02.07.06
Posted in the dank archives at 2:22 pm by Administrator
being human and having this brain resting between our two funny looking hairless ears.
to own such a capacity to understand more about the nature of reality than any other species and still to voluntarily hide in ignorance, flee from the thing that makes us truly a marvel as a species — this will of ours– only possible because of our superior ability to learn, plan, intuit, and respond.
how is it that there are still so many of us unwilling to engage, learn, and/or adapt? with this mind– and we still run to the dark places of fear which inhibits our ability to act
isn’t that really the problem with chronic depression? couldn’t the bio-chemical response be the result of a perpetual-yet-habituated state of alarm (via some form of chronic stress) that renders you unable to experience any emotions strongly enough to choose a course of action (whether positive or negative)?
– but let’s not harp on depression….
it’s mildly alarming that much of modern society is capable of virtually worshiping the outcomes of the modern scientist as irrefutable dogma– with knowledge touching on the very stuff of ethical beliefs, blindly accepting facts put forth in published journals, later transcribed by scientific journalists and news research teams (who aren’t actually required to have a real understanding of the methodological practices) and served to joe everyman with the ten-o-clock news.
and yet, those scientists (you know, the ones that nearly constitute a “They say” capital “T”– those finely honed mental athletes), can be as broken and ineffective in their emotional life as the janitor, plumber, mechanic, stripper, secretary, and stay at home mom. and sometimes, those mental athletes are even more broken, weak, vapid, vindictive, and childish than the rest of us lay people.
the ugly version of what i’m saying, is that intelligence (as in IQ), which we all seem to value at in level, must be seen for what it risks being: a growing book of complex facts, theories, and hypotheses assimilated in an illusory fog of philosophical mandates (woah!)… as in the socratic method of inquiry.
in other words, the new scientist needs a social consciousness (we can no longer accept the two-dimensional charicature of the bespectacled and anemic academic fed largely on the sheer joy of the quest for knowledge)– the connections between people and knowledge are shrinking. writing a paper about the implications of bonobo behavior on human sexual behavior is not without consequence, it is less likely than ever that it will merely disappear into the musty archives of yesteryear.
this would be fine if scientists were perfect… exposure is a good thing, knowledge is good– when it’s a reflection of what is and not merely another view point being supported by carefully controlled lab conditions, or worse yet, mindless puzzle solving with a vindeta for success.
fact is, science needs to get off it’s high horse and remind itself that it and its body of work are ultimately composed of a network of humans (and their dreams, hopes, disappointments, sublimated fears, obsessions, and general human nuttiness) not merely irrevocable facts and technologically advanced tools designed to better measure phenomenon x.
don’t get me wrong here: there is somewhere in the emotional quagmire, a very real “sheer joy” in the knowing, learning, exploring, pealing back the illusory surface of complex yet-often-surprisingly-simple aspects of life. in fact, there is no other such pleasures so intrinsically human, and thus more personally gratifying.
and i stand by ALL of our rights to pursue knowledge in it’s many permutations… to critically anyalyze be we beginners or experts.
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Posted in the dank archives at 1:23 pm by Administrator
reality tv… you know exactly what i’m talking about (let’s just cough and say big brother… ) has done many strange things to our more impressionable minds (e.g. MY MIND).
strange thing numero uno) = creating a fog of inverted narcissistic thinking (which is likely more of a time waster than anything i can think of off the top of my head), wherein you start to view yourself through a hidden camera, to see the tragi-comedy-drama-documentary of your own life.
but i wonder how bad it is to up self-consciousness in general: it has both benefits and negatives (you might do well to insert the motherly-yet-patronizing slightly nasal voice of your third grade teacher here).
me? i’d go with the idea that self-consciousness is like ohhh… everything i can think of: don’t take it to extremes on either end of the spectrum– there is a natural balance between the animal and the hamlet in us.
strange thing numero duo) no matter how banal the subject matter (family guy episode pops into my head with peter talking about the hole in his underwear), it is– in the viewing of these human moments of everyday life, the actions and things become imparted with meaning which many of us might never have experienced prior to that viewing.
although in a darker light, one might say we’re on a fast track to information overload– which could theoretically result in the spontaneous heart attacks or just general weary-to-the-point-of-nihilistic thinking that so many of us find ourselves engaging in later in life.
point being: the new level of refined control maintained within the television-as-a-warped-mirror phenomenon (shall we say taawp instead?) — could provide many powerful messages which a) fuck things up worse by perpetuating negative decisions and life-habits (for any number of reason), b) dumb us down to a silent passive consumer, and c) teach us hope, kindness, the value of critical thinking, hard work, patience, and all those other obviously useful values to the human race.
sometimes i think we’ve managed a and b quite splendidly, and sometimes i feel the internet is the only thing fighting against it.
strange thing numero tres: the uncomfortable learning of bullshit values about what it means to be a woman– we definitely need to positively and creatively subvert a good deal of (very male-oriented) attention being paid to the sexual appearance of female (which in and of itself is fun, fine, and fantastic, but it receives inordinate amounts of emphasis as a valued “character trait” in television).
i’m not going to get out all my feminist artillery here, but i’d just like to say: the more women directing films, running television companies, and writing documentaries, the better.
we need many eyes to see the whole elephant (”behind the scenes with hidden cameras!”)…
not just six blind men, but six blind women too… maybe a few chimps?
oh hell,
yes, i’m left and i can’t help it– i don’t want to be left, but i’m a woman, how can i ever be right in a man’s world?? eh?
strange thing numero quatro) this increased t.v. induced self-consciousness mayn’t be all bad after all auntie mabel. truly. to quickly rattle off this fun fact: in a psychology study (source long-forgotten) people who took a test with a mirror at their desk were less likely to cheat (even with an easy option to cheat available), than the control group who did not have a mirror in front of them.
in a sense, self-consciousness is the ultimate indulgence of a mammal that has managed to secure its safety in a dangerous world via it’s cunning and adaptations to the threats that surround it. therefore, the more self-conscious you are the more human you are…
in the same vein, some might argue that depression is not a disorder, but rather a reflection of self-awareness that is not supported by modern life (which requires a rather high-paced sense of time and inordinate amounts of confidence).
then again, there’s positive self-consciousness (where you’re in more or less in control of your thought patterns surrounding the self-awareness you experience) and there’s negative self-consciousness (where negative thoughts repeat themselves to a debilitating level rendering the person socially awkward and relatively miserable– especially when around others).
so, if the media can teach positive self-consciousness, or at least not continually revel in the emotional tragedy of depression (glamorizing the victim state if you will)… which in reality is no more behaviorally glamorous than a small child sulking– although it can indeed be tragic…we might actually have something good to say about television.
on some level, i’m glad when directors are bleeding hearts with a personal message that reflects a level of personal pain… so long as they’re not filling our brains with formulaic soul-less bullshit that offers only vague sugary quick fix solutions to the plots.
as it is i’m just enjoying the internet as it soothes my jangled need to know, feeds my ego via blogging, and allows me to somehow send out my human feelers into the portal of other humans minds and connect.
it’s insane and brilliant and i’m excited for the future.
sure, there are wee bits of trepidation floating around in my over-stimulated brain.
i’m only mammal after all and change = volatile and volatile = potentially negative consequences outside of my control, but mostly, i’m just hopeful and curious.
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Posted in the dank archives at 12:59 pm by Administrator
i definitely feel the void sometimes, how unceasingly modern life can paw at your very core… the need to maintain in the midst of the inevitable and almost unavoidable chaos of accumulation… of things, stuff, products, even relationships and knowledge come as products, to be worn, sat upon, rubbed on your face, played through your speakers, invested at 7.8% etc. etc.
and it’s nearly a heady wind at times– the internet as a portal to everything… everything now and before and in the future, which- i’ll just admit finds me high and nearly overwhelmed.
perhaps my ongoing analysis of sexuality via process-oriented lines of thought (process meaning 1) the evolutionary sense of the word– bio-physical, 2) definitely the developmental learned sense of the word, and 3) even a bit in the anne schaef sense of the word) is my attempt to find the balance… between my human desire for connection with all knowledge and action that is real and honest… and this crazy two-dimensional consumer-oriented internet job/business land– where i’m ferried along an abstract oddly silent and white portal to almost every conceivable permutation of human thought, existence, and well, all the oddities in our species exceptional range of being-ness.
on the one hand, my research skills and strategies have only improved in leaps and bounds, as well as my ability to coherently find and posit potential patterns in information and potential relationships and their reasons for existence… and on the other, i find i’ve become more introverted with live humans, less satisfied with the slowness of communication– i’m becoming a fucking information junkie who needs knowledge and needs to know how to get it and quick.
wait, really….
i’ve recognized and accepted that people are not as easy as a computer– that we’ve much more complex systems running in our brains and bodies– and the ephemeral psychological by-products, lead to unforeseen complications in modern human existence (such as manifest in our unconscious and conscious coping mechanisms that often inhibit effective and rewarding living habits which might otherwise be reasonably easy to learn via adaption from generation to generation).
my acceptance that people are slow and more complex than the internet, does not imply my satisfaction with this state of existence.
at this point it is only an acknowledgement of what is… not what is inevitable. i think humans are on the brink of understanding more about themselves then ever before in the history of the world, but the path to true knowledge in this particular case must turn inwards… and this is perhaps where the internet (in all it’s avid sterility and ease of use) can open more minds than anything in the world.
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next: the media alienating us from ourselves
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