new article today on npr dealing with something i've been arguing against for a long time: namely, how social networking sites and the convenient nature of internet shopping sites like amazon are keeping people inside and, in turn, not experiencing life outside their digital world.
here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122307381
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
semen stains the mountaintop
i woke up this morning, following a sickly indulgent and unsatisfactory nap, with a bit of an epiphany. of course, it's possible, someone has thought of this before, but i want to be sure to record it before it escapes from me--also, for posterity, in the event that i need to prove that i thought up this little theory.
here goes:
i think it's entirely possible, given what we know about certain sensory hallucinations, that dreaming is really nothing more than our active brains trying to make sense of outside phenomena. there's an experiment, widely distributed on many internet sites, that consists of taping ping pong ball halves to your eyes and then tuning a radio to white static. it's said that if you do this, you will start to see very unusual and dream-like images. your brain is trying to make sense of the world it cannot see--in turn, rationalizing an imagined experience when and where certain sensory information is being withheld or deprived. therefore, it makes sense that, with your eyes closed (or open but not functioning as they would in a conscious state), your brain attempts to make sense or translate all the outside sensory information while you sleep. this is why, when you leave the tv on or radio, while you're sleeping, you'll sometimes have weird dreams influenced by these songs or the dialogue in a movie slash tv show. it's something we see in movies, too. not that movies are always honest depictions of life, but the concept is still the same. a character will be asleep and hear his or her name called only to realize, upon waking up, that the person they had imagined was calling their name, in the dream, was actually someone else.
i'm sure this has all been thought of before. but i was really proud of myself for making this connection.
yeah. i'm retarded.
btw:
below is the link to the ping pong ball experiment, apparently referred to in the trade as "the ganzfeld experiment" (just in case you thought i was making this whole thing up).
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/11/ganzfeld_hallucinati.html
here goes:
i think it's entirely possible, given what we know about certain sensory hallucinations, that dreaming is really nothing more than our active brains trying to make sense of outside phenomena. there's an experiment, widely distributed on many internet sites, that consists of taping ping pong ball halves to your eyes and then tuning a radio to white static. it's said that if you do this, you will start to see very unusual and dream-like images. your brain is trying to make sense of the world it cannot see--in turn, rationalizing an imagined experience when and where certain sensory information is being withheld or deprived. therefore, it makes sense that, with your eyes closed (or open but not functioning as they would in a conscious state), your brain attempts to make sense or translate all the outside sensory information while you sleep. this is why, when you leave the tv on or radio, while you're sleeping, you'll sometimes have weird dreams influenced by these songs or the dialogue in a movie slash tv show. it's something we see in movies, too. not that movies are always honest depictions of life, but the concept is still the same. a character will be asleep and hear his or her name called only to realize, upon waking up, that the person they had imagined was calling their name, in the dream, was actually someone else.
i'm sure this has all been thought of before. but i was really proud of myself for making this connection.
yeah. i'm retarded.
btw:
below is the link to the ping pong ball experiment, apparently referred to in the trade as "the ganzfeld experiment" (just in case you thought i was making this whole thing up).
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/11/ganzfeld_hallucinati.html
Friday, January 8, 2010
a veritable avalanche of simple metaphors
don't step twice
on the barely trodden ground
in a snow-swept motion
your footprints
get erased
without a trace
they vanish
and you're left without
leaving a hint of
who you were
and when we're gone
no one really gave a damn
the tallest fortresses
obscured
by the next breed
of monuments
and skyscrapers
only get so high
like you and i
before they crumble
into obscurity
nothing really matters
in the end
in the end
it's all relative
but we're living for the moment
say goodbye
let it pass on by
it's such a waste of time:
feeling sad
i feel like there's so much more
i could be doing with my time--
actively pursuing intellectual pursuits
actively making myself a better human being
actively mating
actively breeding
i just want it to end
the sad songs
bleating from the stereo speakers
of my automobile
as i casually remember
their poignancy
and why it is i feel so sad
all the time
if only i could become
constantly aware
of the constant sadness
in my life
and in my brain
the potential sadness
lurking in the recesses
of my battered dumb teenager brain
all the time
then, i could be happy
better off
oh well
i want to get married
find a mate
do all the things
i think will make me happy
but at what cost?
i don't care
i just want it
and i want it now
i can only twiddle my thumbs for so long
i'm getting bored
i'm getting old
i'm getting old and boring
they can see it in my complexion
my flesh is dulled with
a cruel and unintentional celibacy
i need sex
but not really
only sometimes
and even then
it's not sex i want
but someone to
blah blah blah
it makes me sick
to my bloated stomach
when i realize how ordinary
and unremarkable i am
how my creepy sub-conscious
becomes realized
manifests itself
as the striking
spitting image
of everyone else
i should really get over myself
i really should
on the barely trodden ground
in a snow-swept motion
your footprints
get erased
without a trace
they vanish
and you're left without
leaving a hint of
who you were
and when we're gone
no one really gave a damn
the tallest fortresses
obscured
by the next breed
of monuments
and skyscrapers
only get so high
like you and i
before they crumble
into obscurity
nothing really matters
in the end
in the end
it's all relative
but we're living for the moment
say goodbye
let it pass on by
it's such a waste of time:
feeling sad
i feel like there's so much more
i could be doing with my time--
actively pursuing intellectual pursuits
actively making myself a better human being
actively mating
actively breeding
i just want it to end
the sad songs
bleating from the stereo speakers
of my automobile
as i casually remember
their poignancy
and why it is i feel so sad
all the time
if only i could become
constantly aware
of the constant sadness
in my life
and in my brain
the potential sadness
lurking in the recesses
of my battered dumb teenager brain
all the time
then, i could be happy
better off
oh well
i want to get married
find a mate
do all the things
i think will make me happy
but at what cost?
i don't care
i just want it
and i want it now
i can only twiddle my thumbs for so long
i'm getting bored
i'm getting old
i'm getting old and boring
they can see it in my complexion
my flesh is dulled with
a cruel and unintentional celibacy
i need sex
but not really
only sometimes
and even then
it's not sex i want
but someone to
blah blah blah
it makes me sick
to my bloated stomach
when i realize how ordinary
and unremarkable i am
how my creepy sub-conscious
becomes realized
manifests itself
as the striking
spitting image
of everyone else
i should really get over myself
i really should
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
laboratory AIDS
i had the usual tri-monthly meeting with my shrink yesterday. he said i look like i have a lot on my mind. he's probably right.
lately, i've been stressing over my prospective future--how decisions i've made in the past will effect the final outcome--assuming there is a definite, immutable end result. (there probably is).
right now, i'm stuck in the present. in limbo. i'm at that disillusioned phase in my twenties where everything bores me to tears. i realize the pointlessness of everything and it depresses the hell out of me. i know there's nothing to be gained in trying. so i choose not to. though, the voice in the back of my head--that phantom do-gooder--keeps telling me to get out there and find a wife, think about a career, invest in friends/the stock market.
mostly, though, i don't care. it doesn't interest me. or, it does. but in a highly compulsory anxiety-inducing way.
i want to make music. but everything i produce sounds like shit. i've looked at a few local bands. and honestly, it's a disheartening. everyone has their shit together, even if it is highly formulaic indie-rock, in the same vein as all those pop-punk bands from years ago. the thing is, they all have this sound. this sound that appeals to the masses. a sound that is tight and focused. qualities which are lacking in my own music. i don't know. it could be psychological.
i'm kind of sick of rock music. actually, that's an understatement. i'm really sick of rock music. it's fucking boring. i want to start making electronic stuff--nothing too out-there. it just seems like it would be easier to extract all the sounds/sensations in my head via programming them on a laptop (i feel that detached) versus strumming a couple chords slash investing hours into noodling around on distortion-laden melodies in the hopes of achieving something poignant or affecting. i guess it all comes down to which medium i prefer. and lately, i've begun to regret ever picking up the guitar. i could have wasted my time on something more productive--like piano. the guitar cannot express my current mental state and for that i feel a deep-seated grudge against my thirteen year-old self--that impressionable kid with a penchant for vegging out to countless hours of VH1. i can still remember where i was the first time i saw nirvana on t.v. and how that directly influenced my decision to play guitar.
i'm such a fucking cliche.
i haven't been dating recently. stopped going out as much. it's not that i don't want to, it's just never convenient.
life is inconvenient.
oh well.
lately, i've been stressing over my prospective future--how decisions i've made in the past will effect the final outcome--assuming there is a definite, immutable end result. (there probably is).
right now, i'm stuck in the present. in limbo. i'm at that disillusioned phase in my twenties where everything bores me to tears. i realize the pointlessness of everything and it depresses the hell out of me. i know there's nothing to be gained in trying. so i choose not to. though, the voice in the back of my head--that phantom do-gooder--keeps telling me to get out there and find a wife, think about a career, invest in friends/the stock market.
mostly, though, i don't care. it doesn't interest me. or, it does. but in a highly compulsory anxiety-inducing way.
i want to make music. but everything i produce sounds like shit. i've looked at a few local bands. and honestly, it's a disheartening. everyone has their shit together, even if it is highly formulaic indie-rock, in the same vein as all those pop-punk bands from years ago. the thing is, they all have this sound. this sound that appeals to the masses. a sound that is tight and focused. qualities which are lacking in my own music. i don't know. it could be psychological.
i'm kind of sick of rock music. actually, that's an understatement. i'm really sick of rock music. it's fucking boring. i want to start making electronic stuff--nothing too out-there. it just seems like it would be easier to extract all the sounds/sensations in my head via programming them on a laptop (i feel that detached) versus strumming a couple chords slash investing hours into noodling around on distortion-laden melodies in the hopes of achieving something poignant or affecting. i guess it all comes down to which medium i prefer. and lately, i've begun to regret ever picking up the guitar. i could have wasted my time on something more productive--like piano. the guitar cannot express my current mental state and for that i feel a deep-seated grudge against my thirteen year-old self--that impressionable kid with a penchant for vegging out to countless hours of VH1. i can still remember where i was the first time i saw nirvana on t.v. and how that directly influenced my decision to play guitar.
i'm such a fucking cliche.
i haven't been dating recently. stopped going out as much. it's not that i don't want to, it's just never convenient.
life is inconvenient.
oh well.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
sub-plot
there is a land, i'm told,
where transgressions
are meaningless
salutations that
dapple conversation
in pirouetted grace
grandfather, more,
pleez, tell us more
it is a land where muvee
screens hold all the truth
and beauty in the world--
like tripwire for the mentally
retarded
oh, grandfather, it sounds
glorious, tell us more
it is a land abolished
like slavery
and picked through
like scraps for the
scoundrels and savages
of democracy
grandfather, you're scaring us--
you had it once,
children,
what happened?
where transgressions
are meaningless
salutations that
dapple conversation
in pirouetted grace
grandfather, more,
pleez, tell us more
it is a land where muvee
screens hold all the truth
and beauty in the world--
like tripwire for the mentally
retarded
oh, grandfather, it sounds
glorious, tell us more
it is a land abolished
like slavery
and picked through
like scraps for the
scoundrels and savages
of democracy
grandfather, you're scaring us--
you had it once,
children,
what happened?
episode
"What I need," he said,"is statistics. Mathematical truth. Numbers." He removed a book from the middle row, a random selection. He blew the dust off the front jacket and sat down at a nearby table.
"Ah! Here we are: '1 and 1 is 2,'" he said, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses. "This is good. I rather like that."
A woman sitting close by looked up from the magazine she was reading, keeping her face half-hidden behind the thin filmy-pages of some soon-to-be dated volume on fashion or fashionable advice on pleasing one's sex partner. She noticed the camera and the ominous red light which meant that the camera was recording, the man's face casually being documented.
"When the camera is on," he said, glancing over at the onlooker, "that means I am recording. And when I am recording, nothing else matters."
The woman quickly looked away, immediately immersing herself in her magazine.
"Now, this is absolutely vital if we are to understand anything. There is truth. There is truth. Again, I say, there is truth in numbers. Figures. Glorious symbols with universal, timeless meaning. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He looked back over at the woman, now completely absorbed in pretending not to have acknowledged the man in the first place.
"Bah!" he snarled. "You truly are a ghost. Woman, you are mad!"
He continued reading, silently, to himself, as the camera kept recording, everything as it's supposed to be.
"Ah! Here we are: '1 and 1 is 2,'" he said, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses. "This is good. I rather like that."
A woman sitting close by looked up from the magazine she was reading, keeping her face half-hidden behind the thin filmy-pages of some soon-to-be dated volume on fashion or fashionable advice on pleasing one's sex partner. She noticed the camera and the ominous red light which meant that the camera was recording, the man's face casually being documented.
"When the camera is on," he said, glancing over at the onlooker, "that means I am recording. And when I am recording, nothing else matters."
The woman quickly looked away, immediately immersing herself in her magazine.
"Now, this is absolutely vital if we are to understand anything. There is truth. There is truth. Again, I say, there is truth in numbers. Figures. Glorious symbols with universal, timeless meaning. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He looked back over at the woman, now completely absorbed in pretending not to have acknowledged the man in the first place.
"Bah!" he snarled. "You truly are a ghost. Woman, you are mad!"
He continued reading, silently, to himself, as the camera kept recording, everything as it's supposed to be.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
perverse
somewhere, there is a place, that is kept well-lit and immaculate, where they can just know exactly what i'm thinking and i don't have to explain anything--extract the impossible: i don't have to bother with trying to figure it out myself. i simply walk up, knock on the door, and they know. already, they know. and they are able to help. like a clinic for the soul. a clinic for the mind--but, unlike the psychiatric offices i've been to before, they know. they really know. and they are ready to help.
the problem, i think, is that i've become too self-aware. of myself, obviously, but, also, my own thinking. i start to question everything. and when this happens, i lose it. i try to turn it off, but to no avail. i am stuck in my own stinking thoughts, in my own stinking brain--that one part of me--of my body--which seems to have failed completely. in some realm, i'm sure, my brain is unsightly and, certainly, crippling. i am held back by own thinking--the essential self. it's not always obvious. my brain is my one, it seems, irreparable physical flaw.
i know i'm crazy. but does knowing still mean i'm crazy?
these are thoughts i can't restrict. the only consolation is to think in terms of gross generalizations and universals: the human mind and how it relates to me.
it's remarkable, really, how we are able to make sense, so automatically, so naturally (it would seem) of symbols--how easy it is to get caught up in that perpetual game of alphabet manipulation.
words: they mean nothing. they mean everything.
i need someone to reinstall, reconfigure my faulty wiring and update me with a more consumer-friendly program; new software, same features.
if i had it my way, i'd do nothing. all the time. i would do nothing at all. but lay in bed and sleep. if only i could sleep forever--to become intellectually comatose. then, i think, i might be o.k.. no bad thinking is better than any bad thinking. and all i do is bad thinking. all the time.
i would kill myself. honestly, i would. but i'm too afraid. not of dying, really. my religious conviction is too strong. i believe in god. i believe there is a devil. and i know that ending one's life prematurely can only result in eternal damnation. i don't want to spend forever engulfed in flames of hellfire. but, sometimes, it doesn't sound so bad, considering the alternative: a life filled with prescription sanity and perpetual loneliness.
something should change around here.
the problem, i think, is that i've become too self-aware. of myself, obviously, but, also, my own thinking. i start to question everything. and when this happens, i lose it. i try to turn it off, but to no avail. i am stuck in my own stinking thoughts, in my own stinking brain--that one part of me--of my body--which seems to have failed completely. in some realm, i'm sure, my brain is unsightly and, certainly, crippling. i am held back by own thinking--the essential self. it's not always obvious. my brain is my one, it seems, irreparable physical flaw.
i know i'm crazy. but does knowing still mean i'm crazy?
these are thoughts i can't restrict. the only consolation is to think in terms of gross generalizations and universals: the human mind and how it relates to me.
it's remarkable, really, how we are able to make sense, so automatically, so naturally (it would seem) of symbols--how easy it is to get caught up in that perpetual game of alphabet manipulation.
words: they mean nothing. they mean everything.
i need someone to reinstall, reconfigure my faulty wiring and update me with a more consumer-friendly program; new software, same features.
if i had it my way, i'd do nothing. all the time. i would do nothing at all. but lay in bed and sleep. if only i could sleep forever--to become intellectually comatose. then, i think, i might be o.k.. no bad thinking is better than any bad thinking. and all i do is bad thinking. all the time.
i would kill myself. honestly, i would. but i'm too afraid. not of dying, really. my religious conviction is too strong. i believe in god. i believe there is a devil. and i know that ending one's life prematurely can only result in eternal damnation. i don't want to spend forever engulfed in flames of hellfire. but, sometimes, it doesn't sound so bad, considering the alternative: a life filled with prescription sanity and perpetual loneliness.
something should change around here.
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