Why do we dream?
Life isn't about taking everything that comes your way. Why? Because even though the fatalists tell you that the world and its events are preordained, that... should really do nothing to hurt the consideration of your options. What if trying again... is predestined too?
On a basic psychological level... we learn that there is such a thing as dissonance, and that the natural tendency of things is to alter themselves, so that one way or another, the cognitive discomfort is removed. If there is dissonance... we resolve it. If there is injustice, we try to right it. If there is disatisfaction, we attempt what is best to right what is imbalanced in our lives.
There is a saying 'Where there is a will, there is a way'. I think the converse of that is also true. As long as some resolvable path exists, we will find it and access it, and attempt - that is key, 'attempt' - to use it for our betterment.
Any less is simply not trying hard enough.
Why run the risk of being a hypocrite, pretending to be happy when we are in truth, not? Why suppress everything we feel - and know, in truth, that feeling is our subjective right - for the sake of those who will not, and in some cases, cannot understand? Because their assumptions may be logical? Because their arguments are convincing?
But that does not make them necessarily right.
While it is true, that the majority has a tendency to be right, it... also has the tendency to be wrong. Why are we told 'thou shalt not judge'? Because the subjective nature of one's personal feelings, of one's personal rights and values, would require complete omnipotence to discern. Because eventually the truth is... personal. Sometimes the world is a little too extroverted for anyone's tastes.
For the sake of friends then?
If friends could understand everything... it would be a perfect world. If friends could understand... it would be a good world. But it is not a terrible world, and so likewise their knowledge is incomplete. The one thing that friends do not have... is the ability to see into your soul. That is your own. And whatever they think...
They are not you.
Though it would be nice to have a little support from them at times.
An interesting quote, from Mark Twain:
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
As dear Mr. Frost suggests in the classic 'Road Not Taken', every choice necessarily begets a choice not chosen. People are unfortunately, not quantum. They can't try everything at once, and end up where the best things are.
But sometimes we... have the opportunity to double back. Before we leave the wood.
And since it's still early, shouldn't we at least try to find the other path before it goes dark?
Regrets are born... when there are things that you ignore. Nothing else. And ignorance, contrary to what the proverb states... does not beget bliss. Ignorance is simply the regret and fear that comes of not knowing.
Sometimes things are different, simply by virtue of not being the same. Nothing else.
Why do we need a reason to dream?
Monday, February 8, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Am I Falling At All?
Wrapped in isolation,
weathering
the impasse of dreams
long lost
that never quite meant
anything
at all.
There are angels
up above in heavenly
gown
worn white, feathered
wings fold
down
into view, and the
angels begin
to fall.
Just out of reach of the
outstretched hand
and the tip
of a finger
lingers
in the air
while they laugh at the
failure who doesn't quite know
that he
never could make it
at all.
Falling faster and
faster into nothing that
nothing left behind.
An endless
spectacle,
spectacular...
As the hymns turn to
dirge
and the angels
are falling down.
weathering
the impasse of dreams
long lost
that never quite meant
anything
at all.
There are angels
up above in heavenly
gown
worn white, feathered
wings fold
down
into view, and the
angels begin
to fall.
Just out of reach of the
outstretched hand
and the tip
of a finger
lingers
in the air
while they laugh at the
failure who doesn't quite know
that he
never could make it
at all.
Falling faster and
faster into nothing that
nothing left behind.
An endless
spectacle,
spectacular...
As the hymns turn to
dirge
and the angels
are falling down.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Falling into the world.
When you scream sometimes you can hear the tHiNGs pour out of your head - a torrent of endlessnesses endlessly screaming for something other than this. Scream Scream Scream.
Emptiness echoes like a room searching for an occupant in the dense uniNHabIted jungles of dementia - what do you do? What do you say to the darkness when it calls you back and you are already in it, in it in the cold cold darkened room without a voice without a soul, without a thing to call your own but the sound of the wind striking FLesH.
WAIT and wait and wait and wait for the train that never comes to the stop that doesn't exist anywhere but inSidE your head, your cold godforsaken head that tells you to sleep when you are thirsty and wake when you are full because it knows the logical fallacies of doing anything that isn't another cycle of perpetuated feedback.
Extremes. Extremes extremes extremes. Extent of eXtremeness defined by feedback loops circulatIng reality into your head like a flushed pipe free of filth, clean and open to the world, raw unadulterated stimuli flowing in and in and in. Struggle for breath in the warm oozing thoughts cAkiNG on your shoes without a care or concern or a thing for anything else around you. Around you in the cold cold darkness of your mind.
What are the shadows on the wall by your table dancing with your hand, or the dots swirling spinning like flies in your vision? ARRRGGHHHStop stop stop stop stop. Stop Stop.
Stop. Please stop.
Emptiness echoes like a room searching for an occupant in the dense uniNHabIted jungles of dementia - what do you do? What do you say to the darkness when it calls you back and you are already in it, in it in the cold cold darkened room without a voice without a soul, without a thing to call your own but the sound of the wind striking FLesH.
WAIT and wait and wait and wait for the train that never comes to the stop that doesn't exist anywhere but inSidE your head, your cold godforsaken head that tells you to sleep when you are thirsty and wake when you are full because it knows the logical fallacies of doing anything that isn't another cycle of perpetuated feedback.
Extremes. Extremes extremes extremes. Extent of eXtremeness defined by feedback loops circulatIng reality into your head like a flushed pipe free of filth, clean and open to the world, raw unadulterated stimuli flowing in and in and in. Struggle for breath in the warm oozing thoughts cAkiNG on your shoes without a care or concern or a thing for anything else around you. Around you in the cold cold darkness of your mind.
What are the shadows on the wall by your table dancing with your hand, or the dots swirling spinning like flies in your vision? ARRRGGHHHStop stop stop stop stop. Stop Stop.
Stop. Please stop.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
I wish I could do things.
I'm picturing a world today...
What will it show?
Everyone of us is something that we're not. Philosophers, psychologists, they all wrestle with the whole theory of mind thing. What is the difference between what's in there and what's out here? There's an insane amount of literature about how we're capable of estimating our own scores on psychometric tests (Chamorro-Premuzic, Furnham & Moutafi, 2004; Furnham & Dissou, 2007; Furnham & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2004) but none of them shows that we're able to do it perfectly. There is some discrepancy between what we think we are and who we actually 'be'. Granted, tests aren't entirely objective and reducing our dimensions to five broad categories isn't the most accurate science, but...
We don't know exactly what we are. I'd use 'who', but that'd imply some belief that everyone is human. I... don't know that for sure. As I write this, some kids are recovering from the savage abuse that two other kids meted out, a gross understatement, but as much as I'm willing to recall. Violence between religions is worsening in Nigeria, and potentially Malaysia, both countries enduring step-ups in thei respective religious issues. A woman pretended her child was ill for several years to gain fame and publicity... to the point of her feding him through a tube fro those years and making him endure unnecessary surgery.
And in America, Balloon-Boy's parents still can't agree on whether it was both or one of them that was involved in the hoax. Sometimes I wonder why I bother with the news.
Is that what it means to be human? To create societies out of little individuals, and then configuring the whole to produce a constant stream of atrocities so that the media entities survive on something more than stock-market fluctuations and weather reports? To be an individual capable of doing nothing but the greatest evil?
And the greatest good?
We can't take the good without the bad. A normal distribution with a tail chopped off is not a normal distribution. For every godforsaken mass murderer out there who does nothing but ruin lives to feed his weakened little ego, there has to be someone doing good, right?
Some kind of balance?
We can't take the bad without the good. Maybe kindness is the banding together of people to face some horrific part of their own nature. Maybe everything dark is necessary for us to see anything at all. A law of opposites, in perfect balance... and we wonder about what that truly means for free will.
After all, we're only human
Always fighting what we're feeling
Hurt instead of healing...
People are being saved in Haiti after days of being buried under rubble. The recession is bringing out the best in some people, who are committing random acts of kindness to make up for everyone's loss. A church burned down in Kuala Lumpur has brought its members together and will potentially bring the nation together.
Sometimes, you just have to hope. There really isn't much else.
What will it show?
Everyone of us is something that we're not. Philosophers, psychologists, they all wrestle with the whole theory of mind thing. What is the difference between what's in there and what's out here? There's an insane amount of literature about how we're capable of estimating our own scores on psychometric tests (Chamorro-Premuzic, Furnham & Moutafi, 2004; Furnham & Dissou, 2007; Furnham & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2004) but none of them shows that we're able to do it perfectly. There is some discrepancy between what we think we are and who we actually 'be'. Granted, tests aren't entirely objective and reducing our dimensions to five broad categories isn't the most accurate science, but...
We don't know exactly what we are. I'd use 'who', but that'd imply some belief that everyone is human. I... don't know that for sure. As I write this, some kids are recovering from the savage abuse that two other kids meted out, a gross understatement, but as much as I'm willing to recall. Violence between religions is worsening in Nigeria, and potentially Malaysia, both countries enduring step-ups in thei respective religious issues. A woman pretended her child was ill for several years to gain fame and publicity... to the point of her feding him through a tube fro those years and making him endure unnecessary surgery.
And in America, Balloon-Boy's parents still can't agree on whether it was both or one of them that was involved in the hoax. Sometimes I wonder why I bother with the news.
Is that what it means to be human? To create societies out of little individuals, and then configuring the whole to produce a constant stream of atrocities so that the media entities survive on something more than stock-market fluctuations and weather reports? To be an individual capable of doing nothing but the greatest evil?
And the greatest good?
We can't take the good without the bad. A normal distribution with a tail chopped off is not a normal distribution. For every godforsaken mass murderer out there who does nothing but ruin lives to feed his weakened little ego, there has to be someone doing good, right?
Some kind of balance?
We can't take the bad without the good. Maybe kindness is the banding together of people to face some horrific part of their own nature. Maybe everything dark is necessary for us to see anything at all. A law of opposites, in perfect balance... and we wonder about what that truly means for free will.
After all, we're only human
Always fighting what we're feeling
Hurt instead of healing...
People are being saved in Haiti after days of being buried under rubble. The recession is bringing out the best in some people, who are committing random acts of kindness to make up for everyone's loss. A church burned down in Kuala Lumpur has brought its members together and will potentially bring the nation together.
Sometimes, you just have to hope. There really isn't much else.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Altered states.
Hey...
It's going to be alright, ok?
You know it's never going to work, but you have nothing else to say.
Everything will work out fine.
It hasn't.
Life will be good again, and then we can all move on.
...right.
It's going to be alright, ok?
You know it's never going to work, but you have nothing else to say.
Everything will work out fine.
It hasn't.
Life will be good again, and then we can all move on.
...right.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
In which there is less than expected.
Who knew what we knew now?
The biggest challenge in my life, if anything, has been the persistent need to maintain the tedious balance between the optimistic and realistic, in both the expression of my views and the reasonings that I deal with on a daily basis. Innocence and apathy are rarely coincident.
Observe: we know the worst is going to happen, we know the worst is roughly inevitable, and this is a best-case scenario. Does that certainty remove the need for us to be optimistic? Face with certain doom, do we abandon all hope, and resort to that terrifying instinct that told us it was going to happen?
Do we discard that which is necessary for us to remain... human?
People demonstrate hope in the face of the greatest adversity. Judged, condemned to a single fate, they nonetheless pilot the course of events around it such that they do not crash and burn, but drift gracefully downward. People are people, and a crucial part of that 'person-ness' is the desire to hope. Everyone believes in something, but it doesn't have to be certainty.
Perhaps then, the line is drawn between the private and the public, that an individual maintains one outlook on the outside and one on the inside. But which way is the thought reflected? Does he maintain the inflappable aura of giddy smiles and sunny optimism whilst reflecting inwardly on the direness of the situation? Or does a pessimist of dark disposition hide some deep secret wish for it all to be better? The distinction is drawn between the underestimators and the overestimating, for we see everyone as one or the other, avoiding the rarities where the view coincide.
No one is the same on both sides.
But the point then, assuming that the postulate holds, is whether or not it is best to maintain that one configuration. Knowing the certainty of failure, do we report it as such?
I believe not.
To believe in the certainty of failure, to be realistic beyond anything else, is to machinise what is left of that venerable divinity that we call our soul. To report nothing more than the empirical knowledge and impending conclusions is to become something... less, ignoring all the casual human sensibilities that advise us to the contrary. But it is not wrong, in the biggest sense of the word. It is simply not right. It... simply is.
Acknowledging the inevitable is avoiding foolishness. That much I agree with. But to refrain from controlling the one thing we are sovereign to - the one thing we are given the right to manipulate as we see fit: our subjective vision of the world in the form of our emotions, our disposition towards the event - is to be even more mentally deficient than the deluded and the delusional. Optimism is not a refusal to see the obvious, it is the re-framing of a happenstance, placing it within a better context. It is the blessed ability to forgive oneself for one's mistakes, to accept - fully accept, not simply acknowledge - the inevitable and subsequently grow from the experience.
To avoid the alternatives of simple-minded matter-of-fact blankness and seething pessimism, optimistics are necessary.
Related to this is the concept of hope. For inasmuch as a world is inclined to uncaringly confound its inhabitants with its crippled moral compass and indifferent attitude towards life, it is our duty to remain hopeful despite all evidence to the contrary. For surrendering to the natural inclinations of things is the beginning of a process of self-objectification, in which one becomes an object - a thing - disregarding emotive capabilities for the coldness of efficiency and accuracy. We become sentient appliances of nature. Unable to contribute anything but the unguarded truth to society, unable to sympathise, unable to empathise. Unable to feel.
This view is not without its extremist tendencies. But one cannot deny that time has had... the time to settle people into their various extremes. Within modern culture, we are biased towards our myriad humanist, racist, opinionist, and other '-ists' and '-istic' notions. And since entropy is inevitable, it is only a matter of duration before we gravitate to our respective equilibriums, with the polar ends of society exerting some kind of pull on all individuals until we reach a halt. Where do we want that end-point to be?
I believe in the notion of hope, if only because the alternative is so much more frightening. They say hope clouds the mind, makes the judgment unclear. They say optimism and ideals are foolhardy things that crumble beneath the concrete reality, the 'true' notions of empiricism and reductionist fascism. 'They' disgust me. If only they understood that our skill in seeing the light side of things is in fact our greatest strength, in a world doomed to near-absolute destruction. If only they knew how precious the mind is.
And how fragile the concept of free will can be.
Perhaps one day, 'they' will change. Perhaps one day the truths of the world will be confronted with bravery and change, rather than apathetic disability. Hope and faith are our greatest strengths.
But I fear, even then, that I am being too optimistic.
The biggest challenge in my life, if anything, has been the persistent need to maintain the tedious balance between the optimistic and realistic, in both the expression of my views and the reasonings that I deal with on a daily basis. Innocence and apathy are rarely coincident.
Observe: we know the worst is going to happen, we know the worst is roughly inevitable, and this is a best-case scenario. Does that certainty remove the need for us to be optimistic? Face with certain doom, do we abandon all hope, and resort to that terrifying instinct that told us it was going to happen?
Do we discard that which is necessary for us to remain... human?
People demonstrate hope in the face of the greatest adversity. Judged, condemned to a single fate, they nonetheless pilot the course of events around it such that they do not crash and burn, but drift gracefully downward. People are people, and a crucial part of that 'person-ness' is the desire to hope. Everyone believes in something, but it doesn't have to be certainty.
Perhaps then, the line is drawn between the private and the public, that an individual maintains one outlook on the outside and one on the inside. But which way is the thought reflected? Does he maintain the inflappable aura of giddy smiles and sunny optimism whilst reflecting inwardly on the direness of the situation? Or does a pessimist of dark disposition hide some deep secret wish for it all to be better? The distinction is drawn between the underestimators and the overestimating, for we see everyone as one or the other, avoiding the rarities where the view coincide.
No one is the same on both sides.
But the point then, assuming that the postulate holds, is whether or not it is best to maintain that one configuration. Knowing the certainty of failure, do we report it as such?
I believe not.
To believe in the certainty of failure, to be realistic beyond anything else, is to machinise what is left of that venerable divinity that we call our soul. To report nothing more than the empirical knowledge and impending conclusions is to become something... less, ignoring all the casual human sensibilities that advise us to the contrary. But it is not wrong, in the biggest sense of the word. It is simply not right. It... simply is.
Acknowledging the inevitable is avoiding foolishness. That much I agree with. But to refrain from controlling the one thing we are sovereign to - the one thing we are given the right to manipulate as we see fit: our subjective vision of the world in the form of our emotions, our disposition towards the event - is to be even more mentally deficient than the deluded and the delusional. Optimism is not a refusal to see the obvious, it is the re-framing of a happenstance, placing it within a better context. It is the blessed ability to forgive oneself for one's mistakes, to accept - fully accept, not simply acknowledge - the inevitable and subsequently grow from the experience.
To avoid the alternatives of simple-minded matter-of-fact blankness and seething pessimism, optimistics are necessary.
Related to this is the concept of hope. For inasmuch as a world is inclined to uncaringly confound its inhabitants with its crippled moral compass and indifferent attitude towards life, it is our duty to remain hopeful despite all evidence to the contrary. For surrendering to the natural inclinations of things is the beginning of a process of self-objectification, in which one becomes an object - a thing - disregarding emotive capabilities for the coldness of efficiency and accuracy. We become sentient appliances of nature. Unable to contribute anything but the unguarded truth to society, unable to sympathise, unable to empathise. Unable to feel.
This view is not without its extremist tendencies. But one cannot deny that time has had... the time to settle people into their various extremes. Within modern culture, we are biased towards our myriad humanist, racist, opinionist, and other '-ists' and '-istic' notions. And since entropy is inevitable, it is only a matter of duration before we gravitate to our respective equilibriums, with the polar ends of society exerting some kind of pull on all individuals until we reach a halt. Where do we want that end-point to be?
I believe in the notion of hope, if only because the alternative is so much more frightening. They say hope clouds the mind, makes the judgment unclear. They say optimism and ideals are foolhardy things that crumble beneath the concrete reality, the 'true' notions of empiricism and reductionist fascism. 'They' disgust me. If only they understood that our skill in seeing the light side of things is in fact our greatest strength, in a world doomed to near-absolute destruction. If only they knew how precious the mind is.
And how fragile the concept of free will can be.
Perhaps one day, 'they' will change. Perhaps one day the truths of the world will be confronted with bravery and change, rather than apathetic disability. Hope and faith are our greatest strengths.
But I fear, even then, that I am being too optimistic.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Reset.
Snowfall.
There was a light silence. He looked up, watching white flakes dance in the wind, whisked around in an odd-angled spiral before coming to rest on his face. Cold spread though his body, cutting like a knife, the pain pooled dully in his arms and legs.
After a while, he knew he wouldn't be able to feel.
Brick walls, yellow lamplight and a blank sky. The snow came from nowhere and everywhere. Soon the world was white. Crisp. Clean. Cold.
Transient.
Cold sped up the thoughts. It made everything run more efficiently... in the same way people exercise to keep warm. Ideas were the only thing that kept warmth pumping through his mind, welling up and bleeding against the snow. It made sense at the time.
Transient beauty, lost in an unattended moment.
It was cold, and he could almost hear the wind. But he could never be certain - maybe it was the spiralling motion of the flakes, drifting away into the darkness, convincing him that sound was present as more than a ghost of the thoughts. Maybe sound was an illusion, and all there was... was silence.
Silence...silence...silence.
Silence. And nothing else.
Footsteps made no sound, but the trudging of his shoes created a sense of displacement, every step carrying him forward... like it should. There was just nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.
Just an empty street covered in snow. And next to that, another empty street. Occasionally an alley popped up, some testament to the long forgotten and often ignored concept of urban planning. But there was nowhere to go.
The city was truly asleep. Or...dead. He wasn't sure which. Windows, shut, shifted slightly in the breeze, and brick refused to budge. There was nothing. Not even the stray thoughts that leak into the streets from dreams. Not the slightest mood or affect for anything. Empty dreams, empty thoughts in an empty world, swirling pointlessly like the snow.
He went home.
There was a light silence. He looked up, watching white flakes dance in the wind, whisked around in an odd-angled spiral before coming to rest on his face. Cold spread though his body, cutting like a knife, the pain pooled dully in his arms and legs.
After a while, he knew he wouldn't be able to feel.
Brick walls, yellow lamplight and a blank sky. The snow came from nowhere and everywhere. Soon the world was white. Crisp. Clean. Cold.
Transient.
Cold sped up the thoughts. It made everything run more efficiently... in the same way people exercise to keep warm. Ideas were the only thing that kept warmth pumping through his mind, welling up and bleeding against the snow. It made sense at the time.
Transient beauty, lost in an unattended moment.
It was cold, and he could almost hear the wind. But he could never be certain - maybe it was the spiralling motion of the flakes, drifting away into the darkness, convincing him that sound was present as more than a ghost of the thoughts. Maybe sound was an illusion, and all there was... was silence.
Silence...silence...silence.
Silence. And nothing else.
Footsteps made no sound, but the trudging of his shoes created a sense of displacement, every step carrying him forward... like it should. There was just nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.
Just an empty street covered in snow. And next to that, another empty street. Occasionally an alley popped up, some testament to the long forgotten and often ignored concept of urban planning. But there was nowhere to go.
The city was truly asleep. Or...dead. He wasn't sure which. Windows, shut, shifted slightly in the breeze, and brick refused to budge. There was nothing. Not even the stray thoughts that leak into the streets from dreams. Not the slightest mood or affect for anything. Empty dreams, empty thoughts in an empty world, swirling pointlessly like the snow.
He went home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
