Late night fuzzy thoughts that cover a wide spectrum and have little coherency

Questions: Do you write in order to figure out your thoughts and maybe find new ones that branch off the old ones? Do you write in order to find out more about yourself, subconsciously? Is it possible to subconsciously analyze yourself? Does the fact that people read your writing make you alter it, whether you realize it or not, like the quantum physics property 'observation changes things?' 

Well. Most of the time I write to figure out my thoughts, in a kind of stream of consciousness manner. The opposite of that would be writing with the purpose of conveying something to someone else. As for writing to find out about yourself, Oscar Wilde once said that art reflects the artist more than the subject matter and I agree with him. Subconsciously, which is even more telling than what is consciously revealed. That's why I think formal writing, as in writing a novel or short story, is so intensely personal that I feel uncomfortable sharing any of the stories I've ever written. And even here, knowing that people can read what I've consciously chosen to share (since this is a blog after all and everyone involved has agreed to participate in a collective consciousness around someone's experiences) changes what I say. 

It's an issue of awareness. I wrote about awareness before, in my post about virtual realities. Specifically about how even if you were immersed in one so realistic you'd have no idea it was artificial unless someone told you, once you did know it was artificial it would lose...something. I'm perhaps a little obsessed with what actually is the difference between being in the box, oblivious, existing, and knowing that you're in the box--by knowing, have you stepped outside of it? No, I don't think so. Because to step outside of the box you have to experience what is outside of it. Simply knowing you are in it does not mean you experience what is not in it. It's like having a negative and a positive control in biological experiments. Awareness is the catalyst step but you've still gotta get outside the box. Or the labyrinth, as Simon Bolivar put it (cool quote btw). Actually, a lot of my posts are grounded in the issue of awareness. Does being aware of something make it less pure? If you're aware of the effect you have on someone, does that make you manipulative, for example?

I'm aware of a lot of things that I don't mention. That often makes me feel dishonest. But maybe that's an idealistic view of relationships among people, and honesty/sharing. I've realized that most people are aware of things that they don't mention, which sometimes overlap with what you're aware of, and so both of you are aware of the same thing but neither of you mention it. So the awareness is there but the mentioning of it is not; it appears that this happens a lot. I sound like an alien observing the humans. But seriously, this baffles me in an odd way. I want to mention this shared awareness--I guess because active acknowledgement rewards my closeness receptors. Very neuroscientific. So since my perception or awareness is fallible, I wonder if I should just take other people at their word since they choose what they share. Or should I keep in mind that sometimes people don't say what they're thinking because of more complex reasons, like politeness or shyness, and ultimately would be happy to be coaxed into sharing (I remember Walter once told me he didn't feel he needed to get to know his girlfriends actively, because they'd share what they wanted to and that struck me as douchey...gut instinct although I think I have a more balanced opinion on that philosophy now). 

I think that people become closer by talking about what they believe in, regarding social things involving people and not necessarily Great Ideals like environmental socialism. I guess that could be considered a "girl thing" but I'm in the girl box! I can't get out! I've noticed how people who share things about themselves that are personal seem to connect better with others--like if you're having a conversation with someone you just met, and they mention how when they were in high school they used to idk skip seventh hour and go home, you bond better if you say something about your experience rather than ask them more about theirs. It's like trading personal "I's." That's something I don't do very well, unless the other person talks less than me. Then I sometimes have to search for things to say and fall back on I's. Although I do seem to be drawing a maybe false dichotomy between personal I statements ("I have become more optimistic since high school") and statements that reflect your philosophy ("I think people become closer by talking...").  

Ahhhhh. I've confused myself. It's very rare that I can think my way to the bottom of a belief. Right now my brain feels like spaghetti, or headphone cords, because those always get tangled up. That reminds me of this theory a good friend of mine came up with (hope he doesn't mind that I share it/perhaps butcher it), where people are like tangles of string and when you have a relationship of any sort with someone, you mix your tangle with their tangle. The significance is the tangle, wherein each person is a cacophony of thoughts, emotions, rules, beliefs. i liked that theory, it was sufficiently messy. another simile that i like, which i recently decided upon after a conversation with crystal regarding her and austin, is how a relationship (this time specifically a romantic one) is kind of like a plant you need to nurture, separate from the plant of your friendship. every couple should have these two plants and can't be missing one. that's why doing couple-y things like going to dinners/trips together/being romantic are actually really crucial too and not just contrived romance--it feeds the second plant, while you should always be feeding the friendship one in your interactions so it need not be so pointed. contact! copenhagen. copernicus. okay i'm like not actually awake right now which is probably a sign that i should do the real sleep thing. 

edjoocation

When I was younger, I loved the Little House on a Prairie series of books. I still do, actually. Kelly does as well, so our shared copies (whattup scholastic book orders from Glenn Stephens, 1998) are turning that weird yellow color of old books and sometimes come in three separate chunks because the bindings have given out. Sorry Laura. Anyway, I loved them with an unironic, utterly geeky, earnest love that somehow did not socially isolate me as an elementary schooler and let's be honest, middle schooler. Rereading them makes me happy in a way now that isn't solely a product of the books themselves, but also comes from that feeling you get from re-experiencing something you loved from your childhood. Of course, you can never recapture the exact experience from then which is a little sad, but it's also kind of cool how the feeling itself grew as you did, into whatever nuanced thing you feel now. Maybe things aren't ever really lost, they just undergo metamorphosis. 

So I was thinking about education while reading it, and what an education really means. The social construction of what an education means has definitely changed over time. Back in the 19th century, on the frontier, families sought to educate their children by sending them to tiny schoolhouses taught most likely by young, teenage girls where they learned the very basics of what we now consider an education. I think it's very interesting to think through why an education was important for these families--after all, most of the children in these schools would grow up to be homesteaders, or storekeepers, or housewives. Arguably, what they learned in school didn't necessarily give them an edge in finding a job. Yet schools were still a necessity in the towns that were just being assembled. 

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that an education isn't important or a right for people whose lives don't get fed into the specialized economy. I can see how someone could say, well that situation you've just described is just as true of the 21st century, in less developed places, and thus you're discriminating and evil and should go eat some desert mud. But in fact, I think this just proves that collectively, humans in general have an innate desire to take in knowledge beyond what is immediately practical. 

 And what is "an education" exactly anyway? It sounds like some sort of pleasant thing you get, like a very well groomed pony. In its earliest evolution, I guess that would be proper grammar (hah, that one still evades me), spelling, reading, basic math. And somehow, in the learning of these specific things, you get lifted from lower to upper class. I can see this as a remnant of the days when only people wealthy enough to afford time off subsistence living/working for someone could get schooling, and that fact in itself made education a sign of social status. It's the same principle as scarcity driving value, in an economic sort of way. But an education differs from a diamond in that it can transform itself and the receiver by adding value; it's much more than just an economic commodity, especially given how it has no physical value. Also it's kind of chilling to just think of education as a commodity.

So maybe it's more a question of what you derive from having an education. Education has emergent properties, like neurons firing to thinking and quantum physics to macro physics. From the motions of going to school, sitting through class, doing homework, something more is formed. What is that "more?' Nowadays, we identify one goal of education to be a way of thinking, see "History teaches you crucial means to analyze problems, draw connections, etc." And obviously, it brings about good things (I sometimes talk about how ignorance is bliss, but I mean it very specifically, such as withholding information from someone can keep them emotionally happy, or not knowing an iphone 914G's internet speed won't make you compare your slowass iphone25G's speed with that. Ignorance--broad lack of knowledge/curiosity about the world around you, unwillingness to open your mind or entertain you could be wrong--that's heinous).  Education today brings about job opportunities, which are in themselves opportunities to live a life of comfort in relative material prosperity, as well as (hopefully) opportunities to spend your life involved with something you find intellectually stimulating and rewarding. So it seems to me as if education has two ultimate goals: one being the translation of education into bankable /material value and one is the more amorphous personal fulfillment/way of thinking value. But I guess you can't forget a third aspect, which is the social value attached to "being educated." 

However, as the world gets increasingly educated, the first two of those ultimate goals gets diluted. It's not a bad thing, that's just how it is. More people are going to college now and as a result, the norm gets lifted and everyone becomes more qualified for the same jobs. That's why you get teachers driving taxis or PhD baristas. An education becomes less of a guarantee for bankable value. What does it mean to live in an post-education boom world? I don't know. I don't know anything really, I'm just trying to find meaning by stringing together ideas born from some momentary thought sparked by an old book.  I do believe this: as people are exposed to more and more things to learn, and expected to know more and more, we start to take all this knowing and learning for granted. I sure as hell do.

So this is what i have determined. a) I have no idea what an education actually means. b) i have no idea what it means to be an educated person. c) i take all this for granted. 

and that's somethin at least. 

not phoenix listomania

i'm gonna take a leaf out of becca's blog and make me some lists. i'd make me some liszts too but a) i'd rather bring back a different classical composer, like chopin or mendelssohn and b) i can't. 

also: people have so many experiences within them, that make them who they are in ways they don't even realize. 

things i remember about this year that were good (not really in any order)

1. kentucky; by far one of the coolest things i've ever done in my life. more than cool--i loved it almost unreasonably, and loved how real it felt. within that, driving to tennessee and listening to fleet foxes as the sun rose over the mist shrouded mountains. eating fresh food all the time. eating that pint of ice cream in the walmart parking lot with scott. that reminds me, mail christmas card to janice. 

2. spending hours at the terrace in the summertime and feeling completely content

3. corollary to 2-sunsets on lake mendota

4. extendocorollary-being on lakeshore/picnic point whenever i wanted

5. seeing all the animals on my runs esp the loons, cranes, and swans

6. going to devil's lake multiple time--howling build me up buttercup with the motley group, walking down the road. famping and crystal was there! the snarky little bitch ohhh middle school kids, me dislike. fires, food, brian scaring the shit out of everyone on the night walk

7. that one time in the summer, when jack and i got randomly invited onto the sailboat with a bunch of drunk grad students and hoofers people. drinking beer in the lake, swimming fully clothed and floating, looking up to see the stars. 

8. busking (that word got so much more use this summer)...and earning like five dollars, popcorn, and water. FUTURE JOB!!

9. going to the farmers market with scott and getting fresh veggies/fruit/baked goods

10. shadowing doctors at st. mary's and especially watching the surgery in the o.r.

classes thus far in college that have made me think 

1. am env history

2. geo 139

3. psych 

4. neurobio

5. enviro 360

6. african history

songs that stuck out in the year

1. fleet foxes: all of fleet foxes (the album) and some of helplessness blues, including helplessness blues and bitter dancer

2.  love and doubt - slow runner

3. freelance whales: all of the album weathervanes

4. everlasting light - the black keys

5.  what the water gave me - florence + the machine

6. ghosts that broke my heart - laura marling

7. the bleeding heart show - the new pornographers

8. ambling alp - yeasayer

9. sun hands- local natives

10. cough syrup - young the giant

top non-school related things that email me

1. nytimes (and then taunt me with articles)

2. recall walker 

3. the happiness project

4. positivity blog

5. kaplan (take the MCAT prep course for only $1900.78!!)

6. stonesoup

7. myhabit

8. amazon

some notebook margin dumps from this semester

1. mirek as a fish professor 

2. can't pay attention :(

3. "don't talk to each other, see if i care"

5. "if you're a tasty morsel, and i'm sure every one of you is..."

6. view of world is restricted at scale you see it

7. rarely thought of superpower: ability to make someone blocking your view transparent

8. "you know what a ferret is, right? those one foot long evil creatures."

9. "as you can tell I don't like this guy. he is full of shit"

10. "voltage gated eel"

the quotations come from tony, my british-bordering-on-lost-it neuro professor

to accomplish

1. draw more

2. make this and also these, all of them, all at once

3. go to nyc (january!!??) 

4. go wwoof again

5. get a better job 

6. live more spontaneously 

7. explore madison 

8. restaurant crawl (this has been talked about for AGES)

9. finish that damn scarf 

10. read about biochem/immunology/use PubMed more and read more papers

make more lists? meta. metabolize. i shall metabolize more. there's so much to learn and do and see! what a great place, this world

we need to talk

all right ann emery. i've put up with your behavior long enough. this is unacceptable. they should have taught you at building school that you have to be yourself, and imitation is not the way to grow as a person thing. that's why i have to inform you that it's been very disappointing to see you trying to be something you're not. the antarctic death trap phase is one that will pass soon enough, just like those jelly shoes people wore back in elementary school, or youthful optimism. you might not be aware of that phase, since you are a building, but it happened. note the past tense. that is in fact a (now rather ironically outdated) phrase people employ to indicate the hip-ness of an object or idea: "happenin" and let me tell you, THIS SHIT is not. it's not even "hap."

let me clarify what THIS SHIT pertains to. while there are organisms, such as sphingomonas echinoides, that thrive at -25 degrees celsius, the three inhabitants of Apt 201 are not such creatures. we are of a higher phylum, order, family, genus, molecular makeup, intelligence, sentience, and surface area. given this, here are some examples of unacceptable behavior:

exhibit a) hank. upon walking into the living room/kitchen (approx 9 ft x 13 ft, which is smaller than the size of your average cadillac escalade), one may notice that the oven, Hank, is open and on. this is because without Hank, said living room/kitchen approaches temperatures commonly seen in deep sea trenches or alternatively, on the surface of the moon. 

exhibit b) electricity bill. way more expensive in the winter than in the summer. why? spaceheaters running. for the sake of argument, let's say that's just one 1500 kw space heater running for a low estimate of 8 hours per day. mg&e's winter pricing is  $.2589. that equals $3.11 per day spent on heating. now let's say that we use this hypothetical space heater a modest 25 days per month. that's $77.75 in fucking space heater payment alone. 

exhibit c) i just calculated how much money we may be spending on our space heater. that is a problem. i do not want to do math. that is an exhibit all in itself. furthermore, i am writing this in my giant puffy winter coat, with slowly numbing fingertips, already numb toes. 

that is just three exhibits. i would write more but the frost is creeping over the screen. farewell fond world. you'll find me in a week, encased in a lump of ice like jack from the shining. on my gravestone please inscribe the words "it's been cool."

ps the resounding bass and drunk langdon streeters are just icing on the cake 

eta pps who the hell has sex at 2:41 am? upstairs neighbor, you must recently have gotten an accommodating finals fuck buddy in which case, power to you but move your bed away from the wall. and lower your elephantine feet more gingerly 

Things

six sugar cookies with reindeer heads
so delicious, will eat until dead
one fluffy cat, jack please give her to us
individuals with nonfuctional MBL alleles susceptible to meningitis 


three dishes at a chinese restaurant
one a ginger fish with its head still on 
a lot of interesting woodman's aisles
god fucking damn mother ass christmas carols


becca's learning unibomber anatomy (HAHAHA)
seven pages of james joyce philosophy
whisky river aka noise violations
three hours of window shelf air conditioner fire escape vibrations


stop this this is self indulgence
nothing like finals to up your procrastination 
blahdittyblahblahblogdittyblah
i found a leprechaun and it was a frog 

WARNING: i'd say it's an essay pt 1

Sometimes it seems like scientific literature of the past seems to exist in a non self-aware manner. Take the population crisis argument of the early 90s for example. Articles from that time period seem to highlight narrow-minded statements like: "second, and vastly more important than continued study of the problem, is strong and unmistakable advocacy of human population control by conservation scientists." Generally, I don't disagree with the population problem theory (more about that later). But would such a statement be acceptable in an article today? It unapologetically draws one conclusion and tells the public You Must Do This. I feel like in these days we now meta-analyze our thinking more, or at least offer more dialogue between opposing viewpoints. We certainly don't come to many straightforward points anymore--even in climate change articles, possible consequences come phrased with "most likely" and "potential" and "I can't publish anything that takes a stance because my funding gets cut." When Erlich published Population Bomb in whatever year that was, people freaked out because it was precisely so straightforward (and apocalyptic). An Inconvenient Truth is probably the only comparable book (in that it reached the general public, since a lot of more dire environmental books get read by the already converted), but that wasn't nearly as straight-talking, and the effects of that have already diffused.


Maybe that's actually a drawback of the more connected and informationally accessible world today--with the sheer amount of stuff out there, including intellectually stimulating stuff as well as the Texts From Bennett stuff, our reactions are dulled to everything. Sort of like the function of FBS in cell culture--the analogy my old lab PI made (my previous lab PI, not my elderly doddering PI) was of taking a drop of chocolate milk and sticking it to someone's face. If you then dunk them in white milk, the desirable chocolate drop milk becomes more difficult to find/take note of. If you make an analogy about science that would never make sense in real life, it becomes 288x easier to remember.


So perhaps a lot of exposure even to topics that can grow your mind across various fields has a negative impact. That's a depressing thought. STOP LEARNING. Also, I wandered away from my original point. Which was a) maybe certain periods of time in the academic/scientific timeline are more...narrow minded? definitive? than others and b) we are potentially more aware of counterarguments now or just more feeble about drawing definitive lines dammit. I think it's fair to say we've dumbed down and thinned crossover messages from the scientific community to the non in an effort to cater to the lumbering political/economic machine.


And what will we look back and say the philosophies of our era were? What ideas will characterize it? Will we see ourselves as blinded, obviously wrong? That speaks to how when we're in the present, we simply cannot step out of it.  But it feels like at this point in time, we're quite a self-aware intelligentsia.

Oh boy. 

I'll post part 2 later so I can save cybertrees. 

bootfall

that was a great football game. intense too, when duckworth caught that ridiculous pass. but the best part was watching with people. and seaWorthy the cargo tanker of course. "thigh arms" indeed. ahhh funny things. sports announcer has gotta be one of the easiest jobs. all you have to do is say things like "adversity...both teams face adversity like they're football teams playing each other" since no one's actually paying attention to you anyway, then when shit gets real, you just scream and yell like everyone else watching and thus still no one's actually paying attention to you. cushy.

it's all in your head

I walked back from lab today along lakeshore. It was crazy beautiful.

I find it really reassuring to look out over the lake, far off into the distance, and know that out there are people whose lives you have not touched or known. There's some generic house in some generic neighborhood and there's a car pulling into the driveway unloading the kids who just got back from middle school where one of them did a project in art today and wants to give it to one parent for a Christmas present and the other one has basketball practice. Or whatever. Something that has all the minute and overlooked details that living really entails. 

But in fact, to you, these people don't really exist--they're just conceptualizations. However there actually is someone out there, living, whose personal universe is as strong and real as the one you necessarily live in. So then, if you can conceptualize other people and other equally real people can conceptualize you, it becomes comforting (at least to me) to know that the view out of our personal universe is really just one out of many and fallible. 

I come back to this concept of personal universes really often. It's like one of the big socks that goes around and around in the dryer of my mind. I think that every person contains within them a universe. The universe, in fact. Not in some mystical ooooooo there's an asteroid in my heart way (sounds like an awful love song from the 90s) , but in the way that everything that physically exists gets represented and conceptualized in people's minds. It's  similar perhaps to how Plato thought there was a world where the true Things/Ideas existed and everything that we experience in this world is just a shadow of it. So we have the real universe (Pluto, bag of cranberries, electrons, squirrel...) extant out there and then these things get translated into people's minds (thought of Pluto, perception of bag of cranberries, imagining electrons, staring at the squirrel). Then, because there are seven billion unique views, if you're looking at something, or conceptualizations, if you're studying something, or whatever it is--then there are seven billion translations of the universe into people's heads. 

Take Pluto for example. However many people you ask about Pluto, the way they believe in it will differ that many times. Of course there will be overlaps, since most people who have education and exposure can say Pluto's a planetorcloseenough in outer space with very cold temperatures, Arnold from the Magic School Bus almost dies on it, and picture a grey cold ball or whatever image from elementary school people think of when they devote brain energy to the subject of Pluto. Anyway, so when/if you converse about Pluto, what you're referring to might look different from the way Pluto looks in the other person's mind and thus there are multiple Plutos. Expand principle. QED. 

Everyone walks around carrying their universes and looking out from them. It's kind of crazy. 

I'm happiest when I walk or sit and look at the earth. Isn't it wonderful when your eyes can see these rich things? I feel like my vision soaks sights up like some sponge cake and becomes saturated, then I marvel at how extravagant nature is, just carelessly tossing around sights like these. And they'll come again. And they'll come again..

one of those moments

some combination of weird sleep hours/itchiness in the brain/dissatisfaction/too many neurons firing has put me into a dangerously adhd state where i am wondering why things can cost so much, like sunglasses, unless they are made from alien leather. "hello we come in---AKCHSDOGIJ SWUQEENOSDJ NOOOOOO." the hidden cost of designer wear. I foresee an expose article in the atlantic. no not really, sunglasses are never made from leather.


i am also engaging in incestuous technological interaction--hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite. if you say that fast enough it just turns into "hkrppkrpppkrpp" given that, i might as well say this here. i've discovered a new and exciting way to get people's attention: belligerently shout their favorite things at them. now i just need to do this in crowded venues.


Person A: in a conversation with someone, perhaps someone important like their professor
Person B: CHEESE! pay attention to me! BACK MASSAGE FROYO!!!
Person A: these are a few of my favorite things


my instructor for environmental studies cancelled class today due to instructor injury. i hope he's okay.


I hereby dub today Wallow Day.

get on it, itunes

"it samples that song superfreak by rick perry"
"rick perry? the man running for president?"
soul/tea party funk

Notes

I wonder why instruments are played with vibrato. It's almost universal--if it has the capability to do so, people developed a method of playing the instrument that involves wavering around one note. Bowed string instruments--violin, cello, the Chinese erhu--and also plucked string instruments like guitar, as well as voice. Why are humans attracted to vibrato?


Does it render instruments more similar to the sound of the human voice? Is it because when we speak we change notes very slightly on words, or at least on emphasis in the different phonemes of the word? So if the note itself doesn't vary, there is at least change in the stress behind different aural units and thus our ears are predisposed to find small modulations in sound and find them pleasing. In that case, the underlying principle seems to be language. Is music language?


I remember in music class we discussed what exactly music was and whether something like Gregorian chanting or Koranic reading was considered music. I think it would be incredibly fascinating to study the neurological basis of music--because here is something so fundamental to humans, so universal, accessible (it's around us all the time!), and yet we know so little about it. We understand very little about it, since we do know things like what chords sound pleasant and how they can be mathematically described. Oh, there was this one old video I remember watching, it might have been disney and maybe it was fantasia, where a narrator talked while strings got proportionally cut and vibrated at different frequencies...what was that??


Furthermore, music does odd things. There's the fundamental power of music to make you feel something. But why does that happen? Why can sound invoke pictures, colors, moods, stories while the other senses do not? Or if they do, seeing an image is already engaging the part of your brain that processes visually; eating food generally doesn't grab you and change your entire consciousness (unless you are Marcel Proust, or really really into food and probably also french) and let you keep experiencing that the whole time; etc with the rest of the senses. I guess that seeing an image can put people into emotions, or create stories--otherwise the entire genre of modern "art" would just be a blob on another blob--but it doesn't engage the rest of the mind-senses.


I always played piano better when I had a story that the music told. I remember when I was learning a piece for the WMTA competition called La Lutine Puck, my piano teacher Karen (who made me love piano and was just an amazing person) and I made every phrase capture some part of Puck's character. He was a mischievous elfin thing, who pranced around. Another classical piece I played which regrettably I can't remember the title of since all classical pieces are called the same name plus or minus an arrangement of letters and numbers (I think it was a Bach) had counterpoint voices, which I made into a tale about two people who loved each other but the the woman couldn't love him back for some grandiose, Baroque reason. Some pieces, like the Raindrop prelude, made the story itself--but still, it was so fun to darkly rage through the thunder part and suddenly return to recapitulation. Everything relaxed, the whole atmosphere changed, and I always imagined a rainbow against dark clouds receding in the distance while the sun shone through the rare type of rain that falls sometimes after a storm and the sun comes out.


Anyway. Getting carried away. Music does odd things. The Mozart Effect, this effect--http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/3/866.full which was a study where stroke patients who listened to music showed the most recovery. The Royal London Philharmonic played a concert for plants. Music and memory are somehow linked, since Alzheimer's patients often remember more when listening to music. Wish it'd help my memory cause it needs it.


It's late and I need to sleep but one last thing that popped into my head (but is a thought I've thought of before--I'm like a recycling factory for thoughts). What is the effect of lyrics on music? Does putting lyrics to music limit the possible interpretations of that melody, that sequence of tones because then do you listen to the words and not simply the music itself? Or does it open it up to more interpretations, since you have a semantic story on top of a musical one? Hopefully tonight will be one of those nights when I sometimes hear orchestral music before falling asleep. Too bad we can't record the sounds in our dreams.


Also--to think about later: what happens when your mind creates while you're asleep? Like seeing an idea for a painting, or being in a room (where you're like, a giant mushroom or something) but on the wall is a painting and that painting is one you've never seen before but your mind made up to decorate your dream room with. It's like a creation within a creation.


STOP! BED! okay.

i eat you eat we all meat (gross sorry)

at cleanup for slow food cafe today, i shared some odd potato pear drink (that had peach garnish on top) with this complete stranger. we were doing dishes and briefly wondered what the soupy thing in the glasses was (it was essentially small talk), so he got some and said you should try some of mine, go ahead and taste it first! it sounds weird upon retelling i guess, but that's precisely what i'm trying to figure out. i remember i was kind of taken aback for a second. why does it seem strange/provoke a feeling of...almost over-familiarity? maybe because sharing food is one of those things that is somewhat like sleeping with someone (rating: PG. i mean, spending time unconscious with someone for example at sleepovers in middle school, with friends in college, etc, when you wake up and you feel weirdly closer to that other person in a way that's indescribable) in that it's Sharing with a capital S.


what am i getting at. i don't really know, i should be writing a lit essay.


food and sleep are both acts of extreme trust i guess, when you think it to the bottom. furthermore, they're both absolute necessities to all humans everywhere so they inhabit a forced overlap between people.


food has so many different sides, it's really fascinating.


socially: facilitates bonding, sharing, whatever happens when people sit down and eat together that is consuming something besides just molecules. like that cat empire lyric, "because sharing a meal is something i wish the world could do." i guess also uneven distribution of food, food deserts, when tied to economics. farmers markets, farmers. slow food. the growing knowledge divide between consumption and production. organic.


biologically/chemically: things like lactose intolerance, glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, digestive enzymes. also, what happens chemically when you cook something--what is really going on in the proteins due to the heat, what happens on the molecular level when you caramelize something for example. what actually HAPPENS?


culturally: different cultures built whole different identities from how they eat, when they eat, what they eat. that also can tie into underlying biological reasons, like how it's not really healthy to drink cold water during a meal and before westernization, chinese meals were never served with cold water. or how you're supposed to refuse food a couple of times before accepting, even if you want it, to have good manners.


economically: food subsidies, what goes into giving us the food that we see at the supermarket. socio-economic stuff, more precisely. why food costs what it does, petroleum driven monocultures, etc. importation, globalization, food aid giving to africa that undermines growing a food economy in the countries there. cash crops, politics.


oh there's politically as well.


i may think too much.


do you ever think about the foods that you'll never get tired of eating? and by think about i mean make a list of.

hi scott!

conversation with a friend afar + conversations with the small one pt 2

the friend


j: herbivores are sea urchins?
c: herbivores sea are urchins!
of course


j: woah WOAH
that is a different permutation than i had in mind
please explain


c: you've never heard of the verb "to sea?"


j: and the adjective "are?"
c: yes!
god you catch on fast


j: i know, i pride myself in my ability to destroy language


c: ah, now we must create it!
to create, one must destroy
I AM SHIVA


j: SHEEVER


c: ICICLE


j: EYECYCLE


c: EYECYCLOPSICLE


j: LOPSICLE!


c: BOPSICLE!


j: BOPSI
taste the rainbow


c: JONSI hear the rainbow


j: jonsi is one letter away from being an anagram of my name


c: wait, i meant the singer jonsa


j: OH
okay


c: JASON is the rainbow
but not gay


j:that is the highest of compliments
thank you
so, i might have gotten myself in a band
!


c: OOO!!!
congrats!
what? who? what do they do?
sing? dance? play in the sand?
of seaaaaatttle




the small one


kelly: we gave angie's dog a ride home
connie: what kind of dog is he?
kelly: the curly medium kind




connie: the evil one in thomas and the tank engine?
kelly: no he wasn't evil he was just GRUUUMPY
kelly: his name was marvin






connie: yeah, you ate very little (kelly doesn't eat enough food)
kelly: YOU'RE very little!!!




Kelly: This is what mommy would want me to be: standing against the wall, reciting Chinese, while doing math. Then she would come back and say good job Kelly.


Kelly: Tyra has this really big perfume sprayer...really big sprayer...Tyra has a really big perfume.




Kelly: oh yesterday i watched spirit!!!! i love that movie
so my life doesnt suck




Kelly: DID YOU FEED THE FISHES
Mama: They look fine.
Kelly: No! Mommy can’t you tell they’re trying to get my attention!

Peace (and War, which is the length of this post)

This afternoon was a really good one. Good in aspects that are both people related, thought related, and world related. I went into lab and hung out with everyone--it reinforces my opinion again, that simply spending time with people can be one of the most crucial posts on which to build relationships. When you overlap in time, little things can come out of it that nevertheless play important roles. Things like: hearing the same story as everyone else, which later is referenced; saying a simple statement about the professor whose class you had today (and who imitated electric fish searching for mates in an anthropomorphic manner, after giving you a falconry lesson); doing a task meant for other people, inciting someone to come up to you and hug you. All of our relationships are built up of the thousands of tiny little things we overlook, perhaps even more so than the large, specific events and actions we may recall better or consciously strive to enact. It's like in Orlando, the book by Virginia Woolf, when she says that most of our time is spent in non-being, performing routine tasks we don't even attend to. Our relationships with people are largely built upon moments of non-relationship-consciousness (to make a really long word).


Furthermore, all people are looking for kindness and when given it, will most generally give it in return. I really appreciate how at my lab everyone says goodbye to everyone else when they leave, and everyone remaining says goodbye to them. There's something so kind in such a simple gesture. Some people may believe it trite and annoying (such a small thing!) but "in the particular is contained the universal." That's a quotation from Joyce, in A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man. I wish I could claim credit. I wrote it on my whiteboard and it summarized exactly what I was trying to say. Also, James Joyce could've written the song title of many a Panic! At the Disco song, going by that title.


Second great thing about this afternoon was when I stopped on my bike back from the hospital and sat at one of the benches on lakeshore. Then I got my notebook out and wrote some things down. It was incredible, to be outside and thinking. I actually got to the rational bottom of one of my general amorphous thoughts--and that makes me so happy! One of my friends, who's an amazing, logical thinker, is really good at it and I thought I'd give it a try. So often, I don't follow through and break down my gut instincts into just why I feel that way. It was such a satisfying feeling. Plus, it was truly gorgeous outside. Have you ever just looked at the way the October sun hits golden tree leaves and lights them up like incandescent gold? I can look and look at that until it feels like every bit of me is filled up with gold and blue sky.


The third great thing was going on my run. and the thought that came from that run (I'm loosing the steam to capitalize...). i went on a 6.5 mile run, which i've discovered is pretty much my optimal running distance. shorter than that and i don't fall into the meditative mood running sometimes puts me in, when i come back feeling like a happy sponge. anyway, i was going my usual way back along picnic point and i was having a fairly shitty time--tired, it was windy, etc. and then it hit me: if you're not enjoying this, then you're not running. Not running! straight up. what a thought. if i was going along and feeling like every part of me was complaining and going what the fuck connie I REBEL I WILL ROLL AWAY AND NEVER BELONG TO YOU AGAIN goodbye, then i was actually just ambulating at a fast pace. running is more than that. when i really feel the running, it feels like i can go forever. i remember once eva and i went running in fog, and then another time we went running in the winter dark, both times for nearly two hours, and both times it didn't even feel like i was expending any effort.


so i told myself that if i'm not enjoying this then something is wrong and i need to do something--slow down, look at trees, look at leaves, stop, go somewhere else--until it is fixed. if i'm not enjoying running, i'm not running. and my god it worked. i went into the back of picnic point, and it was just the trees, me, squirrels scaring me. kind of spooky because there was absolutely no one else out there in the wind-blown shade. i picked up leaves. i looked (transparent eyeball! that's emerson, the old crazy man) at everything. because it was so beautiful that to be outside, to be running, to see it all, couldn't NOT be enjoyment. then i didn't want it to end and went running around university bay fields, where there were less things to look at; i ended up looking at the sky (our earth is so big and so small) and running through crunchy leaves on completely unnecessary detours from the path. i think i looked seven kinds of idiot with leaves clenched in my hand, stomping through leaves on the ground, grinning, but man it felt awesome.


also it was great because even though i had been running for a long time i still passed several people. and then, while i stretched/stood at the union, a trio of policepeople came with a newly trained police dog and took a picture. the dog sat on one of those pillars by the alumni center while its owner, a policewoman, stood next to it and expressed embarrassed to be taking the picture. it was so cute. i worked up the courage to say something to them (police people, eeek) because i wanted to but was almost too shy to, and said it was an amazing picture to the policewoman, who seemed pleased.


yes. it was a good afternoon.

Meta moments

When I write essays for class, I usually do so in a frantic fury the day before it's due. Which means I spend like twenty percent of my brain processing power stressing over the fact that I didn't do it sooner. But, as I'm writing and a thought I like comes out, then I think about how if I'd done it even twenty minutes earlier, the thought conclusion I came to might be different. In fact, it most likely would have been. The sentence would be different. The paragraph would end differently. The words, chosen like books from a vast library in the mind, would be different. The paper written three days earlier under different circumstances, would be a vastly different paper.

It is as if you are a sculptor looking at a block of marble--you don't know what is in there waiting to come out yet but because you don't know, before you set chisel to stone, what is inside is infinite. It's Schroedinger's cat applied a little differently. Writing a paper is setting your mind to the blank space of thought as if it were the chisel. How does anything finite contain infinite things?

Wouldn't it be incredible if instead of seeing in the visible light spectrum, or infrared, or UV, you saw in possibilities? That would be the trippiest shit ever.

Given that, essay writing becomes comforting. Or at least the time frame in which you write, because then you are aware of the fragility of whatever you've just written. It could be something amazing and it had to have been that moment of time which gave rise to it, brought about by each of those thoughts and sentences which you deleted and changed. From the perspective of the final product, every single step along the way was significant. Therefore, writing it at 12:56 the day it's due isn't necessarily a bad thing. Of course, this depends on if you like what you came up with.

The general feeling that I get then is that things can come to be because they do. It's circular reasoning, I know. It also seems to be flavored by fate, but I don't mean that things happen and you're doomed to let them. Out of the infinity you chose to realize one. But how that one? If just a few moments of change would have realized a different one, doesn't it seem like that gives some weight of significance to the one that came to be, simply because it did?

okay i've thought myself into a wall. may i blame it on the congestion going on in what feels like the brain.

instead, since I can't seem to sleep, i will briefly speak about how life is like a river. it flows and flows. what then is the gravity that makes our lives go, like the force that makes the rivers flow? death? do we move towards, or just on? well that got really off the board. again, i'm just going for the odd sense of comfort that thought gives me. people flow into our lives, they flow out. what we have. events. everything that happens. they join and sometimes leave again, but the action continues; movement. things do not stagnate in life. (don't hold on too tightly, it may be here now, it may go, but it will be here again)

sometimes I lie in bed and think I can hear and feel it rushing.

I think that facebook is only a useful tool for those who would interact like a networking demon even in its absence

I think that facebook is only a useful tool for those who would interact like a networking demon even in its absence. That is, facebook furthers their relationships and makes it easier for said networking to occur but harbors little value for those who wouldn't be all friendly up in your face anyway. If you fall into the latter category, it's more likely that facebook offers an equal amount of annoyance and pain as it does social benefits, or whatever. For example it may let you momentarily reconnect with someone but if you don't feel the urge to pour energy into constantly posting on walls, then it just tapers off into cyber silence. Maybe it allows for the virtual friendship, hah, by which I mean, the friendship you believe still exists from a comment or two (if you're a girl: "you look so cute in this picture!") or "like" on a profile post: virtual both in its matter and context.

One positive aspect of facebook is that it lets you slide through time momentarily. And it enables such thoughts as this--when I see pictures of people who went to the same high school as me but are studying, say, in Turkey, I think about how people are like seedpods fermented (to mix metaphors) in the same place and then cast into the wind to make their way and impact on the world. Perhaps more than six degrees of separation, it's six degrees of influence.

The same thing can take on such different meanings based on perspective. "How do I want to get to know this person?" instead of "what does this person think of me?" Even if that thought is "everyone wants to get to know me."

idk it's late and i am extremely tired and yet i am on this thing writing.

bliss

i love the sound of crickets chirping in the summertime nights. and running. and cooking good food and eating it. as someone wise once told me, the world provides adequate resources for happiness. i think maybe that can even be extended, now, to infinite.

we owe so much of our lives to cultivating ourselves, our interests, our character, our loves and strong beliefs. maybe we'll never know "who we are" in a given moment of time, but every day is finding out. you live your way into the answer. i find myself thinking about that quotation more than i do others. perhaps because it resonates the most with what life seems to be offering.

lately i've been having crazy ideas of shaking the boat, changing things, doing one of those finding yourself in the depths of the himalayas while sipping tea with a lama ambles. it has to do with a growing difference i feel in myself. something's changing.

maybe it's hanging out with people who are open and friendly and seek to connect in the world. the people who believe every wall can come down and on the other side is someone interesting, someone who will be friendly, someone who will return your respect for them. i always looked down on that philosophy, on "networking" because of its inherently utilitarian undertones. maybe it's time to throw aside the...hipstercritic attitude.

OPTIMISM. let's see how long this lasts.

i can't wait to go wwoofing. can't wait to feel the impact of consumption, of getting dirty and physical and learning the land and watch it not live up to expectations.

Cooking monster

So instead of going for a run and then studying at the library, Becca and I went for a walk and rounded a corner into an incredibly unique sunset. The sun was a pure, brilliant deep red and you could look directly at it without any difficulty, which meant you could then watch it second by second as it sank behind the trees of picnic point. It was almost surreal, to notice the speed at which our world actually turns.

Today I spent a lot of time cooking. At Savory Sunday, there was the almost-consigned potato salad that turned into delicious potato bake, and the squash stir fry. I nearly melted into the industrial range. Then, after we walked, I came home and started cooking but then didn't stop for two hours. And I realize I have actually no interest in finishing this post.

I like cooking a lot.

hannah and i ran in the rain, under the lightning storm, and felt alive.

hannah and i ran in the rain, under the lightning storm, and felt alive. i felt more alive than i've felt in a goddamn long time. why do we only become lonely when we grow older? i think childhood is the best moment of our life, and it is fleeting, and despite all our hopes, we can never recapture it except to consciously strive for a replica of its existence that will never be more of a replica. which, considering our bloodless polite lives as mature adults, is good enough.

disallowed

soooo cute! so pretty!

http://bit.ly/oLhInG


but then you read and find out that their mother is named peggy. what the shit. that's like naming the universe tom.

a faint buzzing noise

it's been awhile since I wrote in here and therefore I can't remember what my last post was about, since I came straight to the "new post" button and did not look at my old posts nor collect 200 dollars. i'm kind of feverish (though on ibuprofen, which comes directly from god)--not a very high fever but because i run at a normal body temperature of like 96 degrees, a temperature of 100 makes me feel like everything in me has begun emitting electromagnetic radiation. while in a squished, fuzzy place. does that make sense?

god, i can't remember why i started writing in this. what the hell. i was thinking about change, but then vaguely remembered writing in here about change and that probably prompted my little spiel about monopoly posting. but then i started thinking about the dichotomy of philosophizing and daily life. now i am thinking about the venn diagrams that could be used to describe people. every person's kind of composed of venn diagram circles, and we're all on a search for those overlapping spaces.

now i am thinking that i think too much. i think and think and then i think about why i'm thinking what i'm thinking while i'm thinking and now i've used the word think far too many times. i find myself not satisfied unless i'm pondering/speaking of some deep philosophical topic (see: practically every other post on this rant-site) but then i get tired of myself for thinking of these things. this is a new phenomenon. previously, philosophizing was interesting and captivating; now, it still is but sometimes halfway through i go, fuck it, why am I on this topic AGAIN that requires so much investment of brain energy when i could be staring into space and wondering why squirrels looks so much like evil little rats.

but, it's a self-defeating thought process because such a phenomenon leads me to wonder if this is a symptom of the technological age today. and then i'm off on yet another philosophizing thought path which ends in frustration.

man, thinking is hard

Oh my GOD, FUCK LIBERTARIANISM.

oh my GOD, FUCK LIBERTARIANISM.

i think i am banging my head over and over and over again on a rock and the rock keeps shouting things like FORCE and EVIL and FREEDOM.

and i'm like, stfu bitch

To go ahead and not look back

It's 1234 o clock! Aaaaand.............................now it it's not. That's right, I just typed in ellipses until the minute changed. Better uses of time? I think not.

Change is strange. You can change and in the process of changing, not even notice the differences until you compare with the past. Then it's like you suddenly wake up and realize that you have become different. The feeling is kind of scary actually to know that you, the person you should know the best, can become a stranger to the previous you while you think nothing has changed. It kind of ties into that one quotation by Ranier Maria Rilke (whose name reminds me alternatively of cherries, men with female names, and something german) that goes roughly, just live your way into the answer. Every moment in the past was a now. That's why the change climbs upon you, because in the slice of the past that is the present, you aren't comparing.

Same with being at home. Going through all the stuff I drew, things I wrote, the debris of programs I attended, paper trails of a past. I found the blueprint I drew for a model house that I made in architecture camp, and was amazed by how at one point I somehow made the outlines of a building and then constructed it. Don't know how to do that anymore.

I guess that's why I like to read old things. Notes from friends in high school (the ones with inside jokes that are out of context and due to my shittastic memory, unable to be put into context, are funny and perplexing), emails, even chats. Without technology, such time-capsuling would be difficult so there's a check for technology in my pro/con list. I guess it could be argued that this behavior is not very pro-active or helfpul, since people change and inevitably you and whomever you were communicating with at that time are now completely different people with a different relationship so you run the risk of pessimistic nostalgia. But I think if you can learn something from these time capsules, then it's useful. If nothing else, if it can slide your perception out of this now and into the comparison of a past now, then it has been useful. To see the change you've gathered is useful, and stunning.

It's weird, I feel like now I remember who I am. And that's a good feeling.

Thought (com)post

Thinking ruts—are they okay?

Sweeping makes me think about how I spent a lot of my childhood sweeping. I guess not a lot. That lead up to the thought that how no matter what, no one will ever know what I experienced or how I felt. Who I am today is a product of everything that I experienced, and it’s like we are all a conduit for our past experiences. Experiences once removed. I am thinking about how no one will ever know anyone else perfectly, because we can never fully experience what they did. There are so many aspects to other peoples’ lives—maybe they swept every day too, or they played out in their yard in one particular tree, or ate from a particular bowl. I think it’s really cool how there are a thousand thousand intensely unique experiences for every person, and that’s what makes there be a thousand thousand different people. I guess it’s kind of a lonely thought too. Probably the take home message is to look past a perception and recognize that each person is an I.

Connections—another all-encompassing concept, like equilibrium

Thought-branches

Psychology—it’s killing the appreciation I have for an effect, since I think about the biological cause.

Superorganisms.

SO many things to think about, Every thing your eye perceives has millions of thought-branches: chair—perceptual thoughts, like lines and shapes, and spaces between slats; cognitive thoughts based off of perception—why do chairs always assume this shape, solely due to natural logic? imposed upon mankind? why certain flourishes at the top? what wood is used? what varnish? where did the tree come from?; connections to be made—chairs to physics (support, gravity) to the process of making—who made it? how? assembled where? what skills do you need?; what do chairs stand for? (ha); Marx and commodity fetishism; socially constructed chairs?; dreaming thoughts—who sat there, who will sit here, do chairs carry an imprint of their sitters (not like, an ass print but more along the lines of “what does technology want,” and how Radiolab used that word “want”--what does a chair "want"); specific, utilitarian thoughts—that chair is dirty, our apartment is dirty. That’s just a chair.

Living is the only situation where you experiment as you hypothesize

What if you died a hundred years from when you were born? "Where" would you be?

I wonder if you listen to music as a background to things, like doing work, you aren’t really fully appreciating it. For example, I never am able to hear lyrics. I think it’s because I always play music when I am doing something else and I am not listening to the words at all. I have to actively concentrate on them and not the other task at hand to hear them. Once I know the lyrics (have looked them up and such) then I will be able to recognize them aurally. I wonder if that is increasing my ability to tune things out—like the specific meaning of things. How big of a role does habituation play?

I think it’s really cool how you can bake things. You take like some sugar, some puree, stick it together, and not only are the ingredients physically transformed but it’s like there is some sort of mental transformation too. You get this whole. Parts to pie. That whole process of transformation, it applies in many ways to many things. I’m interested in mental paralleling physical transformation.

Memory is tied to the senses. Smells are powerful enough to knock you into a feeling-memory. How many memories are actually feeling and not just recalling? Sensation of that point in time, not image/visualization/recall of you in that time. can implant false smell memories?

It’s so weird when random but very specific things itch. Like the exact place where your ear meets your head.

Loops. Loops and circles in biology, life. Kind of like the concept of equilibrium as it applies across all fields—loops! Closed circles, circles, efficiency, beauty, things are circular.

The metabolism of cities

Birds chirping and waking up to the sound may be the happiest sound