reading "The Winter Vault", which I had really looked forward to. It can't even approach the uniqueness of Michaels' earlier novel, "Fugitive Pieces" (how many books can?), but it is still very strong. I am a little annoyed with some of Michaels' repeated literary and grammatical effects, but the story and themes are all well-drawn. I was left thinking about authenticity of place, and authenticity of purpose even more... And I can't help but think this is important for me right now...
On a separate note, it was amazing to read a novel where the most poignant imagery took place in a location I recently visited - Warsaw. The history of the city during World War II is both horrific as well as unique in a terrifying sense. Certainly the fact that the city was rebuilt to look identical to its pre-war state is fascinating from the standpoint of authenticity. Michaels asks, is such an act meant to heal the living, or the dead?
In Warsaw, there is a memorial garden to the uprising that contains lots of large, high-resolution pictures of the city taken from planes during the destruction of the city. The stories these pictures tell are fascinating, and the later pictures, where the city stands almost completely destroyed (not a roof remaining on any building) are stunning. I can't even begin to imagine the way these people were affected.
-------------------------------------------------------
Before I left for my exchange trip, I attended a pre-exchange meeting at school where we were warned that a sense of depression is quite rare on departure, and quite common on return. It has taken no more than one week of living at home to play out this thesis. Despite efforts towards regaining employment and arranging school plans, I feel listless. None of my pre-exchange occupations of time feel worthwhile or enjoyable. I am more idealistic in my goals and no better equipped to attain them. If anything, I have moved backwards.
Where does such a series of events end? I believe I must explore new avenues and meet new people, two things that have always been difficult for me.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Politics of Surprise and Delusion
Spring Break has come and gone, and my time to leave Finland is thus approaching in a way that feels terminal now... I am already letting go because I know it will be hard. In a way, I think I started letting go when my friends began to leave. By some no doubt ill-defined metrics, my time here has worked in reverse to what might be considered normal - I felt at home here almost immediately, and have spent a great deal of time loosening the grip the place and myself have on each other. So, what is the point of it all? Maybe nothing. Or maybe I want the feelings and mindset that I have borne here to survive the detachment?
Who was it that said, (and I paraphrase...) that hatred for others comes from seeing things in them we don't like about ourselves? I have always agreed with that statement, but now I realize it may be part of something bigger. Maybe all emotions are elicited through this mirror - the one that reflects what the actions of others and external events mean to ourselves, not what they are in and of themselves... Or is it just this to me? As evidence I can only offer my own experiences, which necessarily limits the conclusions I can draw, but let me try regardless. Recently, good friends of mine here left, and to be forthright, I was not sad for this. I will miss them, but that to me is peripheral. Perhaps the most important question in making my point is this: What could I do about it? Nothing, of course. However, a few days later, when I realized I had lost a gift they had given me that reminded me of them very much, I was so upset that I actually cried. This was MY failing, the effect of my actions. And for all my pondering, I cannot so much as figure out how my friends even fit into the emotion, except that I feel that my failure somehow takes away from my bond with them.
------------------------------------------------------
The idea of living in one place for a limited amount of time is appealing for any number of reasons that I have spent long amounts of time thinking about and reinforcing in my mind. And so, in the spirit of the new, these reasons are of no further interest to me. What preoccupies my mind today is the drawbacks, which have come into greater focus as I have experienced them more closely. It started before Finland - I became involved with someone where circumstance necessarily dictated the limits of our relationship. I have never had particular fortune finding people that I felt I had a real 'connection' with, so these facts were hard for me to accept. Now, the desires and reality of my current situation weigh on everything that happens, every opportunity that is presented. And I have become no better at accepting the constraints of reality, as I have begun to feel much more attached to someone than I should allow myself to be to someone that I will soon be saying good-bye to.
This reminds me that sometime ago, I changed my favorite quote on Facebook from several quotes that define how I wish I was (a silly notion), to one that describes very well how my mind actually works:
"Illusion is the first of all pleasures" - O. Wilde
I won't dwell on the fact that I have come to quote one of the most readily quotable figures of modern times. (Borges was both correct and notes the relevant fact when he pointed out that time proves Wilde to be almost always right) More importantly, I have allowed myself to draw grandiose enough illusions of pleasure that it has become a daunting (and secondary) exercise for me to determine what pleasures are actually worth reaching for. I am more apt to merely accept (or pursue) the pleasures that present themselves in front of me.
How many people joked about me finding a wife while I was over here? I suppose the idea in and of itself is not crazy, given what different dynamics exist and how easy it would be to fall into a spell upon finding something so different, perhaps something that easily steps past the usual (and thus frustrating) limitations but possesses other limitations I have yet to experience... Still, I am surprised at myself that I have actually entertained some thought about the possibility. Even more surprising, perhaps? I only mention any of this because I thought about it again today. I suppose, significantly, that this is not rational but is instead the effect of an addiction to the pleasure of illusion.
Who was it that said, (and I paraphrase...) that hatred for others comes from seeing things in them we don't like about ourselves? I have always agreed with that statement, but now I realize it may be part of something bigger. Maybe all emotions are elicited through this mirror - the one that reflects what the actions of others and external events mean to ourselves, not what they are in and of themselves... Or is it just this to me? As evidence I can only offer my own experiences, which necessarily limits the conclusions I can draw, but let me try regardless. Recently, good friends of mine here left, and to be forthright, I was not sad for this. I will miss them, but that to me is peripheral. Perhaps the most important question in making my point is this: What could I do about it? Nothing, of course. However, a few days later, when I realized I had lost a gift they had given me that reminded me of them very much, I was so upset that I actually cried. This was MY failing, the effect of my actions. And for all my pondering, I cannot so much as figure out how my friends even fit into the emotion, except that I feel that my failure somehow takes away from my bond with them.
------------------------------------------------------
The idea of living in one place for a limited amount of time is appealing for any number of reasons that I have spent long amounts of time thinking about and reinforcing in my mind. And so, in the spirit of the new, these reasons are of no further interest to me. What preoccupies my mind today is the drawbacks, which have come into greater focus as I have experienced them more closely. It started before Finland - I became involved with someone where circumstance necessarily dictated the limits of our relationship. I have never had particular fortune finding people that I felt I had a real 'connection' with, so these facts were hard for me to accept. Now, the desires and reality of my current situation weigh on everything that happens, every opportunity that is presented. And I have become no better at accepting the constraints of reality, as I have begun to feel much more attached to someone than I should allow myself to be to someone that I will soon be saying good-bye to.
This reminds me that sometime ago, I changed my favorite quote on Facebook from several quotes that define how I wish I was (a silly notion), to one that describes very well how my mind actually works:
"Illusion is the first of all pleasures" - O. Wilde
I won't dwell on the fact that I have come to quote one of the most readily quotable figures of modern times. (Borges was both correct and notes the relevant fact when he pointed out that time proves Wilde to be almost always right) More importantly, I have allowed myself to draw grandiose enough illusions of pleasure that it has become a daunting (and secondary) exercise for me to determine what pleasures are actually worth reaching for. I am more apt to merely accept (or pursue) the pleasures that present themselves in front of me.
How many people joked about me finding a wife while I was over here? I suppose the idea in and of itself is not crazy, given what different dynamics exist and how easy it would be to fall into a spell upon finding something so different, perhaps something that easily steps past the usual (and thus frustrating) limitations but possesses other limitations I have yet to experience... Still, I am surprised at myself that I have actually entertained some thought about the possibility. Even more surprising, perhaps? I only mention any of this because I thought about it again today. I suppose, significantly, that this is not rational but is instead the effect of an addiction to the pleasure of illusion.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Joys of Predestination
I should probably apologize for the last post; during times of gravity, I tend to grab and smear too much of it. In any case, it's a good song with true words; maybe I should just feign ignorance that the post was meant as anything more than admiration for a song.
Next Friday, I will depart for Norway. We're planning a week there that focuses more on nature than our previous journeys; this is not arbitrary. Finally, we will be somewhere that is experiencing something that can be considered 'Spring-like'. To me, this couldn't be better, as I believe it safe to say that amongst the Scandinavian countries, the natural sights get better the further west you go. (This becomes even truer if you consider Iceland to be a Scandinavian state...)
Three days ago, while I was sitting down to lunch with my roommate, we saw the first flying insect of the year. Likewise, even on cold days the last week or two, puddles of water are formed at the street intersections as we walk. Ultimately, as the dormancy of Winter turns into a light Spring, my experiences and subsequent thoughts themselves are undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts, and I suspect that by the time I'm watching the sun set as I lay on the beach in Lisbon in late May, the view backwards that led me from this place, slowly to the south and west over these months, will seem not only natural, but inevitable.
Next Friday, I will depart for Norway. We're planning a week there that focuses more on nature than our previous journeys; this is not arbitrary. Finally, we will be somewhere that is experiencing something that can be considered 'Spring-like'. To me, this couldn't be better, as I believe it safe to say that amongst the Scandinavian countries, the natural sights get better the further west you go. (This becomes even truer if you consider Iceland to be a Scandinavian state...)
Three days ago, while I was sitting down to lunch with my roommate, we saw the first flying insect of the year. Likewise, even on cold days the last week or two, puddles of water are formed at the street intersections as we walk. Ultimately, as the dormancy of Winter turns into a light Spring, my experiences and subsequent thoughts themselves are undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts, and I suspect that by the time I'm watching the sun set as I lay on the beach in Lisbon in late May, the view backwards that led me from this place, slowly to the south and west over these months, will seem not only natural, but inevitable.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Billie you're a miracle and God knows I need one
Sing me something terrible that even dawn may come
You and me, we don't believe in happy endings
Hey, Lady Day,
can you save my life this time
Can you cry so beautifully you make my troubles rhyme
Hey, Lady Day,
can you save my life again
My only love has gone away
Will you be my only friend
Billie you're a genius
enough to be a fool
a fool to gamble everything
and never know the rules
Some of us can only live in songs of love and trouble
Some of us can only live in bubbles...
- "My Only Friend", The Magnetic Fields
Sing me something terrible that even dawn may come
You and me, we don't believe in happy endings
Hey, Lady Day,
can you save my life this time
Can you cry so beautifully you make my troubles rhyme
Hey, Lady Day,
can you save my life again
My only love has gone away
Will you be my only friend
Billie you're a genius
enough to be a fool
a fool to gamble everything
and never know the rules
Some of us can only live in songs of love and trouble
Some of us can only live in bubbles...
- "My Only Friend", The Magnetic Fields
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Accountability
Maturity is all about making decisions that are 'correct' even when they are hard. In that sense, I made a mature decision last night, because I got the 'correct' outcome. However, I am twisting the truth quite badly to be able to make that claim. My method of accomplishing this was tragically poor.
I often feel unable to make any difference in the world, even my own. Last night I proved myself wrong by affecting several people, including myself, quite strongly. Step one. Now, I must learn to do so in a moral and responsible way.
There have been times in the past, including quite recently, when I felt a strong desire to make mistakes for their own sake. Blame a fascination with Oscar Wilde:
"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Still, I find this one even more appropriate:
"We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust..."
- The Arcade Fire
I often feel unable to make any difference in the world, even my own. Last night I proved myself wrong by affecting several people, including myself, quite strongly. Step one. Now, I must learn to do so in a moral and responsible way.
There have been times in the past, including quite recently, when I felt a strong desire to make mistakes for their own sake. Blame a fascination with Oscar Wilde:
"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Still, I find this one even more appropriate:
"We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust..."
- The Arcade Fire
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Time is a blind guide
I suppose that if you don't make choices for yourself, they inevitably make themselves. Which is really just a less blameful way of saying that a failure to act is itself the act of choosing. Big deal. How many choices are made on false pretense, bad assumptions, or irrational reasoning? Most?
Anyway, time passes and we learn. Things happen and we notice or we don't, and now tomorrow is here and our opinions have changed. I am holding on for something better, but I know the odds are unattractive that I will hit a moving target. It is the curse of no foresight (or maybe no patience of thought?) to get tomorrow what we stopped wanting today.
--------------------------------------------
We have been traveling. We have taken trips to Helsinki as well as Estonia in large groups (15-20), and I actually have to say that I am quite impressed - in two weekends, there were no examples of the group grinding into inactivity or even sore feelings through the difficulty of coordinating wishes or plans.
More importantly, wow. I have four needs, I am finally realizing - food, clothing, shelter, and travel. Not to even touch on the larger issues of what coming to Finland has done for me, but... traveling performs some kind of cleansing for the soul. It is strange, really, to anticipate transcendent moments and then actually have them arrive.
-------------------------------------------
I'm not sure that 'guilty pleasure' is the right term for something that can't really be planned, but I still love it when wonderful songs attach to wonderful moments or places... and I will always associate Band of Horses' newer album with laying in my top bunk at our hostel in Tallinn after everyone else had fallen asleep. Indeed, Tallinn will be a memorable city for many reasons.
-------------------------------------------
Time, I can see now, is both crawling and sprinting past me, the days dragging one by one out of thought, while the trip disappears in a slow flash. Some of my friends are already leaving in a couple weeks, their time here completed. If I were five years younger, this paragraph wouldn't include quotes around my usage of the words 'carpe diem'. As it is, I am left to wonder what combination of conscious and behavioral factors is bringing me to this strange phenomenon now.
Anyway, time passes and we learn. Things happen and we notice or we don't, and now tomorrow is here and our opinions have changed. I am holding on for something better, but I know the odds are unattractive that I will hit a moving target. It is the curse of no foresight (or maybe no patience of thought?) to get tomorrow what we stopped wanting today.
--------------------------------------------
We have been traveling. We have taken trips to Helsinki as well as Estonia in large groups (15-20), and I actually have to say that I am quite impressed - in two weekends, there were no examples of the group grinding into inactivity or even sore feelings through the difficulty of coordinating wishes or plans.
More importantly, wow. I have four needs, I am finally realizing - food, clothing, shelter, and travel. Not to even touch on the larger issues of what coming to Finland has done for me, but... traveling performs some kind of cleansing for the soul. It is strange, really, to anticipate transcendent moments and then actually have them arrive.
-------------------------------------------
I'm not sure that 'guilty pleasure' is the right term for something that can't really be planned, but I still love it when wonderful songs attach to wonderful moments or places... and I will always associate Band of Horses' newer album with laying in my top bunk at our hostel in Tallinn after everyone else had fallen asleep. Indeed, Tallinn will be a memorable city for many reasons.
-------------------------------------------
Time, I can see now, is both crawling and sprinting past me, the days dragging one by one out of thought, while the trip disappears in a slow flash. Some of my friends are already leaving in a couple weeks, their time here completed. If I were five years younger, this paragraph wouldn't include quotes around my usage of the words 'carpe diem'. As it is, I am left to wonder what combination of conscious and behavioral factors is bringing me to this strange phenomenon now.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Absence is Content
"Myth is the hidden part of every story, the buried part, the region that is still unexplored because there are as yet no words to enable us to get there. Myth is nourished by silence as well as by words."
~ Calvino, Italo
"Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths."
~ Campbell, Joseph
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes."
~ Feibleman, James
"It is a myth, not a mandate, a fable not a logic, and symbol rather than a reason by which men are moved."
~ Edman, Irwin
"It is a sure sign that a culture has reached a dead end when it is no longer intrigued by its myths."
~ Marcus, Greil
~ Calvino, Italo
"Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths."
~ Campbell, Joseph
"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes."
~ Feibleman, James
"It is a myth, not a mandate, a fable not a logic, and symbol rather than a reason by which men are moved."
~ Edman, Irwin
"It is a sure sign that a culture has reached a dead end when it is no longer intrigued by its myths."
~ Marcus, Greil
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tripping
"Look at the stars lighting up the sky: no one of them stays in the same place."
~ Seneca
---------------------------------------------------
Now that we have resided in Mikkeli long enough to see what the town has to offer (I believe it took approximately 31 hours), we have begun to make plans to see the greater area. For grandness and immodesty we are fortunate to be children of the 21st century. We travel by bus, train, plane, and ferry, holding timetables if not itineraries, and paying our privileged way with loaned government funds to be paid back in our working years with our greater productivity. We don't have the luxury of time to find out what is over the next hill, because our destinations are more grandiose. To economize, in expense or experience, is to miss the point.
There exists a feeling in my mind that comes to me late at night, when I am falling asleep, and the anxiety of the day has worn away but before my mind has fully pulled me under. It is the sound of a church bell ringing too far away to discern, or the word that slips out of reach as a sentence slows and hangs unfinished in the air... I think Terence McKenna called this the 'vegetable state', where ego is extingushed and sensory experience alone speaks. Sometimes I believe that all my searching is for this, because moments of gravity can scream past unnoticed in our concentration, but moments of raw experience are always moments of peace.
"Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels."
~ Socrates
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Next weekend, we are visiting Helsinki, as the closest and easiest destination worth pursuing. The following weekend will take us to Stockholm, which has been called "the Venice of the north" due primarily to the fact that the central city sits on a number of islands. Sometime fairly soon after, we hope to visit Estonia, traveling by ferry from Helsinki.
I could exercise some measure of my knowledge about these places, but that would only serve to express my ignorance. Easier for me to merely state that I am largely ignorant of these places.
"Don't listen to what they say. Go see."
~ Chinese Proverb
~ Seneca
---------------------------------------------------
Now that we have resided in Mikkeli long enough to see what the town has to offer (I believe it took approximately 31 hours), we have begun to make plans to see the greater area. For grandness and immodesty we are fortunate to be children of the 21st century. We travel by bus, train, plane, and ferry, holding timetables if not itineraries, and paying our privileged way with loaned government funds to be paid back in our working years with our greater productivity. We don't have the luxury of time to find out what is over the next hill, because our destinations are more grandiose. To economize, in expense or experience, is to miss the point.
There exists a feeling in my mind that comes to me late at night, when I am falling asleep, and the anxiety of the day has worn away but before my mind has fully pulled me under. It is the sound of a church bell ringing too far away to discern, or the word that slips out of reach as a sentence slows and hangs unfinished in the air... I think Terence McKenna called this the 'vegetable state', where ego is extingushed and sensory experience alone speaks. Sometimes I believe that all my searching is for this, because moments of gravity can scream past unnoticed in our concentration, but moments of raw experience are always moments of peace.
"Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels."
~ Socrates
----------------------------------------------
Next weekend, we are visiting Helsinki, as the closest and easiest destination worth pursuing. The following weekend will take us to Stockholm, which has been called "the Venice of the north" due primarily to the fact that the central city sits on a number of islands. Sometime fairly soon after, we hope to visit Estonia, traveling by ferry from Helsinki.
I could exercise some measure of my knowledge about these places, but that would only serve to express my ignorance. Easier for me to merely state that I am largely ignorant of these places.
"Don't listen to what they say. Go see."
~ Chinese Proverb
Monday, January 12, 2009
Eyes on the Horizon
Carl Jung believed that in the same way that an individual matures as they grow older, their psyche also progresses throughout the years, so that an individual capable of understanding the symbols of the subconscious and with sufficient attention paid to an individual's dreams over a significant portion of a lifetime will be able to chart these developments in linear and understandable patterns. The most powerful forces of psychic development are known as Jungian Archetypes, which represent blueprints for psychic processes and their relevant predispositions. The relevance of this fact is that although we may, at any point in our lives, feel adrift, there are very real and powerful forces in our subconscious that are acting to progress us in some specific direction. In a similar (indeed, connected) sense, I believe that our moral lifetime undergoes the same process.
I believe that morality is inseparable (and from certain perspectives, indistinguishable) from the choices we make for ourselves in the name of happiness and fulfillment. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that I believe we are only truly happy when our choices both agree with and certify the moral center of our beings.
I have always believed that the difference between the chronically happy and the chronically sad is a matter of expectations. Perhaps (and this is a large leap, I will admit) the real difference is our ability to reconcile our daily actions to our morality. Indeed, if we draw a strong and encompassing picture of morality, these two philosophies are not so disconnected as they might first seem!
The other day, when reading a brief synopsis for the upcoming Anne Michaels book, "The Winter Vault", I encountered the phrase "most essential life". I now think that it might be more accurate to say that I re-encountered it in a new context, as it most certain RE-awoke a feeling that I have felt intermittently for a very long time. Whatever Anne Michaels means by this term, to me it is synonymous with the idea of leading the most productively moral life possible.
Concepts can be interesting to other people, as long as we can provide a context that transcends language barriers. And of course, I am not referring to soveirgn languages but to the gaps that exist in conceptual understanding itself. On the other hand, our own inner turmoil is much harder to connect to another person, because we all see ourselves and our struggles through our own keyhole, so to speak. It is a rare gift, in fact, to find someone with whom we connect with even incompletely. People must, it seems, desire some satisfaction that comes from sharing their inner turmoil in a way that makes people understand them. Now, this seems relevant:
"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies — all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."
~ Aldous Huxley
Now, I have been undergoing the process of approaching some feeling with this post, but now that I have arrived, I find it hard to penetrate to the essence in an effectively communicable way. Maybe simplicity is best? Here is my attempt at simplicity:
I have begun to question whether a domestic life of meeting one ideal individual, and proceeding to start a family is anything close to my most essential life. I think that my fear of being alone has long clouded my judgment on what is capable of providing me the most lasting and complete fulfillment. But the more educated I become on issues of Finance and Economics, the more the issues of injustice and inequity in the world will not escape my mind. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I believe this is an evolution of my thought and not an abberation, that my moral progression has been moving towards this and will not cease. I believe that I cannot choose to ignore these feelings without long-term and lasting consequences. I am beginning to believe that utilizing all I have in me, all I am capable of to help others may be my most essential life.
???
I believe that morality is inseparable (and from certain perspectives, indistinguishable) from the choices we make for ourselves in the name of happiness and fulfillment. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that I believe we are only truly happy when our choices both agree with and certify the moral center of our beings.
I have always believed that the difference between the chronically happy and the chronically sad is a matter of expectations. Perhaps (and this is a large leap, I will admit) the real difference is our ability to reconcile our daily actions to our morality. Indeed, if we draw a strong and encompassing picture of morality, these two philosophies are not so disconnected as they might first seem!
The other day, when reading a brief synopsis for the upcoming Anne Michaels book, "The Winter Vault", I encountered the phrase "most essential life". I now think that it might be more accurate to say that I re-encountered it in a new context, as it most certain RE-awoke a feeling that I have felt intermittently for a very long time. Whatever Anne Michaels means by this term, to me it is synonymous with the idea of leading the most productively moral life possible.
Concepts can be interesting to other people, as long as we can provide a context that transcends language barriers. And of course, I am not referring to soveirgn languages but to the gaps that exist in conceptual understanding itself. On the other hand, our own inner turmoil is much harder to connect to another person, because we all see ourselves and our struggles through our own keyhole, so to speak. It is a rare gift, in fact, to find someone with whom we connect with even incompletely. People must, it seems, desire some satisfaction that comes from sharing their inner turmoil in a way that makes people understand them. Now, this seems relevant:
"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies — all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."
~ Aldous Huxley
Now, I have been undergoing the process of approaching some feeling with this post, but now that I have arrived, I find it hard to penetrate to the essence in an effectively communicable way. Maybe simplicity is best? Here is my attempt at simplicity:
I have begun to question whether a domestic life of meeting one ideal individual, and proceeding to start a family is anything close to my most essential life. I think that my fear of being alone has long clouded my judgment on what is capable of providing me the most lasting and complete fulfillment. But the more educated I become on issues of Finance and Economics, the more the issues of injustice and inequity in the world will not escape my mind. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I believe this is an evolution of my thought and not an abberation, that my moral progression has been moving towards this and will not cease. I believe that I cannot choose to ignore these feelings without long-term and lasting consequences. I am beginning to believe that utilizing all I have in me, all I am capable of to help others may be my most essential life.
???
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Aiming for Survival
"Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."
~ Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
---------------------------
I suppose it is apt to start with a quote such as the above before discussing what I have done "right" and "wrong" since I have gotten here. Indeed, I believe such trivialities as listing either would be wholly uninteresting, and so I shall avoid them. More important is to acknowledge that any situation that pushes our limits provides not only lessons but inherent and immediate forgiveness for the mistakes we make.
My sleep pattern since arriving has gone from tenuous to backwards to laughable, in roughly equal intervals. My five previous sessions of sleep have been (from most recent to most distant): 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., and 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. My body is running, as it is, off of whatever mental supplements the uncertain nature of my situation are providing. I can rest only when safety is achieved. With some good fortune, may it never come again...
I like the friends I am making and can't look forward enough to what lies ahead - the possibilities for travel make headlines in my mind, but it is almost always the subtler moments, and the transcendent core of situations that won't come again.
~ Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
---------------------------
I suppose it is apt to start with a quote such as the above before discussing what I have done "right" and "wrong" since I have gotten here. Indeed, I believe such trivialities as listing either would be wholly uninteresting, and so I shall avoid them. More important is to acknowledge that any situation that pushes our limits provides not only lessons but inherent and immediate forgiveness for the mistakes we make.
My sleep pattern since arriving has gone from tenuous to backwards to laughable, in roughly equal intervals. My five previous sessions of sleep have been (from most recent to most distant): 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., and 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. My body is running, as it is, off of whatever mental supplements the uncertain nature of my situation are providing. I can rest only when safety is achieved. With some good fortune, may it never come again...
I like the friends I am making and can't look forward enough to what lies ahead - the possibilities for travel make headlines in my mind, but it is almost always the subtler moments, and the transcendent core of situations that won't come again.
Monday, January 5, 2009
First class
Today marked the beginning of the first class session after break. Classes are taught one at a time, are three hours a day, and last M-F for three weeks.
Besides the flurry of activity required to get settled into the school's technology and procedural systems, today marked another important first for me: I do not recall falling on the ice.
Friends are nice to have in a strange place but it may become too easy to rely on them for social causes. The point of this exercise, in part at least, is self-sufficiency. I have not struck an acceptable balance yet.
Why is it so much easier to talk to people here than at home? Is that totally in my head??
This, we shall see, is the open case of priority for my detective skills. Tonight, there is a party happening that many if not all of the exchange students will be attending. My goal (silly as it is, as goals go) is to talk to everyone at the party. My other goal is to avoid getting drunk, or at least make my drinking decisions based around a logical process rather than a recreational one.
We can see, from the available evidence, that my body-to-mind relationship is not all that dissimilar to Robin Williams as the title character in "Jack".
Tonight is about relaxing and meeting people. As an emergency precaution to failing to relax, I am arming myself with one of the Dramamine pills that I was generously given by my new friend from the north, for deployment at a moment's notice.
Just kidding, those are for sleeping.
Besides the flurry of activity required to get settled into the school's technology and procedural systems, today marked another important first for me: I do not recall falling on the ice.
Friends are nice to have in a strange place but it may become too easy to rely on them for social causes. The point of this exercise, in part at least, is self-sufficiency. I have not struck an acceptable balance yet.
Why is it so much easier to talk to people here than at home? Is that totally in my head??
This, we shall see, is the open case of priority for my detective skills. Tonight, there is a party happening that many if not all of the exchange students will be attending. My goal (silly as it is, as goals go) is to talk to everyone at the party. My other goal is to avoid getting drunk, or at least make my drinking decisions based around a logical process rather than a recreational one.
We can see, from the available evidence, that my body-to-mind relationship is not all that dissimilar to Robin Williams as the title character in "Jack".
Tonight is about relaxing and meeting people. As an emergency precaution to failing to relax, I am arming myself with one of the Dramamine pills that I was generously given by my new friend from the north, for deployment at a moment's notice.
Just kidding, those are for sleeping.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Arrival
The Nordic countries are known for possessing breathtakingly harsh landscapes; unremitting extremes of weather; light and dark lasting for months on end; not to mention exotic women of great beauty. Coincidentally, these are all things that I did NOT see while traveling to Mikkeli (I found the list online, so I'm going to have to assume for the time being that it is correct).
I stayed awake for approximately 36 hours by the time I had made it to Mikkeli, and then proceeded to take a sleepwalk tour of the town (fortunately by car). Sleepcar tour, then.
The following forty eight hours have been a haze of meeting people, socializing, forgetting names, shopping for items with non-english labels, tasting horrible foods that i thought were supposed to be yogurt, agreeing to trips months in advance without premeditation, slipping on ice in front of people, walking long distances to tiny parties, walking long distances home, and finally, sleep.
If you blink at an inopportune moment, you may miss the daytime. On the other hand, night stretches on like the ocean.
Dorm is acceptable, people seem nice. But my bedroom light fixture stopped working just as it was getting dark.
I stayed awake for approximately 36 hours by the time I had made it to Mikkeli, and then proceeded to take a sleepwalk tour of the town (fortunately by car). Sleepcar tour, then.
The following forty eight hours have been a haze of meeting people, socializing, forgetting names, shopping for items with non-english labels, tasting horrible foods that i thought were supposed to be yogurt, agreeing to trips months in advance without premeditation, slipping on ice in front of people, walking long distances to tiny parties, walking long distances home, and finally, sleep.
If you blink at an inopportune moment, you may miss the daytime. On the other hand, night stretches on like the ocean.
Dorm is acceptable, people seem nice. But my bedroom light fixture stopped working just as it was getting dark.
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