Random thoughts

When holding a conversation with someone on a topic of which you know little or none, approach it from the standpoint of learning something new. I don't think I so much as understand better by way of metaphor, but I do prefer to attempt to find metaphors to clarify in the speaker's mind what exactly they mean when they speak of whatever it is they are speaking of. This leads them to more clearly understand what it is that they think of in regards to a particular subject; they are forced to clarify the concept in their mind in order to pass it on to me with even sufficient clarity. This allows for higher fidelity in the attempted transmission of the meme(s)(plexes) from their mind to mine. You, the presently benighted party, are more likely to get more information and less noise via the channel of communication than you might otherwise have.
Those who attempt to transfer knowledge to others without fully understanding what it is they are talking about ultimately do themselves a disservice by (memetically) misrepresenting concepts due to their (at least implicit) claim to contextual expert authority. This further can lead to an internal reinforcement to themselves that they grasp those concepts better than they actually do, therefore digging themselves into the proverbial hole.
To combat this one might say that it is possible to think and speak in E-prime in such circumstances, avoiding generalizations ('All generalizations are dangerous, even this one - Dumas) and admitting fallibility as well as fully reasoning something through whilst not insisting on and taking the tacit approach of not being wrong at all costs, being honest with oneself as well as others for, as they say, 'The truth heals clean.'

The Gray Area

So often people like to take the ambiguous, complex aspects of reality and attempt to make them black and white in their heads. This can lead to many problems as this constructs mental misrepresentations of reality and thus they are unable to properly deal with things as they really are. This goes back to the problem of one not dealing with reality as it really is and the problems that stem from that.

'The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself, is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity, without panic and undue fear.' -Erich Fromm The Sane Society p. 174.

The Abyss of Freedom

Writing in terms of style hinders your writing altogether. 'Style' implies delimiting factors with parameters and confines within which you / your piece must stay. All else is verboten and thus your piece is denied anything which might enhance it if it falls outside this prefabricated construct. Style, in my approximation, is best employed in the capacity of inspiration. I.e., a blues-inspired section or piece; an impressionist-inspired piece, etc.

This advice would go for all forms of creativity. Everything from musical composition to cooking; film-making to interior design.

As in all aspects of life, specifically, creative endeavors, strictly speaking, to 'left brain thinking' or 'right brain thinking' is missing a whole world of possibilities – the key whole-brain thinking: applying all of the intellect that one has developed throughout their lifetime, but also conjuring and incorporating all of the experiential / emotional factors which make up what one is.

Just as culture benchmarks ideas, individuals benchmark concepts that over time become fragmented and disorganized. 'Reflection' is an important practice and can be energized if used as a period for reintegration of all the concepts one has accumulated – a sort of defragging and reorganizing of both gained concepts and emotionalized experiences. This, once again, conjures whole-brain thinking – combining the intellect and the emotions; left and right brain.

'With all the possibilities at [Debussy's] disposal, and conscious habits blocked, he came to confront what Stravinsky later called “the abyss of freedom.” Thereafter he complained of a paralysis of the imagination. In 1909 he wrote to Caplet, “No, it is not neurosis, or hypochondria either. It is the sweet sickness of the notion of having to choose among all conceivable things.”' -Music in the 20th Century, W W Austin p.33.

-A definition of information overload in the creative process?

In the words of Damien Rice: 'So Here It Is'....

More fauxetry for all four of you. It is an incomplete work so (feign caring) check back to see its evolution.

I will not love you only for your body
I will not love you only for parts of your body
I will not love you only for access to your body
I will not love you only for your mind
I will not love you only for parts of your mind
I will not love you only for access to your mind
I will not love you only for what you think of me
I will not love you only for what I think of you
I will not love you only for what others think of us
I will not love you only for what others don't realize in us
I will not love you only for what has happened
I will not love you only for what I want to happen
I will not love you only for what I hope will happen
I will not love you only for what I treasure that has already happened
I will not love you only for what can never happen
I will not love you only for what will never happen
I will not love you only for what has never happened
I will not love you only for what has yet to happen
I will not love you only for what I can make you be
I will not love you only for what you can make me be
I will not love you only for what we can make others be
I will not love you only for what we can make the world be
I will not love you only for your potential
I will not love you only for our shared potential
I will not love you only for yor existence
I will not love you only for your presence in my life
I will not love you only for how you can complete my life
I will not love you only for your gaze
I will not love you only for those moments when we are the only two in the world
I will not love you only for how you look at me the way only you do
I will not love you only for how comfortable we may be together
I will not love you only for how good we are together
I will not love you only for what you say
I will not love you only for when we are silent together
I will not love you only for our shared interests
I will not love you only for our diametric oppositions
I will not love you only for our shared experiences
I will not love you only for our similar experiences
I will not love you only for our parallel lives
I will not love you only for our parallel dreams
I will not love you only for our shared virility
I will not love you only for our shared vividness
I will not love you only for your tastes
I will not love you only for your lack of taste
I will not love you only for your talents
I will not love you only for how you perceive
I will not love you only for how you say what you say
I will not love you only for your misperceptions
I will not love you only for your adorable imperfections
I will not love you only for your abhorable imperfections
I will not love you only for your silly understatements
I will not love you only for your grave misunderstandings
I will not love you only for your mistranslations
I will not love you only for your perfect synchronicities
I will not love you only for your perfection
I will not love you only for your imperfection
I will only love you because I love all of you, regardless, and that is more proof of love than you will ever get anywhere else. And that is proof of love in its purest, simplest form. The only form in which it lasts eternally, all else is naive bullshit and/or attempted-panty-dropping buncombe.
But when I pose the question: Will you choose ghost or will you choose life? You will choose death.
And when I pose the question: Will you choose him or will you choose me? You will choose him.
It is because you have a deathwish and do not want life; the life that I would bring you. You will suffer all your days and I tried...

Mot Juste in Fauxetry

I went down to the studio today (my third place as the textbooks would call it now) to do some mental health improv shredding in the key of A and found this while leafing through a notebook of music I've been working on for an upcoming album over the last few months.

Still working on further actual posts in re of whole brain thinking, priming, mental clarity, and the new concepts subprogramming and the fallacy of (mis)scaling. Keep an eye out, but don't hold your breath either.

Enjoy my rambling poetry (or as I call it, fauxetry).

cheers.

Mot Juste

Eldritch ether of my childhood waking dreams

On the outer lip of sleep’s spiral-funnel-abyss

Of non-, un-, meta-, sub-, supra-consciousness

Of the ages since the dawn of man

Of my life since my conception

Of the reality of my day since daybreak

To this point

To this now

To this ever present, everlasting moment

Which is always here

In this bed

Underneath these blankets

The intimate warmth of superficial safety

Guarded from the suicidal tendencies

Lurking beyond my mattress

Haunting my halls

Stalking this eldritch ether of mind and experiences

Isolated

Apart

As

All

Any

One

Two

Infinite

Unable

To consummate as all

As us, them, me, you

Perfection is striven for

The closer I get the further I am from you all

Raising awareness and pints…and expectations

…And falling short, flat, face down

The pitiful chakras in the soles of those whom

I lay beneath, trampled and tread upon

I will always see you for more than what you are

I will paint you as a rose-

Colored

With my infatuation; delusional

Only to end with distance in time and geography

Hopeless Utopian romantic dreamers

Will forever grasp for coals too hot to handle

Never waiting until they have cooled

And then it’s too late

Sucker

Again you shall starve, writing a recipe to die for

And a song to forget

And a song to forget you by

Forgettable as any

Who said ‘Alchemists should stick to the laboratory’?

Stop venturing about young Fool

Lest the Devil take you back to the Tower

Initiation never ends, just youth, just chance, just this life

Mere opportunities

Sheer logic

Would tell you

Give up, turn inward, the outside is too much effort

They don’t want you and they don’t believe you anyway

Helpless quixotic debutant: go fuck yourself

And stick to what you know

Go eat out the Muse and drink from her font

She’ll at least pat you on your head afterwards

Give and give and give and give

Never take

And blame them afterward

Born under certain stars

It rains…in perpetuity

A solemn cloud to match a solemn shadow

Tempus loquendi, tempus tacendi;

And I never get it right; silence when communication is apropos

And the other way ‘round

Wending abysmally down wrong-ways

Ah, but consistency is a virtue!

And the Greeks have their crowbars and Preparation-H

Platonic

Ha! And I use to be Aristotelian

And now the Neoplatonists want me

Born under certain stars

23 of them to be exact

And the Universe’s synchronous sense of humor…

…Yes, and there is that

And you can only achieve T.A.Z. with an instrument in your hand

Goose eggs!

And George Washington wrote: ‘No wife, no horse, no mustache’

No girl, no money, no style.

Mot juste.

Harnessing the Irrational

Been away for awhile, if anyone noticed. Yeah, didn't think so. Either way, I've been busy doing more concept formulation and active discussion and less composition, but I did want to throw up a quick post for the purpose of keeping myself focused on Alchememetic Illusionectomy, if only in the back of my mind.

Anyway, I've been working on the idea of using reason to harness our irrational side of the brain so as to use it in rational ways; i.e. using reason to take advantage of irrationality. This seems to be on the face of it the basis for systems such as alchemy and goes along with the concept of the yin and the yang. Basically, I'm talking about the marriage of the rational and irrational and understanding the equally worthy aspects of both.

We employ reason everyday in our lives as I've often spoke of before. But we also employ emotion and intuition as well and this can be tricky. Pure emotion often will lead us in the 'wrong' direction and we tend to make 'mistakes' when we go along merely with our emotional responses to circumstances.

When we have an emotional response to something, but before acting upon it we employ reason we can head off a lot of misery by seeing the long-term effects that our strictly emotional responses could have led to if we had acted solely in accordance with them. We become reactionary and inconsistent.

I'm especially looking into how this can be applied to creativity and quotidian life, but until I have the time to fully and more articulately go on further I hope that you may have your on thoughts and feel free to share them.

No Wife, No Horse, No Mustache...Ewige Blumenkraft, vol. XXIII

We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer.

Pico della Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man.

More older stuff...
23 September 2007
Pico, quoting from the Hermetica, states the same thing as modern day existentialism, Objectivism, and even LaVey's version of Satanism, that man is free to make his own choices and fashion himself as he pleases. What remains is for man to gather the knowledge and resources to make the optimal decisions and fashion himself in the best way possible for himself - requiring the development of purpose - which is not inherent in him at birth. Man is not born with purpose, he may choose to develop one for himself...or not.

Good and evil are not axiomatic. These concepts can only exist via self-referential consciousness. The lack of good and evil's existence as fundamental axioms does not negate the possibility for a code of ethics and morality; indeed, our survival requires it.
Strive for intellectual honesty, intellectual integrity, and intellectual courage. This is the only way in which you can fully develop your personal philosophy in such a way that it will (to the fullest extent possible) be developed logically and clearly.