one of the most frustrating aspects of adult life, for me, has to be the incessant maintenance required of us in just about everything that we do. this is an inescapable facet, i believe, but i still feel the need to make note of it. it just took me two hours to swap out all the music on my ipod, and replace it with various tunes which i had hunted and gathered like a tribal warrior with a flash-drive spear. there is the endless question of what will and won't make the cut onto my portable music player, because there has to be a delicate balance there....a good amount of organic, fresh produce, which spurs the mind and body in quite a different way than the processed and already-digested music which we have incorporated and cycled into our personalities already. then too, there is the consideration of leveling and balancing the recipe overall, such that you don't end up genre-heavy because you didn't take the time to level off your spoons correctly. nothing worse than a playlist with too much nutmeg in it; it will throw off the whole flavor of your month. then of course one has selected 20 gigs instead of the required 16, and you must go back to pare down the whole thing.
but the point is that this maintenance, constant, is deadening, dulling; it robs us of such vital and diminishing time in our lives. i know some people who relish kneading their fingers into this, but personally i just can't understand it. i want to do, not prepare. probably an immature perspective for me to adopt, but what really is immaturity but an unwillingness to accept the way things are? a healthy idealism has its positive sides, as well. one should struggle to not become to sheepish in their allowances for the intrusion of life's harshness. we probably often put up with much more than we should.
this is only accentuated by the fact that i work at a medical device company, which requires the most stringent of all possible documentation regarding anything that happens in the process of developing and/or selling a product. you can perhaps imagine how frustrating it is to have to do something, anything, and then record it in a particular format.....also involved is knowledge of the format, the medium, the jargon, and keeping an eye out for how to describe something that you would normally just DO, and forget about afterwards.
maintenance creeps into my life from all fronts...there is the keeping up with cleaning, hygiene, paperwork (bank, phone, insurance, taxes, junk mail, real mail, the mail that is kind of real and kind of junk), exercise, diet. these are the realities which are not told to you when you are growing up; they are the chisels of operable society which eventually wear people down into little lumps of their original potential. i know people so involved that they could go for weeks, viably months, perhaps years, of nothing but such maintenance. maintenance and life become inextricable. friends get offended, consciously or subconsciously, if they are not kept up with every so often; i feel it in myself and can infer from that. having many friends becomes a whole system of its own, an solar system in which planets cannot swing too far from your star before they start to drain warmth, before the flora and fauna which grows between two people begin to die off and begin to be brushed away for different climates. a comfort: there are exceptions to this.
what is frustrating about the whole thing is that you can't really understand all the intricacies of something until you dig into it yourself. this makes these mundane preparations and adjustments necessary, to avoid being coddled into a general sense of luxurious ignorance. nobody likes someone who can't do any footwork for themselves, or won't. i recently heard about a service, a help-desk secretary sort of thing, and people are now contracting out this service who aren't busy professionals....some are just average people who don't want to deal with contesting a visa charge, or haggling over a doctor's bill, or going out to buy argyle socks. instead they pay a modest fee to have someone else take care of their busy-work. this sounds fantastic, but also ridiculous to a degree. like trying to buy back time wasted at a different market price. i suppose the real question is, does busy-work really constitute wasted time? so much that i write on here is a direct refuting of typical value systems, which so many people seem to have such an easy time with. i'm not sure what is different about myself, such that i was not able to adopt many of the same systems as the average person. many people would be completely content living on a ranch in a small town, doing work for the day, taking care of children until the night, sleeping in the liminal spaces between. or a law firm; pick your flavor. there's a good chance that i myself could be completely content with this storybook farmhand lifestyle. these are just things to be threshed out, combed for, well, really, whatever i can find of myself in them. what else could i be searching for? there does seem to be a genuine, good, productive feeling that emerges from accomplishing little tasks, or big tasks, which have nothing to do with some transcendental truth or existential realization. certainly those little tasks provide more concreteness, a more solid realization of something than that other, which is a constantly fluctuating field and wavers along with me from hour to hour. but am i conditioned to feel good, to feel justified after a day of errands? have i moved myself any closer to some goal; have i oiled some machinery which aids in that other?
is there a point?
can i develop something, some logic pattern, a cerebral independence, such that it eliminates the need for this? can i exist in two places at the same time?
January 11, 2009
January 8, 2009
boards of canada
i am getting my ideas in line and i feel more and more, with what i am learning about writing, that a large project is right on my horizon. my plan currently is to busy myself as much as possible....not only with scribbles, but with music, with language, with art, with exploration (just probably not of an outwardly social nature; had a lot of that already and need to recess a little into my own worlds). is it too much to expect yourself to be able to branch out over multiple projects? i hope not....someone once said to me that if you want to get something accomplished, give it to a busy person. the mind somehow just aligns itself with intention, and piggybacks onto so many other factors involved in motivation. have you ever been bowling, and stared down one of the marks on the lane while you were winding up for a toss? really zoomed your focus down onto it? somehow the ball just finds its way there, as though the ball understands. and it does, in a way; it follows your body which understands intention much better and more precisely than we do. if there is one distinct thing that i have learned from meditation, it is that there is a cleverness to silence, to the absence of thought in its streaming form...silence is a variation on the theme of nature, and its transmission does a lot more good in terms of communication, it seems, than screaming obscenities into the emerald sides of a forest.
silence and writing, though...these two things are seemingly poles of a spectrum. it's impossible to be a silent writer....or at least, if it is possible, i haven't yet been made aware of a method towards achieving it, and wouldn't be certain of wanting it in the first place. the silence is what a writes rallies against and battles, even though really he can be trying to do nothing more than describe it in a glorified manner, if the situation calls for it. thoughts are different for everybody. perhaps silences are one of the great unifiers. at any rate, things seems to be set up in such a way that writing is an immense complexity: it involves finding your center, your calm eye of the storm, and maintaining in it such that you can obtain the perspective that you need to really possess a story instead of being consumed by it, by all the possibilities; to play master instead of minion. jeff expressed it to me quite succinctly the other day...that artistic inclinations are a like a djinn flying free from a lamp. you have to be able to contain them, or they will trick you with their cleverness; they will spin you round and round until you are completely disoriented. they can destroy you as a functional person; look to history if you need any semblance of evidence. but, if you can reign them in, if you can chain them and train them, have them do your bidding without letting them get the upper hand (which their explosive nature is apt to do; dizzying, damaging), then you can accomplish great things and amaze with your originality, with the spells of an unencumbered mind loosed upon the world.
one must know their own limits. it seems that possibility has none, and that it will balloon and balloon, fuming fiery generative on the inside. letting these thoughts pass through consciousness is an amazing and enlightening experience, but training them, focusing them, controlling them, is where one must know themselves or risk more than would be assumed to be at risk in most human endeavors.
it would be easy to write something trite, something book laced with consumption. it would probably be relatively easy to bend towards a casablanca style, a plot-and-drama spurring hollywood locked in verbs. people would read, it wouldn't challenge them very much; this would probably please them, or trick them into thinking they were pleased. but to actually come up with something inspired, something which forays into privately or publicly unexplored territory...this would leave a scorch-mark, and should be treated as such (with caution). it takes great personal fury, and not the angry kind, to be able to spin such a dynamo off of the fingertips. it takes knowing your brain as one knows an instrument. feeling it in the hands, as though it is an extension of you and a clear palate for expression. knowing what keys and chords to hit, and what, in particular, those effects have upon you. how you would steer it, with the wheel endlessly in your hands alone, as it should be.
"life is a blast when you know what you're doing
best to know what you're doing
'fore your life get ruined
life is a thrill when your skill is developed
if you ain't got a skill or trade,
then shut the hell up."
~heiroglyphics - at the helm
silence and writing, though...these two things are seemingly poles of a spectrum. it's impossible to be a silent writer....or at least, if it is possible, i haven't yet been made aware of a method towards achieving it, and wouldn't be certain of wanting it in the first place. the silence is what a writes rallies against and battles, even though really he can be trying to do nothing more than describe it in a glorified manner, if the situation calls for it. thoughts are different for everybody. perhaps silences are one of the great unifiers. at any rate, things seems to be set up in such a way that writing is an immense complexity: it involves finding your center, your calm eye of the storm, and maintaining in it such that you can obtain the perspective that you need to really possess a story instead of being consumed by it, by all the possibilities; to play master instead of minion. jeff expressed it to me quite succinctly the other day...that artistic inclinations are a like a djinn flying free from a lamp. you have to be able to contain them, or they will trick you with their cleverness; they will spin you round and round until you are completely disoriented. they can destroy you as a functional person; look to history if you need any semblance of evidence. but, if you can reign them in, if you can chain them and train them, have them do your bidding without letting them get the upper hand (which their explosive nature is apt to do; dizzying, damaging), then you can accomplish great things and amaze with your originality, with the spells of an unencumbered mind loosed upon the world.
one must know their own limits. it seems that possibility has none, and that it will balloon and balloon, fuming fiery generative on the inside. letting these thoughts pass through consciousness is an amazing and enlightening experience, but training them, focusing them, controlling them, is where one must know themselves or risk more than would be assumed to be at risk in most human endeavors.
it would be easy to write something trite, something book laced with consumption. it would probably be relatively easy to bend towards a casablanca style, a plot-and-drama spurring hollywood locked in verbs. people would read, it wouldn't challenge them very much; this would probably please them, or trick them into thinking they were pleased. but to actually come up with something inspired, something which forays into privately or publicly unexplored territory...this would leave a scorch-mark, and should be treated as such (with caution). it takes great personal fury, and not the angry kind, to be able to spin such a dynamo off of the fingertips. it takes knowing your brain as one knows an instrument. feeling it in the hands, as though it is an extension of you and a clear palate for expression. knowing what keys and chords to hit, and what, in particular, those effects have upon you. how you would steer it, with the wheel endlessly in your hands alone, as it should be.
"life is a blast when you know what you're doing
best to know what you're doing
'fore your life get ruined
life is a thrill when your skill is developed
if you ain't got a skill or trade,
then shut the hell up."
~heiroglyphics - at the helm
January 1, 2009
colorado
consuming, my time.
well it has been quite an eventful trip out here, with many good peoples and conversations. it's the new year now and, frankly, i'm not sure i have been as excited for a year, ever, as i am currently for this one. and i'm not sure that there is anything specific holding it together, in expectation, or setting it distinctly apart from any other. for one, i have started playing more guitar, getting more confident about writing (and myself as a person, for that matter), exploring, and have just acquired the french version of rosetta stone and a multitude of potential avenues of explosion in the form of Reason 4. who could ask for more in terms of potential? my time is, as of now, spoken for. and i think it is likely that i shall emerge much improved (and finally have some things to show for it) after the next twelve months. which is kind of an arbitrary timeline, to be sure, but it seems to be a line that people mentally associate with crossings for obvious reasons, though perhaps it might be more appropriate sometimes if transposed a month or two in rewind or fast-forward~
ducks are in rows. targets are set up.
well it has been quite an eventful trip out here, with many good peoples and conversations. it's the new year now and, frankly, i'm not sure i have been as excited for a year, ever, as i am currently for this one. and i'm not sure that there is anything specific holding it together, in expectation, or setting it distinctly apart from any other. for one, i have started playing more guitar, getting more confident about writing (and myself as a person, for that matter), exploring, and have just acquired the french version of rosetta stone and a multitude of potential avenues of explosion in the form of Reason 4. who could ask for more in terms of potential? my time is, as of now, spoken for. and i think it is likely that i shall emerge much improved (and finally have some things to show for it) after the next twelve months. which is kind of an arbitrary timeline, to be sure, but it seems to be a line that people mentally associate with crossings for obvious reasons, though perhaps it might be more appropriate sometimes if transposed a month or two in rewind or fast-forward~
ducks are in rows. targets are set up.
December 18, 2008
backspace
the plant, this plant right here, looks like lightly-grilled green peppers skewered on winding shish-ka-bob sticks. thick, ruffled, vibrant. there doesn't seem to be any ordering principle to the juxtaposition of the tendrils....unlike some sharp and angular plants one might find on wooded walks. this thought from the other day floats back into my mindspace....chaos is still math. there is still logic here, there; it grips at your eyes and rakes them left, right...gently curls your ankles, like a summer breath, coaxing them down a sideways street. a coppered scent lances through you, permeates the inside of the compass, dizzying. there is a dialectic for everything here. there is an equation compounding...both complex and getting simpler, by less-than-seconds, to understand. it is ourselves who are dismantling our own progress, disordering the rubix while we aren't looking (really looking). we feel some need to make this math STOP, some imperative to frost it, slow it, and script it so that it might be applied to ourselves. whom we cannot, for the life of us, figure out.
so instead, we focus on everything external to us. we burrow, curiously enough, into the outside world. when things go pear-shaped, we sometimes hang on to it for dear life, for sweet surrender to definition from an informing source, from something which seems to have more solidity than the nebulous fluctuations of our minds and thereby personalities (no, do not claim no inconsistencies in this arena. they are there; we are just better-trained to pass over our own faults and paint crimson flags upon others'). but we need to learn to retract our claws; to fall from the world and simultaneously be cushioned by it. we have compounded depths within us that most have not even bothered to scan with whatever radar techniques they can muster. our potential ranges of sensation, of experience, are exponential, or diminishing to near zero...one of the two. we have lost much of the sense, the liberty, of innovative living, of casting out and burning with the newness of the stars. there are many territories to be explored, not all of them tangible. but the more darkness one burns away inside of oneself, the more focused and torch-bearing one can exist on the outside.
dreams, in particular, and an exemplary manifestation of this idea. dreams sublimate the vast and murky, sensations (or whatever you want to call them, those indications of distance within one's own mind, emotions, spirit) that we are capable of, with actual plots of what seems to be more manageable mediums. dreams are crayons, scraping waxen upon the intricate sculptures of the soul. how fascinating that we can conjure whole oceans, whole continents, out of the raw materials which our thoughts, and what goes perhaps deeper than them, provide. it seems little wonder that god is imagined as human-like, and humanity as the sharded form of a god.
we exist in multiple dimensions, in multiple forms, and they can teach us great and wonderful things about the other. i think that only something which was laced, somehow, could exhibit these properties, these bridges of understanding. to quote a friend..."livelovelaughlook". Do not sell yourself short on the boundless possibilities of existing with apparent chaos. Embrace.
so instead, we focus on everything external to us. we burrow, curiously enough, into the outside world. when things go pear-shaped, we sometimes hang on to it for dear life, for sweet surrender to definition from an informing source, from something which seems to have more solidity than the nebulous fluctuations of our minds and thereby personalities (no, do not claim no inconsistencies in this arena. they are there; we are just better-trained to pass over our own faults and paint crimson flags upon others'). but we need to learn to retract our claws; to fall from the world and simultaneously be cushioned by it. we have compounded depths within us that most have not even bothered to scan with whatever radar techniques they can muster. our potential ranges of sensation, of experience, are exponential, or diminishing to near zero...one of the two. we have lost much of the sense, the liberty, of innovative living, of casting out and burning with the newness of the stars. there are many territories to be explored, not all of them tangible. but the more darkness one burns away inside of oneself, the more focused and torch-bearing one can exist on the outside.
dreams, in particular, and an exemplary manifestation of this idea. dreams sublimate the vast and murky, sensations (or whatever you want to call them, those indications of distance within one's own mind, emotions, spirit) that we are capable of, with actual plots of what seems to be more manageable mediums. dreams are crayons, scraping waxen upon the intricate sculptures of the soul. how fascinating that we can conjure whole oceans, whole continents, out of the raw materials which our thoughts, and what goes perhaps deeper than them, provide. it seems little wonder that god is imagined as human-like, and humanity as the sharded form of a god.
we exist in multiple dimensions, in multiple forms, and they can teach us great and wonderful things about the other. i think that only something which was laced, somehow, could exhibit these properties, these bridges of understanding. to quote a friend..."livelovelaughlook". Do not sell yourself short on the boundless possibilities of existing with apparent chaos. Embrace.
December 11, 2008
family business
do you know what is interesting? despite the fact that i somewhat take issue with christmas for the necessity of buying people things (and it's not that i am cheap...i dislike the economy propagating itself based upon an expectation or imaginary premise), for whatever reason i am completely comfortable with it when i consider the situation that my life is in. these are my family peoples; these are the people whom i truly care about and who will take me in regardless of circumstance. the dejected part about the holiday (which isn't the holiday's fault, so much, as it is a naturally-arising situation) is that it reminds me of how infrequently i actually get to see, get to spend face time with these people. family is an oddity in that there is a natural rifting of it at a certain point in a person's life....and it is likely a recursive theme as well, for i'm sure it will happen to me with my children, leaving me in a similarly set-apart stance of forlorn expectation. no, the thing is that despite loving these people so much, we don't get to see each other at all.
what i am finding, though, came as a surprise to me; an offhanded realization, a peripheral that it took me some time to see glinting. gift-giving may be cliche, but i absolutely want to do it....i want to thrust my purchases upon these good people with hope that they will express sentiments which i cannot, or at least, cannot from a distance, cannot over a telephone line or zooming electronic parcels. i hope that they do some damage to any walls that have built up between all of us. not walls that anyone would expect to be there....nobody in my circle, that i know of, has any grudges or misgivings which might set them distinctly at odds with me, or with each other, at all. we are a smooshily-happy family. but i consider, i hope these gifts to be the sweeping hands which might brush a coarse ivy off of a cottage-side, one which was beginning to be overgrown, overpopulated with seeds of tangled indifference.
i wish 'la noyee' was more than two minutes and three seconds long.
its not that i am not close with these people; they will always be my closest, i feel. but it is hard, hard to be instantly made as 'at ease' at our history should have us be. even with friends, non-relatives, sometimes it takes some time for gears to mesh melodiously again....a smoothness of being is a thing to be cherished, when it can be found in the company of others. i know that i can be completely at ease with my family; that they know me best of all, in many ways perhaps better than i know myself, though probably in ways which i could never grasp in the first place by faculty of some ego-bias intrinsic to being an encapsulated mind. relaxation, however, mindfulness and being completely at ease, is something that people spend their entire lives trying to swim upstream of.
one thing i know now about relationships now, is how pivotal it is to establish comfort in a solitary setting. and of course by relationship-solitary, which seem contradictory, of course i mean tete-a-tete; the one-on-one equilibrium which two people can find with each other when they are alone together. in general, the social bullshit stops, and people start being real and engaging with one another about meaningful things. i suppose my concern about family nowadays is that this balance is shifting into a group dynamic...which, hear me out, is no bad thing...after all, a group is what a family is, at it's utmost core. no, i rather mean that, considering that family time is so scarce, we are likely to spend the bulk of it in an amorphous blob of good feeling, complete saturation of senses with the bliss of being around my favorite people, all together again, and trying to relish it (knowing that it will not last). i fear that i won't get my solitary, singular one-on-one time with my family members...that time which i have come to feel is crucial to maintaining a real, crisp, honest relationship with someone. those walls that might be cracked or shattered by such contact will not have the time to be worn down....this is my fear...i will not be able to express to the fullest of my being, because i will be entirely in a social setting where emotions and phrases and looks and jokes are addressed to the crowd (albeit a *very* good and close crowd), not to an intimacy which my heart speaks more to now than ever, considering how little time i have to make it count.
i fear that the more and more i accept the distance which circumstance forces upon my relationships with these people, the more and more i will regret it, because life transitions and who can know where or what or when? i could move to a different country for two years, just like my brother, and not be able to see any of them for a serious brick of time. it would be a voluminous experience, to be sure....not to be missed, i am certain of that. but i cannot help but wonder at the trade-offs one makes with any decision. perhaps the philosopher in me. i feel distant enough even just living where i live, on the west coast, unable to connect with my family but a few scarce times per year, at best.
take a step back from this: how thankful that holidays exist; that they have the magnetism, the force of family to be able to draw these kindred souls back to one another again! bliss, pure. and this is the reason that i could not possibly mind spending exorbitant amounts of money on my family; they are rocks in my life more precious to me than any that i could buy in a store, regardless of any gemstone claims of infinites and forevers. i feel ridiculous, at the same time, buying them gifts, because they do not need them; they feel the same way, but the cycle goes on. i wish to express my caring, and it expresses itself thusly, in the traditional ways that we all grew up with.
presents have come to mean so much more to me, to us, i imagine. i could pull a j.j. abrams, and give my family ambiguous boxes wrapped to the nines, telling them never to open them but to leave them as symbols of what could be, and what is....never knowing, always knowing; forever finding out more about what the concept means. they are foremost mementos and remembrances. take a piece of me with you to your varied lives, and express it how you will. perhaps i will do just that. but these symbols aren't necessary; in fact they have never been less necessary. we observe the tradition, we curtsy, a-courteously, to the court which we owe allegiances to. this is our kingdom, and we may be as foolish as we choose; everything is rainbow-edged and glows with something not to be found anywhere else. our currencies are superior to the federal reserve's; socialism at it's best, most flawless ideal. depression cannot come around here no more.
what i am finding, though, came as a surprise to me; an offhanded realization, a peripheral that it took me some time to see glinting. gift-giving may be cliche, but i absolutely want to do it....i want to thrust my purchases upon these good people with hope that they will express sentiments which i cannot, or at least, cannot from a distance, cannot over a telephone line or zooming electronic parcels. i hope that they do some damage to any walls that have built up between all of us. not walls that anyone would expect to be there....nobody in my circle, that i know of, has any grudges or misgivings which might set them distinctly at odds with me, or with each other, at all. we are a smooshily-happy family. but i consider, i hope these gifts to be the sweeping hands which might brush a coarse ivy off of a cottage-side, one which was beginning to be overgrown, overpopulated with seeds of tangled indifference.
i wish 'la noyee' was more than two minutes and three seconds long.
its not that i am not close with these people; they will always be my closest, i feel. but it is hard, hard to be instantly made as 'at ease' at our history should have us be. even with friends, non-relatives, sometimes it takes some time for gears to mesh melodiously again....a smoothness of being is a thing to be cherished, when it can be found in the company of others. i know that i can be completely at ease with my family; that they know me best of all, in many ways perhaps better than i know myself, though probably in ways which i could never grasp in the first place by faculty of some ego-bias intrinsic to being an encapsulated mind. relaxation, however, mindfulness and being completely at ease, is something that people spend their entire lives trying to swim upstream of.
one thing i know now about relationships now, is how pivotal it is to establish comfort in a solitary setting. and of course by relationship-solitary, which seem contradictory, of course i mean tete-a-tete; the one-on-one equilibrium which two people can find with each other when they are alone together. in general, the social bullshit stops, and people start being real and engaging with one another about meaningful things. i suppose my concern about family nowadays is that this balance is shifting into a group dynamic...which, hear me out, is no bad thing...after all, a group is what a family is, at it's utmost core. no, i rather mean that, considering that family time is so scarce, we are likely to spend the bulk of it in an amorphous blob of good feeling, complete saturation of senses with the bliss of being around my favorite people, all together again, and trying to relish it (knowing that it will not last). i fear that i won't get my solitary, singular one-on-one time with my family members...that time which i have come to feel is crucial to maintaining a real, crisp, honest relationship with someone. those walls that might be cracked or shattered by such contact will not have the time to be worn down....this is my fear...i will not be able to express to the fullest of my being, because i will be entirely in a social setting where emotions and phrases and looks and jokes are addressed to the crowd (albeit a *very* good and close crowd), not to an intimacy which my heart speaks more to now than ever, considering how little time i have to make it count.
i fear that the more and more i accept the distance which circumstance forces upon my relationships with these people, the more and more i will regret it, because life transitions and who can know where or what or when? i could move to a different country for two years, just like my brother, and not be able to see any of them for a serious brick of time. it would be a voluminous experience, to be sure....not to be missed, i am certain of that. but i cannot help but wonder at the trade-offs one makes with any decision. perhaps the philosopher in me. i feel distant enough even just living where i live, on the west coast, unable to connect with my family but a few scarce times per year, at best.
take a step back from this: how thankful that holidays exist; that they have the magnetism, the force of family to be able to draw these kindred souls back to one another again! bliss, pure. and this is the reason that i could not possibly mind spending exorbitant amounts of money on my family; they are rocks in my life more precious to me than any that i could buy in a store, regardless of any gemstone claims of infinites and forevers. i feel ridiculous, at the same time, buying them gifts, because they do not need them; they feel the same way, but the cycle goes on. i wish to express my caring, and it expresses itself thusly, in the traditional ways that we all grew up with.
presents have come to mean so much more to me, to us, i imagine. i could pull a j.j. abrams, and give my family ambiguous boxes wrapped to the nines, telling them never to open them but to leave them as symbols of what could be, and what is....never knowing, always knowing; forever finding out more about what the concept means. they are foremost mementos and remembrances. take a piece of me with you to your varied lives, and express it how you will. perhaps i will do just that. but these symbols aren't necessary; in fact they have never been less necessary. we observe the tradition, we curtsy, a-courteously, to the court which we owe allegiances to. this is our kingdom, and we may be as foolish as we choose; everything is rainbow-edged and glows with something not to be found anywhere else. our currencies are superior to the federal reserve's; socialism at it's best, most flawless ideal. depression cannot come around here no more.
December 4, 2008
if its broke; fix dat
i've been being a little whiny bitch to myself lately, ever since my ipod broke. i need tunes at my side, in my step, quickening and modulating my rhythm. i haven't gotten a new one yet...i wanted an ipod nano, but then i realized i could get a 'touch' and have internet and apps as well (and built in speeks), but then they were too expensive. but then i decided i should just get an iphone and hack it for T-Mobile, but then iphones were waay too expensive, but then i found a decent deal on an older model, but then i thought, i know matt and he wants the newer model, but then i found a used ipod touch for a good deal, but it was an older model, and didn't have the speeks or the much-improved battery life, but then i almost bought an iphone but the bastard on craigslist committed verbally to me but then sold it to a coworker instead, but then i found decent deals on older touches and am wondering how much battery life and speakers really matter to me, if i can get a 16GB model instead of an 8GB.
fuck.
i am overwhelmed, and in the time i have spent trolling craigslist for this shit, probably could have made enough to pay off whatever it is that i end up buying (still no verdict). but its made me consider a few things. stress-level is a very important factor in purchasing. deals are only worth finding if you have time to waste (which i'd like to think i don't) and if you need to absolutely scrap for the money (which i don't necessarily). and i could have been listening to my sweet, sweet strawberry jams by now, if i had just gone ahead and bought something during an online black friday sale from apple~
second. kierkegaard makes mention about a distinction between 'choice' and 'absolute choice'. these things are supposed to be resigned to the realm of philosophy, and i am completely tainting bold ideas in my application of them to consumerism...fuck it. i always tend to think that choices i make are absolute choices, because i hate being wrong and going back to cover tracks for shit that i did incorrectly. but a purchase, esp from craigslist, is not an absolute choice, in any sense of the word. if i buy a goddamn touch from someone and get even a halfway decent deal, chances are it wouldn't take me two seconds of effort, if i didn't end up liking what i got, to re-list and dispatch it to someone else who perhaps did want it. i might even make a little cash on the side doing that. so. stress, begone. you ain't worth mah time.
fuck.
fuck.
i am overwhelmed, and in the time i have spent trolling craigslist for this shit, probably could have made enough to pay off whatever it is that i end up buying (still no verdict). but its made me consider a few things. stress-level is a very important factor in purchasing. deals are only worth finding if you have time to waste (which i'd like to think i don't) and if you need to absolutely scrap for the money (which i don't necessarily). and i could have been listening to my sweet, sweet strawberry jams by now, if i had just gone ahead and bought something during an online black friday sale from apple~
second. kierkegaard makes mention about a distinction between 'choice' and 'absolute choice'. these things are supposed to be resigned to the realm of philosophy, and i am completely tainting bold ideas in my application of them to consumerism...fuck it. i always tend to think that choices i make are absolute choices, because i hate being wrong and going back to cover tracks for shit that i did incorrectly. but a purchase, esp from craigslist, is not an absolute choice, in any sense of the word. if i buy a goddamn touch from someone and get even a halfway decent deal, chances are it wouldn't take me two seconds of effort, if i didn't end up liking what i got, to re-list and dispatch it to someone else who perhaps did want it. i might even make a little cash on the side doing that. so. stress, begone. you ain't worth mah time.
fuck.
December 2, 2008
rep
i was reading / thinking about art just now. artistic nature and qualities.
and i still need to buy christmas presents.
art and temporality. what constitutes a solid, chromatic piece of art? like i was reading, pride is the perfect artistic fodder. it comes in stuttering bursts of indignance; it erupts to the surface like lava, searing and scalding the air. humility is no good. it takes too long. an instance of humility means nothing, because it is a quality which loses all semblance of meaning if it is not practiced in continuance. if all heroes could be hypocrites, then not much would set them apart from the crowd, would it?
i have started to use my pinkie finger to type, or hit return, in certain situations. it is something i saw my boss doing, and it pleased me greatly with its efficiency. must be the german in me. now i have begun doing it for myself, and this paragraph was preceded by the first instance of me noticing it. it's kind of like stretching to that new fret for the first time, bending into a whole new note instead of just a half-step. pleasant. accomplished.
art is something that most people consider as existing within space. the frame of a painting. the green depths of an iris. the purple-fudge-ripple of a mountain range in twilight; rambling rocky roads with marshmallow-softened edges. but art is something that absolutely, positively, must exist moreso in time than in space. definitively. art is not stand-alone...it requires observers, audiences, critics, bearers and bringers with intentions, or sometimes assumptions and arrogances. even a painting or a landscape is nothing if the blossoming mind which is ripe to sweep the dust out of its intricacies has its back turned. it is a required, a fundamental prerequisite. a canvas by salvador dali is nonsense without a rational mind with just enough quirkiness to be awestruck by the disruption of convention.
other art is just as involved with time. some even go so far as to invoke it...music for example. but a song is only...playable. after the fact, after the striking resonance of its first instance, it is then a reproduction, which doesn't seem to say much for its innovative and intrinsic artistic value, even if we still find it charmant. certainly that sentence will rub some folk the wrong way, and i don't know with any certainty why i wrote it. seat of pants. what sense does poetry make, if not when it is being recited or thought about? none. just words, just thoughts, and at that just thoughts that were scripted by someone else who probably felt a host of different feelings about their words than you do.
trying to weave my way back into this writing thing~
and i still need to buy christmas presents.
art and temporality. what constitutes a solid, chromatic piece of art? like i was reading, pride is the perfect artistic fodder. it comes in stuttering bursts of indignance; it erupts to the surface like lava, searing and scalding the air. humility is no good. it takes too long. an instance of humility means nothing, because it is a quality which loses all semblance of meaning if it is not practiced in continuance. if all heroes could be hypocrites, then not much would set them apart from the crowd, would it?
i have started to use my pinkie finger to type, or hit return, in certain situations. it is something i saw my boss doing, and it pleased me greatly with its efficiency. must be the german in me. now i have begun doing it for myself, and this paragraph was preceded by the first instance of me noticing it. it's kind of like stretching to that new fret for the first time, bending into a whole new note instead of just a half-step. pleasant. accomplished.
art is something that most people consider as existing within space. the frame of a painting. the green depths of an iris. the purple-fudge-ripple of a mountain range in twilight; rambling rocky roads with marshmallow-softened edges. but art is something that absolutely, positively, must exist moreso in time than in space. definitively. art is not stand-alone...it requires observers, audiences, critics, bearers and bringers with intentions, or sometimes assumptions and arrogances. even a painting or a landscape is nothing if the blossoming mind which is ripe to sweep the dust out of its intricacies has its back turned. it is a required, a fundamental prerequisite. a canvas by salvador dali is nonsense without a rational mind with just enough quirkiness to be awestruck by the disruption of convention.
other art is just as involved with time. some even go so far as to invoke it...music for example. but a song is only...playable. after the fact, after the striking resonance of its first instance, it is then a reproduction, which doesn't seem to say much for its innovative and intrinsic artistic value, even if we still find it charmant. certainly that sentence will rub some folk the wrong way, and i don't know with any certainty why i wrote it. seat of pants. what sense does poetry make, if not when it is being recited or thought about? none. just words, just thoughts, and at that just thoughts that were scripted by someone else who probably felt a host of different feelings about their words than you do.
trying to weave my way back into this writing thing~
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