I have caffeinated almost non-stop since I arrived in Chapterhouse. I trust myself enough to harness this, but I'm still a little nervous that I'm just guzzling the stuff down without heed. Reeh reeh reeh.
Anyhow, Dollhouse has been incredible. As much as I love Whedon's previous works, I feel like this one's my favorite. It's all of the great emotional tension from the previous Whedon shows without being too supernatural/sci-fi. The fight coordinator does beautiful work (see the Muay Thai boxing in the pilot and just about every fight afterwards). I haven't been disappointed yet.
I seem to perceive changes and augmentations in consciousness as necessary parts of a personal directive. I mean, there's changing your mind and changing your mind. To get corny for a moment, it's like in Kingdom Hearts 2. The main character would have certain costume changes that would augment his play style to certain extremes, and exploring these extremes would allow him, in his non-augmented state, to gain certain traits based on the themes expressed through those extremes. By harnessing and exploring the traits of an altered state, one can bring clarity to the baseline state, in effect broadening and refining the zero-point energy of a personality.
I have no reason to panic. The present remains eternal, and the future does not prognosticate inevitable doom. Certain elements will repeat, regardless of one's preference or will. The acceptance of the place in these greater events that cannot be helped, and the choice to utilize our time around it to adhere to our human roots respectively provide the support and the fuel for our growth. As much as we seem to create our circumstances, our own will merely acts as the means through which we manifest a larger pattern and process, purely feeding into our perceptions through which we make these decisions. The predilections and preferences that compose out personalities and consciousness act as simple points of intersections that bring about larger patterns.
Each mistake made, each lapse in awareness and unwilling ignorance acts as an imprint from the greater consciousness upon our reality. What seems a failing on our part merely points to a new venue for that part of consciousness to explore. We hold ourselves and others too accountable for our shortcomings, sometimes. However, much as a person might see it as their duty to inform the world of these unconscious ventures, these intersections come about in their own time, regardless of individual intent. Certain elements must continue on a path deemed hazardous or toxic until a point of realization comes of its own accord. Once desire greater than one's individual being drives a process, the process plays out as it must. If reserve leaves one ennervated, then that reserve denies the greater process.
Woo! That's enough of that.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Canned Madness
I took it upon myself to sample two different sorts of a new marketing chemical phenomenon, the "chill out" drink.
The first is called Mavala Novocaine, with the active ingredient of Kava extract. As with any fad drink, the taste is meaningless, in that it's universally awful. This one left me somewhat drowsy, and loosened up my muscles mostly. It carried over into the following morning, leaving me groggy for a while. All in all, not too shabby. I'd drink this one again.
The next is called Drank. It has the overkill of valerian, rose hips, and- get this- melotonin. I already have a severe melotonin imbalance, and yet my urge for experimentation remains undaunted. I felt drowsy, stupid and giddy as it metabolized, and immediately crashed into a four-hour nap afterwards. The problem with using a chemical that regulates circadian rhythm, is that the brain compensates with its own juices. So... It's 4 am and I'm still awake. No, not feeling active, but just... awake. I don't think I'll be picking this one up again any time soon. Once again, we see the wonders of our legal system's views toward mind-altering substances.
"Kids, nothing good ever happens after 2 a.m. Just do yourselves a favor and go to bed." -Old Ted, How I Met Your Mother
The first is called Mavala Novocaine, with the active ingredient of Kava extract. As with any fad drink, the taste is meaningless, in that it's universally awful. This one left me somewhat drowsy, and loosened up my muscles mostly. It carried over into the following morning, leaving me groggy for a while. All in all, not too shabby. I'd drink this one again.
The next is called Drank. It has the overkill of valerian, rose hips, and- get this- melotonin. I already have a severe melotonin imbalance, and yet my urge for experimentation remains undaunted. I felt drowsy, stupid and giddy as it metabolized, and immediately crashed into a four-hour nap afterwards. The problem with using a chemical that regulates circadian rhythm, is that the brain compensates with its own juices. So... It's 4 am and I'm still awake. No, not feeling active, but just... awake. I don't think I'll be picking this one up again any time soon. Once again, we see the wonders of our legal system's views toward mind-altering substances.
"Kids, nothing good ever happens after 2 a.m. Just do yourselves a favor and go to bed." -Old Ted, How I Met Your Mother
Friday, April 3, 2009
Santos L. Halper
I dunno about the whole thing that fantasy authors and the like seem to enjoy harping on about how "we've abandoned the elves" and so on and so forth, as if these concepts remain unchanging.
Now, let's take the idea of the elf. A major pop culture image of the elf is the image of Orlando Bloom prancing around and looking very worried about the prostheses glued to his ears, or Cate Blanchett in a tight closeup at the end of Return of the King when most everyone in the theater had to take a leak after three hours and endless cut-backs to golden light cutting across water. Then, maybe the idea of Will Ferrel in a ridiculous green getup.
Now, if we were to start backpedaling for a while, the roots of "elf" come from the concepts of the "alfar," spirits encountered by shamans in the tribes of northern Europe during their trances. Somewhere a polarization of the "alfar" concept occured, between the elves and the black elves, cognate with the folkloric dwarf. Mythologically, dwarves tended to be present in the creation of sacred objects of the gods, most often requiring some sort of sacrifice either as payment or for a component in the creation of the piece.
Going back to that "loss of the elves," a common thread tends to be that children, madmen and mystics can see elves, and most people have either grown out of it, or aren't fucking bonkers. With fingers in the pies of both mysticism and mental illness, I noticed that in states of receptivity as an adult and during play as a child, the mind tends to free-associate with facial recognition, perceiving not only human-like faces in random objects, but attributing traits to these faces. This phenomenon might indicate an "elf" experience, as our cultural schematic tends to brush these off as "oh, I'm just imagining things" rather than wondering "why am I seeing these faces right now?"
Some of this phenomenon seems to run along with the "voices in the head" scenarios, as impersonal voices inform activity of a person whose mental stability has been compromised. I have the opinion that the Dualistic qualification of these phenomena (Angels or Demons) has brought more harm than good in this scenario. The subject perceives actions informed by these voices as either the word of God or the word of the Devil, leading to mental images of perceived catastrophe or rapture upon the execution of these tasks. By permitting a mental schematic with these voices taken as simply numinous and reserving qualification on a case-by-case basis, the scenario permits dialogue into the subjective phenomena without compromising the rational decision-making process.
I feel like this phenomenon has been utilized to great effect in marketing and cultural demands. The "liberal-run media," the "evil secret society in charge of the entire world," the "perfect mate," and other memes capitalize on our anthropomorphization and collective-defining instincts, presenting associations and facts that create these constructs that seem to act independently of the intent of the people involved. As Don Draper said, "There is no system. The universe is indifferent." That said, the subjective concerns created by these phenomena have been given faces, and these faces interact with the psyche on levels of which we remain unaware on a day-to-day basis.
Although imaginary and intangible, these "entities" still affect our processes of thought and emotion, and thus these entities have a "reality" to their activity, despite slipping through rational consideration, to the point that a person will rationalize actions based around these conceptualizations. I ask this: when a battle of ideologies breaks out, would it be more effective to go after the "ground troops" following the orders of the ideology, or to go after the ideology itself, using its own tools?
If humanity had greater education on the effects of subjective processes to complement the objective processes, the species as a whole could find greater forms of understanding and communication to overcome aesthetic and cultural hurdles. Often times, one mindset seems to preach in its own subjective language, bestowing a concept of "non-belief=lesser" that can create resentment between parties. If we were to understand the irrational functions of not only ourselves but those whom we sought to inform, we could assuage the presumptions between parties and create a dialogue on more than just the linguistic/dialect level.
Then again, I could just be bonkers.
Now, let's take the idea of the elf. A major pop culture image of the elf is the image of Orlando Bloom prancing around and looking very worried about the prostheses glued to his ears, or Cate Blanchett in a tight closeup at the end of Return of the King when most everyone in the theater had to take a leak after three hours and endless cut-backs to golden light cutting across water. Then, maybe the idea of Will Ferrel in a ridiculous green getup.
Now, if we were to start backpedaling for a while, the roots of "elf" come from the concepts of the "alfar," spirits encountered by shamans in the tribes of northern Europe during their trances. Somewhere a polarization of the "alfar" concept occured, between the elves and the black elves, cognate with the folkloric dwarf. Mythologically, dwarves tended to be present in the creation of sacred objects of the gods, most often requiring some sort of sacrifice either as payment or for a component in the creation of the piece.
Going back to that "loss of the elves," a common thread tends to be that children, madmen and mystics can see elves, and most people have either grown out of it, or aren't fucking bonkers. With fingers in the pies of both mysticism and mental illness, I noticed that in states of receptivity as an adult and during play as a child, the mind tends to free-associate with facial recognition, perceiving not only human-like faces in random objects, but attributing traits to these faces. This phenomenon might indicate an "elf" experience, as our cultural schematic tends to brush these off as "oh, I'm just imagining things" rather than wondering "why am I seeing these faces right now?"
Some of this phenomenon seems to run along with the "voices in the head" scenarios, as impersonal voices inform activity of a person whose mental stability has been compromised. I have the opinion that the Dualistic qualification of these phenomena (Angels or Demons) has brought more harm than good in this scenario. The subject perceives actions informed by these voices as either the word of God or the word of the Devil, leading to mental images of perceived catastrophe or rapture upon the execution of these tasks. By permitting a mental schematic with these voices taken as simply numinous and reserving qualification on a case-by-case basis, the scenario permits dialogue into the subjective phenomena without compromising the rational decision-making process.
I feel like this phenomenon has been utilized to great effect in marketing and cultural demands. The "liberal-run media," the "evil secret society in charge of the entire world," the "perfect mate," and other memes capitalize on our anthropomorphization and collective-defining instincts, presenting associations and facts that create these constructs that seem to act independently of the intent of the people involved. As Don Draper said, "There is no system. The universe is indifferent." That said, the subjective concerns created by these phenomena have been given faces, and these faces interact with the psyche on levels of which we remain unaware on a day-to-day basis.
Although imaginary and intangible, these "entities" still affect our processes of thought and emotion, and thus these entities have a "reality" to their activity, despite slipping through rational consideration, to the point that a person will rationalize actions based around these conceptualizations. I ask this: when a battle of ideologies breaks out, would it be more effective to go after the "ground troops" following the orders of the ideology, or to go after the ideology itself, using its own tools?
If humanity had greater education on the effects of subjective processes to complement the objective processes, the species as a whole could find greater forms of understanding and communication to overcome aesthetic and cultural hurdles. Often times, one mindset seems to preach in its own subjective language, bestowing a concept of "non-belief=lesser" that can create resentment between parties. If we were to understand the irrational functions of not only ourselves but those whom we sought to inform, we could assuage the presumptions between parties and create a dialogue on more than just the linguistic/dialect level.
Then again, I could just be bonkers.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Sputtering Toward Do Long Bridge
Back on the drugs, but it's a little more functional this time. I think I needed some time to remember that I could have religious experiences sober.
Every so often I have an occurrence where a bunch of things that relate to a singular concept go haywire. Lately, it's communication. I can't make outgoing calls, my typing's been wretched (some of the typos have been flabbergasting), and I've been really really outspoken over the stupidest things, while dead silent over what matters.
I find communication bores me, when studied for too long without some subjective feeling thrown in. Still, we receive signals and pick up cues from the environment, and language and communication methods, as shitty and slapdash as they are, are the closest we have to sharing how each of us interpret those signals. Vocabulary fascinates me, and in truth, I would really like to brush up on Latin, and try, in some slappy way, to learn Farsi, Sanskrit, or just about any other weird old root language. I pick up tonality and pronunciation quickly (not perfectly). It's like swimming: you don't really think you want to get in the water, but once you're in, it's freakin' great.
But.. who fucking cares? Who needs to know that I want to study dead languages, just so they can bug me about it later, in the "uncomfortable" silence? I muse about doing a million things, but I never have the resources for them, and as long as I can handle the basics, I don't give a fuck. I would rather know about what's moved someone, or blown their preconceptions of reality to pieces, or moments when the environment, in its weird way, spoke to them. I really don't jibe with a person if they're trying to impress me. I don't jibe with myself when I try to impress people. We aren't that fantastic on a whole. In fact, most of us end up fascinating wholly by mistake. In the end, I guess I'd prefer to understand than adore. There's this one cartoon where the conniving dick of a villain said the following: "Admiration is the furthest thing from understanding." The quote has, so far, held pretty correlative.
Hey, remember when these weren't quite as autocentric? No? It's a goal of mine to make this blog as impersonal and universal as possible, using life only to reference greater themes in the entry. Still, only way out is through.
Every so often I have an occurrence where a bunch of things that relate to a singular concept go haywire. Lately, it's communication. I can't make outgoing calls, my typing's been wretched (some of the typos have been flabbergasting), and I've been really really outspoken over the stupidest things, while dead silent over what matters.
I find communication bores me, when studied for too long without some subjective feeling thrown in. Still, we receive signals and pick up cues from the environment, and language and communication methods, as shitty and slapdash as they are, are the closest we have to sharing how each of us interpret those signals. Vocabulary fascinates me, and in truth, I would really like to brush up on Latin, and try, in some slappy way, to learn Farsi, Sanskrit, or just about any other weird old root language. I pick up tonality and pronunciation quickly (not perfectly). It's like swimming: you don't really think you want to get in the water, but once you're in, it's freakin' great.
But.. who fucking cares? Who needs to know that I want to study dead languages, just so they can bug me about it later, in the "uncomfortable" silence? I muse about doing a million things, but I never have the resources for them, and as long as I can handle the basics, I don't give a fuck. I would rather know about what's moved someone, or blown their preconceptions of reality to pieces, or moments when the environment, in its weird way, spoke to them. I really don't jibe with a person if they're trying to impress me. I don't jibe with myself when I try to impress people. We aren't that fantastic on a whole. In fact, most of us end up fascinating wholly by mistake. In the end, I guess I'd prefer to understand than adore. There's this one cartoon where the conniving dick of a villain said the following: "Admiration is the furthest thing from understanding." The quote has, so far, held pretty correlative.
Hey, remember when these weren't quite as autocentric? No? It's a goal of mine to make this blog as impersonal and universal as possible, using life only to reference greater themes in the entry. Still, only way out is through.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
A Playground Covered in Vines
So, Saturn's the only planet in retrograde right now, but a lot of weeeeird elements of dredging up repressed or forgotten memories seem to be a theme.For one, Bleach started this awesome storyline that took place long before the "present" of the series. Two, Dollhouse's new episode features psychedelics and unveiling of repressed memories. Three, Brendan and I have been getting into the third season of Venture Brothers, once again with many episodes dealing with the elements of the story's "past."
It's not that big of a deal, and I might be making more of something out of nothing since I can loosen my sphincter over doing psychoactives these days, yet I'd rather follow the connecting elements than let them just dangle as if they had no personal relevance. I am experiencing it, after all.
Bleach doesn't necessarily make itself into the "best cartoon series ever" category, but its soapy long-form story, subtitles and style-heavy visuals make it a good subject for iTunes shuffle experiments. Usually, I pick a song that fits the tone of the opening credits for the story arc, and just let the shuffle go from there. It lines up more often than not, but sometimes the shuffle starts working in verrrry mysterious ways.
I could go into the elements in Dollhouse, but I won't. It's too fresh. However, I would like to touch on the half of Venture Brothers season 3. The episodes seem to be structured more around film than TV plots this season, and it's getting real freakin' heavy real freakin' fast. Regardless of the intent of the writers and directors while working on the series, the interrelated nature of some of these characters gets mind-blowing: Dean Venture and the Ape Monster/Boxing Orangutan manifesting after his freakout, Hank and Dermott, Brock trapped in a room with the Atom-like fellow, the Moppets in general. I feel fucking dense looking at some of these elements. I feel like a silly, small little man probably looking too hard at something meant to be a gag, but I feel like there's something else there. The "strange places" feel really, really strange in that David Lynch kind of way, where it's juuuust familiar enough that characters seem more parts of a gestalt than framing for gags. I know what it's building towards since I've seen the last episode (and only the last episode before this viewing), but the material leading up to it just makes the end even more striking.
Well, guess what I'm gonna have to do?! Yaaaaay regression. Fuck.
It's not that big of a deal, and I might be making more of something out of nothing since I can loosen my sphincter over doing psychoactives these days, yet I'd rather follow the connecting elements than let them just dangle as if they had no personal relevance. I am experiencing it, after all.
Bleach doesn't necessarily make itself into the "best cartoon series ever" category, but its soapy long-form story, subtitles and style-heavy visuals make it a good subject for iTunes shuffle experiments. Usually, I pick a song that fits the tone of the opening credits for the story arc, and just let the shuffle go from there. It lines up more often than not, but sometimes the shuffle starts working in verrrry mysterious ways.
I could go into the elements in Dollhouse, but I won't. It's too fresh. However, I would like to touch on the half of Venture Brothers season 3. The episodes seem to be structured more around film than TV plots this season, and it's getting real freakin' heavy real freakin' fast. Regardless of the intent of the writers and directors while working on the series, the interrelated nature of some of these characters gets mind-blowing: Dean Venture and the Ape Monster/Boxing Orangutan manifesting after his freakout, Hank and Dermott, Brock trapped in a room with the Atom-like fellow, the Moppets in general. I feel fucking dense looking at some of these elements. I feel like a silly, small little man probably looking too hard at something meant to be a gag, but I feel like there's something else there. The "strange places" feel really, really strange in that David Lynch kind of way, where it's juuuust familiar enough that characters seem more parts of a gestalt than framing for gags. I know what it's building towards since I've seen the last episode (and only the last episode before this viewing), but the material leading up to it just makes the end even more striking.
Well, guess what I'm gonna have to do?! Yaaaaay regression. Fuck.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
"Tiny Pieces Come to Me..."
The new job, even though for a few days a week, feels like one of the most daunting developments so far. I had expected a calming, spacious shepherd sort of situation but instead received a luminous evolutionary bolt. Frankly, I got what I need.
Anyhow, I was poking around the internet and came upon the possible dwarf planet Quaoar. The Trans-Neptunian object's named after the Tongva creator deity, associated with wave function and "music," which eventually gave rise to his son Weywot, representing dimensionality. What startled me was that astronomers first found this object in the constellation Ophiuchus. Now, Ophiuchus has this rap in the New Agey community as the "13th Sign" of the Zodiac, found somewhere between Scorpio and Sagittarius in sidereal astrology.
Ophiuchus has a few post-Homeric mythological parallels, most of which feel like someone trying to win the Marvel No-Prize and failing. Howwwwever, the Orphics of early Hellenic society and the Ophites from early Gnostic Christianity relate to a creator function personified by a serpent coming out of the Chaos.
Hmmmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM.
Anyhow, I was poking around the internet and came upon the possible dwarf planet Quaoar. The Trans-Neptunian object's named after the Tongva creator deity, associated with wave function and "music," which eventually gave rise to his son Weywot, representing dimensionality. What startled me was that astronomers first found this object in the constellation Ophiuchus. Now, Ophiuchus has this rap in the New Agey community as the "13th Sign" of the Zodiac, found somewhere between Scorpio and Sagittarius in sidereal astrology.
Ophiuchus has a few post-Homeric mythological parallels, most of which feel like someone trying to win the Marvel No-Prize and failing. Howwwwever, the Orphics of early Hellenic society and the Ophites from early Gnostic Christianity relate to a creator function personified by a serpent coming out of the Chaos.
Hmmmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Someone's Laughing.
So, while I was sitting in Chapterhouse, a local coffee joint, this fellow brings in his Boston Terrier. Now, the place has these little strings with mirrors on them in the windows, and they were throwing these little reflections all across the floor. As expected, the little dog was going nuts, chasing the reflections across the floor with utter verve and gusto. Just about everyone witnessing this, me included, were lauging in amusement, cuz frankly... it was fucking adorable. This still got me wondering: what are all of the stupid instinctual things we keep doing with no result? Who's laughing at us?
On a less cerebral level, this place is starting to get like the Last Drop with its music annoyance level, but instead of playing Modern Lovers or Klaus Nomi, it's this horrible sterilized folky stuff that sounds like someone's killing Tracy Chapman in slow motion. It makes it hard to think. At least the other stuff was irritating in general; I can tune that out. This mellow nonsense turned allll the way up to the point that it drowns out the Raveonettes on my headphones completely annihilates my concentration, to say nothing of my hearing.
I've been scratching away at this writer's block that's been a lifelong issue. Getting from Idea to Implementation's been a chore. Sure, I tend toward a process-oriented mindset anyhow, but for how much I adore narrative, I'd like to be able to get through a story without losing time to some "creative" fugue state that leaves me exhausted during almost every creative endeavor that requires conscious delineation. It's a matter of figuring out where my mind keeps getting off track and losing itself in the current. It's like an out-of-body-experience. Either way, it's being worked on.
On a less cerebral level, this place is starting to get like the Last Drop with its music annoyance level, but instead of playing Modern Lovers or Klaus Nomi, it's this horrible sterilized folky stuff that sounds like someone's killing Tracy Chapman in slow motion. It makes it hard to think. At least the other stuff was irritating in general; I can tune that out. This mellow nonsense turned allll the way up to the point that it drowns out the Raveonettes on my headphones completely annihilates my concentration, to say nothing of my hearing.
I've been scratching away at this writer's block that's been a lifelong issue. Getting from Idea to Implementation's been a chore. Sure, I tend toward a process-oriented mindset anyhow, but for how much I adore narrative, I'd like to be able to get through a story without losing time to some "creative" fugue state that leaves me exhausted during almost every creative endeavor that requires conscious delineation. It's a matter of figuring out where my mind keeps getting off track and losing itself in the current. It's like an out-of-body-experience. Either way, it's being worked on.
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