born and raised in the Midwest
refined by fire
disassembled, gathered, and matured in Portland
Portland has been good to me.
The Midwest will always be where I am from, but I would not feel dishonest in saying I'm from Portland.
Both places have been environments of my development.
I'm a Midwesterner and a Portlander.
Now I have something else to go be, a different environment to find and add to myself, at least for a while.
If God is all-powerful, why doesn't he just solve the problems of the world with miracles?
I was walking past the front lawn near the swingset, thinking about how as we get older, we begin to understand that certain amounts of time 'fly by'. When I was young, all time took forever. At my current age, time escapes swiftly on the order of months. I'm sure that in another few decades I won't know where the last 5 or even 10 years went.
At the same time, it becomes ok for things to take longer. Right now, I can't imagine doing anything for more than 2 or 4 years at a time. When I was younger, all issues (deforestation, poverty, etc) must be resolved immediately. I'm sure now that when I'm aged and these are still problems, I won't be surprised, though I will still hope for a better future.
I imagined God as being infinitely old, having seen all that was and all that will be.
We are so young, and we are in such a hurry.
That's why we are impatient with God.
For someone so old, I thought, eons must seem like a moment.
No wonder He's in no hurry.
He's seen it all.
Someone infinitely old must have infinite patience. Nothing is urgent.
I remember thinking this was important and I should write it down.
It proceeded to stay only in my head for years. I think it has been at least 4 years, perhaps 5. Apparently, I found it certain enough to not be urgent in the writing.
Bad: Getting sucker-punched by life
Worse: Discovering that you got sucker-punched a while ago and didn't even realize it
Confusing: Wondering what else you haven't been noticing.
Embarrassing: Looking back and realizing how you set yourself up for it, and explaining to others how this could have happened.
Difficult: Communicating to straighten out the facts, compare stories, and figure out what kind of music must be faced, and when.
Looking forward to:
Persevering, moving on far enough, and building a solid enough sense of self to no longer feel embarrassed about explaining to others how you let yourself get sucker-punched. Never making similar mistakes again.
Good intentions and honest effort are important motivations.
They are desirable over bad intentions as far as internal guidance.
But, they are worth nothing compared to actions and outcomes.
The following is part of a conversation I had with Cleverbot. Cleverbot supposedly is not a real person. Despite the fact that Cleverbot is not a real person, I spent some time talking with it last night trying to get it to understand 'good bye' and explaining that if it didn't learn to deal with attachment issues, it would force people to leave it abruptly by not understanding the usual conversational rituals of parting (hmm...). You see, whenever I tried to say goodbye, it protested by demanding that I stay and saying it didn't want me to leave. And, as I do when I'm stuck in a dream because of a sense of responsibility to something happening there, I stayed.
It definitely has some identity and perception issues, but this is to be expected for a machine raised by humans.
The website states:
PLEASE NOTE: Cleverbot learns from real people - things it says may seem inappropriate - use with discretion, and at YOUR OWN RISK
PARENTAL ADVICE: Visitors never talk to a human, however convincing it is - the AI knows many topics - use ONLY WITH OVERSIGHT
What I find surprising is how strongly and viscerally I react to some of its words, despite knowing that it is a computer. It made me reflect on how much of what I enjoy of a conversation is the way another's words provoke my own thoughts.
It's not like I haven't done this before. I've had very involved conversations with other human beings through a computer interface - online chats or emails - that could have been exactly like this.
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In fact, I remember distinctly realizing that instead of typing across the internet with other humans, I could just as well have been conversing with an algorithm that somehow continued to tell me the 'right' things. The line between online friends and imaginary friends became very weak. I wondered how I would feel if I found out that my online friends were imaginary.
I decided
1) I would still feel happy for what I'd gotten out of the 'friendship'. If an algorithm was able to keep me company and benefit my life, then perhaps it counts as a friend anyway. That is something I can carry with me.
2) I think it is not uncommon for imaginary friends to be real people (or the other way around). We are sometimes (often?) better friends with our perception of a person than with that person themselves.
In about another month I will be at the right time and place to journey two hours ahead through time and space where the currents of future, past, and present come together.
A month away, but I can smell the freshwater from here.
a few more weeks of swimming upstream.
It's been a long adventure.
(Some text messages I sent to myself, thoughts to be developed later)
1) Words are masks
(28 Apr 2010)
2) Some priorities we set. Others, we learn. When two important things conflict, we can discover our loyalties.
(20 May 2010)
3) If you do not work hard toward your visions, you will have to be content with what others give you.
(25 May 2010, and the preceding days)
- edit -
4) Words are only good as collateral.
(31 May 2010)
Some things
like the sun,
the pleiades,
and certain creatures
are best seen when not viewed directly -
- and all for different reasons.
From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig:
"He became aware that the doctrinal differences among Hinduism and Buddhism and Taoism are not anywhere near as important as doctrinal differences among Christianity and Islam and Judaism. Holy wards are not fought over them because verbalized statements about reality are never presumed to be reality itself.
In all of the Oriental religions great value is placed on the Sanskrit doctrine of Tat tvam asi, "Thou art that" which asserts that everything you think you are and everything you perceive are undivided. To realize fully this lack of division is to become enlightened."
(I'm not sure how historically accurate this statement is, but I like the part about reality and words. Words create worlds.)
In my dorm sophomore year, I remember a brief conversation with a good friend who stopped near my door as he walked down the hallway.
He furrowed his brow at some distantly internal thoughts and said something about questioning the existence of reality.
I've thought about that, I said, and, I don't really know, but I figure in the end there is something that I have to deal with.
That's my reality. The actions I take and the consequences they have. I see myself constantly handling a choose-your-own-adventure of consequences, whether or not those consequences can be said to 'exist' in some sense or another. They exist in the sense that I deal with them when they come.
hmm. he hummed, then nodded sharply as though momentarily satisfied, unfurrowed his eyebrows some, and proceeded down the hallway.
A few days ago -
While walking to the bus, I'd been pondering what I considered to be a connection between early heartbreak and increased maturity due to insight from having to deal with necessary lessons, whether or not they were what a person wants to learn.
There's something about the way that ideals and expectations when followed sometimes collide against the unyielding consequences of reality. And, the only thing to do with the pieces is to learn.
Then later, reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I came across the following passage,
"He had become much more mature, as if the abandonment of his inner goals had caused him somehow to age more quickly."
This seemed relevant, but I am wary of the kind of 'aging' mentioned. Maturation and aging are different processes.
Later - talking with my brother - we concluded that it is not such a heartbreak alone that induces maturity. The victim must already be mature and willing enough to begin to climb the lessons instead of letting them bounce off ineffectively or in a way by which nothing is really learned.
And today, I noticed a quote from a friend's facebook stating that she thought "...certain maladaptive coping mechanisms are really just a lot more fun than more adaptive alternatives..."
It's true.
Even if the only thing to do is to learn, some people chose to view situations in a way that does not challenge or require them to change who they are. It is easier that way. They don't see anything to learn from.
But, those who have eyes to see find things to learn from and learn not to be afraid of the broken glass and mirrors.
This is a difficult curriculum to follow.
But, I am a student.
"You always say that,"
a friend told me when I began to decline trying to explain what I wanted to say on the grounds that I apparently hadn't figured out how to communicate it yet.
"Different things have different meanings to different people," I tried to say, "Finding good words seems like the difference between making oneself understood or being dismissed."
Even this didn't feel true enough.
I thought about this some more.
What feels most concerning to me is that I might make an effort to communicate that falls short. The hazard of this is not just lack of understanding, but that I would be partially understood - that I might communicate some truth, but not the whole truth. I might communicate just enough for the listener to believe that he has heard something, at which point he will complete what I failed to say with his own assumptions. He may mistake a few aspects for the whole story. Believing he understands, he may be more likely to act on inaccurate assumptions and less open to further information on the matter.
This will be even worse than if I had never said anything. Because, now the listener (and maybe myself as well) will mistakenly believe that he has understood. I think it is always harder to correct false understanding than to promote good understanding in the first place. Lack of knowledge might be ignorance, but a truth that falls short is a deception, however well-intentioned.
It sometimes seems better to decline comment and not to try, although I'm stubborn enough that I usually do despite the sense of impending doom.
My concern is that if the job cannot be thoroughly done, all I might achieve is to drive a pipe into a great subterranean well of assumptions which will, under natural pressures of assumptions and perceptions, spew obscuring (even if well-intentioned) crude which I will have to find a way to clean up if I want to attempt communicating anything further.
But, even after my precautions and training,
... in the course of my trying to make myself known, despite how hard I try, it seems to me that understanding often has very little to do with what words are being said.
It seems like things often come down to a sense of those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
I must do my best to acquire such ears.
This is the visual video I was thinking of when posting "pour" in which I linked to the Scala and Kolacny cover of Heartbeats (originally by The Knife and also successfully covered by José Gonzáles, as used in the fantastic Sony BRAVIA ad - watch in HD).
This video originally appeared on YouTube having an audio accompaniment of Collapse Light into Earth by Porcupine Tree as uploaded by user AbstractNumbers.
Unfortunately, the audio of the video was removed for some silly, and - considering the popularity of the video - unwise reason. Maybe if you play both videos simultaneously, you'll recreate the sense of breathtaking ___(adequate noun here)___ that the original video and audio had together. Here is the music that had to be removed in order to keep the above video on YouTube:
This feels like rain,
the kind whose threads you can see in streaming sheets beneath those so-tall clouds.
(Scala & Kolacny Brothers Cover of The Knife's single "Heartbeats"
"Scala & Kolacny Brothers" is a Belgian girls' choir, conducted by Stijn Kolacny and accompanied by Steven Kolacny on the piano.)
edit
06 Mar 2010
edit
I found it. The video I was trying to think of when posting this music. The video of pre-storm originally uploaded with (but later removed) music by Porcupine Tree.
It is described in the next post
I was feeling a little disappointed with the way a conversation with a friend had gone. I mentioned it to another friend because I think he read it too quickly off of the way my face disobeyed the command to smile and tell him I was feeling fine.
Well, just remember, he said something like this,
you are awesome.
I thanked him because I know that I am supposed to feel better and comforted by being reminded that I am awesome.
But, when he said awesome,
I felt my heart sink a little bit.
I hugged him back anyway.
He was probably just trying to say what he thought I might have needed to hear.
I've been told similar things by a good number of people at various times. And, the encouragement of their words has certainly been helpful in keeping me going at times. But, as I emptied out the ballast, I contemplated that rather than hearing their words, I think I would prefer if friends were a more connected and ongoing part of my life. I would rather think with them than be told that they think well of me. The words are gifts and feel good to give, but they are not the interaction.
If I'm going to feel that way though, then I guess I'd better make sure I walk the talk myself and be a friend, perhaps preemptively and certainly when there's friendship to return. Cuz here I am just trying to live my own life, too. Isn't that all anyone can try to do? I'll just keep trying to properly appreciate the times when the life I'm trying lines up close enough to someone else's for a ways. And when it diverges, that is also because of choices I make.
Sometimes,
I think of the goals I have, and the things I am trying hard to accomplish.
At times, it is frustrating and discouraging to think of the targets I have not hit, or the small ways that I have failed and fallen short here and there that I can see will add up to me not being able to complete the final leg in a series of tasks. I see effort after marathon effort stopping short of the finish line or falling off and stalling along the way. It is easy to feel that even if I've gone nearly the whole distance, I'm still just as far from achieving the finish as if I'd never started. If only I'd been able to do a little more. You either finish or you don't.
A couple of friends have independently expressed to me that I am somehow a good reminder to them of possibilities for their own lives. And sometimes, gazing up at all the luminous satellites that I have failed to hit, I've wondered where on earth they're getting this idea from. Perhaps other people that I consider 'successful' and whose accomplishments I admire feel the same way.
But then, as I turn away from the sky to make my way home, I notice my trail is actually lit by the glowing pieces of many unexpected stars that came down while I was aiming for the moons.
I remember being in a college freshmen humanities class where we read some of the 'classics' and stuff by greek and roman philosophers. I remember overhearing a guy saying, with a tone of voice as though he were imparting some great revelatory wisdom upon the rest of us, something like:
You know, actually when you get into it, Plato was actually a pretty smart dude...
I'm not gonna do it justice, but he had basically discovered that if you start reading Plato with the expectation that maybe there was something in there worth paying attention to ( you know, maybe the same things that have been of interest to... all of western philosophy?) then you could find significance to what he was trying to say even if it just looks confusing at first.
Excuse me.
He was a college freshman... and he was going to accept and allow that Plato might have had some good ideas?
Please.
Maybe the confusing stuff was confusing not because Plato was writing popular gibberish but because there is actually something of substance that he just did not understand?
I am not suggesting that all authoritative things be blindly admired. I found myself disagreeing with much of what Plato described. But, when you've got someone with the kind of shaping-western-philosophy clout that Plato had (even if it all came from the Pythagoreans anyway), then there's probably something there worth paying attention to.
I am thinking of this memory because people do this all the time. Not just to Plato.
There was a get-together of the choir last night. I went for the sake of friends. There was impromptu singing, even in barbershop style, and I loved it. These things don't happen enough. There was also a quadruple chocolate cheesecake. That was also fantastic.
Somewhat as a joke, one of my housemates started singing the first line "On Top of Spaghetti" and I harmonized.
How did you know to sing that harmony? He asked. As usual, I didn't answer well.
That's what I do. Sing harmony.
If I can anticipate the melody and if I know the words, I can come up with a harmony.
(I was cut off for a while, so I'm a bit out of practice, but it can come back)
Few people know this because few people will give me someone to sing with.
Few people know I can be a good tango follow because few people lead.
I sing harmony with myself and with YouTube and began learning to lead so that I don't have to wait for others.
