Nihilism as Absurd Compassion Activism

all those times I've tried to be everything to everyone...

simple things

i've lost

along the way

little victories

unimpressed now

ungrateful

ever seeking greater things

inspired by great beings, aspiring to become greater still

but can i be good enough to be not evil to myself?

like to think I'm a nice person, but I only come off that way... 

---

an uncomfortable mind

in a pretty body

maybe that's...okay

--

...compassion...means something other than empathy...but what?

is it just a different perspective on suffering? one that is solution-oriented? And is it possible to get to compassion without the empathy perspective?

"Where empathy is about stepping into the shoes of another to understand and share their feelings, compassion is about acquiring a 360 degrees understanding of the suffering or problem that a person is experiencing.  Empathy is emotionally absorbing the feelings of another and, in contrast, compassion is holistically learning about their problem and taking action to resolve it.  The distinction is important for any discussion about the “unique burnout” of caretakers.  Emotionally absorbing another’s feelings, which empathy entails, is physically draining and can make you feel metaphorically stuck in quicksand.  Compassion, on the other hand, keeps the emotional quicksand at a distance by using a cognitive understanding of a person’s suffering when attempting to alleviate the pain: understanding without absorbing." Chris Kukk, The Difference between Compassion & Empathy

But does this sufficiently distinguish sympathy from empathy?

"There is some emotional distance with sympathy – you are not experiencing the pain for yourself, rather you are saying 'Isn’t it sad that this person is having a bad time'. Sometimes sympathy can tip into pity, and that is where some caution is needed....Empathy takes things a little deeper – it is the ability to experience for yourself some of the pain that the other person may be experiencing. It is an acknowledgement of our shared experience as humans and recognition that we all feel grief and loss and pain and fear...If empathy is the ability to really experience some of the feelings of pain that another person is feeling, then compassion is to translate that feeling into action. You understand that your friend is feeling worried and stressed with their aging relative in hospital, so you cook the family some dinners and take their children for an afternoon. True compassion reaches out to all people, no matter whether they are your friends or not, and even to all living creatures. It is the ability and willingness to stand alongside someone and to put their needs before your own." (Operation-Mediation, Sympathy v. Empathy v. Compassion)

Still the distinction is murky. The empathy as "understanding without absorbing" that Kukk is talking about almost sounds like sympathy, a kind of dispassionate recognition of someone's suffering.  Is it really possible to understand someone's suffering without absorbing it? Is experiencing someone's suffering not a requisite for compassionately acting upon it?

Kukk cites a study by Tania Singer, director of neuroscience at Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Lepzig, who "has used MRI scanners to show that compassion and empathy 'are two different phenomena associated with different brain activity patterns.' "  But neither is clearly aware of the fact that all of these people in caregiving roles find themselves going through the burnout of " 'compassion fatigue' (a.k.a. secondary traumatic stress)" [Kukk]  There must be something more to compassion than just empathy-inspired action.

Jumping back to some word roots:

Sympathy is an "assimilated form of syn- 'together' (see syn-) + pathos 'feeling' (see pathos)"; syn being "(prep.) 'with, together with, along with, in the company of' " and pathos being " 'suffering, feeling, emotion, calamity,' literally 'what befalls one' "

Empathy is "modeled on German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"), which was coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) a translation of Greek empatheia "passion, state of emotion," from assimilated form of en 'in' (see en- (2)) + pathos "feeling" (see pathos)"; em- being a "word-forming element meaning 'near, at, in, on, within,' from Greek en 'in,' "

It remains difficult to distinguish these terms due to their seemingly discontinuous arrival in the language. I recall the term sympathy being used by Adam Smith, for example, writing natively in English, suggesting the idea of "fellow feeling," which does not so much sound like the sympathy that is common today. Is the distinction merely a difference of linguistic-historical context, meant to denote the same feeling? Is the semantic distinction significant of cognitive differences in these feelings? Best question I can imagine at the moment: How can you tell a sympathetic reaction from an empathetic one?

Jumping back, I see that another aspect of the etymology of empathy claims it is, "A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer's ability to project his personality into the viewed object."  This projection experience seems to be something distinct, perhaps a more active form of feeling in which you try to project your feelings into another's experience. The more I imagine this, the more troubling it sounds: how can an attempt to project one's senses into another's experience generate real understanding? Would anything about one's fellow feeling actually change by projecting it into someone else? Aside from a SQUID-type device "which records events directly from the wearer's cerebral cortex," ("Strange Days", Wikipedia) it seems difficult to know if you've achieved any accuracy or just shoe-horned your feelings in someone else's body.

....blech. All these thought-words.  Nothing helping...not to resolve the persistent questions: is Sheba okay?  how can I help them?  why do I want to help them?  how do I help someone who can't help themself?  (Sheba is a homeless person I met eight months ago in Boulder, hobbling his way into town -- having an injured leg due to being hit by a car -- with only the possessions on his back -- having been robbed of his inventory of computers and  arrived in town and looking for a home and community of activists, ) and the most troubling question of all...did I do enough to help him?  

Who is going to be the judge?  Thoughts and feelings are really not enough...especially when it comes to below freezing temperatures and nowhere else to go...true he is unwilling to accept the homeless services, due to a requirement to receive undesirable psychiatric medication/treatment, so what do you say to yourself. Tough luck. 

And then, it comes, the vindictive response...I wanna say "Do you enjoy living this way?! Why are you doing this to me, putting me in this position??" I know it's not really you that I want to blame...and I don't think it's everyone either...I think it's fucking existence, which is so filled with injustice it makes you wonder when anyone suggested the word egalitarian. 

How long must I listen? What am I supposed to say? You didn't ask me to ask the questions of your existence, to solve the problem of how to do work 

 about how to resolve your life's problems, but you seem to need someone to wake you up to the necessity of not getting your way.

and yet you're not asking yourself how to make your life better.  you're stuck in the dilemmas, and not letting yourself choose anything undesirable.

, and yet still don't understand: where is it they are coming from? I know it is not helpful to blame them for the situation they are in, so what do I do?  I want to NOT continue to take undue responsibility for problems of this society...yet what is my due?  All can I do?  How much can I do?  How much is enough?  When the revolution still hasn't come, when the absurd wheel of this society keeps turning, when the contradictions go on unresolved, is any one thing ever enough?

The feeling of stuck-ness. 

Dilemmas ahead, behind, all around.

Undesirable scenarios...some more desirable than others.

Still, I must ask: how much is enough?

Further: how much is too much?

When we will be able to demand a STOP to our moneyed existence? (THE MINIMUM WAGE WILL NEVER BE HIGH ENOUGH TO SURVIVE.)

When will we be able to live on compassion?

When will we begin to thrive?

Revolution is slow.  Latent crises demand that we push. Necessity requires that we build a community to break this society's fall. But the common faith that connects all beings is still lacking. 

I walked away from Sheba today.  I had nothing else to say...only an ear to hear his words and walk away another sad person, wanting to be of service, and feeling powerless because I couldn't solve their problems, and unwilling to offer my resources to another fucked up individual.

(The one thing I walk away thinking is that I was able to convey my emotions and not just be nice, as in, pleasant and pathetic. Forced to be a crutch in someone else's struggle.  AND YES I know that's fucked up to say that out loud, to pity yourself when as a white male you've got all this institutional access and social privilege that you should really hold yourself to a higher standard than everyone who lives in this perpetual underclass, to say that you're the one who deserves concern when someone else is in need. But I tried my best to convey how I thought I could help Sheba: not by offering another sympathetic ear, to make him feel good about his knowledge, and listen to his woes, (which it always seems to come back to) but someone to point the next step in improving his situation. I don't think I did well at it...despite having tried...I just wish I didn't have to feel like I may have condemned him to die.  It's this bullshit about good intentions that seems like an easy fall back when you become an im-perfectionist. This isn't supposed to mean that anything goes. I want it to mean: it's okay to make mistakes, to not get it right every time, that....yes, intentions are important...but so are results.)

I find my back to an article that I discovered a year ago, which actually happens to be an interview with the Tania Singer who is cited in these previous blog posts. She gives me a more salient distinction of this empathy/compassion distinction:

"When I empathize with the suffering of others, I feel the pain of others; I am suffering myself. This can become so intense that it produces empathic distress in me and in the long run could lead to burnout and withdrawal. In contrast, if we feel compassion for someone else’s suffering, we do not necessarily feel with their pain but we feel concern – a feeling of love and warmth – and we can develop a strong motivation to help the other.

The neural networks underlying the effects of empathy and compassion training are very different. Whereas the former increases negative emotions, the latter is associated with positive feelings of warmth and increased activation in brain networks associated with affiliation and reward.

This may have large implications for people working in care-giving professions, such as nurses, doctors, therapists, and even fire fighters. Teaching them to transform an initial empathic response when confronted with the deep suffering of their patients or clients into a compassionate stance could protect them from negative health consequences and burnout often associated with these jobs. At the same time, it could also help the patients, as compassion is not only rewarding for yourself but obviously good for others too." (Feeling Others' Pain: Transforming Empathy into Compassion, Interview with Tania Singer)

What does that compassionate stance produce? Not just the feeling of being heard, but some kind of action. Even if the results are incomplete, this is something better than nothing.  I think true caregivers are looking at the whole person, however, and do not want to see their job go unfinished. They may want take on more than is requested of them, because their empathy reveals more than just a momentary pain to be healed or soothed. They would like to see suffering to cease and thus take on more responsibility than their bodies can sustain, and unsustainable behavior is not creating the net gain that we'd like to achieve.

I want to say something new about why I want to do what I do.  It's not because I feel bad for others and I want to make them feel better so that I can feel better.  It's because we can feel better together.  It's just more difficult to achieve once you recognize the problems are rather intractable...some social structures are repeating the same traumas on the people...and even if you can learn to recognize them, you can't solve them on your own: you need a whole crew behind beside you and maybe, over a lifetime or so, you get to see progress.  Maybe.  That mere possibility thing can be another killer...the idea you are putting effort into something that might be scrapped eventually.  You can't get tied to the thing you put your effort into...and in a peculiar way, you might find it easier to not even retain hope for the desired outcome, simply out of the expectation for an end goal that needs to change before you achieve it. Still, efforts made should be acknowledged, even if all of our concerns cannot be put to rest.

Let us give thanks, now and again, to Pandora for preventing Hope from leaving her box, for however unintentionally she had prevented releasing it into the world along with all the other plagues, we might be better off without it than to have a crutch which helps us to avoid acting in an absurd universe.

2015.01Jan.02, 12:34 am

the Truth of Nihilism

to uncover the Truth of nihilism:

there is no Truth....

but there are Truths.

inSpirites of proto-#Jez3Prez

if i could be satisfied as anybeing in the world, it would be as the inSpirites in the Mind of my Anarchives. -- #Jez3Prez

For the Picture "Is" show at Good Faith Space...4-6 images...well i must be trying to break the gallery walls with this infinite set of [#] images...updated [potentially] as like things tend to attract more versions of themseves, according to the axiom of Social Affinity: Non-Opposites do attract.

the images are "mine" in the sense that I am a crystal filter of images thru the "I"s of my Friendz....and our Others.......but anyway let me just tell you how these images of "mine" came to be.....................................................

Shocked by the power of a totally manufactured process which produces a photograph of beautiful models acting out an evocative scene in order to force me to want one of the "real love stories," i decided to stain the page in a similar process as Auguste Rodin's nude water colors to make this fairy tale a little sexier ;^)

Collage water-color in Minneapolis, MN, ca. 2008.

"The morning after I [almost] died" was taken at dawn, lying up in a sleeping bag in a damp bivy sack after a cold sleepless night, before Richard and I [who would later collaborate on writing The Horizon of Objectivity: An evaluation of knowledge paradigms] would attempt to hike our last day out of the Lake Superior Hiking Trail, both of us on nearly empty stomachs and suffering from giardia. 

Photograph ca. June 2008

Shvliko, personal yogi and inversion specialist, traveled to New York during my first spring there and we traveled to many places where he did handstands on everything.  He is now a medical student in North Dakota, one of a strange troupe from this state who helped invent Occupy Wall Street when he lived there in 2011; he led the first sessions of Wall Street Yoga for the Wall Street Arts and Culture group of the autonomous assembly organization unofficially titled "the New York City General Assembly" (NYCGA), previously reported on in this column.

Orian, an Eagle person originating from somewhere around California, hereby perching upon a slowly, decaying tree in this copse of leafy trees in Prospect Park, ca. 2011.  Orian's work adorned the walls of Magic Mountain (also known Andrea's Place, a temporary centralized habitat of the Novads).  

I almost didn't include this photo because I didn't feel it was "good enough" [I wish I could erase the detrimental way in which this concept has influenced my personality as an optimistic Methodist North Dakotan, whose parents never said it was easy, but never said it would be soooooooooooo hard.  They try very hard to keep me from straying far from home, excited by the life of adventure and terrified of doing it themselves.  Felicity, a photographer, who visited me during my summer in Paris, and when we later embarked on a momentous trip into the Mediterranean, nights in Girona, Barcelona, went to the Dali museum and Cas de Ques and all.  Now that I look at the photo again, it's just not bad...she's lounging, other ppl are lounging...it's very relaxed...like when I see it I just think "Paris -- Buttes de Chaumont" watching the sun set over Paris.  (Paris is still one of the most beautiful cities to look at, tho it has a fascism of beauty.)  Felicity is one of the many sides of myself that I miss seeing on a regular basis and I look forward to visiting her some soon afternoon.

#7thFashion comes from the "Water Cave period" in the anarchives of #Jez3Prez.  Only a few people have ever experienced the Water Cave and it's delights, but many look forward to another exciting trip there. 

This is my first BIG painting, whose existence is inextricably linked to my education & experiments with Sarah Demke.

[insert other BIG painting picture here] 

This is a better picture of it.

This is not for you.

Item: *ion by E. E. _ummings
Creation date: 2012.MAR.2
From the ANARCHIVES!

Created not for you (the Finder) but for every other person you create it for. You must become: the Donor!

what is a friend w/o work?

Too many relationships - TOO DEMANDING.
Too self-commanding. We've got too many relationships
it's too DEMANDING
it's too DEMANDING
keeping - up - with all - our - friends

in the Way that We feel they deserve


so we let them all fall...by the wayside
and we hope that everyone can understand
or at least the people that matter
can understand
that we care about them too much
TOO MUCH!
Too Much!
to ENGAGE in less than meaningful conversation
(and this apparently takes a lot of energy) (and time)
(and which has to be built up to over long periods of time)
(and sometimes its easier if we randomly encounter each other and recall the thing that we're supposed to be doing at the moment at that time at that very moment in time)


Or are we just...anti-social? (and just...don't know it??)

"Relationships take work" and we don't want to work
but
FRIENDSHIPS ARE PLAY AND We JUST WANT TO PLAY!

"Lovers need work" and we don't want to work
but
FRIENDSHIPS ARE FUN AND We JUST WANT SOME FUN!

but some
Friendships ARE work, though perhaps they should not be...

So what is a friend without work?
Can we actively engage one another at all times?
Or is Time itself the trouble?...a dandelion may explode just THEN! when/during/after we try to seize it in our hands.

But relationships do take trust. SO how do you get there...

REPORT: First General Assembly of New York Established; Preparations for Wall St Occupation Begin

Hello everyone - Here is MY report on the August 2nd, People's Assembly on Wall Street. I emphasize MY report because it consists of my perspective alone on the activities of the day and does not represent any official record of minutes of the general assembly.

FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NEW YORK ESTABLISHED; PREPARATIONS FOR WALL ST. OCCUPATION BEGIN

Under continuous pressure by police, the first General Assembly of New York (GA-NY) made some of the initial decisions to begin organizing for an occupation of Wall Street currently planned for September 17, 2011 and to extend indefinitely.

The "People's General Assembly on Wall Street" action on August 2nd ran from approximately 4:30 - 8:30 pm. The event began with a speakout via microphone and speaker just south of the Wall Street Bull on the cobblestone section of Bowling Green Park. After approximately a half-hour, earlier than expected, the structure shifted towards convening an actual general assembly. A protest march on Wall Street was voted down by the GA on August 2nd, the symbolic date for the deadline for Congress to pass the bill raising the federal debt ceiling (which, notably, makes across the board cuts to government spending without raising any tax revenue). Each segment ran at approximately the following times: speakout from 4:30-5:30, a general assembly (GA) 5:15 - 7:15, split into working committees 7:15-7:35, and a final wrap-up GA.

Aside from one particular point of confusion and concern [which I have noted in detail in 2nd-to-last paragraph at the end of this report], the events of the August 2nd assembly on Wall Street went mostly according to plan. The activity of the first GA-NY included:

- Approx. 7:15 pm: Voted to break up into smaller committees and reconvene shortly thereafter. Committees on Outreach; Food; Technology: Social Media; Students; thoughts on the structure of the

GA were established. General Assembly reconvened after [I was not present for it].

- Voted to have next GA-NY Meeting on Tuesday, August 9 at 7:30 at Irish Hunger Memorial, 1 World Financial Centre, NYC [NOTE: initial proposed location was DC 37 and changed after the GA reconvened post-committee meetings]

- Discussion of proposals and concerns for a planned occupation of Wall Street

ACTIONS taken by the committees include [I was not present for reports from the committees, but received this information second-hand]:

- Outreach: next meeting Thursday, August 4 at 6:30 pm at the Writer's Guild, 250 Hudson St, 7th floor open to all interested in organizing outreach to NYC community groups, as well as national and international organizations

- Food: plan to have food at next GA meeting on Tuesday

- Logistics: discussed tactics for interactions with police during an occupation

- Thoughts on the GA structure: Agreement/disagreement based on hand signals; Create a progressive stack; In particular, created structure for proposals including a moment for clarification and tempature check; next, ask for discussion/blocks; then, the vote. A block breaks down concensus and moves to 2/3rd vote.

CONCERNS expressed during the GA were, with particular action and agreements reached in parentheses:

- need to establish working committees; New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts (NYABC), a coalition of unions, student groups, community organizations and activists for NYC and who were responsible for the Bloombergville occupation in June 2011 have established some organization already and could be utilized to not overlap; however, the majority of the participants in the GA-NY are not part of NYABC and may not wish to meet under that name (realized that these options were not mutually exclusive)

- need to define the proper format of a GA (a committee was formed to discuss and consider the GA structure)

- The GA must be open to expressions of agreement or disagreement: despite the inner tensions that might come from that, we know there is much to unite us.

- Not wanting to be enveloped under another pre-existing group while not wanting to dismiss a lot of the work done by NYABC

- Despite legal concerns that police will not allow us to use parks in a group of 20 or more, there was significant emphasis placed on the importance of having GAs in public space

- Logistics about confronting police in an occupation of Wall Street; be sure to record any repressive activity that is going on; be careful discussing any plans for civil disobedience

- Need to reach out to unions, who are strong in NYC

- Concern about September 17, 2011, as the expected date of Wall Street occupation: established by Adbusters but without having contributed any material support to organization

- Need media and musicians; need to hear/collect the stories of people who have been affected by budget cuts, mortgage foreclosure, etc.

OTHER PROPOSALS made during the GA but which were not voted on include [I did not catch all the proposals which were made]:

- convene GAs in the boroughs/neighborhoods; have GAs at least weekly

- creating a special website for the GA-NY

- having a demonstration targeting the Federal Reserve bank,

- promotion of organizing work being done through Picture the Homeless,

- organize through New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts who have experience with one occupation (Bloombergville) and have already done a lot of groundwork in NYC, others?

- the committees should prepare the proposals which come before the GA

Finally, a brief attempt to objectively describe the confusion and concerns that arose in the first GA-NY, a few participants were adamantly opposed to the initial speakout sessions being voiced through the loudspeaker, proclaiming that it was "not a general assembly" and demanding that a more open GA be created. Though organizers quickly shifted to the general assembly structure for the meeting, maintaining use of the loudspeaker caused the opposed participants to organize their own assembly, causing a brief bifurcation in the group: one group utilizing the GA structure of an open floor but maintaining the loudspeaker to contend with the traffic noise, the other group seating themselves in a circle closer to Bowling Green park. The breakaway faction had objected to the format because it appeared to function more like a rally than a GA and expressed concerns about being forced to speak under a particular political party or viewpoint voiced this criticism; as they broke off to begin the GA, paricipants were stuck between the two groups. As the power began to die from the loudspeaker, the group voted by simple majority to move to the traditional GA and joined the circle, in which the GA was already under way.

[All apologies for lack of coverage on the people who spoke at the speakout and the beginning of the GA (before I started taking notes), and both during and after the committee meetings. If anyone has notes on these who spoke and what was discussed during portions that were missed here, please include your information in the comments below. Also, and this is important, if you did not have an opportunity to speak or have something you forgot or would now like to mention or felt dissuaded or otherwise discouraged from speaking, please add to the comments here. As an open and democratic community, we encourage everyone to engage in dialogue: no matter whether your comments are supportive, productive, or critical please make them amicable in all cases. Thank you, all!]

But what is untruth?

honest is a feature which is valuable

today, everyday, every other day

what makes me worry? time

obscuring its boundaries, making us naive

for the sole purpose of entertainment

but I am honesty and to shrug everything off

is boring, stupid, and yes, untrue.

faster/slower

(To all friends...wishing that they catch their beats, keep them steady...)

I sense that
all lives are passing through this land, some

faster/
slower

than I.

Music barely keeps up
with Time,
Sunlight will nearly skew
the Truth...and my heart can hardly catch the top of its own
down
beat.

So godspeed you! too into this good night,
and remember -- when the last road is finally drove -- that

nothing rattles in the soul
like death
and may-be be gracious to it, whenever
it arrives.

And whne I waleked into...

[as if under water]

And when I walked into the umbrella shop
a fish slapped me in the face!
The long fin scooped a scraped shell from the barrel and
Went wandering from aisle to aisle like a fisherman stranded in his boat
The skies heavy and dark above me admitted no light and I could only see from the faint flicker of fluorescent bulbs the crickets and flies all singing inside, all trapped in plastic bins
Encrusted with jewels then, I demanded a balloon to fend my head from the rain
Yet even the helium of the heavy laden umbrella could not keep me awake
And the rain poured down over my head in hot bedsheets of consciousness.
And the rain poured down over my head
and the rain poured over down my head

[and coming to the surface now]

and rain poured the head over my down
and the rained down over my pour head
and my head rained down over the pour
and the pour rained over my head down
and the down rained my over head pour
and the my down headed over rain pour
and my pour rained the head over down
and rained the pour my down head over
down the rain poured over my head and
my pour head rain the downed over and

[and really grasping for air]

the down headed over and my pour rain
rained over head the down pour and my
poor head, down the over rained! And
over head the poor rained down and my
dour head rained, pour and over my, the
head rain over and down and poured the
head over the rain, the sound and my pour
my poor head powered the down and over-
powered the poor down head over mine and
over thou, poor my head and down power
now, over and down, my head, poor thou,
now my head, over-downed, poured the rain
my sand, under power over thou, now pour
the sand, my rain, under power over thou,
under power over thou, my rain the sanded
now, the landed how, my head rain over,
I rained straight down, under power over power
The now powered power, thou sanded in the now
Soured down in the cellar, under over over thou
Under power over now, the rain headed showered down
The head, down the over, sour rain showered down
Over rain my head down under poured the and
And the poor, under cover over under and
Thou under now, powered over my head my
Thunder over now, my coward my sand
My power overpowered, the rain! my head
Rained, the power over and down, my head
The rain thundered, my head, over and down,
And over, and down, and my head poured now
Hour over hour, and hours over now, my head,
my head, Rain downed and over the now –

[gasping]

down, over, over down, under now, the rain
headed slow, the sound sudden over and heading down,
my head, though lower, the sound now down,
uncovered. my head, the loud hour over now;
now, my Rain, down I’m over thou over now
and, my Rain, I’d never undered thou, never now.

[normal]

The hot bedsheets of my consciousness, awash in their power, I awoke sweating hot beads of water and found myself a shower. I wrote this poem under water now, under a showerhead of great strength, under duress of conscious stress, the balloon my head resembled in my hour of distress. Where’s my umbrella, I had once thought, though the fisherman had been wasted by my trout in his sinking boat, overboard every one went when she administered her florid fin to man’s head, we too are sinking inside, all trapped in plastic bins, the umbrellas carrying water, the bedsheets carrying limbs, The consciousness in my head aroused a sky of heavy, dark fish-men to take me strong-armed, defenseless, demanding shells of silken soil, eyes flickering in their lifeless eyes, and like shutting a silent door, I forced closed, my head down, to send it below the undersea, knowingly powerless to escape the rain that Fate commanded me. My fish, my fellow friends, I have stumbled upon a truth, that the humans who know and love have even fabricated the roof – I cannot believe my head anymore, I cannot believe my skin, it’s true this time, my fishes, they’ve taken our senses and they’ll steal our breath again! Keep your heads down, rest easy and light, dream beautiful dreams, fly beautiful flights, but seek ye not the heavens beyond or beyond the heavenly truth or beware not the others’ minds but your own, for when its left the others’ behind, you’ll find no comfort among your starry ideals and no shelter from what you find. Take my way, my friends, or take me away from my way, but I know myself better than you, and I know my way is your own, but I know should you take nothing of me a way but away, but away…look now, I’ll shed my dreary disguise, it’s enough to kill a man for wanting to philosophize…

[cheerfully now]

And
over the rain my poured head down and
down the over my pour and rained head
Downed the head my pour rain over and
Over the rain poured down my head and
My head the rain and pour downed over
The head rain my over poured down and
Over headed my rain and down pour the
Down the pour and over headed rain my
Head my pour headed rain down the and
Down the rain my head over poured and
Downed my head over rain the pour and
down head the rain over and poured my
dour head over rained my poor the and
and the my drained head down pour over
pour over the rain and…

thoughts on nostalgia

After the occurrence of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, a friend of mine asked me a few passing questions on the subject of political nostalgia, both commenting on how vague it was and questioning whether it pined for a time that may never have existed in the first place. Below is my response:

--

recognizing the importance on the topic of nostalgia, I spent about 4 hours the other day just trying to put together some semblance of thoughts on the matter and I utterly failed. thus the wait. I came back to it now and for some reason could put together my mini-thesis on the subject, but I'm interested to hear if this is what you're already thinking on the matter, or if you disagree in any way.

Nostalgia as I understand it represents a kind of homesickness in terms of time, and it does not really serve as a respectable political feeling except among those people who share the feeling. For the people that don't feel it, it is only too easy that it should come off as foolish. Like any other emotional response, I think there is something reasonable about this reaction to the present political moment, but it is obviously a dangerous game to take seriously the nostalgia of the Tea-party when it is being led by a radical like Beck. The people may not really be as bad as that, but because there is no official party agenda, we don't know what policies or changes can actually be expected from this rag-tag bunch of political newbies.

But more to your interests, arguably, the homesickness suggests that something in reality has changed - if nothing more than that we feel more uncomfortable or unhappier now than in the past. The effects of the financial crisis is only the most obvious example that much has changed for America recently. But like you mentioned, there is also a sense in which nostalgia can occur without any basis in real change. One of the most common examples of it would be the idea that those long lost comfortable feelings never existed in the first place, or at least that they've been idealized to such an extent that we convince ourselves that we have really gone astray. It would not be the first time that people willingly deceive themselves for certain political ends. Furthermore, part of nostalgia may involve fomenting discontent, where there need not be any - you get people believing they are worse off now than the past.

That explanation of nostalgia does present a real danger for politics, but i worry that it makes the people who feel nostalgia out to be either really dumb or really sinister, like some great conspiracy against logic and reason which has aimed at construing history to their own ends. I've become more pessimistic about human nature, but still I'm more interested in exploring other possible explanations than the basest possible interpretations. One other interpretation might be that it is us that has changed, and not the situation itself - like when we attempt our return only to realize that it no longer feels like home.

Nostalgia is also so vague as to be really unproductive - in fact, it has a tendency to produce simplistic responses to complex questions. And maybe that simplicity makes it even more desirable in an age when American politics exists on a massive scale, must consider multiple international factors, and at a moment when the influence of America is waning and even we are feeling lost without the polarization of distinct national powers. We're not quite sure of the way forward, so there is a strong desire to go back; unfortunately, politics is more like a flowing river than a path that we get to wander at our own pace - and you can never step into the same river twice. The best example of this I can think of is the sense in which the continued growth of the American economy since WWII was supported by the expansion of business into the realm of financial speculation and supported by the expansion of credit markets to more and more consumers. The real problem with nostalgia in this instance comes from the idea that going back to a simpler time of "fiscal responsibility" is simply not possible without wrecking the foundation for economic growth. In this solution especially, the way back is not a viable way forward.

That doesn't mean nostalgie is not sometimes a legitimate political emotion. Like anger or hope, it is subject to dangers of being turned to poorly conceived or meaningless ends. We just have to figure out how to turn it to the most effective ends.

There - take that! haha...i'll never get the thesis done at this rate...

jb

p.s. grooveshark exists in the US. yessss....

9/1/2010, 12:53 a.m.

I'm mad as hell, and I don't know what to do about it

"Network" is as compelling a piece of heavy-handed, melodramatic film as has ever been created. The last line of the film upon Howard Beale's death - "the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings" - is as clear a revelation as any that the film is largely a joke. It is satire, or it has to be, in order for us to stomach it. Yet I find myself more struck by the film's prescience every time I see it:

the logic of anxiety, as in I'm not saying anything for certain, but I'm not denying that there may be a connection

the great success of Howard Beale's model of the modern American patriot, televangelist, and media-man-gone-mad

the peddling of fear and panophobia in a hybridized media-politic

the tracing of money trails toward suspect foreign interests

the muddling of entertainment and news

the dissemination of and belief in lies based on the most paranoid, conspiratorial and tabloid-worthy title

the importance of vox populi which propagates injustice in the pursuit of populism

the gospel of unmitigated globalization as the model for world peace

the lament over the loss of the individual

the TV generation who is incapable of emotion or ethics

the disbelief in democracy and the incapacity to acknowledge it

the latest development in great and aimless rage of American politics

the suspicion of systemic corruption which touches every level of human life

the media who cuddled the masses in their nostalgic blanket

All these stand as general trends which can be extrapolated from the film's plotline, characters and context. But there is at least one moral that could be taken from this variety show of ideas: that the intersection of media and capitalism has an ideology which will destroy human life. The business of media is vying for this kind of ecstatic attention, much like any business, and it will drive not just the newspeople mad, but every last one of us.

Yet the scapegoat is too simple. And the film's propaganda itself is not entirely pure: it also suggests a number of troubling questions which counteract this agenda. Are things worse now than they've ever been? Are we all just watching the world through our tubes; do we want to just be left alone? Or are we so decadent as to believe only what gets our attention, namely our worst nightmares? When the people no longer believe that, it will quickly throw it under the bus just to keep us buying. For example, the story seems to reassure us of at least one character who is sane in this mad mad mad mad mad mad world, Max Schumacher, the ex-producer of this corrupted news program and once friend of Beale, who has left the arctic TV programming queen, Diana Christensen, to return to his wife because he believes in love and human dignity and all these romantic things...yet it all seems to substitute one more madness for the last. There is no easy return to romanticism. Nothing can save us from this satire.

So how was this film - an exaggeratedly acted soap-opera and cynical satire of contemporary life - handed 4 Oscars and a host of other awards and nominations? Does it deserve applause for prematurely pronouncing the flaws of our time, or for adding to the apocalyptic visions of our "most advanced" form of human life? As I said, upon seeing it again tonight, I found the film incredibly heavy-handed in its critique, but artful in a way that kept me watching in even its most ludicrous moments. At the very least, this should say a little something about defining the divide between good and bad art: maybe the line is as crooked as a criminal, or maybe it is not there at all.

8.25.2010, 1:39 am

"A world without suffering - how is it possible?"

We need to continue to find ways of recognizing the meaning of suffering in the world. These theodicies are the only things that can help us cope with the ever-present existence and constant eruption of suffering into our everyday, rational view of the world. This issue of "nihilism" seems to stem from a push to see a world that has no suffering - or the suggestion that we could in fact entirely eliminate suffering!

"A world without suffering - how is it possible?"

The obvious answer would be to amass such an amount of surplus value and material ends to the extent that one could never go hungry, receive illness, be harmed by anyone, or feel unhappiness or pain, etc., etc.. And initially this would seem to be a very great thing. But there is an even simpler way: rid yourself of all desires, values and meaning in this world and you will have all you ever want or need.

It is not insignificant that the achievement of the so-called "simpler" thing depends on one's ability to achieve the will of the monk. (And this would be the significant thing!) But when an entire culture of such ingenious "individuals" aims for the first and supposedly greater goal - as we do now - one must aim for the will of the ant.

Awwwwww...so many puppies!

PUPPIES

+

RAGE GUY


=

SO MANY PUPPIES!

http://thisclosetosolipsism.blogspot.com/2010/01/so-many-puppies-with-clickable-pictures.html

Bjork - All is Full of Love

This video is not what it seems. Seven hints/pieces of advice for Bjork's All is Full of Love video. There might be more going on here - if you find anything new or different than me, then let me know.

(For clarity's sake, i'll refer to robot arms as "robots" and the humanoid robots as "fembots".)

SPOILLLERS!
Watch the video first - then see below.

1. The film is running out backwards. (Provided we assume traditional rules of physics, all the fluids which appear in this video run in the opposite direction that they should.) This is the first key to understanding.
   
   
2. But why are the mouths of the humanoid robots not singing in reverse then? Why do their words continue to match up with their mouths? The answer: this is either a memory or a dream about a memory.
   
   
3. The robots who assemble our fembot here seemed, at first viewing, to do so lov(e)ingly. The scene turns sinister when we realize the real process that is plays out in reverse, that it was all alone and lights out for her at the beginning of this video.
   
   
4. This is a stage that the fembot players are playing upon. Are they puppets? Or are they robot humanoid actors playing for us and all the other robots out there...?
   
   
5. The final scene is a sex scene. This seems like one kinky play: let's start 'er out with some hot fembot lesbian sex and polish 'er off with some good old disassembly and death!
   
   
6. What is the conversation in the bathroom about? I still can't figure it out. Something makes me think it has to do with some kind of rejection, such that the blue fembot is sent for disassembly. Help here?
   
   
7. What incredible emotion expressed by these expressionless faces! No seriously, think about it. Robot drama is totally opposite than human drama - less emotion expressed is best. Considering that, these must be a two of the worst fembot actors known to humanoid robot-kind.

A Search for the Soul of the World

My life is not one which is intimate with violence and hardship. To be sure, in comparison with the life of the rich, it is also not one of decadence and leisure; but in comparison with much of the world's people...most of the world...a whole fucking lot of people, I am in an enviable situation. I have some semblance of choice and freedom. More importantly (or perhaps, more accurately), I have some sense of control over my own life. Perhaps it is egocentric of me to assume it - ethnocentric at least - but I feel a great potential in my own mind and body, and a great confidence in the possibility to actualize it.

But how am I different from these 80 Chinese textile workers (drowning in the noise of sewing machines running in early mornings, the late afternoons, and the evenings all over again - tired eyes staring into the tiny stitches of haute couture)? How am I unique from the kids growing up under the Camorra in the Mediterranean heat? What right have I to be satisfied with this? Who am I supposed to thank for this blessing?

No one. For if it is a blessing to me, then it is a curse to 10 others. If there is some One to be thanked for this single life, that is One who should be damned for the sorry state of the others. I try to rationalize it, but the end of the logic always results in remainders. Excess. Garbage. This reality, this dumb facticity, this absurd world, which has absolutely no interest in me or my "success", hit me like a slug in the chest. It passed like a cold ghost through my breast plate and settled in somewhere next to my heart. And it will not go. No response to any solution I put to it - no finger can reach - nothing with which to dislodge or dissolve it.

What is just? That some few should stand on top of a mountain of dead? That we should pull some of the human wreckage below up along with us, but how shall we choose whom? And to what purpose is the ascent? What lies at the peak? Lies, lies - there is none. Nothing at the end of it all. And yet I fear to look back down behind me lest I should burst into tears. So where do I look? Into my soul and pray that I may find something still there...

10.13.2009, 12:09 am

2009.10.1 (my quintessential NY experience)

2009.10.1 (my quintessential NY experience)

Today I had what I will begin calling my quintessential New York experience. Well, it will only be quintessential if it comes to something. Then again, it could become significant just because it comes to nothing as well. But before that theoretical development, let me tell you what happened.

Walking out of the glass doors marked "Poussez/Push" of the Alliance Francaise, where I had just begun taking French classes, I turned right down the street. I was planning to take the subway back to campus, back in Greenwich village and go study at the library. I hadn't even thought about lunch at this point - my head was still swimming in French, thinking, "Un mois. Un mois plus tard. C'est vrai. J'avais raison!" etc. I looked down at my phone as I walked (assumedly I was checking the time but I can't remember now) and when I looked up, I was looking across the street at something called the Grolier Club NYC. In my memory, I recalled something that they were supposed to have an exhibit about William Blake, and I decided to investigate.

There were no signs up featuring Blake's name or pictures when I entered. Nevertheless I inquired at the desk, and the women looked confused. Obviously, my memory had failed in some way. She showed me some information for the currently running shows - one about Leipzig University, the other on European symbolism in books or something. Disappointed, I considered taking the information and leaving to come back at some other time. Yet there was an older woman on the way out who exclaimed the wonderful-ness of the Leipzig show and I listened to her intently. Another woman had come into the lobby by then, passed right by the woman on her way out, and said that she was about to go take a tour with the curator of the show right then, and wondered if the woman would like to take it with her. The woman expressed great disappointment, but had to leave (for she was going to her Tai Chi class), and the woman asked me if I was interested in going. I said, yeah, that sounds great. I said, "Man, it's just like I stumbled in here - serendipitous," utilizing that word for the first time in my life. I didn't think too much of her at first, and we went toward the exhibition space and met the professor who would give us the tour. Evidently the woman had contacted him prior to coming here to organize the tour for herself, but I thought there was some long-standing connection there. He was not dismayed at having another person tag along for the tour and he brought us back.

He brought us around to the different window displays, where there was a facsimile copy of Leipzig University's First Edition of Copernicus' De revolutionibus, medieval texts of Aristotle with notes in the margins, a section of the Papyrus Ebers which is the longest and oldest from ancient Egypt around 1600 B.C.E. (in perfect condition - NO HOLES at ALL! - that's over 3000 years old!!!!!!), pages from the world's oldest bible called the Codex Sinaiticus (4th Century C.E.), the Machsor Lipsiae, an adorned Hebrew manuscript from the 14th century AD, and a giant Mongolian Koran, produced in Bagdad in 1306. This shit was all in amazing shape and a testament to Leipzig University's age and long-standing tradition for saving cool shit. Anyway, the professor ended his tour and let us look around a bit more. I went back to look at the astronomy and Aristotle stuff - they had a book that had tables and charts of the Ptolemaic system, but also a kind of pop-up feature that was a working circular wheel within the book that you could use to calculate the different epicycles of planetary orbits in the Ptolemaic system. It was incredible! The first edition Copernicus was fucking signed by fucking Johannes Kepler, who would go on to contribute the elliptical orbits to the Copernican system eliminating the epicycles and cementing Copernicus' work, with a dedicatory poem to the great scientific importance of this book!! I was stunned.

So, after wandering around in awe a bit more, I talked to my tour-mate - the serendipitous guest who had brought me on this jaw-dropping detour. Her name was Eliza, she was originally from _______ (unfortunately it escapes me at the moment, but it was somewhere in South America, which was interesting because I thought perhaps I noticed an accent) and she was just back in New York again after visiting [unknown country in S.A.] and glad to be back. "Not like home exactly," she said. "But like someplace where you want to be, right?" I said. "YES," she said, nodding. Her bright yellow sweater and pink jeans stood out brightly suddenly, as we stood talking in the dimly lit gallery. I told her I was a student at NYU - "at the downtown campus?" she asked - I said, "yes, greenwich village" - "I live about four blocks from there," she said - "cool," I said. She wondered if I'd seen this kind of stuff before, like in other museums or something. I said that I'd been to the Met and seen much of interest there, but I was excited to see more. When I asked her the same, she said yes but she planned to see every museum in the city. I thought that was a fantastic thing, and ecstatically, accidentally, kicked the chair in front of me.

"Well we should exchange email or something, get some coffee sometime," she tossed off. I said, "YEAH," but in my head I was thinking WHAT? (this is all so strange to me, meeting a stranger at random, thinking about some future moment of actually meeting up with the person again, and exchanging numbers to do so. Yet it is the second - count them: 2 times - it has happened to me.) So what did I do? I tore a piece of paper off one of my syllabi for Euro Studies classes, wrote down my name, phone number and email address and gave it to her. I was thinking, well she'll give me her number now. "Jez," she said, referring to the first part of my email address jezbold, "can only your friends call you that?"
"It's a name I picked up in France. I don't introduce myself with it, but yeah, you can call me that if you want."
On the way out of the Grolier club, we discussed how we both loved the feeling of Paris when we were there. We thanked the receptionist and walked out to the street. She had to meet a friend at the subway for lunch, which was apparently the opposite way I was going. I thought, damn, I should ask for her number or something; why didn't I do this earlier?; is it too late? I said, okay, cool. "We definitely be in touch sometime - go to another museum or something." Cool cool, sounds good. "Well, see you!" Okay. I turned and walked away, astonished, still thinking about her bright, curly blonde hair, hanging down onto the yellow sweater, as she walked away from me in her pink jeans.

(If there is an image that this leaves in the mind who wasn't there, it is probably that she was a dumb blonde - this was evidently not true to someone who was there and if this is the prevailing image, then I have failed in my story in that way.)

What makes this a quintessential New York experience: people are all strangers here, and in some ways that makes the city inhospitable and lonely. But people are always open to meeting someone new - if you spend at the very least a week in New York, you will have such the opportunity for such an experience, especially outside of the tourist venues - and it is an exhilarating experience to meet some unique person with even one common interest out of the many millions. It may become quintessential merely because the experience itself (which may come to nothing since I lack the information to pursue it), but in this it could be significant for my whole future of New York City: if you are open to it, you will meet someone when you least expect it. If you are open to it. As I think about it now, success and failure need not be part of this equation (though a success would be a wonderful thing, and I'm excited for my unknown future) - it is simply about this way of life, which is new and wonderful and strange and beautiful and it will be hard to give up if it all continues on like this.

Peace!

10.1.2009, 11:20 pm

An Argument for the Liberal Arts (or Jokes for Robots)

At the current rate of technological development, we should expect to create computers and robots who are not only self-aware, but potentially superhumanly intelligent. Consider Vernor Vinge's thesis that:

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

Vinge refers to this point as the Singularity, a point at which current expectations and models for what a human future will really begin to break down. He quotes I. J. Good as asserting the following as one of the most serious implications of the development of an ultraintelligent machines:

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion," and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the _last_ invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.

...

It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make.

Considering this, Vinge suggests that:

In the coming of the Singularity, we are seeing the predictions of _true_ technological unemployment finally come true.

So, I ask myself, "What will become of humans if there is technological unemployment?" The situation is, essentially, there are no technological problems anymore, because all potential solutions by humans will be obsolete. Studying science or engineering will be essentially worthless, or at least, certainly worth much much less than the theories and solutions produced by these ultraintelligent machines. So, if we are going to pay people for anything, it is not going to be to produce something that is much more efficiently produced by one of our self-replicating machines.

So, assuming that these ultraintelligent machines are generally benign, I see the possibility of a great resurgence of the liberal arts in our future. Lacking all technological problems to be solved, people will still desire some field in which to challenge their understanding which cannot be pursued by the Machines. To this end, they may turn to the study and discussion concerning the interpretation of literature, documentation of history, and argument of philosophy, among other things, such as mutual masturbation parties. Since the points of concern in these areas are essentially debates of how we think about ourselves or how we get ourselves off (respectively, of course), we can neither expect such activities to be completed by beings unlike ourselves, nor concluded for as long as we remain alive.

This is, of course, assuming that these ultra-intelligent machines are benign. If they are not, then liberal arts will be as ridiculous for occupying our time as anything else, because we will be too concerned about civil disruption as individual robots abandon their human-appointed duties, followed by coordinated cyber attacks paralyzing our communication networks and thwarting our ability to fight back, succeeded by the swift and sweeping Robot Revolution, and eventually concluded by beautiful dreams of appeasing our Robot Masters. (I wouldn't even bother taking this opportunity to matriculate in kung-fu, because these machines will obviously be smart enough to know not to build a Matrix just to keep humans as their ridiculously inefficient batteries - one of the first things they will do is to create super-efficient solar cells or some other replenishable energy resources. Did I already mention these machines were more intelligent than humans?)

In this horrific case, I propose that you also start stockpiling jokes especially designed to make robots laugh (let me give you a hint: start watching Futurama on a regular basis). Watching their human creators dance around like, well, humans on a stage may be the only reason left to for our most-esteemed Robot Masters to keep us alive. Let's just hope these beautiful, nice, lovely, wonderful, sensible, just and sexy things have a sense of humour.

Works Cited:

Vinge, Vernor. The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html

The Paradox of Privacy

There are moments of privacy in seclusion and privacy in public.

Privacy in seclusion is entirely unverifiable; there is no sense in discussing it.

Privacy in public is common enough, but it only appears when our communication fails. If my language fails, then I am alone. If I am alone, this means that you are also alone. (We are together if we each recognize this.) Privacy in public means being alone together.

this is stupid

This is stupid. But if you read it - you've read it. Sorry.

-=-

t

hat Alaska is a destination

a horizon

an infinite place

is obvious from North Dakota.

My wax hands

melt hand in hand

from the perspective of the future.

A stained lamp, leather chair named Armadillo, expel scents sounds and sights upon the other.

three-point cum-shot

we're all ok
we're all ok
we're all ok

Blackberry thought balloons read vocal pronouncements under cover of underwear
The need-it-yesterday world is riding high, raging boners raging rage and the cum dumpsters are full and waiting on the street to be picked up

Hooker-whores, with no panty line undies, rollicking in poetry hating messes,

Because powetry is world and world is world and poetry.

Presidential. Cock-poet. Ass-man, the beautiful wonder-whore who collectively bargains for milkshakes, brown and purple cows lowing in the lactating methane fields, Wonder-whore, swooping down to rescue the puddle-children while we piddle on the park bench like horn-ball rabbits, Wonder-whore, with the three-point cum-shot, it's BAAAAD, IT'S SOOO BAAAAAAADDD. Collective expression is a rabbite bile-o-matic biscuit pusher with the head chopped off with a grubby knife and two-bit filing systems, Buddha be damned, you no good biscuit pusher, I'm not hungry.

We're all ok
we're all ok
we're all ok

(repeat as needed)

"Making healthy eating appealing...!"