Monday, October 29, 2007
Envy the liars and cheaters
It seems to me that lying and cheating people have more fun. My entire life, I have watched them get more of what they want in just about every context I can think of. I suppose this is logical, given that such people are inherently selfish and driven toward fulfilling their desires. As I conceive the phenomena, they seek to acquire in order to gratify themselves, and this acquisition desire drives them to an "ends justifies the means" approach to life. Sadly, the world never seems short of people willing to give them what they want.
We all lie at some point in our lives. As humans, it seems impossible to be totally honest from birth to death. We all lie, but we are not all liars. A liar manifests a mythology which they surround themselves in. They feed on the naïve and make a game of trust. Fear and insecurity may motivate them, or maybe narcissism and sociopathic impulses guide their decision making. Whatever their motivation, the end result of their lives is trivial meaninglessness. Liars lie on a level that goes far beyond telling your mom dinner was delicious, even as you are barely able to stomach what you've eaten. They lie to extract or obtain what they want from others. A liar that can look you in the eye, lie, and keep their lies in order wields a great deal of power.
Liars make good cheaters, because their commitment to dishonesty provides convenient avenues through which to explore their own potential for cheating. When I talk about cheating, I am not necessarily talking about infidelity, though that is the context which bothers me most. Cheaters seek to have their cake and eat it too, which usually necessitates a string of lies in pursuit of a goal or objective. In effect, the cheater lives a lie, and thereby becomes imbued by the lying, which ultimately begins to make lying and cheating that much easier. All we need to do is look at people like Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, or Barry Bonds to see liars and cheaters enjoying material success. Such people are admired by many, which serves as a striking commentary on our society, in general.
What really alarms me is that there are times when I find myself envious of liars and cheaters. They certainly seem to be free of all the bonds honest and sincere people put upon themselves. Skilled liars and cheaters prosper in most endeavors, often getting away with it for substantial stretches of time, if not forever. For every Enron, there is a company getting away with similar financial sins. For every George W Bush there is a John F Kennedy. Which speaks to a curious duplicity in the human animal. People will line up behind and support one liar over another. One liar becomes a hero to some(Bill Clinton), while those same people condemned another as a lying bastard(Richard Nixon). People live and die according to flexible, subjective moral judgments. They like this liar, so his lying is OK, but they don't like this other liar, so his lying should be condemned. In reality, they should both be condemned for their lack of honor and integrity, but that's all been lost in the wash.
Lately, I find myself feeling envious of a known liar and cheater, and I don't like it. How is it people like this sustain their illusions for so long? Why are there always those who are willing to believe, and even forgive them? The liars and cheaters I have known enjoy more sex, more love, and more money than most of the honest people I have known. That's not to say they are necessarily more satisfied with their lives, but I can't honestly say I am wholly satisfied with every aspect of my life, either. I keep hoping that the long-term result of choosing a different way will be a sincere life full of love, contentment, and ultimately resulting in transcendence, but there are no guarantees. Perhaps this is the root and value of faith, whether that faith is in supernatural forces or ourselves. It is a struggle to watch liars and cheaters reaping the benefits of their endeavors in the present, while hoping that I might someday enjoy the benefits of mine. They do not suffer the trials of waiting and hoping. Given the temporary nature of life, knowing that I may not live long enough to get to where I want to be or experience some of the things I hope to experience, it is difficult not to be a little envious of that immediacy.
Labels: life
Sunday, October 28, 2007
This level of cute should be illegal!
The SIL sent some new pics of the twins and I had to share. :)
Labels: the twins
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Some stuff I'm working on
I've had a pretty shitty couple of weeks, but I haven't been totally stagnant. I've managed to get the 60x60 I will be working on stretched, primed, re-primed, and base coated. Then I laid down a quick sketch I've had in my head for a little while now. The results are below.
I've also started a class called "Visual Problem Solving". The basic purpose of the course is to heighten our understanding of our own creative process. As part of that, we are forced to work with a stock of 5x5 cards, creating images using only a chisel tipped, permanent marker. Our initial exercise involved creating 50 'stick faces', generated of 15 lines or less, all of which had to be arcs or angular lines. Of course, I fudged the rules a bit and used some circles. We whittled our pile of 50 faces down to 5, then we were given a fairly tight span of time to create 3 variations of each face, using lines and arcs, sans any limitation on line count. My result is below. The most left column is comprised of my originals, with the variations at right. Definitely an interesting exercise and something I really enjoyed doing!
Labels: art
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Sometimes our stuff just disappears
Went out to the car this morning, went to park my laptop bag on the passenger seat beside me, when I noticed something strange. The glove box was open and my owner's manual was on the seat. I thought to myself, "When the hell did I open the glove compartment and why did I take out the owner's manual?"
A couple of seconds went by, with my mind replaying the events of my return home the night before. I remember unloading groceries, grabbing my gym bag, and taking the wireless ear piece in to charge. I even remembered putting the ice cream in the second fridge, and all of my frozen veggie burgers in the big freezer, but for the life of me, couldn't remember opening the glove box and putting my owner's manual on the seat. It was right about that time when what was left of my gray mater started putting the puzzle pieces together.
I looked down, noticed that the center console was wide open, and it's emptiness drove the point home. Someone had gotten into my car over night and the motherfucker had taken my Maui Jim Whalers...the best pair of sunglasses I have ever owned. He, and I'm assuming it's a he, didn't take anything else. Not the $400 head unit in the dash. Not the several hundred dollars worth of analog and digital gauges mounted within the car's interior. He didn't even try to hotwire the car. Nope, the sonofabitch took my sunglasses and called it a night.
Had he been a pro, the car would not have been in the driveway when I woke up and in reality I probably would have had it coming. I can only assume that I somehow managed to leave the car unlocked, as there was no sign of forced entry and no one seems to have heard the alarm sound. The only excuse I have for such an idiotic mistake is that my mind has been burdened with a tremendous amount of data lately, so that I feel physically and mentally exhausted. That's no excuse, as all it would have taken to prevent this theft was the simple push of a button, but burn out is all I've got to console myself with right now. :-/
So I'm out my favorite pair of shades, and the money it took to purchase them. Somewhere, as I type this, some piece of shit is having a laugh at my expense. One more lesson learned the hard way for me. Oh well, life goes on. :)
Labels: life
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
You learn something new every day
The Judeo-Christian tradition has not ever been my preferred form of faith, but it has always been a curiosity. Being that I grew up with no formal education of the Old and New Testaments, I developed the generic understanding of their god shared by many of my peers, i.e. Old Testament God=Fire and Brimstone, New Testament God=Doves and Rainbows. Recently, I asked a Jewish friend about the spiritual implications of another friend's past behaviors and what his chances are of receiving salvation, as this particular gent had recently rediscovered his love for Jesus. She shared some surprising and educational insights that changed my perspective on the matter somewhat.
My preferred version of Jehovah has always been the fiery, punishing god described in stories like that of Sodom and Gomorrah or the golden cow idol. That God makes sense to me, as it only seems logical that a patriarchal, monotheist deity would be much like a supernatural father figure, doling out discipline when his children got out of line, rewarding or praising them when they did well. In the case of an almighty creator figure, discipline could escalate to the point that wiping said children from the face of the Earth becomes a viable option. If you're the creator of all things, there really is no reason to take any sass or backtalk.
What I neglected to factor into my base understanding was that the Old Testament clearly states that YHWH issued warnings, sometimes several of them, and gave the people in question various opportunities to change their behaviors before finally dropping the big hammer of holy justice down on their collective heads. These warnings are important, because they serve as a measure of the patience displayed by the Old Testament's deity. He wasn't acting out like a 6-years old who wants a piece of candy, he was being fatherly and offering up chances for forgiveness. Things only got ugly when warnings went unheeded, which makes sense. What really got me thinking was the connection between Revelations, which is the New Testament, with the acts of Jehovah as described in the Old Testament.
Revelation had always seemed out of place to me, as it contrasted drastically with Jesus' "God loves you unconditionally" doctrine, but in reality, it fits seamlessly with the Biblical accounts of YHWH's past behavior. My ignorance of Judeo-Christian history led me to believe that God had gone from fire and brimstone disciplinarian to touchy-feely enabler, when in reality, his nature as described by the Bible has not changed at all, only his follower’s perception of said nature has really shifted. Honestly, it's embarrassing to be this ignorant of what constitutes the most significant component of my cultural history, but in the end, I am not a believer, and I was raised by parents with little or no interest in spirituality, so I haven't ever been adequately motivated to pursue an education in the matter. At the same time, I feel like I should have at least an accurate, basic understanding of what the monotheists presently piloting humanity's latest social Hindenburg are on about. At present, it is obvious to me that I do not and that this ignorance is to my detriment.
Monotheists make wars, enact policies, and direct whole societies according to their spiritual beliefs. They believe that their god guides them, watches over them, and loves them. Not having an understanding of their "why" leaves non-believers like me wondering "wtf" at times, whereas a little knowledge could go a long way toward understanding their rationalizations. I may not believe what they believe, but I am certainly subjected to their beliefs every day of my life (in the form of social norms, government legislation, etc), so it would certainly benefit me to know more about their lineage and traditions. As far as I'm concerned, it's all details and distractions leading people away from the core principles at the heart of every form of faith, but it is those details and distractions that lead to planes crashing into the sides of buildings and wars that claims thousands of lives, so it is probably a good idea to pay attention and get educated. Too bad they're not all pseudo-Buddhists/generalized spiritualists…things would be so much simpler for me. :)
Monday, October 22, 2007
And now for a change of pace
When everything else seems uncertain, and you're feeling overwhelmed by primer fumes because you stupidly started priming a canvas in a room with nearly zero ventilation, you go with what you know. Right now, I know these two little munchkins picking pumpkins like counry bumpkins are some of the cutest munchkin bumpkins picking pumpkins the world has ever seen!
I may be mentally disordered and slightly brain damaged. :)
Labels: the twins
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Biketoberfest...or not
I wanted to write something about Biketoberfest, but it just wouldn't come together into any sort of cohesive union, so I'll just give a brief summary. Went over Thursday night with the bike in a trailer, got a lot of good riding in on Friday, and called it a weekend Saturday morning (I had a friend's wedding in Tarpon Springs to attend that morning). The rain came Saturday, so pops and I loaded up the bikes and headed home together (the original plan was to ride out together, me riding back Saturday, him driving back Sunday). Given that I was there on Friday, not much was going on, but there was plenty to see and do. Overall, I would rate the trip a good time, and I plan to get back for Bike Week next year.
My hope was that a day or two away from my familiar surroundings, paired with plenty of riding, would clear my mind of what has been troubling me recently. To some degree, I suppose it did, but not to the extent I was hoping for. Things are so confused and unclear right now, I am at a loss for what to do. One person I had thought trustworthy is now someone I am uncertain about, while another person I always thought I should be cautious with seems more and more like someone I can trust. Only time will reveal whether any decisions I make now are wise, but the clarity of hindsight does nothing to ease the stress of here and now.
I am trying to work on my paintings, but haven't made any progress on the baby picture since the last update I posted. That's going to change here in a few minutes, but I feel completely uninspired right now. In fact, I feel tired, uncertain, and tense. This is a problem that should not have ever been allowed to develop, and the person causing it knows this, but seems unable to do anything about it. There are so many unknowns in play for me that my Cancerian desire for stability is finding itself less and less satisfied.
I echo a friend's sentiments wishing that things were simpler, but as I said a couple of posts ago, life is not ever free of complications. Our only choice is to run from these complexities, or accept them and work within their fluid circumstance. My running days are long behind me, and I find myself wanting more and more to stand and face the coming storm. In different ways and for different reasons, both of the people spending so much time in my mindspace are worth braving the maelstrom.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - All I Need
via FoxyTunes
Labels: life
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Question marks
I am so completely tired of question marks. In a life full of uncertainty, why take on more question marks? Shit, there's another one. That's it, for the rest of this post I will refuse to ask a single question and will not use another question mark. We have so few assurances we can take solace in, so few certainties to comfort us, we should not have to suffer additional questions from the people in our lives. With so little time, there is none to waste on unnecessary question marks.
Question mark people assault your sense of stability and wholeness. They undermine your strength and solidity, to the point that you begin questioning the core principles which make you who you are. They do this because their core is fragile or damaged, so they naturally seek strength while subconsciously working to turn that strength into a shared weakness. That is why, if we desire to be strong, we cannot be pliable or flexible in what we hold close to our hearts. I say what rather than who because it is better to hold ideals and values close to our center than it is people or things. People and things will disappoint us almost without exception, whereas beliefs and ideals always hold the power to inspire and empower us. The question marks erode your spirit in time, but hopes and dreams can only enrich us.
Sadly, I'm finding that my life is full of question marks and I am feeling like a beach of sand being slowly gnawed away by the water carrying tiny grains out to sea with every receding wave. If things continue, the only thing left will be a barren storm wall, the rest of me having been spread to currents invisible and cold. I won't have that.
Question mark people aren't entirely evil. I think they do much of what they do because of how they have programmed themselves, rather than some willfully evil intent. That said, once you have identified and categorized a question mark, you can easily coexist. The evil you know is better than the evil you don't know, since you know not to trust a question mark. They are there not to provide companionship and aid on your journey, but to be given aid and support on their own. Their purpose is not to uplift, but to drain and encumber. I am so incredibly tired of question marks!
But as there is in all negatives, there may be a positive to come from all of this. I have fewer reasons to stay here, which will make moving to Savannah and starting from scratch that much easier. Of course, I will meet a whole new set of question mark people there, but they will be new question marks and I will come to know them as a wiser, stronger man, so their impact will be diminished. I suppose in some ways I am finally finishing the growing up process. I am finally learning definitively that believing in people is a mistake and it is one I no longer intend to make.
Addendum: I can't wait to get the fuck out of here.
----------------
Now playing: Okkervil River - For Real
via FoxyTunes
Trust might be a fool's errand
I'm not sure there is ever any reason to expect anything to be simple. Life, as a biological process and as an experience (both of which we take for granted every day) are anything but simple. The mechanisms behind our basic, physical functions are incredibly complex. From respiration to digestion to locomotion, our physical selves function as biological machines keeping billions of cellular-level chemical and electrical processes in sink continuously across every moment of our lives. The processes behind material existence are so sophisticated that they are not fully understood by modern scientists. These are the same processes that make our physical selves possible.
Saying that our mental/cerebral processes are complicated would be like saying, "The Universe is pretty big and stuff".
So why would ever expect our interactions and relationships with fellow humans to be anything but infinitely complex and puzzling? How many times have you thought you knew someone, only to find out that you didn't know them at all? How many times have you misunderstood or misinterpreted someone's actions or words? Sometimes these misreads have catastrophic outcomes, which puts the additional weight of being critically important on top of the usual encumbrances that burden our social interactions. Particularly powerful and indescribably complicated are the interplay of our emotional and physical selves.
It is really no surprise then that we cannot ever seem to settle into total comfort where other people are involved, particularly other people you have not known your entire life. External and internal complexities make trust so difficult, and then there always seems to be someone threatening to violate that trust, so that it can feel as if our sense of security is always under assault. Inevitably, choosing who to trust becomes more difficult as grow older and find that very few humans are truly trustworthy, especially on an emotional level.
Our only defense is to become skeptical of others and their motives, as life teaches that only a very select few are to be trusted sincerely. Absolute trust appears to be something which is best reserved for family alone, and in some families, even that is impossible. Trust is a brand of faith to be shared only with those who are most close to you, and then only if you are lucky enough to be near honest, honorable individuals. Unfortunately, the world has always been critically short on such souls, so we are left to weed out the liars, the cheaters, and the weak in hopes of finding one or two travelers with which to spend our days. There are times when I wonder if all the time and energy aren't totally futile.
Labels: life
Sunday, October 14, 2007
This is why we ride motorcycles
Days like today are the reason motorcycles are such powerful machines. The weather was perfect - partly cloudy, mild temperatures, gentle breezes, the whole nine. I had previously made plans to do a breakfast ride with The Castricones, so we saddled up early and got underway. The first destination was a swap meet at the local Quaker Steak and Lube in Pinellas Park. A friend of mine had asked me to take her on a ride and this trip out seemed like a good opportunity...less traffic, plenty of daylight, and a slow pace were all on order. Additionally, this would be the first time I had ever ridden with a passenger, so the nervous system was sure to be firing faster than normal to begin with. The lady in question is petite and experienced as a passenger, so that would certainly help. I was surprised to see how quickly my mind settled in and became comfortable with the mechanics of 2-up riding. By the time we had ridden to our destination in Pinellas Park, I felt at ease with having someone on the passenger pillion.
Which is good, because my passenger didn't want to stop riding! lol We took our two bike group ride from QS&L to Fletcher's Harley-Davidson in Clearwater, so that I could make an appointment to have a bulging gasket on my front brake's master cylinder replaced. In all honesty, I would have probably stopped anyway to ogle the bikes and have a look around, but the gasket is a seep risk, so it made for a nice excuse to ride a couple of miles out of our way. From there it was onto Old Chicago in Palm Harbor for some grub and football. Once we had refueled, I met up with an old friend in Palm Harbor and we caravaned up to Hudson for a meet up with another old buddy, his family, and to partake in more football. Around 6:00pm my co-pilot and I headed home, but only after a quick sojourn down nostalgia street. She wanted to stop by her first Florida home, which wasn't far from my friend's house in Hudson.
As memories and people are prone to do, the house had aged, but things were very much as she had last seen it. As someone who has not ever lived far from his birthplace, and currently rents a room in the house he called home for 99.9% of his life, I have a different perspective on the buildings we call homes. It was interesting to hear her recollections of living there. By the time we headed for home, the sun was well on its way to setting. The sky was gorgeously lit in a rose-red-violet
spectacle which could only be fully appreciated from the back of a slow rolling motorcycle.
All told, we put more than 100 miles on the tires today. I found that I really enjoy riding 2-up, though I strongly encouraged my female co-pilot to pick up her own bike. Given how badly she wants one, I have a feeling it is only a matter of time. As for me, I was delighted to finally get a decent day of riding in. With school and other commitments gnawing at my free time, it was nice to spend nearly an entire day on two wheels, only going as fast as was necessary, soaking up the beautiful day Mother Nature had put on display.
Now it's back to homework, the workweek ahead, and other assorted life dramas. Not that any of it particularly bothers me right now. :)
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Reckoner
via FoxyTunes
Labels: motorcycles
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Insert title here
Ache the weary traveler - tired back, bleary eyes
shuffling once where springing steps carried day.
Bless the Holy pilgrim - eyes to the sky
spine straight to strong carrying angels away.
Caress the beloved tender - fingers delicate and shy
making known new mysteries, a worship to new majesty.
Hear the silent siloliquy - weightless words echo
from cliff and cave through satin night beyond.
Behold the sacred message - writ in the heart
of letters, music, ideas set full afire.
Witness the humble ascension - unnoticed, unspectacular
all the more genuine, magnificent, beautiful.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - All I Need
via FoxyTunes
Labels: miscellaneous
WTF is going on
You ever find yourself in a situation where you can't seem to make sense of what's going on around you? I'm discovering that I may be living one of those situations and I am in no way sure of what to do about it.
There are times in our lives when the things we know, or the people we know, become the things we thought we knew, or the people we thought we knew. There are times when the mysteries behind other peoples' eyes become the mysteries occupying our minds. I think I am living some of those times, and I am in no way sure of what to do about it.
Knowing that these mysteries cause me distress, I try to share my mysteries as much as possible, though I still fail from time to time. In reality, these so-called mysteries are little more than truths others would not have us know. In the interest of letting someone know everything that I can think of, I share here, I share with the people I talk to, almost anyone who feels compelled to listen. I am not overly concerned that I Know them, so much as I am compelled to let them Know me. I suppose my hope is that I might somehow escape being ensnared by my own mysteries. In some way, putting my thoughts on display for anyone to see frees me from having to maintain the effort it takes to conceal our mysteries.
I am plain. I am boring. I am obvious. I am utterly predictable. In a world full of people huddling in the shadows of their mysteries, I feel these arguably negative personality attributes to be a form of salvation, a sort of freedom from my internal confinements.
I have given up on ever understanding people. There may come a time when I completely understand myself, but I know now that there will not ever be a time when I understand others completely. I am also acutely aware that in all probability, I will not ever meet anyone who understands me. Obviously, I am not alone, unique, or original in this feeling, but I am as sincere as anyone (and everyone?). Understanding people seems so impossibly massive a task that I do not believe myself intelligent enough to have any hope of finding my way toward even a basic level of comprehension.
And I'm tired. I am so tired. I lose sleep for lack of understanding. I lose time for lack of understanding. At times, I lose patience while searching for understanding, but all the while, I am tired. All the while, a part of me becomes more and more convinced that all these illusions, all these imagined fears and troubles we saturate ourselves with, are a side effect of some base cowardice we all share as living things. It seems that our burden to bear is our own filtration systems, and it is a heavy one.
We actively filter inputs and proactively filter outputs, so as to gain a false concept of control, when in reality the only means of control we have is through honesty. Everything outside of honest is a free radical that might one day turn cancerous and grow beyond our control. So it is that I find myself questioning what is cancer and what is honesty, and I am in no way sure of what to do about it.
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - Reckoner
via FoxyTunes
Labels: life
Friday, October 12, 2007
One more class in the ledger
Still plenty to go, but for the night, I'm breathing a sigh of relief at having put one more class behind me. I'm betting that this will be another A for the transcript, which makes me smile inside and out. :) I'm really starting to understand just how much I missed by not going directly to college with the proper mindset. If youth is wasted on the young, wisdom is wasted on the old. We live and learn, at least one would hope that we learn, but it's a damn shame that it takes some of us so long to get our ships sailing with the wind.
I had a conversation last week with a husband of a fellow art student. We were attending my drawing prof's opening night reception, talking art, artists, and eventually philosophy. I'm assuming that anyone bothering to read this knows me, so you know how susceptible I am to philosophical conversation. Somehow the conversation rolled around to sailing, and we started talking about the personality types that spend their lives sailing against the wind, but in this context we were talking about people who waste massive amounts of effort to achieve minimal gains. Afterward, my sleep-deprived mind started working on itself and I came to realize that I have been one of those people most of my life.
My entire 20s were spent going upwind and getting virtually nowhere. Were they wasted? I guess that depends on who you ask. I have gone on about the could have and maybe should have beens before, I would be dishonest if I were to say that such thoughts aren't still lingering in my mind. Make no mistake, I am not bemoaning my fate(so to speak), or beginning to regret the larger part of my personal history, that's not what I'm on about at all. What I am talking about are the years spent ignoring life's beauty so that I might stare intently into its ugliness. All that time surrendered to the world's soiled inhabitants, working a thread of my own making into a blindfold covering all of my eyes. It's nothing but a shame.
We do such things to ourselves in the name of whatever emotional movement happens to be harnessing our youthful energy at the time, not ever giving due time to seeking our own true nature. So blind, ignorant, and enthusiastic, we stumble headlong into traffic. Is it any wonder so many of us are hit, ending up husks on the side of the road?
But tonight, at this ever advancing age, I'm 18 again, but this time, my eyes are open and I'm headed up the sidewalk for some pizza. If I were to return to the sailing metaphor, I would say that I am coming about, and that is only a matter of time before I put the wind at my back. Over 12 years on, and I am effectively hoisting the mainsail so that I can start sailing from the point at which I should have started. I suppose it's better than being miles off course, but it's certainly not as gratifying as being a thousand miles closer to paradise. Three more class to wrap up this term (Expressionistic Drawing, Painting Workshop I, and Visual Problem Solving), then we begin the final year of undergrad work. Hopefully it will be a beautiful journey. If nothing else, I'm old enough to enjoy the scenery.
----------------
Now playing: Mad Season - Wake Up
via FoxyTunes
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
What do we deserve?
If life has taught me anything to this point, it is this: deserve has nothing to do with it. Spending a lot of time thinking about what we do and do not deserve is equivalent to spending a great deal of our time pondering the dirt under our fingernails, rather than continuing to claw our ways forward. Life does not give a shit about what we believe we do or do not deserve. The Universe knows no mercy, knows no favoritism, hell, it doesn’t even know tomorrow or yesterday. Our perceptions of these things are purely illusory means of establishing a conceivable order in something that is only ordered by its perpetual chaos. Life is constantly in flux. It begins, it ends, it peaks, it valleys, but it is not ever truly stagnant. As an experience, it is dynamic and fluid.
We put ourselves in danger when we ascribe human concepts like justice and fairness to the processes of Mother Nature. We become victims of ourselves when we begin believing in the idea that we deserve the suffering that we all inevitably face at one time or another in life. We deserve no such thing, just as we do not deserve life’s pleasures, trials, successes, failures, or tribulations. Entitlement is a slippery slope, everything in life must be worked toward. You can live your entire life justly, righteously, and honorably, yet still find yourself under the tires of a passing bus.
The Universe plays no favorites, no matter how much we would like to believe our hardships and successes are part of some grand scheme. Reality simply Is, meaning that the Universe can only be understood as a context for existence, not as a supernatural phenomena acting as a Sherpa on our journey up Mount Everest. Everything we tangibly experience during that climb is the result of a cognitive process, and is therefore tainted the by processing. The idea that we deserve anything is impossible under such circumstances.
Do any of us deserve a world of war, disease, greed, pestilence, and exploitation? How about a world of physical pleasure, ease, peace, and leisure? Such questions are in and of themselves irrelevant. This world is not about deserve, this world is where we are, this world is when we are, those are the only things we can claim to have any hope of experiencing as certainties. Everything else is a product of our ideas, assumptions, and perspectives. Even karma, a concept I am very fond of, is in reality a product of my limited, cerebral understanding and a deep desire for justice. Karma, fate, destiny, and similar explanations for chance’s rambling in our lives are almost certainly nothing more than products of the collective imagination.
A good man who has lived a gentle, positive life may still suffer the ravages of disease and die young, while a corrupt, immoral, malignant man might ascend to the highest levels of power and prestige, living a long and comfortable life. Is it karma? Is it Fate? Destiny? Maybe it’s God’s will? I find all of those possibilities to be unlikely, no matter how predisposed I may be to the idea of karma. By believing that we are anything except self-determined animals puts us at risk of being passengers in life. Thinking this way casts us in the role of actors in some mysterious, cosmic comedy. In my mind, existence is more substantial and full of potentialities.
I accept that there is an element of chance and risk in life. From the moment we are conceived to the moment we take our last breath, our existence is at risk. While concepts like deserve, destiny, fate, etc might bring an element of comfort to that persistent state of uncertainty, they are ultimately nothing more than coping mechanisms. We deserve what we think we deserve, our fates are the result of choices we make intersecting with others’ choices, and our interaction with random events. For better or worse, making choices and accepting risk is an integral part of accepting life. That said, I believe suffering or benefiting because of those choices and risks has nothing to do with “deserve”, at least so far as the natural world is concerned.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Back to doin' the mess around
Cheap and easy; it's a way of life for some people, a means of survival for others, and the defining characteristic of the American Dream in a world where work is frowned upon and concepts like "earned" have been replaced by "entitled". Right now, I'm earning a new respect for painting, while at the same time paying some dues. I started blocking in the colors for my latest 'drawing', and have been forced to play with watercolors for the first time in this existence. Right now, things are not pretty, in fact they are downright awful.
Watercolors simply do not suit my way of thinking/moving/working, so fuck them. The watercolor here is terrible. Sure, it's my first, but it's the fourth failure in a row in my attempt to create a landscape. The large drawing/painting is still in the very early stages, but I'm struggling with the tools I am being forced to use and the amount of paint it takes to cover a canvas that is 60x48. Did I mention cheap earlier? You wanna know why paintings aren't cheap? It's because paint isn't cheap. I'm not even going to divulge how much paint, primer, and canvas is involved in this monstrosity, but it's more than most would probably be willing to spend and only have the very beginnings of an image. Piss on it, it's only money.
The real point is that these pieces represent first steps on a journey that may never end. I may have some talent, I may only be kidding myself, but the one thing I do have is a desire to master acrylics and oils so that I can use them in as familiar a way as I use a pencil or pen. That means lots of practice, lots of failed pieces, and (Jesus/Jehovah/Allah/Vishnu/Buddha help me) some patience. Somehow, I have to find a way to be patient with myself, something I am not known for. Maybe this will be the last piece of my puzzle, or the straw that breaks my overextended back. Only time will tell. For now, enjoy my fumbling and the thought that you could do this too, because you most certainly, most definitely could. :)
----------------
Now playing: Nirvana - You Know You're Right
via FoxyTunes
Labels: art
Is being orgulous the same as being arrogant?
Orgulous is Mirriam-Webster's word of the day, and I felt compelled to use it in a sentence. Orgulous means to be proud, and as it is used in their contextual example seems to be synonymous with arrogance, so yes, I would agree that being orgulous is akin to being arrogant. Arrogance, as we all know, is defined as "exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance often by an overbearing manner". Similarly, pride is defined as "the quality or state of being proud: as a : inordinate self-esteem : CONCEIT b : a reasonable or justifiable self-respect c : delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship". So being called proud, arrogant, or orgulous carries some negative connotations.
The real question for me is, with so many things humbling us at all times, how can anyone maintain a visage of arrogance? For me personally, the most humbling aspect of my life is my living situation. There's no way to be proud while renting a room from your parents. It simply isn't possible. That's not to say I am ashamed, but I am certainly not proud, and find myself most assuredly humbled.
Serving up another large slice of humble pie that I am forced to consume is my art. I have very little experience with paint and as a result, I am completely inadequate in using it as a means of expressing my thoughts and intentions. I'm learning, but I have a long road to hoe(ho?) before I will have any reasonable level of skill in the medium. Considering the fact that art is what I plan to focus the next few years of my life on it, this is a very humbling reality. The only things I have to be proud of are things you can't touch, which mean little or nothing beyond the boundaries of my skull, in the grand scheme of things.
There are a nearly limitless number of other reasons for me to be humble, yet I still have to check my pride on a regular, if not constant, basis. It seems we are hard-wired with a penchant for cognitive dissonance. We forget the shameful things we have done, or the humbling experiences we have had, when considering the shames or struggles of others. It seems almost impossible to fully overcome such logic traps, as I know that I find myself stepping into them all the time.
Of course, there are limits to empathy, but these limits are completely relative to our own personal experiences. We can empathize to the degree we relate to the context of what the person is experiencing. We can be humble, yet still see someone acting "stupid" or in a manner we judge to be inferior. We have to do this, as it is the only way to make rational sense of the world. Our understanding of what we see and the judgments we make are byproducts of our internal value process. But I've been down this road a hundred times before...
Point is, I can empathize with what I perceive to be honest, hard-working, genuine people, but I can't empathize with someone like Britney Spears. I can relate to the working class proletariat, but have no connection to the upper class aristocracy. At the same time, I have a low tolerance for what I understand stupidity and weakness to be, so I have little or no empathy for people exhibiting stupidity or weakness on a regular basis in their lives. In no uncertain terms, I perceive myself to be better or superior to such people, despite my obviously humble roots and circumstances. No matter how cognitively aware I am of the subjectivity in this sort of thinking, I fall prey to it. So I'm lead to believe that our struggle with orgulous inclinations is constant and pervasive.
And I guess that's the point, although the only real reason I started this post was to see if I could formulate a post based on M-W.com's word of the day. Success of failure, you decide! :)
----------------
Now playing: Tool - Flood
via FoxyTunes
Labels: general, word of the day
Friday, October 05, 2007
The Japanese are so incredibly weird
I saw this:
Then I heard this Doors classic start playing in my head:
People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
Streets are uneven when you're down
When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange
People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
Streets are uneven when you're down
When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange
----------------
Now playing: Beethoven - violin concerto in d major
via FoxyTunes
Labels: video
Thursday, October 04, 2007
How I got to here - Part 2
I try to remember now when I got my first taste of pornography. It had to have been when I was 6 or 7 years old, but I can't seem to recall specifically when I first laid eyes upon video of adults screwing for money, but it was definitely before the age of Nintendo, so we’re talking ’83 or ‘84. How I came to partake in such sights at such a tender age isn't as interesting as one might think. To my knowledge, mom and dad did not own any adult material at all, so there was no finding of dad’s stash. I’m sure the old man had some squirreled away somewhere, but I never found it. No, my first exposure came as a byproduct of playing football.
I grew up playing sports with the neighborhood kids, most of whom were older. Subsequently, I was exposed to quite a lot at an age when I was too young to understand any of them. In an ideal world, a 6 or 7 years old child would be free of such stains on their innocence, but I grew up in a real suburb populated by real people, so I had already gone well beyond “playing doctor”, and was infamous for swearing like a sailor. Some of the details have blurred with time, but suffice it to say that I learned more about adult behaviors than I probably should have at that age.
The primary agents for my education in debauchery were the Huddleston(sp) brothers, Dave and Rob. Dave was the oldest member of our crew, so he functioned as the de facto leader of our neighborhood gang. Rob was more passive and generally suffered all the woes of being Dave’s younger brother, meaning he was generally relegated to the background while Dave dominated the group. We spent most of our time playing football, riding bikes, and hanging out at each other’s houses. We had a circle of friends who lived within a couple blocks of one another, but we would occasionally pick up stragglers from other parts of the neighborhood in our travels. One such ‘straggler’ was a kid named Chris Blankenship.
Chris’ family lived on Lemonwood, which ran parallel to the main boulevard leading into our neighborhood. Most of our circle of friends lived on Ironwood and Mapleleaf, neither of which connected directly to Lemonwood, so Chris was something of an outsider . He was Dave’s age and if I remember correctly, they both played Pop Warner football together, which is how he came to reside on the fringes of our tiny society. The Blankenship household would serve as our gateway to the land of hardcore pornography.
Apparently, his parents were heavily into adult videos and there were mumblings about fetishistic behaviors as well. Through their substantial collection, we gained ready access to a closet full of pornographic movies and materials. I no longer remember specifically how many movies we eventually watched there, but I do remember seeing Debbie Does Dallas and being mesmerized by a short-haired brunette and her female roommate in a movie about their misadventures while living together. Not surprisingly, I could not get close enough to the TV and my desire to get as near as possible would became a running joke. What I saw fascinated me, as it was something new and mysterious. Remember that puberty was still 5 or 6 years away for me, so what I saw in these movies was nothing like what I saw in the bath at home or while ‘playing doctor’ with the older girls from the block.
As time went on, the taboo luster of pornography wore off, and the videos became just one more thing I would watch from time to time, not unlike ordinary movies. Dad owned a satellite in the era when over-the-air broadcasts were yet to be scrambled, so I gained access to the Playboy Channel on the rare occasion that the parents would leave us home with an inattentive babysitter. By the time I was 10, Dave and his girlfriend messing around under a blanket in front of our inner circle of friends wasn’t enough to distract any of us from whatever was on the television at the time. By my teens, my idea of a modern woman was centered around the cartoon caricatures I had seen in porn and the girls I had grown up with on the block. Not exactly ideal subjects from whence to draw conclusions, but these were the only things I knew. There’s no denying that what I saw and did as a child would have a massive effect on my perceptions going forward into my teens and adulthood, but at the time, those long-term repercussions were not apparent to me. As many of the girls I had known as a child became more promiscuous in their teens, I went in a more restrained, introverted direction. For a variety of reasons, I did not indulge, so the disconnect between myself and women my age grew wider. In my mind, women were becoming more like the porn stars I had watched as a child, so I wanted less and less to do with them in general.
I had too many things that needed to be worked out in high school. My head was a mess and getting laid took a back seat to depressed introspection. By the time I turned 20, I was well on my way toward shedding my depressive tendencies, but it would be years before I genuinely began seeing women in a different light.
Labels: life
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Radiohead does something interesting
Radiohead may be changing the world of music for the better with their latest release, titled In Rainbows, and it has nothing to do with notes and instruments. If you haven't heard, they are going to release their latest album online and they are going to give it away nearly free of charge. Their only request is that users pay as much or as little as they feel the album is worth, the minimum being $0.90, which covers the credit card processing fee attached to each order. They are able to do this because they are now free of any major record label contracts, and therefore free to set their own path. As a bonus, they are continuing to prohibit iTunes from selling their music.
If this approach takes off, the benefit to consumers will be obvious. Big name bands can establish a direct pathway to the people who desire their music. They will have the ability to track traffic directly, which gives them access to all sorts of demographic information. A smart manager could use such information to plan promotions and tours. We could see websites begin popping up, offering similar services to smaller bands for a set, per-order fee. This could be the beginning of something big, as there is little doubt In Rainbows will at the very least be a platinum seller. Bandwidth will probably be the biggest roadblock, and the pirates will still spread the album around he nets' torrent sites, but I have a feeling even hardened torrent users will feel compelled to drop a buck or two on the album. If this becomes a major, financial win for Radiohead, I would expect to see other "major" bands (and with any luck, "minor" bands as well), skirting iTunes and the record label establishment to get directly at their audiences.
At the very least, it will be interesting to see if this move has any long-term effect on the music industry.
I plan on paying $5.00 for In Rainbows. Anything more seems excessive for music which will not be 100% uncompressed, comes with no liner notes, extras, and/or bonuses. One of the reasons I always thought iTunes and similar services were silly is that a 12 track album could potentially cost you more digitally than it would at retail, assuming you purchased non-DRM, digital music files. You get inferior audio quality, no physical materials to hold in your hand, and potential use restrictions. At $0.99 per track, the transaction makes no sense to me as a consumer. Tool's latest CD features over an hour of music and a very interesting case which doubles as a pseudo-exhibit of Alex Gray artwork. It cost me $9.99, plus sales tax, which is exactly what it would have cost me on iTunes, sans sales tax(the CD is 10 tracks). For the same money, I get lower sound fidelity and no cool case. If I wanted to save a couple bucks, I could pay $0.79 per track and accept the DRM restrictions on the music I downloaded, meaning I could only play the music on specific, approved devices, none of which I currently own (outside of my PC). Why do people bother?
I am excited about Radiohead's rejection of the iTunes model. By choosing to sell their latest creation direct, they cut out the middle men, the corrosive influence of record labels, and establish a more linear connection to the people who appreciate their music. Yahoo has a brief article here and you can pre-order In Rainbows here. Viva la revolucion!
Labels: music
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Monkey shines
I'm fascinated by the Monkeysphere article that is making its (second?) journey around the internets. If you haven't heard, the Monkeysphere is an idea detailed in an article written by David Wong. The articles intent is to provide a humorous explanation of Dunbar's number. The long and short of the concept is that the size of our brains is connected to our capacity for socialization. After researching ‘lesser’ primates, Dunbar and his team determined that the human animal is capable of socializing effectively with 150 other humans. In theory, that is the maximum number of human beings we are able to actively track and associate with before the population becomes too large and our ability to interact with other members of the community is compromised.
The article posits that Dunbar's number explains our species' inability to function in societies, drawing connections between terrorism and dropped hamburger patties at Burger King. I found the article genuinely entertaining, and felt compelled to do a bit more reading on the Dunbar concept, because it makes intuitive sense. For all intents and purposes, the people outside my circle of influence, i.e. the people I rarely, if ever socialize with, are of little to no consequence in my life. The article's premise, that we turn strangers into archetypal caricatures because we are hardwired to do so, makes sense to me. On one level, I know that all people are people, in that they have hopes, dreams, faults, etc, just like I do, but only those people I come into contact with and know on a personal level are truly 3-dimensional to me on a moment-to-moment basis. The rest really are background noise, or non-existent at all.
While I try to be polite and courteous, I reserve respect for people that I believe genuinely deserve it, so I cannot honestly say that I respect all people or hold humanity in any sort of elevated regard. And while I was aware that the rest of humanity likely sees the world in a similar fashion, I did not ever spend much time actively considering the implications of such perceptions. When you look at life in an objective fashion, you come realize that its value is entirely subjective, and that every life is lived as a slave to a mind which will subjectively interpret, store, and respond to stimuli in according to its own illusory understanding of the world at large. Each mind paints its own flawed picture and in nearly every picture on this planet, we are all filler images, if we exist at all. There will always be fools who worship celebrities and 'names', but even these people are nearly all irrelevant, particularly when placed on a geological timeline. Exceptions exist, of course, but most of those timeless names are more the product of our species' various religions than they are genuine significance and few are actively honored by those who worship their names anyway, so their relevancy is questionable at best.
It's an interesting avenue for thought and it ties in very nicely with my ideas of generalized spirituality winning out over the differentiation generated by ideologues and egotists. Our minds and bodies are the sources of our failings. The energy that powers us, that is at the core of everything, transcends the limitations of the Monkeysphere and all its subjectivist relativism. If every monkey is playing its own game of subjective "important/unimportant" or "worth caring/not worth caring", how can the argument be made for any sort of unified, singular, absolute spiritual vision or path? Even suggesting such a thing seems absurd, particularly in the context of a Monkeysphere-like, conjured reality. I believe our spiritual truth ends with the idea that we all have one. From there, I accept that any one of the world's various religions/faiths/cults could be right. When all is said and done, my only option is to live in a manner that does less harm, maximized my spiritual potential, and minimizes my intrusions on the lives of others. Of course, I have to make certain that I do not allow others to intrude upon my life, lest I find myself derailed by their influences. It seems to me, if all the other monkeys lived this way, we could simultaneously build a better world, live more spiritually legitimate lives, and satisfy our monkey-derived propensity for relativism. Am I wrong?
Labels: life, spirituality
Monday, October 01, 2007
WTF is attraction
Attraction is more than a physical thing, we all know this. It's loaded with intangibles and unknowns and mess and mystery. Everything involving attraction is rolled up inside some kind of amorphous, psychological nebula we haplessly fly through over the span of our lives. It's easy to explain away attraction as a manifestation of lust, but most of us need something more than simple, physical stimulus to get our proverbial juices flowing. We might talk to a hundred members of the opposite sex that we find physically attractive, but there may be only one of them that ignites the cerebral firestorm that instigates a more substantial attraction. That's not to say people don't act out of purely physical attraction, as they all too often do, but the type of attraction that really sticks in us is something different than the type that makes us want to screw like dogs in an alley.
If we're lucky, we find ourselves attracted to healthy, happy people who are in turn attracted to us. In my personal experience, that is generally not how things work. The type of women I find myself most powerfully drawn to are typically unavailable, whether it be emotionally, socially, or both. If a woman is off limits or emotionally detached, a part of my brain that defies all reason and sense will work itself into a state of perpetual motion. Perhaps it is the allure of wanting what you can't have or some sort of martyrdom complex that gets my cerebral cortex in an uproar when I come into contact with this type of female. Honestly, I'm not at all certain, and in many ways it seems that I am passenger on that particular journey. I am left with no explanation for why, and no effective means of counteracting the phenomena. Experience tells me that I am not alone, but it also indicates that there is not much to be done about it.
How do you change what attracts you to others? There seems to be something hardwired in us that predisposes us to a 'type'. Some of us will be drawn to weakness, some to strength. We might be drawn in by abusers, or by those who like to be abused. Some of us will be fortunate enough to encounter healthy souls and be psychologically healthy enough to embrace them. For the rest of us, there is what seems to be an endless search bearing little fruit beyond the psychological scars we pick up along the way. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, but the odds are higher that we will end up alone or in a relationship that leaves us wanting more, than they are that we will find ourselves in a genuinely happy, healthy relationship. Somehow I doubt that I am the only one worried by that reality.
But how do you unlearn behaviors and perceptions that may or may not be learned in the first place? If who we are attracted to is a product of our hardwiring, can we undo it? If it is a learned behavior, how do you go about changing behaviors that are so deeply wound into who we are? I'm not sure we can. Attraction, as opposed to lust, is a complex and organic thing. Even if we come to understand our past and how it affects our present, that's no guarantee those ingrained processes will change. Likewise, we can't expect others to change, as they are as their as thoroughly entrenched as we are. There is no easy answer, but what's more distressing is that there is no apparent answer at all.