Who am I? Who are you? Do we only know we exist because we can think or love or speak or act? What factors determine who we are and are we only who we are relative to the people around us? If you had to define me what would you say? If I had to define you what would I say?
The most exciting thing about life is that we each have the ability to create our own identifies. Every birthday my mom reminds me that I was born "kicking and screaming." This identity, she claims, has followed me throughout the course of my life. That same rebellious, wild, tempestuous child has evolved into a rebellious, wild, tempestuous youth. Lately I feel like I've done a good job of suppressing this side of myself. This is in large part because of school. Identity, however, is trickier than this. We are constantly forging new identities. We forge them through relationships. The relationships we form with other people, media, books, games, new experiences, sports, work, play, theories, religions, perspectives, and other inanimate and animate objects ultimately shape how we choose to be at any given moment in time. Identity is constantly shifting. To describe a person as "happy" is a general assumption that offers a biased account of a person who inevitably is capable of many more diverse emotions than mere happiness. We choose who we are through the relationships we have.
I read a book the other day in which the author (James Paul Gee) identified three different ways in which identities are forged;
1. virtual identity
2. real-world identity
3. projective identity
The former two, when practiced together, beget the latter.
The projective identity is the space in which the learner can transcend the limitations both of the virtual identity and the learner’s own real-world identity. Life is about creating, not discovering and identity formation is a perpetual process. New relationships with people, things, and ideas offer new ways in which we can create ourselves. Different relationships allow us to take on different characters and see which one fits, to play different roles and then live vicariously through these different roles as we bring the virtual characters that we, as real-world characters have adopted as we experience projected character development in our little semiotic domains to life.
To live vicariously through oneself. Meta-living? I think we all do this to a certain degree. I certainly have done a lot of it. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it can lead to important self-exploration that ultimately sheds light on our best (I hesitate to say true?) selves, the selves we most enjoy being. What we think we "should" be is oftentimes what we don't "want" to be. Can want and obligation coexist? They often seem like polar opposites. I guess what they have in common is opportunity. We have the opportunity to want or to not want just as we have the opportunity to be obliged or to not be obliged. Does opportunity exist infinitely? Sometimes it seems like it does. Other times it seems as if we are stuck between a rock and a hard place and our only option is to cut off a limb to escape ;)
I think that developing an eclectic mix of relationships is important, though not essential. If we don't experience as much as we can then how will we ever know which relationships we are best suited for? On the other hand, if we aspire to experience everything in an effort to determine what we are best suited for then we will miss out on the chance of experiencing things like commitment, deep-seeded love that evolves from longevity, attachment (which can be both a good and bad thing), and other, more narrowly defined opportunities like children (which are best begotten after marriage which is best forged after engagement which most successfully arises out of a relationship). Embracing one of these routes means that we inevitably have to give up the other. Some people spend a lifetime relocating to different places or entering different fields of study or forging different relationships. Others spend them staying committed to the towns, people, and jobs that they have known all their lives. The former induces diversity, worldliness, and a wisdom that can only be begotten by accepting the fact that commitment, longevity, familiarity, and deep-seeded attachment just aren't your thing. The latter generates all of these things and more. The whole concept of "home is where the heart is" can thus be interpreted in two ways. Often, this home is the familiar. For me, home is in Danbury, a place that houses my family, my church, and all the memories that I have created since childhood. This "home" only exists in my mind. I have attached meaning to Danbury, CT, to the gyms I attended, to 3 Brothers diner, the mall, Il Bacio, Candlewood lake, Main Street, the Green, and other places. What if all of these places were suddenly destroyed my a fluke tornado (sounds plausible right?) Would Danbury still be home to me even though none of the same places existed? I think the answer is yes because "home" is an abstract place that only exists in the hearts and minds of those who attach meaning to it. Home can be a person. Home can be a place. Home can be an idea. Home can be anything you want it to be, but ultimately, home is your own inner sanctum sanctorium. My best friend has moved all over the country. Her "home" may only be an abstract inner sanctuary because she has no physically familiar place that she can go back to when she feels lost in the world. Who knows? Who am I to define another [wo]mans home?
You are my home.
Where I retreat when I feel alone.
In whose absence, though never real, I nonetheless bemoan.
My place of solitude.
You exist eternally, as long as I exist.
Where I can love freely and in whom I may infintely repose.
You are my home.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Transformation of Pum P. Kin to Jack O' Lantern
Hey, if the market can induce Christmas before Thanksgiving than I can prolong Halloween....
When we transform a pumpkin into a jacolantern, we gut out its heart and leave nothing but a hollow inside strewn with orange veins – remnants of the self it used to be. We poke out its eyes, leaving two hollow holes – windows to a soul that is not there. And we gut out its nose - but it is better that way because now he cannot smell the stench of rotting pumpkin juice – the stench of his own inevitable death. And he cannot see his own wrinkly face caving in upon itself, his own wrinkles birthing more wrinkles that cannot bear the weight of heavy pumpkin flesh that has been punctured with cookie-cutter pumpkin eyes that do not shift to show insecurity or slant to show animosity or soften at the sight of love. He is strong and brave and emotionless and unsentimental. He bears all. He has a face- we have given him a face. But what is a pretty pumpkin face without a pretty pumpkin soul? We take his pumpkin seeds – the sperm of his existence and chew them up and spit them out. We feast on little would-be pumpkin embryos. We abort the possibilities for other young pumpkins, yet we also ensure that there will be a few less soulless jacolanterns. But who is to say that they are fated to be soulless jacolanterns? Who is to say that they will not grow to be blue-ribbon winning pumpkins on display at the county fair, pumpkins whose skin is so tough that it cannot be punctured into faces on which feeling cannot be read? We are ensuring that the world will never know the capacities of pumpkins that never got the chance to be gutted. No wonder they are always scowling.
When we transform a pumpkin into a jacolantern, we gut out its heart and leave nothing but a hollow inside strewn with orange veins – remnants of the self it used to be. We poke out its eyes, leaving two hollow holes – windows to a soul that is not there. And we gut out its nose - but it is better that way because now he cannot smell the stench of rotting pumpkin juice – the stench of his own inevitable death. And he cannot see his own wrinkly face caving in upon itself, his own wrinkles birthing more wrinkles that cannot bear the weight of heavy pumpkin flesh that has been punctured with cookie-cutter pumpkin eyes that do not shift to show insecurity or slant to show animosity or soften at the sight of love. He is strong and brave and emotionless and unsentimental. He bears all. He has a face- we have given him a face. But what is a pretty pumpkin face without a pretty pumpkin soul? We take his pumpkin seeds – the sperm of his existence and chew them up and spit them out. We feast on little would-be pumpkin embryos. We abort the possibilities for other young pumpkins, yet we also ensure that there will be a few less soulless jacolanterns. But who is to say that they are fated to be soulless jacolanterns? Who is to say that they will not grow to be blue-ribbon winning pumpkins on display at the county fair, pumpkins whose skin is so tough that it cannot be punctured into faces on which feeling cannot be read? We are ensuring that the world will never know the capacities of pumpkins that never got the chance to be gutted. No wonder they are always scowling.
Dolla Billz Y'all
"The best things in life are free,
But you can give them to the birds and bees,
I want MONEY!
That's what I want. "
Well, not really. To say that money is the root of all evil would be a huge overstatement because it does us some good. I can pinpoint at least 10 glaringly evident disadvantageous to not having the concept of money in our vocabulary:
1. I wouldn't be able to quote songs like the one above because there would be no insipiration for them.
2. We wouldn't have a source from which to replicate monopoly money and so stuffing those money-holder cards with fake dollars would be a lot less funny.
3. My obsession with manipulating dollar bills into oragami cranes would have to be replaced by an obsession with manipulating the bills of oragami cranes into doll hairs.
4. We couldn't tie money onto the ends of strings and laugh when people try and reach for them while we pull them away.
5. Terms like "put your money where your mouth is" would have to be replaced with "put your lemon-cursted salmon where your mouth is" because food (lemon crusted salmon specifically) would replace money making this adage significantly less funny because lemon crusted salmon does, in fact, belong in the mouth.
6. honey, bunny, funny, punny, runny, and sunny would be down a rhyme.
Isn't it funny how the more we worry about having money, the less money we have? This is because the very thought that we need money automatically creates need. We think need into being. I never worry about money and I never seem to have it, but when I need it it alsways seems to be there. Like this week, for instance. I was done to my last dollar, literally. That very same day my Dad emailed me and put a few bucks into my account. I guess I'm lucky becasue I get to commute for free which saves me a shitload of money, but still, I never seem to want it, desire it, or think too often about it and I always seem to have enough to get by, to eat, and to donate a few bucks to Yoga to the People and church. Not that I WANT to live meagerly forever, I just don't see a problem with it right now and I don't sacrifice what I love to do or worry about the monetary fortunes that I will or will not fall into in the future.
Lets talk about Tom (my mentally challenged Uncle) for a minute. Tom works at Almost Family presumably putting caps on bottles. He gets a paychek every few weeks for about 5 dollars. This excites him beyond measure. He is completely content with whatever he receives and we (family) always make a big deal out of it proclaiming things like "WOW TOM!!! FIVE DOLLARS?! NO WAY!!!" He also has a bowl of pennies that he counts every night. This act might seem to peg him as frugile, but it is really indicative of the fact that he values the little things in life. He is the essence of "being." We got him a Popeye shirt last Christmas that said "I Yam What I Yam." This describes him perfectly.
Anyway, there is a lot of good that can come of money, but people abuse it.
Combatting this obsession with money is easy; choose gratification over supplication.
$$$$
But you can give them to the birds and bees,
I want MONEY!
That's what I want. "
Well, not really. To say that money is the root of all evil would be a huge overstatement because it does us some good. I can pinpoint at least 10 glaringly evident disadvantageous to not having the concept of money in our vocabulary:
1. I wouldn't be able to quote songs like the one above because there would be no insipiration for them.
2. We wouldn't have a source from which to replicate monopoly money and so stuffing those money-holder cards with fake dollars would be a lot less funny.
3. My obsession with manipulating dollar bills into oragami cranes would have to be replaced by an obsession with manipulating the bills of oragami cranes into doll hairs.
4. We couldn't tie money onto the ends of strings and laugh when people try and reach for them while we pull them away.
5. Terms like "put your money where your mouth is" would have to be replaced with "put your lemon-cursted salmon where your mouth is" because food (lemon crusted salmon specifically) would replace money making this adage significantly less funny because lemon crusted salmon does, in fact, belong in the mouth.
6. honey, bunny, funny, punny, runny, and sunny would be down a rhyme.
Isn't it funny how the more we worry about having money, the less money we have? This is because the very thought that we need money automatically creates need. We think need into being. I never worry about money and I never seem to have it, but when I need it it alsways seems to be there. Like this week, for instance. I was done to my last dollar, literally. That very same day my Dad emailed me and put a few bucks into my account. I guess I'm lucky becasue I get to commute for free which saves me a shitload of money, but still, I never seem to want it, desire it, or think too often about it and I always seem to have enough to get by, to eat, and to donate a few bucks to Yoga to the People and church. Not that I WANT to live meagerly forever, I just don't see a problem with it right now and I don't sacrifice what I love to do or worry about the monetary fortunes that I will or will not fall into in the future.
Lets talk about Tom (my mentally challenged Uncle) for a minute. Tom works at Almost Family presumably putting caps on bottles. He gets a paychek every few weeks for about 5 dollars. This excites him beyond measure. He is completely content with whatever he receives and we (family) always make a big deal out of it proclaiming things like "WOW TOM!!! FIVE DOLLARS?! NO WAY!!!" He also has a bowl of pennies that he counts every night. This act might seem to peg him as frugile, but it is really indicative of the fact that he values the little things in life. He is the essence of "being." We got him a Popeye shirt last Christmas that said "I Yam What I Yam." This describes him perfectly.
Anyway, there is a lot of good that can come of money, but people abuse it.
Combatting this obsession with money is easy; choose gratification over supplication.
$$$$
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Insanity, your Honor!
Insanity is subjective.
There once was a king who was loved and respected by all the people he ruled for his fair and just principles. They adorned him with food, jewelry, and clothing. He ruled from within the gates of his own kingdom and had a private river from which he drank. His subjects drank from their own river. One day, the water that his subjects drank from became contamined and, after drinking it, they all went insane. The king, from his throne, had no idea. The people began to loath the King and they called him a tyrant and thought that he and his principles were insane. They stopped sending him gifts and began to rebel against his authority.
One day, the King decided to wander into the village where his people were. The walk down made him thirsty, so he dedcided to drink from one of their contaminated rivers. After drinking, he, too, became insane. He now saw things from the eyes of his people, and they accepted him again.
The insane rejected the sane until he became insane.
i think I did a good job of recounting this story. It's from The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and it proves that people are only insane out of context.
There once was a king who was loved and respected by all the people he ruled for his fair and just principles. They adorned him with food, jewelry, and clothing. He ruled from within the gates of his own kingdom and had a private river from which he drank. His subjects drank from their own river. One day, the water that his subjects drank from became contamined and, after drinking it, they all went insane. The king, from his throne, had no idea. The people began to loath the King and they called him a tyrant and thought that he and his principles were insane. They stopped sending him gifts and began to rebel against his authority.
One day, the King decided to wander into the village where his people were. The walk down made him thirsty, so he dedcided to drink from one of their contaminated rivers. After drinking, he, too, became insane. He now saw things from the eyes of his people, and they accepted him again.
The insane rejected the sane until he became insane.
i think I did a good job of recounting this story. It's from The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and it proves that people are only insane out of context.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Say the Word
Say the word and you'll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, it's sunshine
It's the word, love.
- The Beatles
Love is a great word. It rolls off the tongue rather nicely. Try elongating the L. Try saying it really short and crisp. Try singing it. Try saying it while plugging your nose and standing on your head. You can't make it sound bad. But it doesn't mean anything if we don't know what it means, if we haven't experienced it. The word love communicates the experience of love. So without the experience the word would be meaningless. We place a lot of value on words. They get us through college, they get us jobs, they help us build relationships, and if you are in a Cyber relationship, then they form the foundation of your relationship. I remember a movie whose name currently escapes me in which the protagonist sold his soul to the devil after the latter told the man that all he had to do was give the devil his word. The devil made "wordS" sound trivial, but the theme of the movie was clearly that they are our most powerful tool. As a potential journalist, I ironically disagree.
Words are not necessary, they are only useful. They are luxuries. The only tools that are necessary are those that allow us to arrive at the truth of life, at the essence of life. I want to say that these are the mind, body, and soul, but they might not even include all of these. The soul allows us to conceive of the truth, the mind allwos us to ponder it, and the body allows us to experience it. In Conversations With God, the author categorized words as "mere utterances." He enlisted the argument that we all too often emphasize the "Word of God over the Experience of God." We think we know what he is all about, what he said and did because we have it documented on paper or have heard it via word of mouth, so when our experience introduces us to some phenomenon that isn't literally what we know as being the Word of God, we don't accept it. We think it is blasphemy.
Don't get me wrong, I love words. They are beautiful, profound, profane, and useful, but they are only one form of communicatiion because they are severely limited in that they can only attempt to convey a feeling or an experience.
"Say the word, Love," go ahead, but don't expect the conceptual idea of it that words offer us to act as a substitute for the experiential reality of it.
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I'm thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, it's sunshine
It's the word, love.
- The Beatles
Love is a great word. It rolls off the tongue rather nicely. Try elongating the L. Try saying it really short and crisp. Try singing it. Try saying it while plugging your nose and standing on your head. You can't make it sound bad. But it doesn't mean anything if we don't know what it means, if we haven't experienced it. The word love communicates the experience of love. So without the experience the word would be meaningless. We place a lot of value on words. They get us through college, they get us jobs, they help us build relationships, and if you are in a Cyber relationship, then they form the foundation of your relationship. I remember a movie whose name currently escapes me in which the protagonist sold his soul to the devil after the latter told the man that all he had to do was give the devil his word. The devil made "wordS" sound trivial, but the theme of the movie was clearly that they are our most powerful tool. As a potential journalist, I ironically disagree.
Words are not necessary, they are only useful. They are luxuries. The only tools that are necessary are those that allow us to arrive at the truth of life, at the essence of life. I want to say that these are the mind, body, and soul, but they might not even include all of these. The soul allows us to conceive of the truth, the mind allwos us to ponder it, and the body allows us to experience it. In Conversations With God, the author categorized words as "mere utterances." He enlisted the argument that we all too often emphasize the "Word of God over the Experience of God." We think we know what he is all about, what he said and did because we have it documented on paper or have heard it via word of mouth, so when our experience introduces us to some phenomenon that isn't literally what we know as being the Word of God, we don't accept it. We think it is blasphemy.
Don't get me wrong, I love words. They are beautiful, profound, profane, and useful, but they are only one form of communicatiion because they are severely limited in that they can only attempt to convey a feeling or an experience.
"Say the word, Love," go ahead, but don't expect the conceptual idea of it that words offer us to act as a substitute for the experiential reality of it.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Godliness
I don't know why I was thinking about this. Probably because I'm completely immersed in Conversations With God. Or maybe because of yoga. Or maybe because I'm in love (which I usually am with some person, object, or endeavor). Or maybe because of all of them.
I haven't done this in a while and I usually have few opportunities that allow me the opportunity to do it, but I love going to church at night.
There is something more sacred, more holy, more trascendental, more enlightening (or...endarkening...[Colbert]), about being there alone at night with nothing but a few candles illuminating the icons. The Saints all seem holier. The pews, although empty, all seem more lively. The altar, that mysterious shrine beyond whose doors I'm forbidden to wander, is somehow more divine. And the collective experience, the private prayer, marveling, pondering, immersion of oneself into the all-encompassing realm of love, of Godliness, is so much more meditative and mystical when you are alone under the cover of darkness.
I'll write a blog about Conversations when I finish it, but here are a few relevant ideas:
1. Some people ask why God lets bad things happen. The answer is that he lets both bad AND good things happen BECAUSE he has given us the gift of free will and by NOT giving us the CHANCE to do good, which also allows us the chance to do the opposite, we wouldn't have free will. He loves us so much that he has enabled us the ability to choose and all he can do is sit back and watch us either make mistakes or not becuase to take away our ability to try and err would mean taking away the greatest gift that he has given us; our freedom.
2. All relationshiups that we have in life are opportunites. ALL RELATIONSHIPS...even the ones we have with inanimate objects. They are invitations, channels through which we can experience our own selves, mirrors out of which are reflected the image and likeness that we have chosen to experience THROUGH the person, object, or endeavor that we are in a relationship with.
THis is why we have to love e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y. I mean, I guess you don't HAVE to, but you should because each person or thing lets you exhibit your own highest version of yourself in a different way and therefore EVERY person and relationship is important. It makes me angry when people put "I hate back stabbers and fake people" in their profiles because these are the people who may arguably be the most essential in the creation of our highest selves because they allow us to invoke that self most consciously. It is easy to love someone who loves you. It is much harder to love someone who has hurt you, but doing so is a testament to just how big of a person you are, just how, in essence, godly you are.
Every moment is an opportunity for love and transformation.
3. Life is about creation, not discovery, though I think we can create discovery, or opportunities for discovery.
I love YOU.
I haven't done this in a while and I usually have few opportunities that allow me the opportunity to do it, but I love going to church at night.
There is something more sacred, more holy, more trascendental, more enlightening (or...endarkening...[Colbert]), about being there alone at night with nothing but a few candles illuminating the icons. The Saints all seem holier. The pews, although empty, all seem more lively. The altar, that mysterious shrine beyond whose doors I'm forbidden to wander, is somehow more divine. And the collective experience, the private prayer, marveling, pondering, immersion of oneself into the all-encompassing realm of love, of Godliness, is so much more meditative and mystical when you are alone under the cover of darkness.
I'll write a blog about Conversations when I finish it, but here are a few relevant ideas:
1. Some people ask why God lets bad things happen. The answer is that he lets both bad AND good things happen BECAUSE he has given us the gift of free will and by NOT giving us the CHANCE to do good, which also allows us the chance to do the opposite, we wouldn't have free will. He loves us so much that he has enabled us the ability to choose and all he can do is sit back and watch us either make mistakes or not becuase to take away our ability to try and err would mean taking away the greatest gift that he has given us; our freedom.
2. All relationshiups that we have in life are opportunites. ALL RELATIONSHIPS...even the ones we have with inanimate objects. They are invitations, channels through which we can experience our own selves, mirrors out of which are reflected the image and likeness that we have chosen to experience THROUGH the person, object, or endeavor that we are in a relationship with.
THis is why we have to love e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y. I mean, I guess you don't HAVE to, but you should because each person or thing lets you exhibit your own highest version of yourself in a different way and therefore EVERY person and relationship is important. It makes me angry when people put "I hate back stabbers and fake people" in their profiles because these are the people who may arguably be the most essential in the creation of our highest selves because they allow us to invoke that self most consciously. It is easy to love someone who loves you. It is much harder to love someone who has hurt you, but doing so is a testament to just how big of a person you are, just how, in essence, godly you are.
Every moment is an opportunity for love and transformation.
3. Life is about creation, not discovery, though I think we can create discovery, or opportunities for discovery.
I love YOU.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
LETS TALK ABOUT SEX, BABY
WARNING: SEX ENTRY AHEAD!
if you are under the age of 12 and/or don't want the entire Steven Colbert chapter on Sex&Dating spoiled before you have a chance to read it then STOP NOW!
I bet if you were to skim my entire blog and were forced by either time contraints or an evil pots-and-pans robot (Family Guy? anyone? anyone?) to read just one entry it would be this one. Sicko!
Before I get into this stimulating topic, I'd like to take the time to address all you prospective bachelors who might be looking for some insight into my own sexual wants and desires and state that I am a lesbian virgin who has pledged to remain celibate for the duration of my sexless life, which should be an extremely easy task since I am genetically asexual.
Note that though there is some contradiction in simultaneously embracing lesbianism, asexuality, celibacy, and virginity, I am above the constraints of modern sexual categories and am therefor able to practice all four.
Great, so now you can read this blog as an objective theorization about Sex that in no way reflects my own lesbian, virgin, celibate, asexual perspective. Bring on the heat!
THINGS I DID TODAY THAT WERE SEXUAL:
- listened to "you and me baby aint nothin' but mammals" and pictured myself as a pornographer on the Discovery channel
- listened to the Beatle's "Why Don't we Just Do it in the Road" and succumbed to the invitation
- studied Ancient Greece
- walked through the Time-Warner building in Columbus Circle (google the artwork and you'll know what I mean)
- watched Quill in my Children & the Media class
- discussed Sex in both my Children & the Media class and my Freedom of Expression class
- peed in an airport restroom while making sexual advances at the man in the next urinal (didn't think I had it in me did you?)
- read Stephen Colbert's chapter on Sex & Dating and the one on Homosexuals
- ate chocolate
- went to yoga
- swallowed
- scanned the collection of pornographic spam that I've been accumulating in my AOL mailbox
- ate baby carrots (S.C. would be proud!)
- watched two ants fornicating in Central park
- walked through Times Square
- included Fluffy in an email to my dad
- took the train (come on? long, silver shaft that spits out commuters when it reaches its destination and charges more money for tickets during peak time?)
- had sex with Johnny Depp...
- solved world hunger (didn't tell anyone) (hey that's hott, right?)
sooo lets talk about sex baby! Really, lets. I got an email today -apparently a "very naughty girl" likes me! This may be a little presumptuous of me, but i think she might be it, you know, "the one." I don't want to open the email because I don't think I am yet ready to embrace such a colossal realization, to take that huge step towards a new life yet, but I will, eventually, I will! So if you are reading this, very naughty girl, please wait for me. I'll....come(sp?) around... eventually.
Why does it seem that America, society, is so anti-pleasure? The media, religious institutions, and even many of our families are scared of sex, yet it is a natural, anatomically sound, procreationally essential, historically significant, beautiful thing. We have been conditioned to fear it, though. PENIS = BAD! VAGINA = UNSPOKEN WORD THAT MUST BE SUBSTITUTED FOR 'VAJAJAY!' (I'll admit, I shun it too). COPULATION = HEDONISTIC! Seriously, think about elementary school, middle school, and high school sex talks. What did they consist of? Not anatomical representations of the body and of two (or three, four, whatever floats your boat... I prefer seven) bodies conjoing into one entity. God forbid we learn the logistics of sex. What we heard were stories about AIDS, HIV, and other horrifying STDs. I remember being grossed out by over-exaggerated pictures of gential warts and other arcane diseases. It is enough to turn one celibate! When I got to Fordham, our freshman orientation consisted of each student receiving a cup of water. Some were chemically altered to turn pink when another chemical was poured into them. We were instructed to share our water with four other people chosen at random. At the end, we got to see the "ramifications" of our choice to "engage in sexual intercourse" with these random constituents; most of us had aquired an "STD." SEX IS BAD. This is the message that many of us have grown up with. And it is counter-productive because we eventually have to unlearn this fallacious message and relearn the valid fact that SEX IS GOOD.
We are fundamentally ambivalent about sex.
The mass media has it's own sexual agenda (sex sells, so use it excessively and with reckless abandon - be sure to include it in Disney movies and cartoons targeted at children so they will become more productive consumers...come on.... Sponge Bob doesn't have those abnormally large and ecstatic eyes because he just ate a Krabby Patty.... Squidworth was pleasuring him. And it's no coincidence that Donald Duck isn't wearing pants. He's surrepticiously promoting public nudity.)
Society has it's own sexual agenda (they secretly want kids to become more sexual at a younger age so they can scapegoat them and relinquish themselves from public scrutiny when things like rape, assault, and adultery accidentally occur)
Politicians have their own sexual agenda (see "society" above and add "and use these sex-fiends as compaign initiatives")
Our body has it's own agenda (it knows what it wants and what it wants is to feel good).
sooooooooo what should we do with all this and how do we deal with these competing forces?
When I went to the Alex Grey museum for a second time (better than the first time, definitely going back for round 3) I noticed that in his Cosmic Christ painting there were two opposing sexual images at the bottom of the Tree of Life (which, on the dark side, depicted man and all the savagery he has inflicted on the earth and on the other, the light side, nature and all the serenity that is inherent in it). On the dark side, there was what looked like a demon having sex with some decrepid character that looked like she(?) was dead. On the other side, the light side, was a depiction of sex leading to procreation. Clearly, the message was that recreational sex is bad and procreational sex is good. Is this valid? Is sex only good when it is used to bear children? According to Steven Colbert, "sex is power - the power to create life, the power to ruin life, and the power to sex it up good." So sex can either feel good, do good, or do bad.
Sex is animalistic. This is both the savagery and the beauty of it.
Steven Colbert - "There is nothing more beautiful thatn two mature people who are in a committed, loving relationship doing something unspeakable debasing."
We gain knowledge and develop our intellects so that we can rise above other species int he animal kingdom, but then we sink to their level when we copulate. Ironic? Or proof that we are all equal brothers and sisters in the circle of life? If he latter is true then it provides an argument for beastiality, something that has been condemned as henious in our elitist culture. I envision a future in which Lions will fornicate with mice and sheep will sleep with jungle birds.
Stevie tellingly provides a list of fornicating animals and their sexual styles:
1. Earthworms - they do it everywhere...under rocks, in the driveway, underground. "I don't care if you're an adult in worm years, Mr. Worm - if you can't handle tending a few thousand cocoons, don't ventrally fertilize your hermaphoditic partner."
2. Ants - They do it everywhere too, but not for procreational purposes (there are enough of them already). They do it because they enjoy it and they do it "in plain sight of picnics - part of the sick thrill."
3. Tigers - aquire their life partners via stalking (they track down their prospective mates when they ar ready to have children and then seduce them into procreating via roaring.
4. Bowerbirds - their females are snyonymous with human females today. They force the males bowerbirds to build elaborate nests and then pick one based on his architectural prowess.
5. New Mexico Whiptail Lizard - They reproduce by partheogenesis (the way God intended... see the subliminal indication? Genesis?)
These are just a few of the many fornicating beasts... others include dogs, cats, and mice. But that's it. The others are simply products of evolution. Whales too. They evolve from cats.
So we are subject to our animal instincts. We try to rid outselves of them, but they seem to be unriddable. We still hunger for food and thirst for water. Men want women to blow them and women want men to suck their tits, I, of course, being the exception. There's an argument for all you animal activists.
I hope that the rest of your day is just as spicy as this blog was. Have a great day...in bed.
xoxoxXXXoxo
if you are under the age of 12 and/or don't want the entire Steven Colbert chapter on Sex&Dating spoiled before you have a chance to read it then STOP NOW!
I bet if you were to skim my entire blog and were forced by either time contraints or an evil pots-and-pans robot (Family Guy? anyone? anyone?) to read just one entry it would be this one. Sicko!
Before I get into this stimulating topic, I'd like to take the time to address all you prospective bachelors who might be looking for some insight into my own sexual wants and desires and state that I am a lesbian virgin who has pledged to remain celibate for the duration of my sexless life, which should be an extremely easy task since I am genetically asexual.
Note that though there is some contradiction in simultaneously embracing lesbianism, asexuality, celibacy, and virginity, I am above the constraints of modern sexual categories and am therefor able to practice all four.
Great, so now you can read this blog as an objective theorization about Sex that in no way reflects my own lesbian, virgin, celibate, asexual perspective. Bring on the heat!
THINGS I DID TODAY THAT WERE SEXUAL:
- listened to "you and me baby aint nothin' but mammals" and pictured myself as a pornographer on the Discovery channel
- listened to the Beatle's "Why Don't we Just Do it in the Road" and succumbed to the invitation
- studied Ancient Greece
- walked through the Time-Warner building in Columbus Circle (google the artwork and you'll know what I mean)
- watched Quill in my Children & the Media class
- discussed Sex in both my Children & the Media class and my Freedom of Expression class
- peed in an airport restroom while making sexual advances at the man in the next urinal (didn't think I had it in me did you?)
- read Stephen Colbert's chapter on Sex & Dating and the one on Homosexuals
- ate chocolate
- went to yoga
- swallowed
- scanned the collection of pornographic spam that I've been accumulating in my AOL mailbox
- ate baby carrots (S.C. would be proud!)
- watched two ants fornicating in Central park
- walked through Times Square
- included Fluffy in an email to my dad
- took the train (come on? long, silver shaft that spits out commuters when it reaches its destination and charges more money for tickets during peak time?)
- had sex with Johnny Depp...
- solved world hunger (didn't tell anyone) (hey that's hott, right?)
sooo lets talk about sex baby! Really, lets. I got an email today -apparently a "very naughty girl" likes me! This may be a little presumptuous of me, but i think she might be it, you know, "the one." I don't want to open the email because I don't think I am yet ready to embrace such a colossal realization, to take that huge step towards a new life yet, but I will, eventually, I will! So if you are reading this, very naughty girl, please wait for me. I'll....come(sp?) around... eventually.
Why does it seem that America, society, is so anti-pleasure? The media, religious institutions, and even many of our families are scared of sex, yet it is a natural, anatomically sound, procreationally essential, historically significant, beautiful thing. We have been conditioned to fear it, though. PENIS = BAD! VAGINA = UNSPOKEN WORD THAT MUST BE SUBSTITUTED FOR 'VAJAJAY!' (I'll admit, I shun it too). COPULATION = HEDONISTIC! Seriously, think about elementary school, middle school, and high school sex talks. What did they consist of? Not anatomical representations of the body and of two (or three, four, whatever floats your boat... I prefer seven) bodies conjoing into one entity. God forbid we learn the logistics of sex. What we heard were stories about AIDS, HIV, and other horrifying STDs. I remember being grossed out by over-exaggerated pictures of gential warts and other arcane diseases. It is enough to turn one celibate! When I got to Fordham, our freshman orientation consisted of each student receiving a cup of water. Some were chemically altered to turn pink when another chemical was poured into them. We were instructed to share our water with four other people chosen at random. At the end, we got to see the "ramifications" of our choice to "engage in sexual intercourse" with these random constituents; most of us had aquired an "STD." SEX IS BAD. This is the message that many of us have grown up with. And it is counter-productive because we eventually have to unlearn this fallacious message and relearn the valid fact that SEX IS GOOD.
We are fundamentally ambivalent about sex.
The mass media has it's own sexual agenda (sex sells, so use it excessively and with reckless abandon - be sure to include it in Disney movies and cartoons targeted at children so they will become more productive consumers...come on.... Sponge Bob doesn't have those abnormally large and ecstatic eyes because he just ate a Krabby Patty.... Squidworth was pleasuring him. And it's no coincidence that Donald Duck isn't wearing pants. He's surrepticiously promoting public nudity.)
Society has it's own sexual agenda (they secretly want kids to become more sexual at a younger age so they can scapegoat them and relinquish themselves from public scrutiny when things like rape, assault, and adultery accidentally occur)
Politicians have their own sexual agenda (see "society" above and add "and use these sex-fiends as compaign initiatives")
Our body has it's own agenda (it knows what it wants and what it wants is to feel good).
sooooooooo what should we do with all this and how do we deal with these competing forces?
When I went to the Alex Grey museum for a second time (better than the first time, definitely going back for round 3) I noticed that in his Cosmic Christ painting there were two opposing sexual images at the bottom of the Tree of Life (which, on the dark side, depicted man and all the savagery he has inflicted on the earth and on the other, the light side, nature and all the serenity that is inherent in it). On the dark side, there was what looked like a demon having sex with some decrepid character that looked like she(?) was dead. On the other side, the light side, was a depiction of sex leading to procreation. Clearly, the message was that recreational sex is bad and procreational sex is good. Is this valid? Is sex only good when it is used to bear children? According to Steven Colbert, "sex is power - the power to create life, the power to ruin life, and the power to sex it up good." So sex can either feel good, do good, or do bad.
Sex is animalistic. This is both the savagery and the beauty of it.
Steven Colbert - "There is nothing more beautiful thatn two mature people who are in a committed, loving relationship doing something unspeakable debasing."
We gain knowledge and develop our intellects so that we can rise above other species int he animal kingdom, but then we sink to their level when we copulate. Ironic? Or proof that we are all equal brothers and sisters in the circle of life? If he latter is true then it provides an argument for beastiality, something that has been condemned as henious in our elitist culture. I envision a future in which Lions will fornicate with mice and sheep will sleep with jungle birds.
Stevie tellingly provides a list of fornicating animals and their sexual styles:
1. Earthworms - they do it everywhere...under rocks, in the driveway, underground. "I don't care if you're an adult in worm years, Mr. Worm - if you can't handle tending a few thousand cocoons, don't ventrally fertilize your hermaphoditic partner."
2. Ants - They do it everywhere too, but not for procreational purposes (there are enough of them already). They do it because they enjoy it and they do it "in plain sight of picnics - part of the sick thrill."
3. Tigers - aquire their life partners via stalking (they track down their prospective mates when they ar ready to have children and then seduce them into procreating via roaring.
4. Bowerbirds - their females are snyonymous with human females today. They force the males bowerbirds to build elaborate nests and then pick one based on his architectural prowess.
5. New Mexico Whiptail Lizard - They reproduce by partheogenesis (the way God intended... see the subliminal indication? Genesis?)
These are just a few of the many fornicating beasts... others include dogs, cats, and mice. But that's it. The others are simply products of evolution. Whales too. They evolve from cats.
So we are subject to our animal instincts. We try to rid outselves of them, but they seem to be unriddable. We still hunger for food and thirst for water. Men want women to blow them and women want men to suck their tits, I, of course, being the exception. There's an argument for all you animal activists.
I hope that the rest of your day is just as spicy as this blog was. Have a great day...in bed.
xoxoxXXXoxo
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Sermon
Raking leaves with a little bit of God...upon request..
As summer flowers give way to autumn leaves and the warm weather evolves into crisper weather, a quick glance outside reveals that we truly have a lot to be thankful for. The smell of brisk autumn air, fall festivals, pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, and, of course, the notoriously beautiful New England fall foliage. We are right now in the peak of fall, when the leaves are at their most vibrant and shades of red, orange, and yellow color the trees. We are blessed to be surrounded by such natural beauty.
However, these same leaves that we marvel at now were the reason why my brother and I dreaded the onset of fall when we were children; fall meant leaves and leaves meant raking. Needless to say, we found every possible excuse to try and get out of raking the leaves. One year, we tried to convince Dad that the leaves were a sort of lawn ornament that made the yard look more colorful and so should be allowed to stay on the ground. Another year, we discovered that our rakes were made of weak plastic and that if we pushed instead of pulled the leaves then the rakes would break we couldn’t resume raking until Dad bought new ones. There were a lot of broken rakes that season. Despite these and other furtive attempts, every year was the same. We would rake up a pile of leaves that my Dad would then stuff into a barrel and carry across the street to dump in the woods. While he was disposing of them, my brother and I would frantically try and throw as many of the remaining leaves as we could into the neighbor’s yard so that we wouldn’t have to deal with them ourselves.
Our plan always seemed to backfire. Sooner or later the leaves would blow back into our yard and we would have to rake them up. We thought we were fooling Dad and outsmarting the system, but we were only fooling ourselves. Sometimes he would play along, consciously ignoring the huge pile of leaves that lay just over the neighbor’s fence, but he knew what we were up to.
I wish I could say that we eventually learned to embrace the inescapable task of raking leaves and undertook it with a renewed sense of satisfaction in knowing that the hard manual labor that we put in would be well worth it in the end when we were left with a beautiful, leaf-free yard. But what really happened was that we both left the yards behind and went to college, I in New York where “vegetation” is a foreign word and Nick in California where the only thing falling from the trees are coconuts. However, we can both look back and appreciate the lessons that leaf raking and our unsuccessful attempts to avoid it taught us.
We always tried to get rid of the leaves because we didn’t appreciate the subtle forces inherent in leaf-raking that were surreptitiously shaping our characters every time we raked. The leaves kept coming back to us for a reason; because raking was really a call to having faith that the benefits would out weigh and long outlive the suffering.
Having faith is a theme that we have heard over and over again in the Gospel readings of the past month. Two weeks ago the gospel reading was about Christ calming the Sea. Last week we saw him healing the Gentile demoniac, and this week, he heals the woman with a flow of blood and raises the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. We are called to place our faith in God, just as the young woman with the flow of blood did when the touched Jesus and as the ruler of the synagogue did when he asked Christ to heal his dying daughter. We place our faith in Christ so that we might know and marvel at his works just as we know and marvel at the changing colors of the autumn leaves.
As summer flowers give way to autumn leaves and the warm weather evolves into crisper weather, a quick glance outside reveals that we truly have a lot to be thankful for. The smell of brisk autumn air, fall festivals, pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, and, of course, the notoriously beautiful New England fall foliage. We are right now in the peak of fall, when the leaves are at their most vibrant and shades of red, orange, and yellow color the trees. We are blessed to be surrounded by such natural beauty.
However, these same leaves that we marvel at now were the reason why my brother and I dreaded the onset of fall when we were children; fall meant leaves and leaves meant raking. Needless to say, we found every possible excuse to try and get out of raking the leaves. One year, we tried to convince Dad that the leaves were a sort of lawn ornament that made the yard look more colorful and so should be allowed to stay on the ground. Another year, we discovered that our rakes were made of weak plastic and that if we pushed instead of pulled the leaves then the rakes would break we couldn’t resume raking until Dad bought new ones. There were a lot of broken rakes that season. Despite these and other furtive attempts, every year was the same. We would rake up a pile of leaves that my Dad would then stuff into a barrel and carry across the street to dump in the woods. While he was disposing of them, my brother and I would frantically try and throw as many of the remaining leaves as we could into the neighbor’s yard so that we wouldn’t have to deal with them ourselves.
Our plan always seemed to backfire. Sooner or later the leaves would blow back into our yard and we would have to rake them up. We thought we were fooling Dad and outsmarting the system, but we were only fooling ourselves. Sometimes he would play along, consciously ignoring the huge pile of leaves that lay just over the neighbor’s fence, but he knew what we were up to.
I wish I could say that we eventually learned to embrace the inescapable task of raking leaves and undertook it with a renewed sense of satisfaction in knowing that the hard manual labor that we put in would be well worth it in the end when we were left with a beautiful, leaf-free yard. But what really happened was that we both left the yards behind and went to college, I in New York where “vegetation” is a foreign word and Nick in California where the only thing falling from the trees are coconuts. However, we can both look back and appreciate the lessons that leaf raking and our unsuccessful attempts to avoid it taught us.
We always tried to get rid of the leaves because we didn’t appreciate the subtle forces inherent in leaf-raking that were surreptitiously shaping our characters every time we raked. The leaves kept coming back to us for a reason; because raking was really a call to having faith that the benefits would out weigh and long outlive the suffering.
Having faith is a theme that we have heard over and over again in the Gospel readings of the past month. Two weeks ago the gospel reading was about Christ calming the Sea. Last week we saw him healing the Gentile demoniac, and this week, he heals the woman with a flow of blood and raises the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. We are called to place our faith in God, just as the young woman with the flow of blood did when the touched Jesus and as the ruler of the synagogue did when he asked Christ to heal his dying daughter. We place our faith in Christ so that we might know and marvel at his works just as we know and marvel at the changing colors of the autumn leaves.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A Beautiful Blog
Finished A Beautiful Mind today. Great book. I highly reccomend it. I've never taken an economics course and didn't even really know the definition of economics before I delved into the book and now I want to minor in it!! haha. I think I just have to pick a minor. Then I'll be OK because I know I am capable of falling in love with whatever I pick because I am interested in basically every field of study so it is just a matter of committing to one.
John Nash was a really eccentric, brilliant, reclusive, focused intellectual. I almost felt like I was living his life while I was reading the book. I definitely put myself in his shoes for most of the book. Sometimes I put myself in Alicia's (his wife), but mostly his. I'm curious, is this what everyone does when they are reading a biography? Or do they read it like an outsider looking in?
I found a sequel to the biography. It's called A Beautiful Math and while A Beautiful Mind focused on John Nash as a person , this one focuses on his math. The former is essentially a product of the latter. I read the first two chapters of it today (I can't believe I am choosing economics over Colbert!) and, among other, things, it introduced the concept of game-theory and the philosophies of Newton (the God of physics), Smith (the God of economics), and Darwin (the god of natural science). The order in which these three bodies of knowledge emerged was
1. Newton's philosophies about physical sciences (ie. gravity)
2. Smith's theories about ends and means - economics (invisible hand of govt., free-market economy)
3. Darwin's theories about human development (evolution, survival of the fittest)
I think it's ironic that Darwin theorized that only the strongest will survive (a theory that permeates essentially all life realms) AFTER Smith theorized that a govt. should play a minimal role in market affairs because Smith was theorizing about human behavior while Darwin was theorizing about humans themselves. The order seems a bit out of wack and when you look at the underlying principles that guide both smith and darwin's work we can see that they are the same.
off to yoga.
more later.
I love John Nash <3<3<3
and sushi <3<3<3
John Nash was a really eccentric, brilliant, reclusive, focused intellectual. I almost felt like I was living his life while I was reading the book. I definitely put myself in his shoes for most of the book. Sometimes I put myself in Alicia's (his wife), but mostly his. I'm curious, is this what everyone does when they are reading a biography? Or do they read it like an outsider looking in?
I found a sequel to the biography. It's called A Beautiful Math and while A Beautiful Mind focused on John Nash as a person , this one focuses on his math. The former is essentially a product of the latter. I read the first two chapters of it today (I can't believe I am choosing economics over Colbert!) and, among other, things, it introduced the concept of game-theory and the philosophies of Newton (the God of physics), Smith (the God of economics), and Darwin (the god of natural science). The order in which these three bodies of knowledge emerged was
1. Newton's philosophies about physical sciences (ie. gravity)
2. Smith's theories about ends and means - economics (invisible hand of govt., free-market economy)
3. Darwin's theories about human development (evolution, survival of the fittest)
I think it's ironic that Darwin theorized that only the strongest will survive (a theory that permeates essentially all life realms) AFTER Smith theorized that a govt. should play a minimal role in market affairs because Smith was theorizing about human behavior while Darwin was theorizing about humans themselves. The order seems a bit out of wack and when you look at the underlying principles that guide both smith and darwin's work we can see that they are the same.
off to yoga.
more later.
I love John Nash <3<3<3
and sushi <3<3<3
Friday, October 19, 2007
Gymnastics Article #1
The ancient Greeks did it naked. The Romans had it banned. The Christians deplored it as dangerous. Yet is has nonetheless survived the test of time and risen as a glorified art form that tests the limits of the mind-body-spirit complex in an aesthetically compelling practice. Gymnastics has evolved into one of the most internaionally celebrated sports. It is performed at an amateur, expert, and Olympic level and not only offers fans an aethetically pleasing dance of physicality and gracefulness - it prepares its participants for the real world.
Should I give in to my Big Mac craving or do I want to indulge in Sushi? What color shoes should I wear with that striped shirt? Should I go out for a night-on-the town with friends or stay in and catch up on some Steven King? The problems that we face in gymnastics often surrepticiously mirror the ones that we face in the real world. Deciding what to eat, wear, or do with our spare time is a lot easier when we have been making consequential decisions all of our lives. Making a commitment to stay on the beam after a wobbly backhandspring could make-or-break a routine, just like resolving to return a phone-call to a client could make-or-break the relationship we have with that client.
The world of gymnastics is one small microcosm in the great macrocosmic universe and the practice of it prepares us for living, dealing, and coping in an often daunting, complex, and trying world. Just like religion, art, business, school, athletics, politics, economics, and acedemia oftentimes collide in the real-world, beam, bars, floor, and vault (the four women's artistic events) also do in gymnastics. The mental and physical tools that enable us to master (or come lose to!) these four disciplines also do so in real-life.
Enrolling our children in gymnastic is one of the single most important things we can do to help ensure that they will be able to handle stress and cope with the ever-changing world that they will inevitably be thrust into. Gymnastics is a progression that begins with mommy-and-me classes, which then progress into preschool, non-competitve, competitive (comulsory and optional), and eventually either college-level or elite level gymnastics.
Gymnastics is, in essence, a child's initiation into the world of choices and choices are what dictate the course of our lives. An infant in a mommy-and-me class chooses whether or not to walk across the beam alone or to hold mommy's hand in the process. A competitive gymnast chooses which body part to move at a certain time and they see the effects of that choice at the conclusion of the skill. A more experienced gymnast may even choose between which human system to employ when performaing a skill (skeletal or muscular).
Gymnastics helps children become autonomus, socially engaged, hard-working, heatlthy, and intellectually adept individuals. These are the inredgiants that parents hope that their children, as they grow into adolsecents and eventually adults, will encompass.
The mind-body-spirit trinity is apparent moreso in gymnastics than in any other sport because of the simultaneous physical, mental, and spiritual demands it places on its participates. Beam requires a mix of balance, power, precision, and stability. Floor requires tenacity, grace, and willful endurance. Bars requires fluidity and strength. Vault demands speed, quick-thinking, and tight, clear objectives. All of these qualities are what we aspire, as people who continue to seek happiness and fulfillment in life, aspire to encompass. So why not cultviate in our children these same qualities from the get-go by putting them in a sport that may also eventually relieve us of our finanical obligation to put them through college?
Gymnastics, if practiced correctly, spawns outstanding individuals who are able to survive and thrive in an increasingly demanding universe.
New article - about mommy-and-me classes specifically (target age-group)...
In mommy-and-me classes, infants are given that all-important foundation that they need to build-off of. They develop motor skills and learn, essentially, how to move. They develope balance and concentration by walking across a low beam while holding mommy's hand. They learn how to manipulate their bodies and what the effect of moving a certain limb in a certain direction can have by jumping on a trampoline. They experience the phenomenon of moving each body part in tandem as a means by which to pull themselves over a low bar (with the help of a coach of course!). They develop arm strength by hanging on a low bar, courage by jumping into the pit, and cognition by maneuvering their way through an obstacle course. Bright colored beanbags, hula-hoops, and mats are used in order to apeal to their visual-spatial sense.
New article - more specifically about the gymnast rather than the practice of gymnastics in general....
We marvel at them as they flip across a four-inch slab of wood raised four feet off the ground and land without a wobble. We gasp as they tumble their way into space, twisting and flipping (often simultaneously) and rebouding off of what, to the naked, eye, looks like nothing more than a big blue carpet. We stare in amazement as they sprint their fastest towards an inanimate apparatus, then use it to propell themselves up and over and land seemlessly without moving a muscle. And we watch in wonder as they muscle and contort their bodies in swings and counter-swings that propell them up, over, around, and awaya from bar to bar. This is the sport of Women's Gymnastics at its finest.
Gymnastics is one big metaphor for life.
Should I give in to my Big Mac craving or do I want to indulge in Sushi? What color shoes should I wear with that striped shirt? Should I go out for a night-on-the town with friends or stay in and catch up on some Steven King? The problems that we face in gymnastics often surrepticiously mirror the ones that we face in the real world. Deciding what to eat, wear, or do with our spare time is a lot easier when we have been making consequential decisions all of our lives. Making a commitment to stay on the beam after a wobbly backhandspring could make-or-break a routine, just like resolving to return a phone-call to a client could make-or-break the relationship we have with that client.
The world of gymnastics is one small microcosm in the great macrocosmic universe and the practice of it prepares us for living, dealing, and coping in an often daunting, complex, and trying world. Just like religion, art, business, school, athletics, politics, economics, and acedemia oftentimes collide in the real-world, beam, bars, floor, and vault (the four women's artistic events) also do in gymnastics. The mental and physical tools that enable us to master (or come lose to!) these four disciplines also do so in real-life.
Enrolling our children in gymnastic is one of the single most important things we can do to help ensure that they will be able to handle stress and cope with the ever-changing world that they will inevitably be thrust into. Gymnastics is a progression that begins with mommy-and-me classes, which then progress into preschool, non-competitve, competitive (comulsory and optional), and eventually either college-level or elite level gymnastics.
Gymnastics is, in essence, a child's initiation into the world of choices and choices are what dictate the course of our lives. An infant in a mommy-and-me class chooses whether or not to walk across the beam alone or to hold mommy's hand in the process. A competitive gymnast chooses which body part to move at a certain time and they see the effects of that choice at the conclusion of the skill. A more experienced gymnast may even choose between which human system to employ when performaing a skill (skeletal or muscular).
Gymnastics helps children become autonomus, socially engaged, hard-working, heatlthy, and intellectually adept individuals. These are the inredgiants that parents hope that their children, as they grow into adolsecents and eventually adults, will encompass.
The mind-body-spirit trinity is apparent moreso in gymnastics than in any other sport because of the simultaneous physical, mental, and spiritual demands it places on its participates. Beam requires a mix of balance, power, precision, and stability. Floor requires tenacity, grace, and willful endurance. Bars requires fluidity and strength. Vault demands speed, quick-thinking, and tight, clear objectives. All of these qualities are what we aspire, as people who continue to seek happiness and fulfillment in life, aspire to encompass. So why not cultviate in our children these same qualities from the get-go by putting them in a sport that may also eventually relieve us of our finanical obligation to put them through college?
Gymnastics, if practiced correctly, spawns outstanding individuals who are able to survive and thrive in an increasingly demanding universe.
New article - about mommy-and-me classes specifically (target age-group)...
In mommy-and-me classes, infants are given that all-important foundation that they need to build-off of. They develop motor skills and learn, essentially, how to move. They develope balance and concentration by walking across a low beam while holding mommy's hand. They learn how to manipulate their bodies and what the effect of moving a certain limb in a certain direction can have by jumping on a trampoline. They experience the phenomenon of moving each body part in tandem as a means by which to pull themselves over a low bar (with the help of a coach of course!). They develop arm strength by hanging on a low bar, courage by jumping into the pit, and cognition by maneuvering their way through an obstacle course. Bright colored beanbags, hula-hoops, and mats are used in order to apeal to their visual-spatial sense.
New article - more specifically about the gymnast rather than the practice of gymnastics in general....
We marvel at them as they flip across a four-inch slab of wood raised four feet off the ground and land without a wobble. We gasp as they tumble their way into space, twisting and flipping (often simultaneously) and rebouding off of what, to the naked, eye, looks like nothing more than a big blue carpet. We stare in amazement as they sprint their fastest towards an inanimate apparatus, then use it to propell themselves up and over and land seemlessly without moving a muscle. And we watch in wonder as they muscle and contort their bodies in swings and counter-swings that propell them up, over, around, and awaya from bar to bar. This is the sport of Women's Gymnastics at its finest.
Gymnastics is one big metaphor for life.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
The reality of reality
sooooooo I was having a debate about reality in which I presupposed that the reality of reality is an imaginary idea that we have constructed in order to make sense of a world in which reality doesn't even really exist.
The reality of "reality" is that there is no reality and there are no facts, only assumptions whose existence is dependent on the paradox of symbioticism (I made that word up, but you get the idea, and it SHOULD BE A WORD because YOU can use extrapolation to extricate its meaning from its root word [symbiotic], but I've had this argument already so I'll opt not to digress, even though I already have.....).
A fact is something that is self-evident, that is proven, that we know, and that we can use to form the core of our hypothesi, theories, principles, formulas, equations etc. We know that a fact exists and therefor we do not have to go through the painsaking process of proving that it exists. However, the fact of the matter is that a "fact" only exists when it is considered in realtion to other "facts."
Reality, which is factual, only exists in a perceptual sense.
For instance, we know that global warming exists because we see it happening, becuase we see glaciers melting and polar bears dying, but what if we couldn't see the effects of it? Then would it still exist? Would pollution still be causing the ozone layer to depleat? We only KNOW that it exists because of perceptual clues.
Likewise, did death exist before the first person died? Or did the act of dying only enable us to know that death existed because it BECAME a reality.
On the other end of the scale, does time-travel exist just becuase it isn't real now?
Schrodinger's Uncertainty principle can be used to prove this. According to the uncertainty principle, the momentum and the position of an electron cannot be simultaneously known given the fact that the electron is a perpertually moving object in space. If we know its momentum then we cannot know its position because it has since moved. If we know its position then we cannot know its momentum because we are calculating position according to a series of set coordinates that do not move.
I think that knowing this about subatomic particles enables us to deduce information about life in general because life as a whole is in a constant state of motion because we are made up of matter which is made up partially of electrons. I think if I remember correctly "What the Bleep do we know?" discusses this. We assume things are real because we need to be able to make sense of the world. We are living in a fictional universe that cannot be proven based on facts. (which is an argument for religion, but I won't get into that).
Another piece of evidence against the reality of reality is the observer effect. If reality is perceptual, if things only exist to us if we can see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or if we can learn about them, or read about them, then the mere act of "observing" them changes them.
also... this is cool.... in Star Trek, time-travel was plausible because they invented a machine called the "Heisenburg compensator" which was able to capture particles in motion (in essence, to know the position and the momentum of a particle) and transport them into another time.
another also, here's a quote from A Beautiful Mind that proves the futility of trying to put a finger on the reality of reality:
Nash made his own agenda quite clear. 'To me one of the best things about the Heisenberg paper is its restriction to the observable quantities. I want to find a different and more satisfying under-picture of a non-observable reality.' It was this attempt that Nash would blame, decades later in a lecture to psychiatrists, for triggering his mental illness- calling his attempt to resolve contradictions in quantum theory possibly overreaching and psychologcally destabilizaing."
sweet stuff.
The reality of "reality" is that there is no reality and there are no facts, only assumptions whose existence is dependent on the paradox of symbioticism (I made that word up, but you get the idea, and it SHOULD BE A WORD because YOU can use extrapolation to extricate its meaning from its root word [symbiotic], but I've had this argument already so I'll opt not to digress, even though I already have.....).
A fact is something that is self-evident, that is proven, that we know, and that we can use to form the core of our hypothesi, theories, principles, formulas, equations etc. We know that a fact exists and therefor we do not have to go through the painsaking process of proving that it exists. However, the fact of the matter is that a "fact" only exists when it is considered in realtion to other "facts."
Reality, which is factual, only exists in a perceptual sense.
For instance, we know that global warming exists because we see it happening, becuase we see glaciers melting and polar bears dying, but what if we couldn't see the effects of it? Then would it still exist? Would pollution still be causing the ozone layer to depleat? We only KNOW that it exists because of perceptual clues.
Likewise, did death exist before the first person died? Or did the act of dying only enable us to know that death existed because it BECAME a reality.
On the other end of the scale, does time-travel exist just becuase it isn't real now?
Schrodinger's Uncertainty principle can be used to prove this. According to the uncertainty principle, the momentum and the position of an electron cannot be simultaneously known given the fact that the electron is a perpertually moving object in space. If we know its momentum then we cannot know its position because it has since moved. If we know its position then we cannot know its momentum because we are calculating position according to a series of set coordinates that do not move.
I think that knowing this about subatomic particles enables us to deduce information about life in general because life as a whole is in a constant state of motion because we are made up of matter which is made up partially of electrons. I think if I remember correctly "What the Bleep do we know?" discusses this. We assume things are real because we need to be able to make sense of the world. We are living in a fictional universe that cannot be proven based on facts. (which is an argument for religion, but I won't get into that).
Another piece of evidence against the reality of reality is the observer effect. If reality is perceptual, if things only exist to us if we can see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or if we can learn about them, or read about them, then the mere act of "observing" them changes them.
also... this is cool.... in Star Trek, time-travel was plausible because they invented a machine called the "Heisenburg compensator" which was able to capture particles in motion (in essence, to know the position and the momentum of a particle) and transport them into another time.
another also, here's a quote from A Beautiful Mind that proves the futility of trying to put a finger on the reality of reality:
Nash made his own agenda quite clear. 'To me one of the best things about the Heisenberg paper is its restriction to the observable quantities. I want to find a different and more satisfying under-picture of a non-observable reality.' It was this attempt that Nash would blame, decades later in a lecture to psychiatrists, for triggering his mental illness- calling his attempt to resolve contradictions in quantum theory possibly overreaching and psychologcally destabilizaing."
sweet stuff.
GYMNASTICS
So I found this sweet writing internship that requires you to come up with new articles about a specific topic that you get to choose off of a list of many that are offered. I was surprised to see "Gymnastics" nestled inoccuously amongst a heap of brodder subjects like politics, computers, podcasting, newlyweds, and...cheese. Seriously, chees was in there haha. Which doesn't prove my point that gymnastics seemed a bit out of place, but is nonetheless very funny! How many articles can possibly be written about cheese? Cows make milk, humans make cheese from it, it molds, sometimes it has holes, mice like it....well, maybe there are a lot of topics that can be written about it, but still.
Anyway, the internship requires you to submit a sample of writing about your chosen topic and clearly gymnastics is what I am best suited to write about and since I have no samples except a few arbitrary opinion columbs scattered here and there I need to come up with some. SOOOOO..... here is a stream of consciousness about gymnastics topics that I can potential blog about...
mind over matter, being centered, breathing, endurance, 90% mental 10% physical aspect of gymnastics, conditioning and flexibility- having a good amount of both, eating healthy, eating smart,- are there things that we shouldn't be allowed to eat? what does this do to us in the future? what to eat before workout, after working, before competition, during competition, curing workout, what to drink, how to teach young gymnastics about eating healthy. eating health = eating balanced, , BALANCE in all areas (conditioning, flexibility, eating, training, mental, physical, competition) research into coaching styles- the yeller, the patient coach, the spotter, that lazy coach, the coach that enphasisesz strength, different perspective abotu competing - how much of it, how to USE competitions, the political nature of gymnastics, children and gymnastics - bein careful about how you touch them, waht you say to them, how you teach them, what you are ingraing into their young and vulnerable minds, - concentration development, dance, leaps and jumps, progression, preschoolers, cognition, different techniques for preschoolers, punishment: what to use and whatt it teaches children (ie. should pushups be used as a punishment and candy as a reward? what does this teach kids? - to hate pushups and love candy), response of children, best techniques - humor? balancing fun with work, winning vs losing, progression -the value of patience . you want to ideally keep moving forward not backward so you need to look to the future - self-preservation - if you get injured a lot now you won;t have a future.
vault - explosiveness - running techniques, different running drills, shoulder blocks, board, reach, landing, different vaults work better with different gymnastics
ie. smaller gymnastics with more stomache strength tend to be able to rotate faster so a Front-front would probably be the best choice and a gymnast with a long line would look better doing a yurchenko. oftentimes judging is subjective though it tries to be objective based on how a gymnast looks so choosing the skill or choreogrphing a routine based on the gymnast is essential
coaching beam -beam drills
from drills to skills
skeletal muscular system and deciding which to use and when - constant neogitiation - listen to your body - balance of pushing through the pain and knowing when to stop
teamwork
allegiance
communication
callouses on hands -development
grips -
the impotance of the handstand for every single event
floor - explosiveness - techniques roundoff quickness .... endurance work smart, not hard!
"she works hard, but she doesn't work smart"
parents in the gym - when to step in when not to - parents vs coach dialogue.
competition training
percentage that nerves factor in.
bars - constant negotioation - arm strength
boys gymnastics vs girls gymnastics - elegance vs power.
flooor music personality
pit training, spotting, belts, trampoline training, tramp bar helpfulness
skill progression
conditioning drills should mirror and work to progressively lead you towards learning the actual skills
conditioning is different for every girl every gymnastics is different
developmental differences nature nurture
family life, religion, work ethic..all factors
Anyway, the internship requires you to submit a sample of writing about your chosen topic and clearly gymnastics is what I am best suited to write about and since I have no samples except a few arbitrary opinion columbs scattered here and there I need to come up with some. SOOOOO..... here is a stream of consciousness about gymnastics topics that I can potential blog about...
mind over matter, being centered, breathing, endurance, 90% mental 10% physical aspect of gymnastics, conditioning and flexibility- having a good amount of both, eating healthy, eating smart,- are there things that we shouldn't be allowed to eat? what does this do to us in the future? what to eat before workout, after working, before competition, during competition, curing workout, what to drink, how to teach young gymnastics about eating healthy. eating health = eating balanced, , BALANCE in all areas (conditioning, flexibility, eating, training, mental, physical, competition) research into coaching styles- the yeller, the patient coach, the spotter, that lazy coach, the coach that enphasisesz strength, different perspective abotu competing - how much of it, how to USE competitions, the political nature of gymnastics, children and gymnastics - bein careful about how you touch them, waht you say to them, how you teach them, what you are ingraing into their young and vulnerable minds, - concentration development, dance, leaps and jumps, progression, preschoolers, cognition, different techniques for preschoolers, punishment: what to use and whatt it teaches children (ie. should pushups be used as a punishment and candy as a reward? what does this teach kids? - to hate pushups and love candy), response of children, best techniques - humor? balancing fun with work, winning vs losing, progression -the value of patience . you want to ideally keep moving forward not backward so you need to look to the future - self-preservation - if you get injured a lot now you won;t have a future.
vault - explosiveness - running techniques, different running drills, shoulder blocks, board, reach, landing, different vaults work better with different gymnastics
ie. smaller gymnastics with more stomache strength tend to be able to rotate faster so a Front-front would probably be the best choice and a gymnast with a long line would look better doing a yurchenko. oftentimes judging is subjective though it tries to be objective based on how a gymnast looks so choosing the skill or choreogrphing a routine based on the gymnast is essential
bars- arm strength, development, stomach strength, progressions - teach kids skills that will rpogress to bigger skills - ie. a front hip circle is not one of my favorite skills because it really doesnt progress into a lot. whyt is bars typically the hardest event to coach/learn? Spotting on bars -challenging - fearlessness on the bar - release moves, dismounts, mounts, giants.... floor bar, bounce drills, handstands.... content...combinations.... SMART choreography. strength. PRESS HANDSTAND content = giants, release moves, bar changes, pirouettes, kips, dismounts, mounts.
repetition of drills - knowing how to used your body - how to pull yourself over the bar - arch vs hollow - knowing your body positions
beam -balance, cell chatter, negotiation, using all parts of your body in tandem, being aware, being patient, knowing where you are in space, staying centered, fluidity, breath- let your breath guide you through the routine - maintaining a balance between grace and power, the clock, progression -from floor to high beam, mounts, dismounts, content of routine, choreography, flair, what sets your routine a aprt from the next? developments historically -beam used to be lot less chalennging than it is today - now gymnasts do standing fulls in level 10, before a backhandspring was considered elite.
floor - power, undurance, dance - your chance to show your individuality, each routine should be made to fit the gymnast - choosing floor music, tumbling passes -content, roundoff, line drills, tumbling into the pit, transition from pit to floor, mats, spotting, twisting, twisting vs flippinf, combinations, landings - girls ahve the advantage of the lunge, but they have the disadvantage of having to stay with the music (among other jarring differences), progressive drills, working up your endurance, routines in a row, routines without tumbling, staying in the lines, dance, jumps leaps (becominging increasingly less important?), gym-acro combos.
compulsaries vs optionals vs elites vs college gymnasts vs high school gymnasts
beam as a metaphor for life because life is all about balance.coaching beam -beam drills
from drills to skills
skeletal muscular system and deciding which to use and when - constant neogitiation - listen to your body - balance of pushing through the pain and knowing when to stop
teamwork
allegiance
communication
callouses on hands -development
grips -
the impotance of the handstand for every single event
floor - explosiveness - techniques roundoff quickness .... endurance work smart, not hard!
"she works hard, but she doesn't work smart"
parents in the gym - when to step in when not to - parents vs coach dialogue.
competition training
percentage that nerves factor in.
bars - constant negotioation - arm strength
boys gymnastics vs girls gymnastics - elegance vs power.
flooor music personality
pit training, spotting, belts, trampoline training, tramp bar helpfulness
skill progression
conditioning drills should mirror and work to progressively lead you towards learning the actual skills
conditioning is different for every girl every gymnastics is different
developmental differences nature nurture
family life, religion, work ethic..all factors
the judge, the college scout, other coaches, other parents, your parents, influences
remembering that gymnastics is just one part of your life and different sources (coach, parent, gymnast, teamate, judge) have different perspectives.Saturday, October 13, 2007
Basic Summary of the Good Life
Go ahead, read it, learn it, live it, and love it! I invite you! ...........
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrendor be on good terms with all persons. Speak truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater or lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
- Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrendor be on good terms with all persons. Speak truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull & ignorant; they too have their story.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater or lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
- Desiderata
Friday, October 12, 2007
Confusion!
What the fuck?
What are their never any answers?
I understand now why a lot of the great minds were depressed (seriously.. check out their pictures - those aren't happy faces); because they had the intuitive ability to arrive at the Truth.... the abstract truth not the concrete truth... but when they got there they realized that there really was none. That the truth that they had been striving for wasn't anywhere to be found and that their reasoning was really all circuitous and pointless. That they couldn't really believe in anything except the truth that there was nothing to believe in.
I think this might be Nietzche's point tough honestly I've never read it and am biased against him because his famous one liner is "God is Dead."
I am reading about John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, for instance. He wasn't born schizophrenic, but he developed into one after he was thrust into the world of mathematics (not to blame math for his disease) - a world of concrete formulas, of axioms, of assumptions that are necessarily taken for granted and adopted as fact if bigger, deeper, humanistic, economic, militaristic problems can plausibly be solved. John Nash was brilliant because he never assumed anything to be true. When he was taught a principle that some greater mind had established as fact, he didn't take for granted that it was true. Instead, he figured it out for himself and made his own proof. Then, when he had mastered these "proofs," when he could recall mathematical axioms and formulas and constants like pi and avagadro's constant etc.etc, he sought to delve into unknown fields where their were still unsolved problems and solve them. He was on a quest to shed light where there was darkness.
He later came to believe that there were martians telling him what to do (I haven't gotten to that part yet).
In other words, he became schizophrenic.
Schizophrenia
1.
a severe mental disorder characterized by some, but not necessarily all, of the following features: emotional blunting, intellectual deterioration, social isolation, disorganized speech and behavior, delusions, and hallucinations.
2.
a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.
3.
Any of a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and accompanied in varying degrees by other emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disturbances. Schizophrenia is associated with dopamine imbalances in the brain and may have an underlying genetic cause.
4.
A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities.
I think "the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic forces" best sums up the disease.
If this is the definition of schizophrenia then the whold nature of the world is schizophrenic.
I think that the world in which we live breeds schitzophrenia in people and that we are all schizophrenics and that those who are labeled as schizophrenics are done so because their behavior is indicative of the fact that they refuse to accept a reality that doesn't even exist in the first place.
We all accept reality, they don't. Maybe because of genetics, maybe not. I think it is probably a nature/nurture thing, although I should note that I am REALLY biased against genetics.
(this is a digression, but someone I know, for instance, always thinks that he/she is sick. I think that he/she is making himself/herself sick and that genetics has nothing to do with it at all.)
When asked how someone as brilliant as he, with a mind as brilliant and discerning as his, could have possibly believed that aliens were directing his motives and actions, John Nash responded:
"because they came to me the same way the answers to my mathematical solutions came to me."
So how did his mathematical solutions come to him? They came to him through the sequential process of...
1. learning about established mathematical truths
2. proving for himself that they were true using other mathematical truths
3. using those same mathematical proofs to solve problems in fields in which there were unsolved problems.
so, we canarguably assume that he came to his theories about aliens, a product of his schizophrenia, which is defined as believing that the "coexistence of antagonistc forces" is reality by...
1. learning about the established truths about reality
2. proving for himself that these truths were real using other established truths about reality
3. using those same conclusions about reality to attempt to shed light on questions about reality that he had.
When the "reality of reality" failed to adequetly answer his questions, he became schizophrenic.
This is because there is no established reality. It is subjective.
All of the great minds seemed to realize this, yet all of them established their own truths about reality, and "great philosophers" like John Stuart Mill and John Milton attempt to use the very existence of and potential for learning about those truths to justify Libertarianism, which denounces the suppresion of any viewpoint for fear that it might contain even one iota of a truth, that of which might not even exist in the first place.
note that how John Nash developed schizophrenia is only my opinion. Maybe the acceptance of subjective abstract truths is really our own individual shield of schizophrenia. When we each, individually "hold these, our truths to be self-evident" then we have something to fall back upon. We have an end goal in sight.
So what, if any, should this end goal ideally be?
For Aristotle it was Happiness.
For Christians it is Heaven.
I believe it is heaven.
keyword believe.
which is an abstract thing.
but a necessary thing.
I think.
again, it seems, that the surrendor to love, which is also an abstract thing, it the only thing we can do.
peace!
What are their never any answers?
I understand now why a lot of the great minds were depressed (seriously.. check out their pictures - those aren't happy faces); because they had the intuitive ability to arrive at the Truth.... the abstract truth not the concrete truth... but when they got there they realized that there really was none. That the truth that they had been striving for wasn't anywhere to be found and that their reasoning was really all circuitous and pointless. That they couldn't really believe in anything except the truth that there was nothing to believe in.
I think this might be Nietzche's point tough honestly I've never read it and am biased against him because his famous one liner is "God is Dead."
I am reading about John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, for instance. He wasn't born schizophrenic, but he developed into one after he was thrust into the world of mathematics (not to blame math for his disease) - a world of concrete formulas, of axioms, of assumptions that are necessarily taken for granted and adopted as fact if bigger, deeper, humanistic, economic, militaristic problems can plausibly be solved. John Nash was brilliant because he never assumed anything to be true. When he was taught a principle that some greater mind had established as fact, he didn't take for granted that it was true. Instead, he figured it out for himself and made his own proof. Then, when he had mastered these "proofs," when he could recall mathematical axioms and formulas and constants like pi and avagadro's constant etc.etc, he sought to delve into unknown fields where their were still unsolved problems and solve them. He was on a quest to shed light where there was darkness.
He later came to believe that there were martians telling him what to do (I haven't gotten to that part yet).
In other words, he became schizophrenic.
Schizophrenia
1.
a severe mental disorder characterized by some, but not necessarily all, of the following features: emotional blunting, intellectual deterioration, social isolation, disorganized speech and behavior, delusions, and hallucinations.
2.
a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.
3.
Any of a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and accompanied in varying degrees by other emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disturbances. Schizophrenia is associated with dopamine imbalances in the brain and may have an underlying genetic cause.
4.
A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities.
I think "the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic forces" best sums up the disease.
If this is the definition of schizophrenia then the whold nature of the world is schizophrenic.
I think that the world in which we live breeds schitzophrenia in people and that we are all schizophrenics and that those who are labeled as schizophrenics are done so because their behavior is indicative of the fact that they refuse to accept a reality that doesn't even exist in the first place.
We all accept reality, they don't. Maybe because of genetics, maybe not. I think it is probably a nature/nurture thing, although I should note that I am REALLY biased against genetics.
(this is a digression, but someone I know, for instance, always thinks that he/she is sick. I think that he/she is making himself/herself sick and that genetics has nothing to do with it at all.)
When asked how someone as brilliant as he, with a mind as brilliant and discerning as his, could have possibly believed that aliens were directing his motives and actions, John Nash responded:
"because they came to me the same way the answers to my mathematical solutions came to me."
So how did his mathematical solutions come to him? They came to him through the sequential process of...
1. learning about established mathematical truths
2. proving for himself that they were true using other mathematical truths
3. using those same mathematical proofs to solve problems in fields in which there were unsolved problems.
so, we canarguably assume that he came to his theories about aliens, a product of his schizophrenia, which is defined as believing that the "coexistence of antagonistc forces" is reality by...
1. learning about the established truths about reality
2. proving for himself that these truths were real using other established truths about reality
3. using those same conclusions about reality to attempt to shed light on questions about reality that he had.
When the "reality of reality" failed to adequetly answer his questions, he became schizophrenic.
This is because there is no established reality. It is subjective.
All of the great minds seemed to realize this, yet all of them established their own truths about reality, and "great philosophers" like John Stuart Mill and John Milton attempt to use the very existence of and potential for learning about those truths to justify Libertarianism, which denounces the suppresion of any viewpoint for fear that it might contain even one iota of a truth, that of which might not even exist in the first place.
note that how John Nash developed schizophrenia is only my opinion. Maybe the acceptance of subjective abstract truths is really our own individual shield of schizophrenia. When we each, individually "hold these, our truths to be self-evident" then we have something to fall back upon. We have an end goal in sight.
So what, if any, should this end goal ideally be?
For Aristotle it was Happiness.
For Christians it is Heaven.
I believe it is heaven.
keyword believe.
which is an abstract thing.
but a necessary thing.
I think.
again, it seems, that the surrendor to love, which is also an abstract thing, it the only thing we can do.
peace!
Monday, October 8, 2007
On Education
I am confused about education so I'm going to use this blog to try and sift through the mess. It seems as if the prosepct of educating everyone is a Catch22. There are many forms of education. One can be book-smart, street-smart, socailly-smart, politically-smart. There are many subcategories to being educated. One way in which society educates its people is by maintaing an open channel of communication out of which they have access to the facts. We learn about our government fromt he media, from newspapers, television, the internet, magazines, blogs...we have access to it almost everywhere. Which means that we also have access to a lot of opinions that might not be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We have access to information that might be marred with biases, with ulterior motives, with propaganda, with factless ramblings. How, then, can we combat these falsehoods? The answer seems to lie somewhere in education. We need to be educated so we can differentiate between the truth and a lie. BUT the way we educate ourselves is by absorbing a free flow of information. BUT absorbing a free flow of information might mean absorbing a lie. And if we unwittingly absorb a lie then how do we know if it is a lie if we can't differentiate between the truth and a lie, or if we don;t know that we SHOULD differentiate between the truth and and a lie, or if we don't know that the Truth even exists, or if we don;t know that we are even capable of differentiating between the two?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Education enables us to be educated, yet it is a developemental process. By restricting the flow of information, by censoring an idea just because we don't think that someone is ready to interpret it in a way that won't be self-detrimental, which might then lead such a corrupted person to corrupt other, larger numbers of people, which might then lead to revolts that seek to overthrow the government, which might then lead to a nation that is nolonger a cohesive unit and therefor sees no problem in conspiring against other nations, which then leads to world wars, which then leads to wars with extraterrestrials from other planets, so soon the whole UNIVERSE is coconspiring against each other.....we are thereby impedeing the educational process itself!
I used to think that I was a lot happy when I didn't know. This is a product of gymnastics I think. Actually, it is a product of metacognition, of knowing that i know and then looking back and comparing my childhood -when I was naive and innocent to now, when I am aware and engaged. Gymnastics was easier when I was mindlessly going through the moves and not bogged down in all the extra baggage that came with knowing (ie. fear - because i became aware of consequences). But I think I am actually a lot happier now that I know, that I am able to consciously make rational and irrational decisions (haha).
So life is all about trial-and-error right? We try and we err and hopefully we learn from our errors and try again and err in some other way and learn again and fix old problems and try new things that inevitably pose new problems which we are also supposed to fix, then where do we draw the line???????? If we already know that something is going to be an error, then why not stop it before it happens? This is what censoring is all about. But then if we censor things we are barring people who might not have experienced those things from ever having the chance to try and to err?????????????????????????????????????????????????
Don't even get me started on truth. I think the conclusion I have about the nature of truth is that concrete truth (ie. this is a keyboard) is abstracted from the abstract Truth. This must then be the truth after which we all strive... the universal properties of truth lie in the abstract truth, not in the concrete truth because truth is circumstantial.
Also, women in Japan think that they carry a baby for 10 months, not 9.
Just saying.
ahhhh.
Education enables us to be educated, yet it is a developemental process. By restricting the flow of information, by censoring an idea just because we don't think that someone is ready to interpret it in a way that won't be self-detrimental, which might then lead such a corrupted person to corrupt other, larger numbers of people, which might then lead to revolts that seek to overthrow the government, which might then lead to a nation that is nolonger a cohesive unit and therefor sees no problem in conspiring against other nations, which then leads to world wars, which then leads to wars with extraterrestrials from other planets, so soon the whole UNIVERSE is coconspiring against each other.....we are thereby impedeing the educational process itself!
I used to think that I was a lot happy when I didn't know. This is a product of gymnastics I think. Actually, it is a product of metacognition, of knowing that i know and then looking back and comparing my childhood -when I was naive and innocent to now, when I am aware and engaged. Gymnastics was easier when I was mindlessly going through the moves and not bogged down in all the extra baggage that came with knowing (ie. fear - because i became aware of consequences). But I think I am actually a lot happier now that I know, that I am able to consciously make rational and irrational decisions (haha).
So life is all about trial-and-error right? We try and we err and hopefully we learn from our errors and try again and err in some other way and learn again and fix old problems and try new things that inevitably pose new problems which we are also supposed to fix, then where do we draw the line???????? If we already know that something is going to be an error, then why not stop it before it happens? This is what censoring is all about. But then if we censor things we are barring people who might not have experienced those things from ever having the chance to try and to err?????????????????????????????????????????????????
Don't even get me started on truth. I think the conclusion I have about the nature of truth is that concrete truth (ie. this is a keyboard) is abstracted from the abstract Truth. This must then be the truth after which we all strive... the universal properties of truth lie in the abstract truth, not in the concrete truth because truth is circumstantial.
Also, women in Japan think that they carry a baby for 10 months, not 9.
Just saying.
ahhhh.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Education Day @ the Seminary
What a great day. Honestly, so refreshing. Why has everything been so refreshing lately? I am blessed.
It was my first time at the Seminary and I honestly didn't want to leave haha. I don't think I'll ever (how presumptious ) be able to embrace all-encompassing asceticism, but I definitely considered it for a good 10 minutes!
The whole place was so serene; the environment, the people, the buildings. It was like a cloud of light and peace had been permanetly placed over the entire establishment.
The liturgy started @ 930 and lasted for 2 hours, but it went by in a flash. It was a very powerful experience having all of those priests/bishop clustered together in one giant divine liturgy. The choir was gorgeous. They sung the hymns the way church hymns are meant to be sung; with dissperate voice parts and melodies that never once sounded dissonant. Then we ate, sat through a ketnote speech, listened to a panel discussion, and went to an OCF meeting.
Some important points were made/said/brought to our attention throughout the day:
"matter matters" -one of the priests who participated in the panel discussion about the use of icons and other Orthodox symbols.
"when you are not infectious, you cannot be contagious" - about embracing our faith, letting it "infect" us so that we can "infect" others.
"go forth in peace" - this was one of the main points of the sermon that the dean of the Seminary gave. It is the end of the liturgy and a missionary call that we all know. These are the last lingering words of our Sunday service, but I think their recitation and constant repitition has desensitized us to the impact that they can and should be having on us and the impact that by witnessing and adhering to them and making them a part of their daily lives, living the word of God, that we can and should be having on others. The dean talked about the Sunday liturgy as a reaffiramtion of faith that doesn't end@ 11:15 when we kiss the cross. The Sunday liturgy is just a "piece" of the "peace" that we should be constantly forging wit' our broz and hoez in Christ, bitch.
I learned that Orthodoxy began in Alaska (and I thought it only had value as an oil-rich land mass!).
I learned about Saints like St. Innocent, he lived and breathed the word of God. There were other examples given, those whose names escape me, but they all essentially did the same thing; evangelized through their lifestyles and their constant affirmations of faith through their actions. They didn't make nonbelievers feel bad for not believing. They simply persuaded them to believe by setting an example of what great things can ensue from believeing.
The OCF speaker talked about God not as a Judge in the Court, but as a Healer in a hospital. We, then, are his patients and the life-path is one in which the end goal is to be healed. It is a healing process. He pointed out why we can't condemn the man who condemns God and laud the man who helps feed the poor; because you never know what the intent is behind these actions. The man who is condemning God might have, for instance, been abused and lost touch with God and condemning God was his way of opening up a necessary dialogue with God, his way of affirming that the relationship between God is one of love because you cannot comdemn someone for not loving you if you don't first believe that they are capable of doing so.
The dean of the Seminary gave the sermon. He talked about the story of the Talents...... I found this....
Scripture: Matthew 25:14-30
On another topic, the only thing we can do is love and be loved in return.
ugh.
It was my first time at the Seminary and I honestly didn't want to leave haha. I don't think I'll ever (how presumptious ) be able to embrace all-encompassing asceticism, but I definitely considered it for a good 10 minutes!
The whole place was so serene; the environment, the people, the buildings. It was like a cloud of light and peace had been permanetly placed over the entire establishment.
The liturgy started @ 930 and lasted for 2 hours, but it went by in a flash. It was a very powerful experience having all of those priests/bishop clustered together in one giant divine liturgy. The choir was gorgeous. They sung the hymns the way church hymns are meant to be sung; with dissperate voice parts and melodies that never once sounded dissonant. Then we ate, sat through a ketnote speech, listened to a panel discussion, and went to an OCF meeting.
Some important points were made/said/brought to our attention throughout the day:
"matter matters" -one of the priests who participated in the panel discussion about the use of icons and other Orthodox symbols.
"when you are not infectious, you cannot be contagious" - about embracing our faith, letting it "infect" us so that we can "infect" others.
"go forth in peace" - this was one of the main points of the sermon that the dean of the Seminary gave. It is the end of the liturgy and a missionary call that we all know. These are the last lingering words of our Sunday service, but I think their recitation and constant repitition has desensitized us to the impact that they can and should be having on us and the impact that by witnessing and adhering to them and making them a part of their daily lives, living the word of God, that we can and should be having on others. The dean talked about the Sunday liturgy as a reaffiramtion of faith that doesn't end@ 11:15 when we kiss the cross. The Sunday liturgy is just a "piece" of the "peace" that we should be constantly forging wit' our broz and hoez in Christ, bitch.
I learned that Orthodoxy began in Alaska (and I thought it only had value as an oil-rich land mass!).
I learned about Saints like St. Innocent, he lived and breathed the word of God. There were other examples given, those whose names escape me, but they all essentially did the same thing; evangelized through their lifestyles and their constant affirmations of faith through their actions. They didn't make nonbelievers feel bad for not believing. They simply persuaded them to believe by setting an example of what great things can ensue from believeing.
The OCF speaker talked about God not as a Judge in the Court, but as a Healer in a hospital. We, then, are his patients and the life-path is one in which the end goal is to be healed. It is a healing process. He pointed out why we can't condemn the man who condemns God and laud the man who helps feed the poor; because you never know what the intent is behind these actions. The man who is condemning God might have, for instance, been abused and lost touch with God and condemning God was his way of opening up a necessary dialogue with God, his way of affirming that the relationship between God is one of love because you cannot comdemn someone for not loving you if you don't first believe that they are capable of doing so.
The dean of the Seminary gave the sermon. He talked about the story of the Talents...... I found this....
The Money in Trust (or The Talents)
14 "For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. 17 So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, `Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.' 21 His master said to him, `Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, `Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.' 23 His master said to him, `Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.' 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, `Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' 26 But his master answered him, `You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.'
"Lord, be the ruler of my heart and thoughts, be the king of my home and relationships, and be the master of my work and service. Help me to make good use of the gifts, talents, time, and resources you give me for your glory and your kingdom."
so, basically, it is our JOB as Orthodox Christians who are resolute in our devotion to cultivate the "gifts" that God has given us. He doesn't care if or who we choose to marry and what our occupation is, as long as the motivating factor behind our actions is a pursuit of the kingdom of Heaven.
On another topic, the only thing we can do is love and be loved in return.
ugh.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Hershey's; Unchanged since 1899!
hmmmm.... interesting...
"...and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Why are we predisposed to warrant the accumluation of experiences that will contribute to our own sufferage? Why are we will voluntary martyrs (and why do I supplement rhetoric that speaks for itself with rhetoric that will enhance its already apparent meaning lol) to the cause of self-affliction? Apparently history can be used to demonstrate why we are unwilling to change; because it is harder to reconform than to conform. It is a phenomenon that is not only applicable to nations and governments, but also to each individual experience. And I guess all of these individual experiences make up a nation which incites the arguably necessary formulation of government, which is a pattern that permeates not only the case of our obsession with voluntary self-suffering. We can extrapolize about virtually everything. Our beliefs and theories about government are essentially a scaled-down version of how ew view ourselves. Which is very off-topic, but still very relevant!
Anyway, I guess this line from the Declaration of Indepedence can partially be interpreted as an imploration to overcome our fear of change and accept the fact that maybe, just maybe we need to.
Also, I think I have a love-hate relationship with my major. I love it because I'm learning about of the propaganda that marketers use to seduce consumers, the behind-the-scenes side of advertising and the market-based economy that simultaneously corrupts and enhances the eocnomic arena. But I find myself intrigued by it and enthusiastic about learning about it not becuase i want to pursue a career in any of these fields, but because I want to cultivate defense mechanisms. So why should I major in a field that I want to shield myself against? ugh! I love learning. I hate learning. I love being educated. I hate being educated. I would unconditionally love being educated if people didn't direct the psychological and intellectual recources that education enables them to ahve for manipulative purposes. I love ranting about how I possibly hate education even though I love it. I love laughing at the irony of me ranting about hating education when it is the force that enables me do so. Ahhh. I truly understand why people love math, computer science, natural science, etc.etc.etc..... because they just ARE. There are new developments and new theorems that can be discovered and tossed around, but their sole purpose isn't malicious.....unless people make make them malicious. ahhh.
I want to fall in love with my major. Which means that i want to be able to devote myself whole-heartedly to it and embrace it with every inch of my being without having to second-guess whether or not it is something that I want to be a part of me, because that is essentially what "falling in love" means, right? You fall "into" something/someone and you let that something/someone fall "into" you. It is really a symbiotic phenomenon this love thing is. It is completely consensual.
I think it's amazing how people interpret other people and how people view innate value........ I think that the paradox of the concept of "innate" is that it really is subjective. Maybe I am generalizing and maybe my theory must be taken with a grain of salt, but I think that it is relevant for the most part....
Photographers may view everyone as having intrinsic photogenic value. If they aren't photogenic then they may not be worth paying attention to.
Doctors may view everyone has having intrinisc medical value. They may catageorize everyone based on his or her ability to be viewed as a specimen. From this point of view, "patients" with rare diseases may be more "valuable" than healthy individuals.
Teachers may value students who are more intellectually apt than other students.
Athletic coaches may value those who are athletically endowed.
Marketers see everyone as a consumer.
Psychologists see everyone as a brain.
A priest sees everyone as having spiritual worth.
Are any of those value systems more right then the next? Is there one "right" way to view the worl, humanity, after which all of these other interpretations of value are secondary?
Intrinsic value then becomes a paradoxical matter of perspective, right?
This is basically why we "should" all strive to "Surrendor to Love".... because you never know what is going on inside another person, how they choose to view and interpret the world, waht they value, how they are "using" you. Traditionally I think that to "use" someone has been connated negatively when, in fact, we all "use" people. It is just a matter of how we choose to do so.
The surrendor to love is so great. It is really the only thing that we can do. It is the only force that won't let you done. It is the matter from which God is made of.
...Everyone has innate value. Everyone has something to offer to the world. ...
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makesus more alive than the others.”
~Martha Graham
...so relevant, so important, so rejuvinating.
love.
"...and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Why are we predisposed to warrant the accumluation of experiences that will contribute to our own sufferage? Why are we will voluntary martyrs (and why do I supplement rhetoric that speaks for itself with rhetoric that will enhance its already apparent meaning lol) to the cause of self-affliction? Apparently history can be used to demonstrate why we are unwilling to change; because it is harder to reconform than to conform. It is a phenomenon that is not only applicable to nations and governments, but also to each individual experience. And I guess all of these individual experiences make up a nation which incites the arguably necessary formulation of government, which is a pattern that permeates not only the case of our obsession with voluntary self-suffering. We can extrapolize about virtually everything. Our beliefs and theories about government are essentially a scaled-down version of how ew view ourselves. Which is very off-topic, but still very relevant!
Anyway, I guess this line from the Declaration of Indepedence can partially be interpreted as an imploration to overcome our fear of change and accept the fact that maybe, just maybe we need to.
Also, I think I have a love-hate relationship with my major. I love it because I'm learning about of the propaganda that marketers use to seduce consumers, the behind-the-scenes side of advertising and the market-based economy that simultaneously corrupts and enhances the eocnomic arena. But I find myself intrigued by it and enthusiastic about learning about it not becuase i want to pursue a career in any of these fields, but because I want to cultivate defense mechanisms. So why should I major in a field that I want to shield myself against? ugh! I love learning. I hate learning. I love being educated. I hate being educated. I would unconditionally love being educated if people didn't direct the psychological and intellectual recources that education enables them to ahve for manipulative purposes. I love ranting about how I possibly hate education even though I love it. I love laughing at the irony of me ranting about hating education when it is the force that enables me do so. Ahhh. I truly understand why people love math, computer science, natural science, etc.etc.etc..... because they just ARE. There are new developments and new theorems that can be discovered and tossed around, but their sole purpose isn't malicious.....unless people make make them malicious. ahhh.
I want to fall in love with my major. Which means that i want to be able to devote myself whole-heartedly to it and embrace it with every inch of my being without having to second-guess whether or not it is something that I want to be a part of me, because that is essentially what "falling in love" means, right? You fall "into" something/someone and you let that something/someone fall "into" you. It is really a symbiotic phenomenon this love thing is. It is completely consensual.
I think it's amazing how people interpret other people and how people view innate value........ I think that the paradox of the concept of "innate" is that it really is subjective. Maybe I am generalizing and maybe my theory must be taken with a grain of salt, but I think that it is relevant for the most part....
Photographers may view everyone as having intrinsic photogenic value. If they aren't photogenic then they may not be worth paying attention to.
Doctors may view everyone has having intrinisc medical value. They may catageorize everyone based on his or her ability to be viewed as a specimen. From this point of view, "patients" with rare diseases may be more "valuable" than healthy individuals.
Teachers may value students who are more intellectually apt than other students.
Athletic coaches may value those who are athletically endowed.
Marketers see everyone as a consumer.
Psychologists see everyone as a brain.
A priest sees everyone as having spiritual worth.
Are any of those value systems more right then the next? Is there one "right" way to view the worl, humanity, after which all of these other interpretations of value are secondary?
Intrinsic value then becomes a paradoxical matter of perspective, right?
This is basically why we "should" all strive to "Surrendor to Love".... because you never know what is going on inside another person, how they choose to view and interpret the world, waht they value, how they are "using" you. Traditionally I think that to "use" someone has been connated negatively when, in fact, we all "use" people. It is just a matter of how we choose to do so.
The surrendor to love is so great. It is really the only thing that we can do. It is the only force that won't let you done. It is the matter from which God is made of.
...Everyone has innate value. Everyone has something to offer to the world. ...
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makesus more alive than the others.”
~Martha Graham
...so relevant, so important, so rejuvinating.
love.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Getting Kinky
So I decided to walk to Grand Central after yoga today in order to take advantage of the last, lingering warm-weather days and in hopes that I'd bump into some unusual NYC spectacle (which usually ends up happening). I wanted to read up some more on Alex Grey so I wandered into a Barnes & Nobles where I was roped in (a fitting desciption) to listening to a campaign speech/book talk given by "Kinky Friedman," a Texas politician who lost the race for governor (.......he claims it was because of money issues........). He was promoting his book You can Lead a Politician to Water, But you Can't Make him Think, an ironic title given his occupation, yet a fitting autobiographical title. He introduced himself with a nice, southern "where the Hell am I?" from the CD aisle out of which he emerged, apparently lost and confused about the hard-to-navigate lanes, all of which run parallel to each other and lead to the front of the store. After that he proceeded to make a few racially charged Jewish jokes, one about Hitler, and an arcane one that involved a penis. The cigar he carried never left his hand - he used it as a pointer and a lead into another stab at humor. "I'm not too fond of Bloomberg. He adopted the smoking-ban that barred me from lighting up outside this building." When asked if he ever considered that his cigar-toting tactic was setting a bad example to youths, he claimed that he was pro-cigar, yet anti-cigarrette. He then proceeded to advertise his "Kinky Friedman Cigar Line," which I thought was another joke, but apparently is a real busines pursuit according to his website, www.kinkyfriedman.com, which also features his Salsa and "Original Texas Jewboy" T-shirt line He finished up the night by reading a quote from his book that was basically the same cricket-in-hand-of-wise-blind-man story that was used in SuperBad, but with a southern twist. Honestly, I got a kick out of the whole ridiculous campaign and I still question whether or not "Kinky" was actually an actor masquerading as a Texas politician. At least he was against the death penalty..... and Jewish people. Just kidding. About the Jewish people. Not the death penalty.
wild.
wild.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors
If you have never heard of Alex Grey it would behoove you to check him out and learn to love him because his artwork gets to the root of the life (and death) experience and reminds us that there are transcendental phenomenons in life that form the very essence of who we are .
I took a journey to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors today. It was a refreshing and necessary reminder that the intangible exists, that we are all one, that we are all made of the same stuff, and that love is the most powerful force in the world. When I walked in, I looked up and the first thing i saw painted in and elegant calligraphy-esque format was "Surrendor to Love" which is my MySpace name and the password basically all of my webpages which i will now change. I thought I had coined that phrase haha! Anyway, this was my first indication that we were on the same wavelength, which I already knew, but this solidified it. The quotes that he used in his works and books, the ones that inspired him, were also ones that I have used, ones that have inspired me. For instance, one of the quotes he used was the same Marriance Williamson quote that i used in my graduation speech. One of my favez to this day:
"Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate.Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,or gorgeousor talentedor fabulous?Actually, who are you NOT to be?You are a child of God.You playing small doesn't serve the world.There's nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you.We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.It's not just in some of us; it's in every one of us.And as we let our own light shine,we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear of our own excellence,our presence automatically liberates others.And excellence becomes the standard of all our lives."
I can actually still hear myself reciting it with the same intonations I used way back when. haha.
Another reason why I love Alex Grey, a reason that I just realized today from going to the Chapel is that he sees the good, or maybe the usefulness in all great (wo)men. "Cosmic Christ" is basically a painting of God framgented into different windows into which we can look and see different historically significant men and situations that have had a significant impact on the story of mankind, his story, if you will. =) In the windows, he painted everyone from the likes of Einstein to Mother Theresa, from Ghandi to Hitler. He even painted a scene in Nazi Germany. Basically, we are all God's children.
This Cosmic Christ picture made me a little sad because it got me thinking of 9/11. If we were all created in the likeness of God, are all made of the same "stuff," and are all part of this collective oneness, then when the terrorists flew their planes into the world trade center, they weren't killing the American enemy, they were killing themselves. Obviously this isn't the only situation that this concept of brotherhood/sisterhood applies to, but it's what struck a chord in me.
His paintings are illustrations of sacred events in life; love, pregnancy, birth, death, caring etc.. They illustrate the mergence of mind, body, and soul. His cognitive pallet is clearly love and he transcribes it onto a tangible canvas in a colorful, balanced, powerful, open, thoughtful, important, deep and meaningful way. His paintings remind us that what is really improtant is not the "thing" itself, but the "essence of things." His art is a product of transbustantial experiences induced in large part by LSD. This might be a turn-off to some people who think that inspirations induced by drugs are not authentic and therefor not relevent. However, the tricks of his trade certainly do not undermine the relevancy of his work to every single area of our lives. His paintings scream soulfulness. They are perfect because they are based on the Truth, which is timeless. I think the msot powerful piece of artwork was probably the big, reflective mirror (a reflective mirror, imagine that!) in the hall that had a grid with a circle int he middle that said "God" out of which is reflected the imagine of whoever stares into it with this "God" emblem written across their chest. Basically, we are all, when you get past the makeup, the tatoos, the hair, the nail polish, the skin, or whatever else is temporarily alloted to us for recreational purposes, the same. We are all inwardly perfect. Alex Grey is great because he manifests the larger concepts of "oneness" in such a comprehensive, accessible way. His art is perfect. Sacred. Beautiful. Bursting with love.
So much more to write.
Bursting with loveeeeeeee...the deep kind not the superficial kind.
Definitely going back to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors for another dose of reality.
"I subject my awareness to the perfection of being, the perfection of wisdom and perfection of love, all of these being co-present in the Vast Expanse. I share this panorama of Being and appreciate all I can share it with... the seamless interweaving of consciousness with each moment."
-Alex Grey
Psychedelic dude.
I took a journey to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors today. It was a refreshing and necessary reminder that the intangible exists, that we are all one, that we are all made of the same stuff, and that love is the most powerful force in the world. When I walked in, I looked up and the first thing i saw painted in and elegant calligraphy-esque format was "Surrendor to Love" which is my MySpace name and the password basically all of my webpages which i will now change. I thought I had coined that phrase haha! Anyway, this was my first indication that we were on the same wavelength, which I already knew, but this solidified it. The quotes that he used in his works and books, the ones that inspired him, were also ones that I have used, ones that have inspired me. For instance, one of the quotes he used was the same Marriance Williamson quote that i used in my graduation speech. One of my favez to this day:
"Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate.Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,or gorgeousor talentedor fabulous?Actually, who are you NOT to be?You are a child of God.You playing small doesn't serve the world.There's nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you.We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.It's not just in some of us; it's in every one of us.And as we let our own light shine,we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear of our own excellence,our presence automatically liberates others.And excellence becomes the standard of all our lives."
I can actually still hear myself reciting it with the same intonations I used way back when. haha.
Another reason why I love Alex Grey, a reason that I just realized today from going to the Chapel is that he sees the good, or maybe the usefulness in all great (wo)men. "Cosmic Christ" is basically a painting of God framgented into different windows into which we can look and see different historically significant men and situations that have had a significant impact on the story of mankind, his story, if you will. =) In the windows, he painted everyone from the likes of Einstein to Mother Theresa, from Ghandi to Hitler. He even painted a scene in Nazi Germany. Basically, we are all God's children.
This Cosmic Christ picture made me a little sad because it got me thinking of 9/11. If we were all created in the likeness of God, are all made of the same "stuff," and are all part of this collective oneness, then when the terrorists flew their planes into the world trade center, they weren't killing the American enemy, they were killing themselves. Obviously this isn't the only situation that this concept of brotherhood/sisterhood applies to, but it's what struck a chord in me.
His paintings are illustrations of sacred events in life; love, pregnancy, birth, death, caring etc.. They illustrate the mergence of mind, body, and soul. His cognitive pallet is clearly love and he transcribes it onto a tangible canvas in a colorful, balanced, powerful, open, thoughtful, important, deep and meaningful way. His paintings remind us that what is really improtant is not the "thing" itself, but the "essence of things." His art is a product of transbustantial experiences induced in large part by LSD. This might be a turn-off to some people who think that inspirations induced by drugs are not authentic and therefor not relevent. However, the tricks of his trade certainly do not undermine the relevancy of his work to every single area of our lives. His paintings scream soulfulness. They are perfect because they are based on the Truth, which is timeless. I think the msot powerful piece of artwork was probably the big, reflective mirror (a reflective mirror, imagine that!) in the hall that had a grid with a circle int he middle that said "God" out of which is reflected the imagine of whoever stares into it with this "God" emblem written across their chest. Basically, we are all, when you get past the makeup, the tatoos, the hair, the nail polish, the skin, or whatever else is temporarily alloted to us for recreational purposes, the same. We are all inwardly perfect. Alex Grey is great because he manifests the larger concepts of "oneness" in such a comprehensive, accessible way. His art is perfect. Sacred. Beautiful. Bursting with love.
So much more to write.
Bursting with loveeeeeeee...the deep kind not the superficial kind.
Definitely going back to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors for another dose of reality.
"I subject my awareness to the perfection of being, the perfection of wisdom and perfection of love, all of these being co-present in the Vast Expanse. I share this panorama of Being and appreciate all I can share it with... the seamless interweaving of consciousness with each moment."
-Alex Grey
Psychedelic dude.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Soul Searching
I was going to name my blog "LifeInBalance" because I think that balance is the key to success in life, but I realized that this is just one song that my soul wants to sing about. Equating balance with success is subjective. It is an ideal that I believe in, but that others might not. And in order to discover, write about, and defend such ideals, we have to do some soul searching and listen to our own songs. So MusicofMySoul it is.
I love balance. I love balance in all its forms; literally, metaphorically, psychologically, physically, spiritually, sexually, meteorologically =). Which explains why I love gymnastics and contortionism so much; because it is one big, blatantly literal metaphor for living a balanced life. Note that gymnastics can also be practiced dangerously, something I've experienced first hand and a song I'll sing about later!
Anyway, I don't think we can rely on faith if we don't supplement it with science. You can pray as much as you want, but at the end of the day you still have to wash your hands to prevent disease. Although faith is definitely my explanatory preference =). You can't plant a garden without then enjoying all the plants that have flourished there. You can't enjoy an icecream sunday if you don't supplement your diet with real, nutritious food. You can't appreciate the sacredness of sex if you are having it constantly. You can't know joy if you don't know sorrow too (they are both great friends of mine and I've discovered I love them equally). You can't appreciate silence if you haven't been down a NYC subway. That's right, the subway is the only place where loudness exists =).
Dr. Seuss: "Life is a Great, Big Balancing Act."
The only phenomenon that I don't think the principle of balance applies to is Love (which is the greatest thing... better than faith and hope even =) )! Passion tempered with reason is good, but I believe that once you find real, true love you should pursue it with reckless abandon and fight for it with unrestrained passion, even if it lets you down, because if it's real, it will ALWAYS prevail.
I think that childhood is sacred. I think that life is a series of lines that are unfortunate, yet necessary, and can be overwritten(erased?) with love. I think that spiritual affinity will result in lasting, meaningful, powerful, soulful relationships. I think that childhood is sacred because children have not yet been introduced to lines and do not yet know that impossibilities exist.
Love, innocence, giving, sharing, selflessness, prayer, meditation, family, marriage, children. All of these are sacred.
i think that this first blog is necessarily egotistical because all of the subsequent blogs will be subject to opinions that stem from who I am and what I believe and thus it is necessary to establish what that is exactly.
Interests: love when it is not masquerading as lust, discovering when love is masquerading as lust, practicing spiritual discernment, remembering that EVERYONE has something to offer, gymnastics, dance, other nonverbal forms of communication, soul-searching, metacognition, religion, not complaining about trivial things, remembering that trivial things are subjective, learning so that I can understand myself and strive for perfection, living to serve, subcategories of living to serve: working out and eating healthy so that I can be fully present, aware, and in tune with the needs of others, getting an education so that I can solve life's bigger problems rationally, intelligently, justly. etc.etc. , developing empathy (It's much better than sympathy!) , not developing apathy, writing, walking a mile in another man's shoes, then remembering to put my own back on (I always remember , but sometimes it takes me a while), not being afraid, humor (the state of laughter compeletely eliminates the state of fear), self-love as a force that spawns reciprocal love.
striving to live in the likeness of God, constantly failing to do so, realizing that i am constantly failing to do so and then reaffirming that i want to =).
naturally occuring phenomenons.
every single subject in school.
I've also discovered that I have an obsession with loving people who don't love me back, trying to expose them to love, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding. I don't know why. But it has confused people who really love me and caused they and I great pain.
I've also discovered that what I REALLY believe in, what I REALLY consider to be sacred and the truths that I REALLY hold near and dear come out better and more honestly in my writing.
Occupation: daughter, sister, friend, sinner, lover, fighter, gymnast, student, Orthodox Christian...not in this order... there's more.
Liberalism in the press... it maintains that the truth will prevail only when tested against counter-opinions, sayings, ideals etc and that opinions, however contrary to the truth they might be, must not be suppressed because there might be an iota of truth in each one that might lead to the greater Truth with a capital T if there is such a thing.
Finding beauty in everything, no matter how ugly it is perceived to be.
Quotes/stories/people/events/things/etc. that I eventually want to blog about:
Tom - my angel - personification of spiritual perfection.
Let Love Draw the Line - Alex Grey - great way to think about the world.
Anyway - Mother Theresa -great poem to live by.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces - about inner soul-searching, the truth being within "the heart of the hero(us)" the entire time - completely necessary.
The Nichomachean Ethics - gets to the core of balance. "everything in moderation, including moderation."
Bartholamew (sp?) Cubbins The Man of Many Hats - Dr. Seuss - because there is a little of him in ALL of us and becuase I see a lot of him in me.
1 Corinthians 13:13
"just because it is your right to do it, doesn't mean it is the right thing to do" - my Aunt Mary (who generously passed it down to me)
"If you want to write a story about the nutritional benefits of Steak, then you can find someone who will say that Steak is good for you." Aunt Judie (so true - future blog about convictions).
Fear and how paralyzing it is.
the rest of the poems/quotes/stories from my beautiful yoga class.... http://www.yogatothepeople.com/stories.html
The goal of this journal is to present myself and toil with concepts that I deem relevant, those of which might not be relevant to other people, through writing. Sometimes i am going to be in a thoughtful, honest mood, like now. Sometimes I am going to be in an exuberant state of unrequited passion, sometimes a cynical one, sometimes a funny one, a serious one, etc.etc.etc.
groovy.
<3
I love balance. I love balance in all its forms; literally, metaphorically, psychologically, physically, spiritually, sexually, meteorologically =). Which explains why I love gymnastics and contortionism so much; because it is one big, blatantly literal metaphor for living a balanced life. Note that gymnastics can also be practiced dangerously, something I've experienced first hand and a song I'll sing about later!
Anyway, I don't think we can rely on faith if we don't supplement it with science. You can pray as much as you want, but at the end of the day you still have to wash your hands to prevent disease. Although faith is definitely my explanatory preference =). You can't plant a garden without then enjoying all the plants that have flourished there. You can't enjoy an icecream sunday if you don't supplement your diet with real, nutritious food. You can't appreciate the sacredness of sex if you are having it constantly. You can't know joy if you don't know sorrow too (they are both great friends of mine and I've discovered I love them equally). You can't appreciate silence if you haven't been down a NYC subway. That's right, the subway is the only place where loudness exists =).
Dr. Seuss: "Life is a Great, Big Balancing Act."
The only phenomenon that I don't think the principle of balance applies to is Love (which is the greatest thing... better than faith and hope even =) )! Passion tempered with reason is good, but I believe that once you find real, true love you should pursue it with reckless abandon and fight for it with unrestrained passion, even if it lets you down, because if it's real, it will ALWAYS prevail.
I think that childhood is sacred. I think that life is a series of lines that are unfortunate, yet necessary, and can be overwritten(erased?) with love. I think that spiritual affinity will result in lasting, meaningful, powerful, soulful relationships. I think that childhood is sacred because children have not yet been introduced to lines and do not yet know that impossibilities exist.
Love, innocence, giving, sharing, selflessness, prayer, meditation, family, marriage, children. All of these are sacred.
i think that this first blog is necessarily egotistical because all of the subsequent blogs will be subject to opinions that stem from who I am and what I believe and thus it is necessary to establish what that is exactly.
Interests: love when it is not masquerading as lust, discovering when love is masquerading as lust, practicing spiritual discernment, remembering that EVERYONE has something to offer, gymnastics, dance, other nonverbal forms of communication, soul-searching, metacognition, religion, not complaining about trivial things, remembering that trivial things are subjective, learning so that I can understand myself and strive for perfection, living to serve, subcategories of living to serve: working out and eating healthy so that I can be fully present, aware, and in tune with the needs of others, getting an education so that I can solve life's bigger problems rationally, intelligently, justly. etc.etc. , developing empathy (It's much better than sympathy!) , not developing apathy, writing, walking a mile in another man's shoes, then remembering to put my own back on (I always remember , but sometimes it takes me a while), not being afraid, humor (the state of laughter compeletely eliminates the state of fear), self-love as a force that spawns reciprocal love.
striving to live in the likeness of God, constantly failing to do so, realizing that i am constantly failing to do so and then reaffirming that i want to =).
naturally occuring phenomenons.
every single subject in school.
I've also discovered that I have an obsession with loving people who don't love me back, trying to expose them to love, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding. I don't know why. But it has confused people who really love me and caused they and I great pain.
I've also discovered that what I REALLY believe in, what I REALLY consider to be sacred and the truths that I REALLY hold near and dear come out better and more honestly in my writing.
Occupation: daughter, sister, friend, sinner, lover, fighter, gymnast, student, Orthodox Christian...not in this order... there's more.
Liberalism in the press... it maintains that the truth will prevail only when tested against counter-opinions, sayings, ideals etc and that opinions, however contrary to the truth they might be, must not be suppressed because there might be an iota of truth in each one that might lead to the greater Truth with a capital T if there is such a thing.
Finding beauty in everything, no matter how ugly it is perceived to be.
Quotes/stories/people/events/things/etc. that I eventually want to blog about:
Tom - my angel - personification of spiritual perfection.
Let Love Draw the Line - Alex Grey - great way to think about the world.
Anyway - Mother Theresa -great poem to live by.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces - about inner soul-searching, the truth being within "the heart of the hero(us)" the entire time - completely necessary.
The Nichomachean Ethics - gets to the core of balance. "everything in moderation, including moderation."
Bartholamew (sp?) Cubbins The Man of Many Hats - Dr. Seuss - because there is a little of him in ALL of us and becuase I see a lot of him in me.
1 Corinthians 13:13
"just because it is your right to do it, doesn't mean it is the right thing to do" - my Aunt Mary (who generously passed it down to me)
"If you want to write a story about the nutritional benefits of Steak, then you can find someone who will say that Steak is good for you." Aunt Judie (so true - future blog about convictions).
Fear and how paralyzing it is.
the rest of the poems/quotes/stories from my beautiful yoga class.... http://www.yogatothepeople.com/stories.html
The goal of this journal is to present myself and toil with concepts that I deem relevant, those of which might not be relevant to other people, through writing. Sometimes i am going to be in a thoughtful, honest mood, like now. Sometimes I am going to be in an exuberant state of unrequited passion, sometimes a cynical one, sometimes a funny one, a serious one, etc.etc.etc.
groovy.
<3
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