All human verbal language is mental programming. When you type, write, or speak, you are causing your audience to make a copy of the message in their own minds. Some minds are more open than others to linguistic programming; others have more Byzantine spam blockers, anti-virus scanners, and password-protected firewalls. But those very security measures too are mere languages, just slightly more sophisticated. If you speak those languages and understand their contours, you can navigate or bypass them, write new programs, and rewrite existing programs.
Many of the programs we write in each other’s minds are useful and help us in our lives. Some programs are detrimental to the overall performance of the mind, or coax us to do things we otherwise might not. Others are benign or neutral. We are programming each other at all times. We all influence the direction of each other’s very will, the objects of our desire, and even the power switch on our volition. When we use language to transfer concepts, those concepts can turn to action, and thus we help to determine the fate of the human world and, by extension, the rest of the natural world.
And just what is a concept? How big is it? What color is it? The answer is concepts have no size, no color, in fact no physical attributes whatsoever. Even the printed word is merely a placeholder for concepts, which still we cannot see with our eyes or touch with our hands. From this nothingness, from this conceptual world that exists only in our minds and moves in our languages, we produce a somethingness in the physical world, the measurable world where agony and triumph and the dirt of daily doings occur. Thus language is not just programming, but alchemy. It is the dead mud from which the living, breathing, skin-slick swamp frog spontaneously generates. Language is medieval science proven correct.
Language is an inexhaustible resource. That is, you have access to an infinite amount of language and thus can influence the world infinitely by controlling the minds of others through language. One thing you can do with language is awaken the mind to itself, to show itself where it twists and turns, where its weaknesses lie, how it can be turned against itself. You can arm your audience with the self-knowledge necessary to protect itself, grow gracefully, and take such shape as can advance the spirit and the body towards a better living reality.
Is this frightening, the idea that we can control each other through language, or that we are being controlled through it all the time? Is it disconcerting to admit that language has such power and that we utilize it whether we want to or not? Not after you’ve admitted it to be true. If like X-Men‘s Wolverine you were born with a titanium skeleton and retractable knives in your hands, would you want to know it? Of course you would. And wouldn’t you want to use it to do good? Most of us would say yes.
So let’s set aside for the moment the idea of pure free will. We are all programmed zombies to some extent. Let’s try to be aware of it, and let’s try to learn as much as possible about language. Let’s see how free we can make our wills, by understanding and even celebrating the ways in which our will is not free at all, but subject to the predilections of others’ use of language. Read much. Write some. Think. Cultivate inner silence, so that we can hear the true nature of the words when they do arrive.
Language is power over others and self. I wish you good luck in your quest to master it.
-----
All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Showing posts with label Essays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essays. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
On Passing Carefully Folded Notes
Every one of those little folded rectangles was a light about to be flicked on. You never knew what could be in there. Some new escalation of infatuation? Some drama about lunch? A funny joke? An unfunny joke?
You opened it and there it was - whatever it was. You'd have this moment with the note all alone, just you and the paper, even if you were sitting in science class surrounded by other kids.
You could smell the paper. If it smelled like her perfume, your heart sang. If the note was folded neatly, corners meeting corners, you knew some extra time and effort had been put into it. Maybe the sender was afraid of rejection, or maybe she just wanted it to be right. She cared.
If the note was roughly constructed, the contents were probably dashed off frantically. An urgent matter. "I need to know if you're a Pisces or an Aquarius?!"
You read the contents again. Stared at it. Folded it back up the way it was, handling it by the corners to avoid staining it with palm sweat and smearing the ink. Keep it safe. The little tab was such a thing of engineering ingenuity; you marveled at it.
You learned how tightly to crease the folds so the note would spring into itself; crease it too sharply and it would lose structural integrity.
A really choice note - one that made you dizzy - you kept in your pocket for days before storing it in a shoebox. Months or years later you'd look at it again and wax nostalgic, or you'd wince with regret. That new note scent faded as age and dust took over.
Dead trees, man. Dead trees and ink.
Image via some Facebook post I saw.
-----
All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Y'all need to learn what this word means.
"Civilization." You think you know what it means.
Civilization. Your eyes skate right through it. No problem.
Civilization. You got this. It means "everything."
Well, maybe not everything. Just people. Humans. Civilization means humans.
Maybe just "humanity." You know, everybody, ever.
Wrong, sucka. Wrong.
Fact is, civilization is a very specific term. It is in no way interchangable with humans or humanity. You can't use civilization to mean history, sociology, ethics, manners, aesthetics, or whatever shit I'm talking about at the moment. It is mostly interchangeable with the word agriculture, but let's not get ahead of me.
Are you ready to get responsible with your use of the word civilization? I hope so, because we can't really talk about jack squat without first coming to some general agreement on at least a loose definition of the word. And that is exactly how I will define it—loosely. There's no sense in getting lost in the details. You just need to understand a little about what the word means in the context of shit that I say. Because I like to talk about civilization.
The Beginning of Civilization
Civilization began with agriculture. Uh-oh. Agriculture. Another word you think you understand. Fine. I'll back it up to agriculture.
The Beginning of Agriculture
Agriculture is the intentional human cultivation of land. Say you're running around in tribes of people, hunting and gathering, getting by, living and getting sick and using plants as medicine and fucking and raising families and playing games and talking your language and painting your pictures and honking on your didgeridoo. Life is fucked up, but it's also beautiful, and that's life.
But then one day, you sit around in the same place for a little longer, because, check this out, I can grow some rice from this other rice if I just stop moving all over Bumfuck, Egypt for long enough to let it happen. Hell, I can grow a whole metric shitte tonne of rice if I clear out a bigger garden plot. And hell, why don't we just stop moving altogether, as long as I can keep these fucking tigers from eating my sitting-duck family. Poky sticks or something. Whatever, we got this. By the year 6,000 BCE (give or take a few millennia), gardening is big business. The larger the garden plot is, the more efficient the harvest is. You now can produce huge surpluses.
And that was the beginning of agriculture. Agriculture allowed thousands upon thousands of people to gather in one place and mooch off the producers in exchange for letting the producers use their labor. And everyone could just stay there. Like, forever.
The Beginning of Civilization, er, Again
Obviously, when you're all stuck together in one place, you have all kinds of free time due to the advent of efficient food production. You're not hunting and gathering anymore. You are producing food via the miracle of agriculture. This is magical. This is a brand-new thing, when you consider humanity is somewhere between 100,000 years and a few million years old, depending on where you wanna draw the taxonomy lines. I really don't care where you draw the line, or whether you think a Neanderthal is a person, or whatever. Doesn't matter. No matter how you slice it, agriculture is brand-spanking-fucking new in the context of humanity as a whole.
So you have all this free time all of a sudden. Well, let's figure some shit out to fill it up with! Standardized written symbols, portable across hundreds of miles. The manipulation of those words. Money. Vast social heirarchies. Stone monuments to the boredom of fast-talkers and their offspring. Beautiful glass cathedrals carving the sky into awesome geometries. Motorized transportation. Telecommunications. Twitter. The Super Bowl. Cheese in a spray can. Complex industries requiring the lockstep cooperation of millions of communities all contributing their tiny, specialized widget to the iPhone. Gotye's "Someone That I Used to Know" music video.
That's civilization. You see? It's new. And it's a passing fad. Someone should create a graphic just to demonstrate what proportion of the history of humanity civilization takes up, and post it in the comments. Just to make it crystal clear for everyone.
It Matters.
The distinction between civilization and humanity isn't just some frivolous technicality. It's important. It's as important as knowing the United States wasn't always here, or that the semen stain on Monica's dress wasn't always there. It has a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. Civilization has an origin in Time, roughly pinpointable through archaeology, geology, and other historical sciences.
This Is the End, My Friend. The Sad, Sad End (Not Really.)
I'm just reporting the facts, not saying whether civilization is a good or a bad thing. I just want you to understand what I mean when I say things like "Civilization is doomed." I'm not being negative. I'm being positive. I have such great faith in humanity that I can look at civilization's dependence on oil and, without batting an eyelash, say, "That thar's obviously a house of cards, pardner."
That's another thing I say. "That thar's a house of cards, pardner." Another: "When the oil runs out, it's Mad Max time." And: "It's gonna be fine, dudes and dudettes. This shit takes hundreds of years to go down."
Civilization. I'll see you on the other side.
-----
Author's note: this article was "dashed off." (That's writerspeak for "I have an alibi for my sucky writing.") I dashed it off after a brilliant, educated, passionate, moral, ethical, funny, charitable friend of mine digitally slapped me for saying civilization is doomed. She was one of many such people who seem to think I am being negative when I talk smack about civilization. I figured if she's misinterpreting me, everyone must be misinterpreting me. Thus the necessity for this article. I hope you found it tolerable. If you loved it, hated it, or are passionately apathetic about it, tweet at me. - Will Conley
Well, maybe not everything. Just people. Humans. Civilization means humans.
Maybe just "humanity." You know, everybody, ever.
Wrong, sucka. Wrong.
Fact is, civilization is a very specific term. It is in no way interchangable with humans or humanity. You can't use civilization to mean history, sociology, ethics, manners, aesthetics, or whatever shit I'm talking about at the moment. It is mostly interchangeable with the word agriculture, but let's not get ahead of me.
Are you ready to get responsible with your use of the word civilization? I hope so, because we can't really talk about jack squat without first coming to some general agreement on at least a loose definition of the word. And that is exactly how I will define it—loosely. There's no sense in getting lost in the details. You just need to understand a little about what the word means in the context of shit that I say. Because I like to talk about civilization.
The Beginning of Civilization
Civilization began with agriculture. Uh-oh. Agriculture. Another word you think you understand. Fine. I'll back it up to agriculture.
The Beginning of Agriculture
Agriculture is the intentional human cultivation of land. Say you're running around in tribes of people, hunting and gathering, getting by, living and getting sick and using plants as medicine and fucking and raising families and playing games and talking your language and painting your pictures and honking on your didgeridoo. Life is fucked up, but it's also beautiful, and that's life.
But then one day, you sit around in the same place for a little longer, because, check this out, I can grow some rice from this other rice if I just stop moving all over Bumfuck, Egypt for long enough to let it happen. Hell, I can grow a whole metric shitte tonne of rice if I clear out a bigger garden plot. And hell, why don't we just stop moving altogether, as long as I can keep these fucking tigers from eating my sitting-duck family. Poky sticks or something. Whatever, we got this. By the year 6,000 BCE (give or take a few millennia), gardening is big business. The larger the garden plot is, the more efficient the harvest is. You now can produce huge surpluses.
And that was the beginning of agriculture. Agriculture allowed thousands upon thousands of people to gather in one place and mooch off the producers in exchange for letting the producers use their labor. And everyone could just stay there. Like, forever.
The Beginning of Civilization, er, Again
Obviously, when you're all stuck together in one place, you have all kinds of free time due to the advent of efficient food production. You're not hunting and gathering anymore. You are producing food via the miracle of agriculture. This is magical. This is a brand-new thing, when you consider humanity is somewhere between 100,000 years and a few million years old, depending on where you wanna draw the taxonomy lines. I really don't care where you draw the line, or whether you think a Neanderthal is a person, or whatever. Doesn't matter. No matter how you slice it, agriculture is brand-spanking-fucking new in the context of humanity as a whole.
So you have all this free time all of a sudden. Well, let's figure some shit out to fill it up with! Standardized written symbols, portable across hundreds of miles. The manipulation of those words. Money. Vast social heirarchies. Stone monuments to the boredom of fast-talkers and their offspring. Beautiful glass cathedrals carving the sky into awesome geometries. Motorized transportation. Telecommunications. Twitter. The Super Bowl. Cheese in a spray can. Complex industries requiring the lockstep cooperation of millions of communities all contributing their tiny, specialized widget to the iPhone. Gotye's "Someone That I Used to Know" music video.
That's civilization. You see? It's new. And it's a passing fad. Someone should create a graphic just to demonstrate what proportion of the history of humanity civilization takes up, and post it in the comments. Just to make it crystal clear for everyone.
It Matters.
The distinction between civilization and humanity isn't just some frivolous technicality. It's important. It's as important as knowing the United States wasn't always here, or that the semen stain on Monica's dress wasn't always there. It has a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. Civilization has an origin in Time, roughly pinpointable through archaeology, geology, and other historical sciences.
This Is the End, My Friend. The Sad, Sad End (Not Really.)
I'm just reporting the facts, not saying whether civilization is a good or a bad thing. I just want you to understand what I mean when I say things like "Civilization is doomed." I'm not being negative. I'm being positive. I have such great faith in humanity that I can look at civilization's dependence on oil and, without batting an eyelash, say, "That thar's obviously a house of cards, pardner."
That's another thing I say. "That thar's a house of cards, pardner." Another: "When the oil runs out, it's Mad Max time." And: "It's gonna be fine, dudes and dudettes. This shit takes hundreds of years to go down."
Civilization. I'll see you on the other side.
-----
Author's note: this article was "dashed off." (That's writerspeak for "I have an alibi for my sucky writing.") I dashed it off after a brilliant, educated, passionate, moral, ethical, funny, charitable friend of mine digitally slapped me for saying civilization is doomed. She was one of many such people who seem to think I am being negative when I talk smack about civilization. I figured if she's misinterpreting me, everyone must be misinterpreting me. Thus the necessity for this article. I hope you found it tolerable. If you loved it, hated it, or are passionately apathetic about it, tweet at me. - Will Conley
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Man and Nature: A Calculus Beyond My Understanding
I stand on the front walk to my house and look around. I am seeing certain things as if for the first time, and I am awestruck:
Telephone lines (or are they power lines?) slung between tall, slender, unadorned, wooden totems, strictly for the purpose of transmitting information (or energy) all along the little street.
Metal antennae attached to rooftops. A satellite dish.
All of these comprise the infovascular system (if I may) of our species -- an extension of our bodies, as Leonardo da Vinci would have said. I say they are an extension of our minds -- not an alien, unnatural blight on the landscape, but an inevitable result of the advent of the frontal lobe in humans.
Chimneys spring from rooftops as well, venting whatever we cannot use and do not want in our houses. I do not normally see these, rather taking them for granted a hair shy of one hundred percent of the time. They are cowlicks on the structures we have built for ourselves in our image. Two windows and a door make a face. Buildings are large cloaks which we can move around in. Very roomy.
I look up at the birds. The swallows with their pointed wingtips beat the air faster than a fish beats water with fins but slower than an electron orbits a nucleus. They trawl for unseen airborne insects. I imagine these birds closing off their windpipes and throats, catching as many insects as they can -- their flight patterns governed by a calculus far beyond my human understanding -- until the sensation of insect bodies, lodged in saliva, accumulates enough to warrant, ahem, swallowing.
The birds flock together, but individually you can see them ruminating. "Should I follow now? How about now? Yes, now. I will join my familiars. I am my own bird. I miss my familiars. I am my own bird, for my attention wanes." They flit from tree to tree. They fly over my head.
They land on a telephone line. Or power line. Unlike me, they do not question it. The wire is part of their real, natural world.
The antennae and bricks of the buildings are hard -- much harder than tree bark, about as hard as very old rock -- belong here too.
Friday, July 8, 2011
The Space Shuttle: Our Tower of Babel
I find myself genuinely mournful of the space shuttle program. I was born in 1980; the program launched in 1981. It was always there for me.
Space travel will continue, but the space shuttle program was more than that. It was a symbol of something strident and hopeful.
The space shuttle program, in my mind's eye, was the white spaceplane, the NASA logo, the American flag emblazoned on spacesuits filled with heroes. My heroes.
The space shuttle program was the televised launches. The countdown, the ignition, the launch, the blinding blaze of rockets, the disappearing of a handful of astronauts into the heavens.
The space shuttle program was our Tower of Babel. We built it for science, yes, but really we built it to reach God.
I was in first grade when the space shuttle Challenger exploded before it could even reach low orbit. It blew up right there before the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people. A teacher had been on-board. A television was wheeled into the classroom so we could watch the coverage. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Lindsay, crying a little and holding a tissue to her face.
Now, as I read the New York Times coverage of the last launch taking place this very moment, I am surprised to find myself crying a little. I will never go up in a space shuttle. I never knew it mattered to me until now.
Space travel will continue, but the space shuttle program was more than that. It was a symbol of something strident and hopeful.
The space shuttle program, in my mind's eye, was the white spaceplane, the NASA logo, the American flag emblazoned on spacesuits filled with heroes. My heroes.
The space shuttle program was the televised launches. The countdown, the ignition, the launch, the blinding blaze of rockets, the disappearing of a handful of astronauts into the heavens.
The space shuttle program was our Tower of Babel. We built it for science, yes, but really we built it to reach God.
I was in first grade when the space shuttle Challenger exploded before it could even reach low orbit. It blew up right there before the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people. A teacher had been on-board. A television was wheeled into the classroom so we could watch the coverage. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Lindsay, crying a little and holding a tissue to her face.
Now, as I read the New York Times coverage of the last launch taking place this very moment, I am surprised to find myself crying a little. I will never go up in a space shuttle. I never knew it mattered to me until now.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
On Stories, Origins, Disagreement, God, and Other Things
The following was written in real time on Twitter.
The sculptor Auguste Rodin left masses of rough, untouched stone intact on his finely carved sculptures -- to remind us where it came from.
The sculptor Auguste Rodin left masses of rough, untouched stone intact on his finely carved sculptures -- to remind us where it came from.
willconley777 Will Conley
We can meet on the mountain -- the greater substance from which our lives spring -- and compare what we made from it.
willconley777 Will Conley
We are each given a stone from the same mountain. We each chisel something different. We sometimes mistake our sculptures for the mountain.
willconley777 Will Conley
Stories within stories. Facts bending like wheat in the winds of imagination. Consciousness was here first.
willconley777 Will Conley
God is about unity. That's all he was ever for. He is just as real as any of your imaginings.
willconley777 Will Conley
When the rain comes down, it touches the whole town. That is the story we all inhabit, and it belongs to a being greater than ourselves.
willconley777 Will Conley
Those who allow others to have their stories, differ though they might, are brave.
willconley777 Will Conley
When we demand that others think the way we do, it is like trying to force others into our homes with us.
willconley777 Will Conley
When we violently disagree with each other's stories, our violence is derived from the terror of being alone in our private stories.
willconley777 Will Conley
Some of our stories are similar. When we recognize that, we cling to each other, craving familiarity and the end of loneliness.
willconley777 Will Conley
A life can go through many stages, each beginning and ending with a spectacular coup against the ego, taking place where cameras cannot go.
willconley777 Will Conley
To change your mind is a great adventure. You will struggle, bleed, fail and try again. To change your mind is to die and be reborn.
willconley777 Will Conley
When our stories fail us, we grieve. When we, in such uncommon cases, expatriate to new stories, we suffer.
willconley777 Will Conley
There is nothing wrong with stories, just as there is nothing wrong with a rose in a windstorm. We choose destruction over loss of identity.
willconley777 Will Conley
We may discuss alternate stories with civil tongues, but when the shit hits the fan, we revert to our fondest stories, facts be damned.
willconley777 Will Conley
Our stories are more important to us than mere facts. We readily bend or replace facts that do not serve our stories. All of us do this.
willconley777 Will Conley
Our veins are filled with stories. We breathe and eat stories. When someone threatens to supplant our stories with new stories, we resist.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Heart Spasms
Just had a physical heart spasm. At least I think it was. Don't nobody panic, it's over. Yes, I should quit smoking. No, I don't have health insurance, and no this is not a "wake-up call" for me.
OK, yes it is a wake-up call. And maybe I will quit those goddamn cigarettes. But I don't think those things are all that are bothering my heart.
Love.
Money.
People and their opinions.
My heroes dying and being replaced by humans.
The maddening questions: Am I wrong about this or that? Seriously, am I wrong, when I think and see and say and do things? Am I just making shit up?
Are all of the windows between me and the outside world mere paintings? Did I paint the scenes to trick my mind's eye? To fend off the darkness, the isolation of being trapped inside a human?
These questions bother me a lot. My breath grows shallow. There is a wailing in the distance. I drown it out with music. When I turn off the music, the wailing is closer. I turn the music back on.
Give us this day our daily chemicals, so that we might live in peace with the shadows.
I think they call it creeping panic.
There is no redeeming positive message in this post. It's just me and my abuse of a keyboard.
Changes need to be made.
OK, yes it is a wake-up call. And maybe I will quit those goddamn cigarettes. But I don't think those things are all that are bothering my heart.
Love.
Money.
People and their opinions.
My heroes dying and being replaced by humans.
The maddening questions: Am I wrong about this or that? Seriously, am I wrong, when I think and see and say and do things? Am I just making shit up?
Are all of the windows between me and the outside world mere paintings? Did I paint the scenes to trick my mind's eye? To fend off the darkness, the isolation of being trapped inside a human?
These questions bother me a lot. My breath grows shallow. There is a wailing in the distance. I drown it out with music. When I turn off the music, the wailing is closer. I turn the music back on.
Give us this day our daily chemicals, so that we might live in peace with the shadows.
I think they call it creeping panic.
There is no redeeming positive message in this post. It's just me and my abuse of a keyboard.
Changes need to be made.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Some Unpremeditated Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence
Will any android ever achieve the grace and fluidity of the human organism--not just in physicality but in the electro-chemo-mechanical functions known as thought and emotion? Certainly they can approximate or mimic the human organism--but can they ever achieve the almost water-like nature of a human? Hmm, maybe that is the key to perfect AI: liquid crystality.
I once perused a book called The Society of Mind by cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky. There he talked about how all of the simple functions--push and pull, move and stop, and so on--work in concert to behave in unpredictable and creative ways. Perhaps the key to AI is determining the simplest functional substances that can work together.
A corallary to the "society" concept of the individual mind is that of the group. A giant anthill was once pumped full of cement, allowed to dry, and then excavated. The scientists discovered a complex "metropolis" of highways and biways, ventilation and waste management systems, incubation rooms, and so on--all seemingly designed by a single architect. No one ant knew what was going on on the macrocosm, but by God the thing worked as a whole, and each ant did his mighty little part.
That is how human civilization works, as well. Of course. What else but compartmentation and an invisible "hive mind" can account for the fact that we all know as individuals what the collective should do, but the collective doesn't seem to give a damn what our puny individual thoughts are. No matter how influential an individual, the whole will move in ways much more similar to a flock of birds or a weather system: unpredictable, fluid.
There it is again: fluidity. So an organism of artificial intelligence must be fluid, no? How can we create an artificial human that thinks, feels, and moves with such grace as that normally afforded to humans--or to animals--or to the way a forest grows up and self-regulates and achieves homeostasis?
Perhaps it is time to re-engineer the very concept of intelligence. Why not a stone have intelligence? Why not a mote of dust? Our galaxy is in itself seemingly "of some design"--the way it spirals, pirouettes--like a ballerina, or a dolphin at Sea World. Why not every level of existence be afforded some "intelligence"? Not only will this go a long way towards improving our understanding and respect and empathy for the world around us, but it could help to redefine the quest for a perfect AI.
Maybe we should redefine what it means to be intelligent before we try to create a robotic being that, for all intents and purposes, is a human being in a very real way. Instead of trying to create an artificial homo sapiens sapiens, why not create an artificially intelligent substance or fluid? Maybe it has already been done. Maybe we are surrounded by artificial intelligence already. Orville and Wilbur Wright created an airplane that captures air currents and manipulates air pressures in such a way as to create lift. The human arms cannot do that--and yet the seemingly unconscious airplane wing is impressive and awe-inspiring just the same.
Back to ants: I saw an article in Popular Science recently about real-world "zombies"--or beings whose brains have been compromised by some outside force. There is a fungus that attaches itself to an ant's cranium, injects it with chemical "commands", rides the ant to an ideal location for the fungus to reproduce, and then boom: the fungus bursts out of the poor ant's skull having been incubated therein, in just the right place for its spores to take flight and find more ants to use for procreation.
Pretty gruesome stuff, but besides that, what can we learn from that? What can we learn about the cooperative nature of "intelligence"? Certainly a fungus is not intelligent like a human. But that does not mean it is "lower" than a human (unless we are talking about actual spatial relationships, in which case, sure, yes, it is physically lower towards the ground.) Instead, the fungus is intelligent like a fungus.
We must meet intelligence on its own terms, not on the arbitrary narcissistic terms we set out for ourselves. Yes, it is natural to see the world in terms of what we can most immediately relate to--out own human incarnations, in this case--but why not expand the very definition of the self? Why not say, "Yes, that stone is me, that ant is me, that fungus is me, that galaxy is me." Of course, we don't have to mean this in every literal sense, but perhaps if we simply imagine it to be true for a moment, we can empathize with beings that can help us to increase our understanding of Things.
Fluidity. Self. Cooperation. Unconscious organization giving rise to consciousness. Emergent properties. All of these concepts and more must be applied to artificial intelligence--not just mechanics, electrodes, and software. Why limit ourselves? Perhaps the great breakthrough in artificial intelligence will come not from a tinkerer, not from a scientist, but from a jack of all trades--or a society of jacks of all trades.
These are some of my unpremeditated thoughts on artificial intelligence.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Will Evans asks, and unintentionally answers, "Where are our Byrons? Where are our modern Shelleys?"
My Twitter connection @semanticwill (real name Will Evans) wrote a blog post in 2010 entitled "Whispers," the opening lines of which I quote:
I started reading the post silently to myself, but before I could do so "in its entirety," I reached for my old cheap microphone. I recorded it in my own voice. After listening to the recording and noticing the terrible "pops" the old cheap microphone caused, I walked out of the house, bought a new cheap microphone at a Rite-Aid, and recorded it again. This is the result.
"Oh, I quite realize no one here will read this, at least not in its entirety. I have resigned myself to this reality, and perhaps the motivation for posting so very little in recent weeks. But once in a while it’s worth testing the waters."
I started reading the post silently to myself, but before I could do so "in its entirety," I reached for my old cheap microphone. I recorded it in my own voice. After listening to the recording and noticing the terrible "pops" the old cheap microphone caused, I walked out of the house, bought a new cheap microphone at a Rite-Aid, and recorded it again. This is the result.
I strongly urge you to listen to the whole post and read it here.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
What Eyedea Meant to Me
Eyedea, the hip hop MC and all-around musician-philosopher from Minnesota, died in his sleep on October 16th, 2010. No one knows how he died yet. We'll probably never know how, as is often the case with beautiful human beings of note. Frankly, I would like to know exactly how he died, and I want it backed up with evidence and testimony from people who should speak out (you know who you are).
I knew Eyedea, real name Michael Larsen. Mainly I knew him through his music. I also got the chance to speak to him a few times while living in Minneapolis, Eyedea's hometown for life. My hometown too, intermittently. In person, Eyedea was a live wire, though he had a smoothness to him. Kind of like a benevolent velociraptor: methodical, alert, and ready to explode at a moment's notice. He smiled a lot.
I exchanged a few emails with him via MySpace back in the day. We traded thoughts on life and music. He signed his emails "Michael," so I addressed him as such. Michael was kind, frank, and personable in the email medium. Once, I sent him an MP3 of a track I had created with music and lyrics. He replied, "It's pretty cool, but you could do more with it."
Indeed. Eyedea was always exploring new ways to do more with his own mind. His mastery over the hip hop vernacular was simply not enough for Eyedea. He expanded into punk, rock, jazz, and uncategorizable musical forms.
He proved his freestyle muscle hundreds of times, most notably at Scribble Jam 1999 and Blaze Battle 2000, taking the crown in both events. He was only 17 and 18, respectively. He outgrew the idiom immediately afterwards, releasing studio albums devoted half to the battle aesthetic, half to philosophical explorations.
Eyedea's voice was distinct. A middle- to high-pitched rasp. A bit on the nasal side. He was no James Earl Jones, in other words. To me, and probably to many others, Eyedea's voice was an acquired taste. But once you got used to the unusual voice, the rewards were plentiful. I spent days, weeks, months, years, and yes, an entire decade, getting to know Eyedea's music.
I am still trying to pick apart some of his earliest rhymes. Even when the words fly by too quickly for the mind to grasp, Eyedea's delivery style was compelling enough to listen to over and over again. His passion itself--that was the "hook" to his poetry. When he rapped, it was the verbal equivalent of 20 massive fists punching holes in the concrete wall between the conscious and the unconscious.
In this, Eyedea was a John Henry of sorts. You know the legend of John Henry: Holding nothing but his trusty pick-axe, he raced a newfangled mountain-tunneling machine in a battle between the human spirit versus technology. In the end, the technology won by default: John Henry died from exhaustion.
Maybe that's what killed Eyedea. Exhaustion. Maybe he thought himself to death. And maybe the machine Eyedea was fighting was the robot that lives in all of us, trying to take over the mind and heart. He railed against mindlessness. He drove himself through the thickest parts of his own internal struggle. Where there was entanglement, there was Eyedea: Slashing, thrashing his way towards the truth. He took the road less traveled. He took the most difficult routes he could identify.
Eyedea was the bar by which I measured all other MCs, including myself. I look at my own music, and I ask myself whether it would be honest enough, raw enough, genuine enough, for Eyedea. I feel that although he was well known for his verbal fireworks, what Eyedea most valued was sincerity. Still, I always had a little pretend battle going on between myself and him on a technical level.
In short, Eyedea inspired me. He was the vine that grew slowly, covering the structure of my musical and lyrical aesthetic. Those vines will live on in me and countless others.
There can never be enough said about Eyedea. One man cannot sum him up. Help me. What did Eyedea mean to you? It can be small or large. Doesn't matter. What matters is, if Eyedea meant something to you, let us know. You can post a comment here on my blog, or on Facebook, or just anywhere. Let's brand his legacy in the popular consciousness while the iron is hot and the pelt is exposed.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
A Global Anatomy of Power in the 21st Century
A brief sketch of a hypothetical non-fiction magnum opus: a book about how power works in the 21st century.
Global Power
A survey of the different types of power bases, and how they interact. Governments, extra-governmental corporations, profit-motivated groups, ideologically motivated groups, and unconscious psychosocial movements. Because power does not always rest in human hands, natural phenomena would have to be treated as power bases as well; they would be integrated into the theoretical interactions of human power bases.
National Power
A survey of many countries and a more focused analysis of how power works on the national level. Inclusion of a charting system developed to measure the distribution of power in each country; such a chart would place national, regional, local, private, and hidden power in relation to one another by contact points and weight.
Regional and Local Power
Further magnifications.
Clubs, Families, and Individuals
How power works in small groups, and how individuals change this.
True Power vs. Power in Name Only
A definition of actual power bases. For example, if two countries are better understood as one in terms of power, I would explain why. If one country can actually be broken into multiple true countries, either geographically or psychographically, I would address this as well.
Patriotism
A survey of common and interesting types of patriotism, and an assessment of the influence of patriotism in each geographical region.
Culture
A discussion on how different cultures allow power to distribute itself and to what degree it exercises itself. I would trace the cultural customs and values back as far as relevance allows, in search of an explanation for why power becomes what it becomes.
Gangs, Cartels, Shadow Governments
A survey and portrait of how semi-hidden power bases influence world affairs and the lives of everyday people, as well as their real power relative to official power.
Political Systems
A discussion of various political systems (democracy, communism, monarchy, etc.) and why they don't matter very much.
Language and Art
A discussion of how language and art affect power.
Technology
A discussion of how technology changes the nature of power.
Conclusion: How To Change Power
How to change, redistribute, reduce, or eradicate power. A discussion on fleeting change vs. real change. The key message here will be that real change takes many generations, and that even the most spectacular of world events do not actually change things as much as people think they do. Change must be initiated at the cultural level.
Friday, September 24, 2010
25 Loosely Connected Opinions on the Mechanics of Personal Revolution
I wrote this using my Twitter account.
- High energy and fast poetry break barriers to entry. Don't wait for permission to speak. Move in, get in front of the crowd, and explode.
- I have commandeered microphones in minutes flat. I have created stages out of staircases. You don't need airwaves and Carnegie Halls.
- Raised eyebrows become head-scratching becomes stroked beards become arms akimbo become heart-pounding becomes shouts & applause in moments.
- Prepare for that moment. Get the message ready. Sculpt it, chisel it, perfect it. An opportunity to unleash the message will present itself.
- Blitzkrieg. The revolution of the mind cannot be self-administered. The element of surprise is key. The ego's defense relies on forewarning.
- Comedians are like double agents. They appease the conscious mind to gain access to the unconscious mind.
- If you want to change the world, be a mind agent. Infiltrate psyches and install messages that fuse to the ego.
- "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down."
- Hackers say code is poetry. I say it's also vice-versa.
- It is unnerving to think that our minds are programmable. But they are. Propagandists and marketers are programming us at this very moment.
- The mind is a battlefield. To ignore the rules of battle is to allow meaningless objectives to prevail. Apply conscious programming.
- Changing your own mind is often just a reconfiguration of existing components. To change your mind, an external force must operate on you.
- In my experience, fundamental change is something that comes over you, like a force of nature. It's out of your hands.
- Choice comes after assessment. Assessment comes after options. Options come after exploration. Exploration comes from perpetual motion.
- Vision precedes perception.
- Your vision is a hollow vessel. Information serves mainly to fill up and justify the existence of your vision.
- Information, facts, figures, and data do not change the shape of your vision. And emotion only serves to heat and thus soften your vision.
- The sheer gravity of other visions, in my theory, is the only force that can change the shape of your emotion-softened vision.
- Visions can take the form of symbols. Symbols are visions that have been eroded over the years to their irreducible essence.
- To draw a parallel to physics: An individual human vision is the "weak" force, while a symbol (collective vision) is the "strong" force.
- An individual's vision can make subtle but universal changes to other visions. A symbol makes highly perceptible but localized changes.
- In the end, we have only the tools available to us. We have language, for example: an assemblage of blunt objects and surgical instruments.
- Language is partially a function of the number of people involved. Its nature changes drastically at each succession towards infinity.
- It is useful to understand Dunbar's Number when talking about language, cognition, and revolution. http://bit.ly/cXilP4
- We have only so many mental, emotional, and temporal resources to address such questions. There is sacrifice.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
A blues note.
The future is a terrible place, in my view.
I was born in 1980.
The 1990s was a wonderful place to come of age. Opportunity seemed endless. I was doing anything and everything I wanted. School was warm, nurturing, splendid. I was involved in numerous extra-curricular activities, mainly arts-oriented.
Outside of school, the winter ice crackled spectacular underfoot and the summer breeze cooled the leaves. Bicycles turned to car wheels. Riding was the stuff life is made of.
On the periphery of consciousness, in the media, the economy was booming harder than ever before. The human condition was getting better all the time, as far as we knew.
Friendship was solid, dependable. Love was rich, sincere, committed.
I was 21 when the planes hit the towers. I took it pretty hard.
Since then everything has seemed bleak. The first decade of the 21st century have been rough on me. I have not aged gracefully. Numerous false career starts have left me doubting I will ever find a solid niche and wondering whether I should even try. Numerous of my personal friendships and romantic relationships have shattered.
The false promise of the 1990s have left me with the 2010 blues. Thirty years old and I'm stuck in the mud with little desire to even spin my tires, let alone get out and push.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Things change quickly in my life. Here, let me slow it down for you.
These are stills from a video of today's brief but banging thunderstorm today here in Fall Branch, Tennessee, where I currently reside.
I left California a little over three weeks ago. My roommate's landlord decided he can't have roommates, so I had to move out. I chose to come to Fall Branch, where a friend of mine from California is now living. The rent is cheap, the hills are rolling, and the animals far outnumber the people in this little town. The nearest "city" is the Tri-Cities of Bristol, Kingsport, and Johnson City, which straddle the Virginia-Tennessee border, about a half-hour drive away from here.
I have two purposes in life: to move, and to give. I seem to be very good at moving. What I am not good at is giving. The people I met and befriended in California taught me all about giving. They were relentlessly generous with their material belongings, but more important, they were always there to talk to me and lend me some of their light. I decided I need to do that too.
More pictures and stories to come. On this blog I give you only the synopsis. Details may or may not be forthcoming, but I wanted to keep you in the loop.
I left California a little over three weeks ago. My roommate's landlord decided he can't have roommates, so I had to move out. I chose to come to Fall Branch, where a friend of mine from California is now living. The rent is cheap, the hills are rolling, and the animals far outnumber the people in this little town. The nearest "city" is the Tri-Cities of Bristol, Kingsport, and Johnson City, which straddle the Virginia-Tennessee border, about a half-hour drive away from here.
I have two purposes in life: to move, and to give. I seem to be very good at moving. What I am not good at is giving. The people I met and befriended in California taught me all about giving. They were relentlessly generous with their material belongings, but more important, they were always there to talk to me and lend me some of their light. I decided I need to do that too.
More pictures and stories to come. On this blog I give you only the synopsis. Details may or may not be forthcoming, but I wanted to keep you in the loop.
Monday, June 14, 2010
A few reactions to my first cautious steps into a study and experience of Theosophy.
I went to a Theosophy class at Theosophy Hall in downtown Los Angeles last night with my most excellent roommate Pedro. I enjoyed the experience. I wasn't sure what was going on during the presentation and ensuing discussion - were they seeking the truth? conveying the truth? - yet the experience was so intellectually stimulating that I left feeling quite aware of my surroundings. It was a transporting experience.
One guy gave me some free printed matter, which I read today. I also did some background research on the oh-so-trustworthy Internet. (I trust you can hear the measured sarcasm on that last point.)
My impressions are not all roses, though.
I like that the Theosophists encourage free thought. This critique on my first impressions of the study is made in the spirit of free thought.
Here goes.
I agree with Theosophists when they say life is continuous. With death comes birth. Matter begets matter.
But I disagree with Theosophists when they say we are each a distinct personality or soul which is continuous or permanent.
I believe there to be one consciousness, as Thesosophy states. But I disagree with the idea that there is something apart from matter. The one consciousness is matter in different forms. Matter is spirit, not a vehicle for spirit.
I agree with the Theosophists when they say there is consciousness in a stone, an atom, a planet. I believe Space has consciousness, yes. Science shows "empty space" to be quite full indeed. Where there is anything, there is consciousness.
I do not believe, as the Theosophists believe, that there is such a thing as "the progression of the soul." There are only curves, not some brave charge "forward." There is no ultimate forward or backward. Einstein proved this with his theory of relativity.
The Theosophists state that there is such a thing as a "spiritual evolution" and that such an evolution moves "forward" into "higher" states of being.
Theosophists have a faulty understanding of the word "evolution." You, dear reader, probably have it wrong too. It's so simple. Evolution is a very specific concept. It has nothing to do with strength, intelligence, "karma", or anything else.
Evolution is simply adaptation. Most self-described evolutionists don't even understand this, nor do the creationists. If you need to fly, you get wings. If you need to slither, you get scales. If you need to breathe, you get lungs or gills. If you need to do photosynthesis, you get chlorophyll. If you need to sit there and not move for a few million years, you get to be a heavy-ass boulder. Whatever you role is, that's what you're suited for. If the environment changes or you leave your environment, your features probably won't work anymore. You die. For example, if your navigation system depends on abundant light, and suddenly you get lost in a system of caves, some other being who has been testing out a snazzy new way of seeing in the dark called "echolocation" takes your place. You know what animal that is. The lowly bat. And he happens to be alive when you're fucking dead. That's evolution, dudes and dudettes. It's really simple. Unfortunately, our big-ass human ego is constantly trying (and failing) to understand everything in terms of superiority and inferiority, and so we can't seem to grasp the very simple concept of evolution, which has nothing to do with "worthiness".
Note: When what's-his-name said "survival of the fittest," fittest meant "best-suited," not "most superior" nor "looks best in a bathing suit." A bigger glove is not necessarily better. You need the size that fits your hand, and that's that.
I find it egotistical when I hear anyone talk of "lower" and "higher" life forms. A human is not higher than an ant. It is different, and suited for different purposes. Ants are good at finding one grain of sugar, while humans are good at thinking symbolically. Humans may or may not be more complex than other life forms and materials, but complexity does not equal "height". That is stupid.
The ability to think in moral or ethical terms is an adaption, not an advance or evidence of an immaterial soul. We have morals and ethics because we are not naturally good at knowing what we're supposed to do. If anything, the existence of morals and ethics among humans speaks of our weak instincts. Instinct suits the rest of the animal and plant kingdom just fine. Just because we don't know how to use the tool called "instinct," that doesn't make us better or worse than anyone else. We have morals and ethics because we have outsourced instinct to a linear way of thinking. Make sense?
We are not separate from nature, and we are no more different from the rest of nature than an ant is different from an elephant. Everything is different, everything is special, and every life form must be understood on its own terms.
I do like Theosophy, as a religion, as a group of people. It's definitely not a cult. Just a bunch of smarties trying to find a religious understanding that suits them. They're just looking for a reason to live, and such a thing is difficult to do when you're of above-average intelligence in a "secular" world. Thus this quasi-historical, quasi-scientific religion (yes, it's a religion, even if a weak one) was formed to satisfy the craving for immortality of the ego.
We all have irrational needs. We all need to believe in immortality on some level. Theosophy is just one in a long lie of budding traditions that tries to pass itself off as a rational replacement for religion. There is no rational replacement for religion, and we all need religion. Please call it religion, okay? It's religion. That's fine.
This post has undergone exactly zero edits.
One guy gave me some free printed matter, which I read today. I also did some background research on the oh-so-trustworthy Internet. (I trust you can hear the measured sarcasm on that last point.)
My impressions are not all roses, though.
I like that the Theosophists encourage free thought. This critique on my first impressions of the study is made in the spirit of free thought.
Here goes.
I agree with Theosophists when they say life is continuous. With death comes birth. Matter begets matter.
But I disagree with Theosophists when they say we are each a distinct personality or soul which is continuous or permanent.
I believe there to be one consciousness, as Thesosophy states. But I disagree with the idea that there is something apart from matter. The one consciousness is matter in different forms. Matter is spirit, not a vehicle for spirit.
I agree with the Theosophists when they say there is consciousness in a stone, an atom, a planet. I believe Space has consciousness, yes. Science shows "empty space" to be quite full indeed. Where there is anything, there is consciousness.
I do not believe, as the Theosophists believe, that there is such a thing as "the progression of the soul." There are only curves, not some brave charge "forward." There is no ultimate forward or backward. Einstein proved this with his theory of relativity.
The Theosophists state that there is such a thing as a "spiritual evolution" and that such an evolution moves "forward" into "higher" states of being.
Theosophists have a faulty understanding of the word "evolution." You, dear reader, probably have it wrong too. It's so simple. Evolution is a very specific concept. It has nothing to do with strength, intelligence, "karma", or anything else.
Evolution is simply adaptation. Most self-described evolutionists don't even understand this, nor do the creationists. If you need to fly, you get wings. If you need to slither, you get scales. If you need to breathe, you get lungs or gills. If you need to do photosynthesis, you get chlorophyll. If you need to sit there and not move for a few million years, you get to be a heavy-ass boulder. Whatever you role is, that's what you're suited for. If the environment changes or you leave your environment, your features probably won't work anymore. You die. For example, if your navigation system depends on abundant light, and suddenly you get lost in a system of caves, some other being who has been testing out a snazzy new way of seeing in the dark called "echolocation" takes your place. You know what animal that is. The lowly bat. And he happens to be alive when you're fucking dead. That's evolution, dudes and dudettes. It's really simple. Unfortunately, our big-ass human ego is constantly trying (and failing) to understand everything in terms of superiority and inferiority, and so we can't seem to grasp the very simple concept of evolution, which has nothing to do with "worthiness".
Note: When what's-his-name said "survival of the fittest," fittest meant "best-suited," not "most superior" nor "looks best in a bathing suit." A bigger glove is not necessarily better. You need the size that fits your hand, and that's that.
I find it egotistical when I hear anyone talk of "lower" and "higher" life forms. A human is not higher than an ant. It is different, and suited for different purposes. Ants are good at finding one grain of sugar, while humans are good at thinking symbolically. Humans may or may not be more complex than other life forms and materials, but complexity does not equal "height". That is stupid.
The ability to think in moral or ethical terms is an adaption, not an advance or evidence of an immaterial soul. We have morals and ethics because we are not naturally good at knowing what we're supposed to do. If anything, the existence of morals and ethics among humans speaks of our weak instincts. Instinct suits the rest of the animal and plant kingdom just fine. Just because we don't know how to use the tool called "instinct," that doesn't make us better or worse than anyone else. We have morals and ethics because we have outsourced instinct to a linear way of thinking. Make sense?
We are not separate from nature, and we are no more different from the rest of nature than an ant is different from an elephant. Everything is different, everything is special, and every life form must be understood on its own terms.
I do like Theosophy, as a religion, as a group of people. It's definitely not a cult. Just a bunch of smarties trying to find a religious understanding that suits them. They're just looking for a reason to live, and such a thing is difficult to do when you're of above-average intelligence in a "secular" world. Thus this quasi-historical, quasi-scientific religion (yes, it's a religion, even if a weak one) was formed to satisfy the craving for immortality of the ego.
We all have irrational needs. We all need to believe in immortality on some level. Theosophy is just one in a long lie of budding traditions that tries to pass itself off as a rational replacement for religion. There is no rational replacement for religion, and we all need religion. Please call it religion, okay? It's religion. That's fine.
This post has undergone exactly zero edits.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
A few thoughts on menstruation, boys behaving badly, ritual, and the Gulf oil spill.
You're weak, ladies and gentleman. Weak, whiny, woman-girls and man-boys. And it's because we as a culture have no meaningful rituals to separate childhood from adulthood. If we had stronger, more jarring initiation rites to mark the time between childhood and adulthood, we would all be less pathetic and whiny and heartless as adults.
And if we replaced our self-indulgence with a healthy fear of Mother Earth, the Gulf might not be your "oops" garbage dump.
The world needs to wake and make a big deal of a girl's first menstruation. Her body is becoming a vessel capable of sustaining the species, and we should use it as a time to help the girl become aware that she must eventually let go of the trappings of childhood and accept her place in the world as a mature and responsible and strong human being.
We have turned menstruation into an object of shame and embarrassment. At best, it's aslightly droll and unfortunate event. We talk in code about it and try not to be conscious of it. Silly excuses and lies are made up about why a girl or woman is absent from school or work.
The Aboriginal Australians have rites in which a woman's first menstruation is marked by sitting in a tent for days and days, forcing the girl to come to grips with the fact that she must now let go of childhood and all the weak, needy things associated with it. If she fails to grow the up, the Aborigines can't use her and she gets kicked out of the tribe. In the unforgiving landscape of Australia, ostricization means death. She who fails to mature mentally is a danger to the survival of the community.
Same goes for the men. We need to wake up and make a big deal of a boy who starts to misbehave as a teenager, and throw him head-first into what it means to be a man. We need a point at which a man learns that this rock is a real bitch to live on and he had better grow a pair now.
Men don't have a natural division point between childhood and adulthood as a female does, so ancient cultures have made up rituals to make it obvious that the boy has to grow the hell up or the tribe will die.
The Aborigines have an elaborate, terrifying ritual to snap boys into behaving well. When a boy starts acting all tough and egotistical as testosterone is wont to make a male do, the grown men dress up like spirits, come in making a commotion, "kidnap" the boy from the mother (who plays along), circumcise him, subincise him (splitting), and thus induct him into the mens club. They scare the living fuck out of him in one painful fell swoop and make it abundantly clear that he is no longer a momma's boy, that the tribe depends on him, and he had better shape the fuck up or he's a dead man.
Sure, we have weak certain initiation rites in some cultures. Jewish kids have bah mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs. Catholic children get a smile and a slap on the cheek from the nice priest. Latinas have quinceañeras on their 15th birthday to help them act more like spoiled princesses. Men have rites involving self-indulgence – such as going to the nudie bar for the first time, smoking his first cigarette, drinking his “first” beer, and other “special” “firsts”.
In schools and frats we have ridiculous "initiations" administered by our equally immature peers. Some might say the grade school system itself – and college – are good common ways in our culture to mark the occasions of growing up, but those people are wrong. Like a frog in a pot of lukewarm water heated up slowly, such a gradual, plodding process makes no impact. The person never leaves the comfortable confines of childhood. He never feels a change. And we all eventually boil.
Well isn't all that special. None of our common rituals jar us awake. They are all "just something we go through", and don't really make a lasting change on most humans.
This post was inspired by The Power of Myth, an edited transcript of the Joseph Campbell/Bill Moyers interviews, but it is also inspired by other anthropological literature I've read. I've got a little bit of knowledge, and I'm feeling dangerous, so there you have it. My opinion about why we are all so weak and pathetic and whiny. I am sick and tired of hearing about "emotional safety", and I grow weary of us who lack the fortitude to maintain composure no matter what the circumstances.
This is a tough world to live in, and if you think it's supposed to be easy, then I rest my case: We need ritual. We need myth. To teach us what it means to grow up.
In writing this, I have left myself open to ridicule, corrections, accusations, and other concerns ranging from the legitimate and the banal. So go ahead. Give me your best shot. But before you do, think about what I have said here. Try to make sense of it. Give the information/opinion/perspective a chance. And dream with me of a better future.
And if we replaced our self-indulgence with a healthy fear of Mother Earth, the Gulf might not be your "oops" garbage dump.
The world needs to wake and make a big deal of a girl's first menstruation. Her body is becoming a vessel capable of sustaining the species, and we should use it as a time to help the girl become aware that she must eventually let go of the trappings of childhood and accept her place in the world as a mature and responsible and strong human being.
We have turned menstruation into an object of shame and embarrassment. At best, it's aslightly droll and unfortunate event. We talk in code about it and try not to be conscious of it. Silly excuses and lies are made up about why a girl or woman is absent from school or work.
The Aboriginal Australians have rites in which a woman's first menstruation is marked by sitting in a tent for days and days, forcing the girl to come to grips with the fact that she must now let go of childhood and all the weak, needy things associated with it. If she fails to grow the up, the Aborigines can't use her and she gets kicked out of the tribe. In the unforgiving landscape of Australia, ostricization means death. She who fails to mature mentally is a danger to the survival of the community.
Same goes for the men. We need to wake up and make a big deal of a boy who starts to misbehave as a teenager, and throw him head-first into what it means to be a man. We need a point at which a man learns that this rock is a real bitch to live on and he had better grow a pair now.
Men don't have a natural division point between childhood and adulthood as a female does, so ancient cultures have made up rituals to make it obvious that the boy has to grow the hell up or the tribe will die.
The Aborigines have an elaborate, terrifying ritual to snap boys into behaving well. When a boy starts acting all tough and egotistical as testosterone is wont to make a male do, the grown men dress up like spirits, come in making a commotion, "kidnap" the boy from the mother (who plays along), circumcise him, subincise him (splitting), and thus induct him into the mens club. They scare the living fuck out of him in one painful fell swoop and make it abundantly clear that he is no longer a momma's boy, that the tribe depends on him, and he had better shape the fuck up or he's a dead man.
Sure, we have weak certain initiation rites in some cultures. Jewish kids have bah mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs. Catholic children get a smile and a slap on the cheek from the nice priest. Latinas have quinceañeras on their 15th birthday to help them act more like spoiled princesses. Men have rites involving self-indulgence – such as going to the nudie bar for the first time, smoking his first cigarette, drinking his “first” beer, and other “special” “firsts”.
In schools and frats we have ridiculous "initiations" administered by our equally immature peers. Some might say the grade school system itself – and college – are good common ways in our culture to mark the occasions of growing up, but those people are wrong. Like a frog in a pot of lukewarm water heated up slowly, such a gradual, plodding process makes no impact. The person never leaves the comfortable confines of childhood. He never feels a change. And we all eventually boil.
Well isn't all that special. None of our common rituals jar us awake. They are all "just something we go through", and don't really make a lasting change on most humans.
This post was inspired by The Power of Myth, an edited transcript of the Joseph Campbell/Bill Moyers interviews, but it is also inspired by other anthropological literature I've read. I've got a little bit of knowledge, and I'm feeling dangerous, so there you have it. My opinion about why we are all so weak and pathetic and whiny. I am sick and tired of hearing about "emotional safety", and I grow weary of us who lack the fortitude to maintain composure no matter what the circumstances.
This is a tough world to live in, and if you think it's supposed to be easy, then I rest my case: We need ritual. We need myth. To teach us what it means to grow up.
In writing this, I have left myself open to ridicule, corrections, accusations, and other concerns ranging from the legitimate and the banal. So go ahead. Give me your best shot. But before you do, think about what I have said here. Try to make sense of it. Give the information/opinion/perspective a chance. And dream with me of a better future.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Seven Principles and Seven Desires
Weeks ago I vowed to write a personal declaration of principles. I started writing them today. See below. While writing my principles I stumbled upon a list of desires too. The two are separate, and I'll explain why in a minute.
Some of My Principles:
1. Faith.
2. A mission.
3. Hard work.
4. Persistence.
5. Breathing.
6. Giving.
7. Smiling.
Some of My Desires:
1. Embrace.
2. Money.
3. Food, clothing, shelter.
4. Happiness (not to be confused with smiling.)
5. World peace.
6. Self-improvement.
7. Release.
Principles are those things I have control over. Desires are those things I have no control over that my gods may bestow upon me if they feel like it.
You might wonder why "self-improvement" goes not in the Principles but in the Desires list. Isn't self-improvement a choice? No, it's not. Look around you. Do you see all the people talking about self-improvement? Do you see them getting any better? No. Self-improvement is a gift bestowed on you by your gods, if they feel like it, and if you pursue your principles.
This is a working document.
Some of My Principles:
1. Faith.
2. A mission.
3. Hard work.
4. Persistence.
5. Breathing.
6. Giving.
7. Smiling.
Some of My Desires:
1. Embrace.
2. Money.
3. Food, clothing, shelter.
4. Happiness (not to be confused with smiling.)
5. World peace.
6. Self-improvement.
7. Release.
Principles are those things I have control over. Desires are those things I have no control over that my gods may bestow upon me if they feel like it.
You might wonder why "self-improvement" goes not in the Principles but in the Desires list. Isn't self-improvement a choice? No, it's not. Look around you. Do you see all the people talking about self-improvement? Do you see them getting any better? No. Self-improvement is a gift bestowed on you by your gods, if they feel like it, and if you pursue your principles.
This is a working document.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Why West? Because It's There.
I want to help people overcome their fears. I want to be that T-bone collision that gets people off the highway and onto the back roads. To become pioneers, all of us.
Do you realize how gripped you are with fear? Do you know you can do anything you want - at least in comparison to what you are doing?
I love Saul Williams. His song "Coded Language" has saved my life. Gave it meaning, enriched it, reinvigorated it - dozens of times. An apt excerpt:
That whole idea - that we are accidentally living life normally when we could be living it extraordinarily and making the extraordinary normal - is one of my motives for organizing Westward Invasion 2009.
Another motivation is that the United States is often pooh-poohed as too domestic for any self-respecting traveler to bother with.
In fact, some people think the United States is actually five or nine different countries bundled into one monolithic beast of a bureaucracy. In fact, people are different wherever you go in this country. I want to talk to them and see all their secret gardens, don't you?
Besides, even if you think you already know the U.S., consider that "A fish knows not wetness for wetness is all it knows. Make friends with whales and birds to learn water."
As you were.
Or as you want to be.
Do you realize how gripped you are with fear? Do you know you can do anything you want - at least in comparison to what you are doing?
I love Saul Williams. His song "Coded Language" has saved my life. Gave it meaning, enriched it, reinvigorated it - dozens of times. An apt excerpt:
"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand.
"The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the diet of an infant.
"The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed pears."
Listen to the whole track if you want.
That whole idea - that we are accidentally living life normally when we could be living it extraordinarily and making the extraordinary normal - is one of my motives for organizing Westward Invasion 2009.
Another motivation is that the United States is often pooh-poohed as too domestic for any self-respecting traveler to bother with.
In fact, some people think the United States is actually five or nine different countries bundled into one monolithic beast of a bureaucracy. In fact, people are different wherever you go in this country. I want to talk to them and see all their secret gardens, don't you?
Besides, even if you think you already know the U.S., consider that "A fish knows not wetness for wetness is all it knows. Make friends with whales and birds to learn water."
As you were.
Or as you want to be.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
You made it to 2009! Keep going!
Instead of a resolution, why not take a look back at what you accomplished? Change or adjust your definition of success and pat yourself on the back. Did you spend too much time obsessing over something--time that should have been spent, say, greening your lawn for the neighbor's sake? What did you do during that time? Maybe you got really good at Grand Theft Auto.
No matter how puerile the pursuit, you learned something, did something, got better at something. Stop whipping yourself with the New Year's cat-o'-nine-tails and put your chin up, soldier! Whether you are a starving artist or some Wall Street embarrassment hiding behind a back issue of Fortune, you need to give yourself some props.
You made it through a year of paranoia--market paranoia, security paranoia, genuine paranoia... You bit the bullet a number of times, sallying forth when the results weren't even guaranteed. Maybe your year was boring as hell, for all I know. But take a look at your lens. How do you measure success? It's an old question but it begs your attention.
This early New Year's Day (it's 1 a.m. Eastern where I am) is an opportunity not just to change your habits--eat better, spend more wisely--but to change your outlook. How does your attitude empower you to wake up earlier, walk more lightly, hit the job at hand harder than ever before? Do you feel good?
A friend of mine was recently extolling the virtue of passion. She said passion is crucial no matter what you are into. She said:
"If you sell vacuum cleaners, be passionate about it," she said. "Say: 'I love selling Hoovers and it is my LIFE, and if you got a problem with that, #@*% YOU!'"
There is much to be proud of, so why don't you enjoy it for once? What are you doing that you would like to enjoy more?
This is just another day. Our Gregorian calendar is just an arbitrary mark-time, a random beginning, middle and ending of our continuous revolution around the sun. Today is really not all that special, when you get right down to the science of it. Look around though. Your loved ones, your acquaintances and colleagues, even your hated ones: they think there is something special about all this. Do you? You are a pack animal, sir or madam! You cannot ignore the sentiments of those around you. Like it or not, you are affected by your peers and their attitudes, no matter how culturally arbitrary. New Year's matters.
Channel their influence on you in a positive way. Now is your moment to change your goggles, your viewpoint, your attitude. Take a look in the mirror, but this time I want you to smile.
May some of your most honest wishes come true this year!
No matter how puerile the pursuit, you learned something, did something, got better at something. Stop whipping yourself with the New Year's cat-o'-nine-tails and put your chin up, soldier! Whether you are a starving artist or some Wall Street embarrassment hiding behind a back issue of Fortune, you need to give yourself some props.
You made it through a year of paranoia--market paranoia, security paranoia, genuine paranoia... You bit the bullet a number of times, sallying forth when the results weren't even guaranteed. Maybe your year was boring as hell, for all I know. But take a look at your lens. How do you measure success? It's an old question but it begs your attention.
This early New Year's Day (it's 1 a.m. Eastern where I am) is an opportunity not just to change your habits--eat better, spend more wisely--but to change your outlook. How does your attitude empower you to wake up earlier, walk more lightly, hit the job at hand harder than ever before? Do you feel good?
A friend of mine was recently extolling the virtue of passion. She said passion is crucial no matter what you are into. She said:
"If you sell vacuum cleaners, be passionate about it," she said. "Say: 'I love selling Hoovers and it is my LIFE, and if you got a problem with that, #@*% YOU!'"
There is much to be proud of, so why don't you enjoy it for once? What are you doing that you would like to enjoy more?
This is just another day. Our Gregorian calendar is just an arbitrary mark-time, a random beginning, middle and ending of our continuous revolution around the sun. Today is really not all that special, when you get right down to the science of it. Look around though. Your loved ones, your acquaintances and colleagues, even your hated ones: they think there is something special about all this. Do you? You are a pack animal, sir or madam! You cannot ignore the sentiments of those around you. Like it or not, you are affected by your peers and their attitudes, no matter how culturally arbitrary. New Year's matters.
Channel their influence on you in a positive way. Now is your moment to change your goggles, your viewpoint, your attitude. Take a look in the mirror, but this time I want you to smile.
May some of your most honest wishes come true this year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)