Sweat and Fire

Geez, Another One!

2009-05-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

-- The Who, Who's Next, 1971

I have to quit listening to all these old songs!

Thirty Years!

2009-04-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

Well, who do you think you're foolin'?
You say you're havin' fun,
But you're busy going nowhere,
Just lying in the sun.
You tried to be a hero,
commit the perfect crime
but the dollar got you dancing
and you're running out of time.

You're messin' up the water
You're rolling in the wine
You're poisoning your body
You're poisoning your mind
You gave me Coca-Cola
You said it tasted good
You watch the television
It tells you that you should.

How can you live in this way?
Why do you think it's so strange?
You must have something to say.
There must be more to this life.
Tell me why I should change
It's time we did something right.
Child of Vision, won't you listen?
Find yourself a new ambition.

I've heard it all before
You're saying nothing new
I thought I saw a rainbow
But I guess it wasn't true
You cannot make me listen
I cannot make you hear
You find your way to heaven,
I'll meet you when you're there.

How can you live in this way?
Why do you think it's so strange
You must have something to say.
Tell me why I should change

We have no reason to fight,
'cause we both know that we're right.
Child of Vision, won't you listen?
Find yourself a new ambition.

-- Supertramp, Breakfast in America, 1979

Tuned to Resonate, Amplify, Transmit

2009-04-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

This seems to be a week for tramping through dissonant emotional muck. At the beginning of the week a friend fired off a phantom torpedo and I gave it some body and let it punch a hole in my idea. A day later I got a raft of dissatisfaction from the family quarter; nothing I want to get myself involved with, however. A friend frazzled over love and an MIA coworker. Today, I got into a discussion with the manager of the property where I live; I didn't want to talk with her, and I began speaking with the friendly person instead, but the friendly subordinate decided to involve her; this manager has an astonishing knack for confrontation, defensiveness and escalation, and I do not keep my de-escalation skills polished, so the discussion ended on a heated note. I think it was completely unnecessary, too, and an utter waste of energy.

I notice that when I don't maintain my transparency through a daily annealing practice I resonate easily to the emotions of others, and I reflect them back. I see this in other people, too, but I think most fail to understand how it works, or they fail altogether to see it. I know only a single 100%-effective method for keeping myself anti-resonant to these outward, emotional lunges by others but it only works for me where I am concerned. I could suggest others take up a daily practice (which I haven't maintained lately, myself) but these people don't understand the kind of benefit I mean, anyway; it's abstract because they don't see clearly what they do in their non-settled states. The apartment manager stews under a frustrating fog of expression mismatched to her emotions -- like the screaming child -- and I don't see what I can do, except avoid her. I catch the frustration from her too easily, like she sneezes an intangible emotional flu bug into me.

The Venus/Mars/Dr. Phil solution is to become practiced at conflict resolution, and use soothing words to disarm the emotional bandits. But that involves a certain amount of suppression. That's a lot like keeping one's mouth shut and stifling expression. The best way is to be simply non-reactive, and not to express anything at all that isn't 100% original to ourselves. That means generally not having anything to say, rather than not saying what we want to say. I know how to alleviate the pressures and make that happen for myself. I wish I could coax others to do the same

The world would be an happier place if people would simply breathe.

Opinion Sinkholes

2009-04-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

I logged on to Yahoo Messenger a couple nights ago, after a long period of disuse, and a distant friend was logged in, too. We exchanged hellos and swapped bits of news, and then I mentioned I've been working on an idea for a photo shoot with a particular model. I showed this friend the model's online portfolio and then described what I wanted to do. She responded that the model's legs are too skinny.

I looked at the model's legs and noted that, yes, they seemed like they may be a bit too skinny. Hmmph! I want to spin glamor-type photography with action-adventure settings and dynamic movement instead of usual boring poses, and the particular clothing choices I have in mind require legs of high glamor-action-adventure caliber. I don't know any other models with the physicality credentials that this one has, and it seemed at the moment like the whole idea would be a bust, so I tossed my sketchbook off to the side. I clicked to save the text description I'd been composing for the shoot, and I went off to bed.

I thought over the idea the next morning during my slow wakeup lie-in and I decided my distant friend's advice is irrelevant to me. I suppose I should have considered this particular person's history prior to taking her subjective criticism to heart. But, dammit, it's like Erykah Badu says: "I am an artist, and I am sensitive about my shit." It's easy to absorb the neurotic negativism of others and take it all as common sense. To break the doldrums, one has to be willing to do what one thinks one should do, even if that means photographing a few skinny legs.

I looked again at her photos, by the way, and she has lovely legs. She's a perfect fit for the action-adventure idea. I decided, also, that I've lost my sketching abilities, at least until I get them back, and my best bet is to write an irresistible shoot proposal. Which I can do with ease. I win hearts and minds when I choose to do so.

My quick reversal on my idea bothers me, though. I can almost hear the childhood ridicule that kept me quiet about my interests, rather than open and sharing, as children are supposed to be. I wonder sometimes if that's why I split from my artistic desires so long ago and took up a mostly technical existence. The Dolphs don't bother me so much anymore, but I haven't figured out how to filter through the soft-bundled nay-saying.

Who's Responsible for this Shit?

2009-04-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Halfway across the street, I turned and looked in the direction of the winding motor noise. The car hadn't yet rounded the bend, and I could hear it was moving quickly, so I slowed my pace and hovered between the median stripes. A second later the bright red Audi careered within view; the driver looked intently ahead -- only ahead -- and made no adjustments of engine speed or facial expression to indicate that he would yield right-of-way.

I stopped and I waited a few feet from the edge of the lane. The driver of the Audi continued past, speed unmodified, unrecognizing, and the driver that followed a Volvo-length behind him did the same. I watched these two speed away and I wondered: What the fuck is wrong with these people?

That's always the question, though. It's always these people, and though I understand I am not independent from them, and I can relate to them fully by experience, I can't be them. At even their deepest levels they seem to me to be shallow, cursory, tepid, un-sensing. I am aware that I see in them what I am myself, and I hate it. I find their torpid hurtling through the space and time of their existence to be revolting, and I know I live within my time-space in a similar way, yet I see few models for being other than the ways that these vacuous twits live.

My scorn for the stupidity of the 24/7 noise and the pulverization by modern social life is a kind of self-hatred, and I feel alarmed by this, but I don't know what I can do about it. I can't chop out my heart to divorce myself from my feelings. I can't resolve the difference between them and me, and reduce the jumble to a single, simple term. I can't shuck myself of these monkeys and wander off to do something else and, thus, give myself some freedom from the idiocy of this culture. My life somehow is here, amidst the din, and that's just the way that it is. I just have to find the polar complement to the consensus insanity model, and then I have to use it.

Spring, Rain, Renewal

2009-04-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

I went to the old shala for practice this morning. I arrived later than I'd anticipated but Satya came to the front door and let me in to the lower studio. Nobody else had arrived by 8:00 so I asked where everybody might be. She told me a few people had come yesterday. We agreed that we missed the AYS community.

I did a pared down practice in front of the gas fireplace and settled for a bit of savasana. Though I was alone I felt like I was in a place of friends; they might come in any time, or they might not. It doesn't matter, though. I like going there to practice.

Afterward, I ate my apple and looked around outside. The neighborhood hasn't changed in the past year. I watched some crows go about their morning and I decided I'd changed a little bit. I never really noticed them before, and I decided that if one can befriend crows, one can never be without friends. I'll bring some tater tots to the 24th & Union crows tomorrow.

It's been more than two weeks now and the Sammammish River crow gang apparently don't despise me as I feared they might. I corraled a member of their flock Monday before last and delivered him to Sarvey. He'd been grounded by a broken wing and his companions swarmed noisily overhead while I chased him into the river and carted him away. I worried that the single aggressive action might have undone the rapport we'd established by goofing off together. But after two days of bedrest while I recovered from a chest cold I returned and they seemed the same as before. I wonder what they think, though.

The crow had suffered a compound fracture so the Sarvey staff euthanized him -- a bird's wing offers no support for mending if both radius and ulna are broken. I'd put off calling to find out his status because I suspected that was the outcome. He was vibrant and vigorous -- though obviously shocked -- but his wing was badly damaged and I caused him to further aggravate it while I worked at catching him.

He was young but he seemed old enough that he may have had a mate. I felt sad that I'd shipped him off to die in a place far from where he belonged. I tear up when I think about this lost crow and I cannot decide exactly why I do. A clear explanation isn't necessary, though. But somehow this cloudy sorrow flows easily to me regarding beings I can hold in my hands, and maybe whose innocence I can freely associate with. But I don't feel such sorrow or joy for other beings from whom I remain distant, and who remain distant from me. I wonder if it's simply that -- that I don't feel connected to whomever I don't somehow touch.

Wireless Comms

2009-03-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

I chanted my 16-digit remuneration magic at a mobile phone provider yesterday and I now await arrival of my very first mobile phone. With both trepidation and glee, I await my first mobile phone.

It's like how on the teevee a salty character might introduce his wife with some numerical index affixed to her title, like: "this is my third wife." A time-point is defined, yet only a limited portion of the time-line is suggested, and a big, giant continuum is implied to be fluttering out in a void somewhere.

My first mobile phone. Of many. Because I'll be using mobile phones from this point forward, for the rest... of... my... life.

It used to be that people made social arrangements by speaking with one another. Like, face to face. An example: Joe and I would go scuba diving together on a Saturday, and while we stowed our gear post-dive we would negotiate details regarding a dinner get-together for the following Wednesday, to which we would also bring our ladie friends. Meanwhile, the ladies might be shopping together and casually theorizing a foursome roadtrip to be executed some weeks into the future. If at some point the plans might require modification then we'd call each other up using our telephones and we'd work that stuff out, or we'd just wait until the next time we get together and we'd discuss it then. People don't seem to arrange their social calendars this way anymore. No, the days of direct social interaction are dying.

But wait! People are still interacting, they just incorporate mobile phones in their interactions. People are more connected than ever before!

Not really, though. Sure, people use their mobile phones to call each other up to chat and make social arrangements but there's a difference between this and genuine interaction. People call one another while they are driving down the road, or while they're grocery shopping or waiting for their dry cleaning. Social contact is made as filler for the interstices, when a hand happens to free momentarily for dialing and holding the phone to one's ear.

Quick access to people dispersed throughout an electromagnetic network makes it easy to skip regular social routines in favor of living moment-by-moment. Just call up one's peeps and find something to do.

I have no idea where I might be going with this. It's all just a distracted mess, this blog entry is. Much like the electronically interconnected society. I guess it's good for me to be able to dial up my friends and family from wherever I may happen to be at any moment in time. But it's a boring prospect. I liked the old way better, wherein we chatted face-to-face with one another and expected we'd share company at particular places, and at regular intervals of time. The old way isn't boring like the new electronic way -- that was the good life.

Resuscitating Dead Giants

2009-03-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

This economic fiasco reminds me of our screening here at work of Who Moved My Cheese, an animated educational video produced to accompany the bestselling advice book of the same title. In the story, a couple of sub-miniature human characters learn from a pair of mice that it's foolish to persist at things the same way, day after day, and expect that everything will remain wonderfully the same forever. Interestingly, during our post-screening discussion, our business leaders reiterated the moral of the story for us -- as though we drones couldn't understand it ourselves -- and in their relation of the story to our business they also revealed that they simply didn't get it. We watched the movie as directed by our leaders, and we absorbed the message okay, but our business leaders failed to synthesize it with our particular reality. I suppose that was the genuine lesson -- that the ostensibly profound is lost on the realistically ignorant.

That past episode here at Mega Defense Corp. equates uncannily to our persistent efforts to rescue these giant corporations that are dying, and that will not quit dying until they are dead. We're still trying to get our cheese from the same cubby in the maze that we've always gotten it from, though that resource has been fully tapped and has run dry. I guess it makes sense that people want to resurrect the dinosaurs; they dropped the biggest crumbs, and they allowed people to scurry around busily, and to make ends meet for quite a long time. But the dinosaurs don't drop crumbs anymore. They're dead! They might twitch now and then but the major brainwaves just aren't there anymore. It's time to quit the rescue breathing, knock it off with the heart massage and just kick some dirt over the poor fuckers.

Chrysler, General Motors, Ford, AIG... Their time has passed. The age of the mega-corporate dinosaurs as saviors of the human race should be allowed to lapse. We humans are still here and we still have a planet to live upon. For now. We continue to tax our planet relentlessly but if we can crack humankind's blind love for anachronism then we can easily fix that. Nature cleans up our shit like we've never been able to do by ourselves. It's time to relax, let the resource-devouring beasts die, and let the Human Age commence.

Life, Death, Everything In Between

2009-03-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

It's curious how enlivening the company of another person can be. Maybe it's not really curious, and the better way to say it is that it's uniquely, especially exciting. But 'enlivening' works, too. Funny that it should be this way, though. We truly are social beings and we thrive best when we fit into carefully harmonized relationships with others. To share some moments together with others with whom we fit well is to be restored. Recharged. Topped up. It's almost magical. An exchange of pazzles.

There's been a death in the family during the past week. There are all sorts of reflections I might gaze into, regarding the meaning of life and death, and whether a perceived lack of some qualities makes a literally living soul essentially dead. That's value judgement, though, and it's best to stay away from that. He died per his desire, and by his own doing, and he goes without ceremony, also per his desire. In keeping with his apparent desire, I shall leave him to his unceremonious end. I didn't know him well enough that I might offer anything other than that, anyway.

I have to say, though, that it is sort of poetic that by ending their own lives, these evacuees induce survivors to take up angry questions as perhaps tortured them, and remained unanswered, until they found for themselves a means to closure. Good for them, I think ; spread the irony thickly; the living deserve nothing that they don't strive for.

It's difficult to switch from following the rutted path of expediency and convenience to following the overgrown trail that's neither convenient nor certain to exist. The technical and the rational bring rewards, but only until it becomes obvious that something has been missing. It's like Dennis Hopper says in Apocalypse Now!: You can't go out into space with, you know, fractions; what are you going to land on, one-quarter? There's only love and hate; either you love somebody or you hate 'em.

Okay, maybe it's not really like what Dennis Hopper said in Apocalypse Now!. But it is, sort of. I can continue to dedicate my life to the technical problems of mining resources so that I can feed myself and my two feline companions, and so I can later on retire with accumulated reserves, or I can tack hard and make a new course. Food and a roof are the basic necessities for life, so they say, but they aren't fully correct about that. Food and a roof are mechanical problems for life, and they're perfectly linear problems, too, but that's not all of life -- life has at least two additional coordinate axes to consider.

So, yeah. The photographer's duty is to make photographs. I don't necessarily have to make good photographs, but I have to start making some photographs. There's much texture to be seen in all these things out here and I know a little bit about how to catch some of that texture and present it for general viewing. I don't know enough about how to do it according to the way I sense things, however, and I need to know more. I'll get there by working and examining, same as with any other endeavor. Same as with any science or art or technique.

The question the other night was: why diverge to an artistic field? I shrugged my shoulders and attempted to cobble together an answer. But it's not an artistic field -- it's a comprehensive field. In a way the visual chokes the verbal but, also, it frees up a different kind of verbalism. Pictures without words, or words without pictures... either of those ways is unproductive. Nobody would get my meaning. But words properly assembled to pictures -- people get my meaning that way. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that I can then show that I get the meaning, and people will then believe what I say.

Less abstract dabbling and more of the pictures I need to make. The scheme comes to me slowly, yet it comes.

Continuation

2009-02-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

The previous post is continued at my new crow blog.

Caw, Caw, Caw-r-r-r-l!

2009-02-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

Bad-man Werner elucidates the principle well enough but most seem to gloss over it in favor of the invisible observer fantasy. It's a shame, too, because not all that many riddles yield to the 'Let's Pretend I'm Not Here' approach. To solve a puzzle an observer has to include himself in the equation, and there's no getting around it. No black boxes to probe inconspicuously at this system, that's for sure.

There's something deep in the human psyche that bends us toward this notion of disembodied omniscience. Like we innately know how to understand what's around us without being seen, without being part of the scene. And like we're smart enough to know what it all means, independently of ourselves, though we're inextricably linked to it all and we don't really know our own roles. Geez, but is that ever silly.

"Anthropomorphism" is what they call it when they feel the observer is muddled too intricately with the lower subject. Avoid anthropomorphism and we lose a valuable tool, however. Possibly the most important tool in the toolbox. How do we figure out our bit in the puzzle if we don't look at ourselves? We can't very well see ourselves if we don't have some sort of mirror. We project but we assume nothing out there falls under our beam, we think nothing interacts with our own particular wavelength, we don't bother look for reflections. But what if subject and observer share a symmetry with one another? Mutual projection and reflection? I look at it; it looks at me; we simultaneously view one another and ourselves. The trick is in figuring out who's who, and that's not really such a trick.

Look at whomever you hate and you'll see whatever it is that you hate about yourself. Simple. Same with any other feeling; love, fear, whatever. There's reason to emotion, and usefulness to it, too. But ascribe wholly to the subject the qualities that draw your emotions and you risk letting their significance escape. You let reason go and keep only the reactivity. You don't benefit yourself as much as you might from the millions of years of evolution that brought you to this place, and to this special point in time. Drop the notion of your own invisible consciousness and make a wholehearted study of whatever crosses your path just as if it's you. Really, it is you, but there's no need to worry too much about abolishing boundaries. They exist only in your mind and they'll probably go away on their own. Maybe. Possibly.

So, anyway, the Costco french fries are a hit. The sale-priced Li'l Smokies are an even bigger hit. I watched a little fake-out and stash-and-defend drama and heard a curiously soft vocal expression I hadn't heard before. Like a groan-y, nasally grunt, but not aggressive. Something like: "Oh, honey, don't take my Li'l Smokie away!" but with a bit more wing-flapping than that.

The two hand-calls and the CD should arrive here at work on Friday, which is my day off. I should have planned their delivery more carefully but I can swing by sometime to pick them up. I'm curious about a bunch of things but first I want to see how far from the home turf and from the pre-roosting pathways I can draw the local family groups. I suspect that during the two hours prior to their heading for the roosting grounds I can divert them a sizable distance. First I have to learn the lingo, however, and introduce myself to them so that they recognize me by voice. I assume they know one another by voice but we'll see. There'll be one more joining in the racket very soon.

People think Mandarin is an especially 'tonal' language. Heh heh.

The View From Here

2009-02-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

Today is two years from the day I ambled my way back to AYS. I'd begun there a couple years prior to that day, but then strayed, and wandered into the fold again. Presently, I practice less intently than I did at this time last year and I realize less direct benefit from the yoga as I did then, naturally.

AYS dissolved almost a year ago and I checked in at a studio where the form might be described as similar, yet alternative to Ashtanga. I stayed for roughly six months but had trouble working at the yoga in a way that I need. I decided to stay home instead and work at it as best I could on my own. On most days, I work merely to prevent myself from spiraling off into whatever limbo awaits if I should quit altogether. On other days I skip the asana practice altogether, and dare myself to slip into that limbo state. I really miss the silent sangha of the AYS studio, though maybe I wouldn't know now what we had if we still had it. Such is life. I'm still happy for D and S for splitting the scene, though. It was good sense, all the more evident because we don't hear so much from them.

But I'd gained some remarkable things in that period of effort. This time away from the strain of endless daily asana practice and constant contemplation of physical minutiae allows me some much needed contrast so that I can digest those things. That is how we sense, after all; we humans are contrast engines and we can discriminate only where there is some kind of tonicity or variation. I can't really get to know a thing that I have, or that I had, until I try to work without it, and I fine-tune my grasp of it. The getting and the relaxing are a constant cyclical endeavor and when we keep at it for a long enough time, we refine our sense of these things.

A thing I understand a little better is the transparency that comes about by way of this mental-physical smoothing process. I wonder how many practitioners feel the relative openness of their faces as it shifts between 'more clear' and 'more opaque.' I suppose it's what some people mean when they talk about 'opening their hearts' but I'm not certain of that. It makes no sense to me to call it a heart opening, really, because the phenomenon centers around the physical elements of the face, and around the organs of expression. It's easily seen and sensed in the faces and in the expression of others, as reflected from ourselves. Anyway, intense daily flushing of the lungs and of the mind affects correction of the spine, such that the nerves that affect the sense and expression organs are not impinged and greater, more uniform openness is maintained.

Artificially contorted, stiffened bodies cause minds to grow tougher and less nimble; and toughened minds cause bodies to sag and grow weak. Conversely, supple bodies are foundations for supple, effervescent minds; and minds that are thus pliant and expansive cause their physical carriages to remain potent and durable.

Raven Refrigeration and Cognition of a Temporal Dimension

2009-02-05T00:03:00.000-08:00

I've been absorbing books on corvids lately and contemplating working a bit of hobby science using some of my feathered neighbors. I mental-sketched a food puzzle I want to introduce to the mated crow pair that live down by the park-and-ride lot and, whilst I pondered its details, I thought back through my reading of Bernd Heinrich's Mind of the Raven. In his book, Heinrich mentions ravens caching meat in snow. This behavior -- or maybe it should be called a practice -- recurs continuously throughout his descriptions of raven life in the Northeastern U.S. and in other northerly regions. But the author seems to have missed an important implication.

What does it mean when a "lower" animal caches perishable food items in ice? Those who study corvids joke that their subjects are smarter than they themselves are, but human self-importance is too great an obstacle to allow people truly to believe such an idea; ravens, crows and other animals are to be studied and comprehended per our whims -- i.e., we establish a logical scheme of organization, observe some behaviors and then attempt to fit our collected observations and our framework together as some sort of thesis. We theorize because we can, and because we want to, for whatever reasons, and because we do all this abstract theorizing we presume for ourselves a higher station within nature. But for all our cogitation and our detached observations, what do we get in return?

Science is a tricky devil. The laws of nature are simplicity -- utterly! -- yet we make them elusive by distracting ourselves with methodical rigor. Too quickly and too easily in our scientific schemes, we find ourselves wandering through mazes of analysis and we forget almost completely about the phenomena that stroked our imagination initially. But forget about all that for now!

Why does a bird... No, wait! Let's drop our presumed preeminence here... Why does any animal store perishable food items in ice? Rationally, you answer that you store your food in a refrigerator because it would otherwise spoil and you would become sick if you were to eat spoiled food. Millions of years of human ingenuity gained us a solution to that old problem that so troubled our ancestors, yadda, yadda, yadda. But before the question was posed to you as a general problem that included you with all the other animals, you probably figured that ravens stored their meat in ice just because they somehow became conditioned to do so. Evolution, etc. -- insert more yadda, yadda, yadda here. That is to say, ravens of past millennia who didn't poke their bits of scavenged meat into snowdrifts got sick and died, and those who stumbled upon this amazing secret of meat preservation lived and reproduced and begat the present strain of ravens. Just like with our own ancestors, right? Ha!

Okay, so maybe you think I'm not clear, here, and you think I need to flesh out the idea so that it can withstand some analytical rigor. Ha, again!

Let's backtrack: Why does a raven store its persihable food in ice? Fuck, isn't it obvious yet? What is the antithesis to conditioned existence? What is conditioned existence? Pick up food, put it in mouth, chew it and swallow it; lay down to sleep when sun sets; get up the next day when sun rises once more. Is this sequence marked by any sort of apprehension of a temporal dimension to existence? Do you really think so? How do you know that the sun will rise tomorrow? Do you say so simply because you've never seen that particular condition challenged? Do you put your leftovers in the fridge because you continually reason negative consequences if you should fail to store your food that way? Did you learn to store your food in the fridge because you first experienced that you get sick from eating spoiled food? Or did you learn to store your food in the fridge because somebody taught you to do so? Let me summarize for you: You may have gotten sick a few times from spoiled food, but long before anything like that happened, you became inculcated with some notions of food spoilage and proper storage; you gained a cultural wisdom that aids your survival; you became conditioned to survive.

But the question actually seeks a simpler answer. Q: Why do you refrigerate food? A: Because you want to preserve it for future consumption. Q: Why does a raven refrigerate its food? A: Because it wants to preserve it for future consumption. Ta-da!

You're still not sold, eh? Well, okay. Or maybe you still don't see what I'm pushing at you, here. What is "future?" Future arises through a perception of time; the notion of future is a prediction of a temporal transition. Conceptualization of temporal states must be elemental to non-conditioned existence, yet we assume that all those other beings out there live entirely conditionally, and not intentionally. And maybe they do, because by measuring them against ourselves we prove nothing! Produce for us a human who doesn't fail the condition-intention test -- show us a human who lives utterly intentionally, and not largely conditionally -- and then we can set about to really knowing things. Such a human doesn't exist, however, and our animal friends apparently have an equal footing with us in at least one of our most complex ideas.

But let's depart this topic on a lighter note, shall we? Q: Why does a raven store its leftover perishables in ice? A: Because it chooses not to salt its food. Heh!

Waiting for the Clampdown

2009-02-03T17:16:00.000-08:00

Nothing is worse than sitting here at work, fiddling away a sunny day whilst my camera sits switched off, ready to go, with newly acquired super-fast telephoto zoom mounted. Lately I don't accomplish much here; the travel industry locked up tight whatever margins it managed to preserve post-20010911 and presently, with no economic impetus to drive consumption of now-cheap fuel, I sit around like a Maytag repairman, save that I don't have a uniform I could spend my time maintaining.

This squandering of primo sunlight and non-guaranteed life-time bothers me.

I don't feel the sense of foreboding I probably should feel regarding my job. Our little outpost here on the aerospace frontier has survived more than 25 years despite constant corporate tectonics that have caused sister operations to buckle and crumble and become amusing memories. Perhaps for that very reason, and because we've remained uniquely profitable (because we're civil!) amidst a culture of military-speculation R&D boondoggling, nobody here discusses or even seems to consider doom as a possibility. It's much greater than a possibility, though, and reaches well into the plausibility range of figures. But I don't feel so bad about that. I think my explorative spirit got bored and quit coming in with me at least ten years ago.

So what holds my butt to my seat? I don't know. I recall some photos in a pre-teen's book of space exploration -- from many years ago, when I was a pre-teen -- in which astronauts wore uniforms generously taped with velcro so that they could remain in their chairs, or remain affixed foot-to-deck, or otherwise remain non-adrift. Out there in the orbital sphere where everything falls at the same speed, people need to have solutions for that problem. Here in the innerspace, where we each usually spend most of our time lodged firmly atop a minuscule portion of an especially large range of area, and we don't experience much impetus for motion, we have to consider opposite solutions. But, contrarily, we usually spend our minds considering notions like security, though security doesn't mean much if nothing ever is ventured.

The point of view that puts security first also puts wandering and innovation last; drift-aversion, dis-aventure; reversion and non-adventure; warm and comfy, yet stumped.

How to pre-empt that certain demise, though? The answer must be to acquit myself of my existence as it has been. Take my atoms and reassign them as I choose, before I drop and have to let worms do the job for me. Planning is impossible, though. Whoever carefully strategizes his break from his past and steps into a carefully planned future is a careless self-deceiver. The only way to make the real transition is to get out of the chair and go; it doesn't matter much to where, but only that the when equals something like right now.

Bounce Flash

2009-01-10T21:57:00.000-08:00

Accept no substitutes -- always bounce your flash!

Make sure to visit your dentist regularly, too.

For Today Only: Intellectually I'm On Fire!

2009-01-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

Here is your single's love horoscope
for Saturday, January 10:

Intellectually, you're on fire today. So instead of drowning your brains in beer, head to a lecture, gallery opening or book signing and expand your vision. And don't hesitate to look around because someone, a kindred spirit, is looking at you.

Woot! That means today is the day to check out those YouTube Adaptation Challenge videos at the Henry Art Gallery. Sussman's The Rape of the Sabine Women is at the top of my priority list; I don't know what kind of kindred spirit I'd find there, though; best to avoid further comments on that matter. I gotta catch Outta My Light!: Picturing the Processes of Photography, too. Who knows, I may find a kindred photog spirit with whom to drown my brain in beer, though I'm not much of a drown-brain-in-beer kind of guy. I mostly just get my toes wet in the beer and I probably don't really want to find a mushy-headed kindred spirit. Kindred spirits who are mushy-headed, well... that would seem to indicate poorly of my own brain.

Mind: Gone... Or At Least Going

2009-01-06T21:37:00.000-08:00

You know those black and white visual puzzles that supposedly gauge whether we're right-brained or left-brained? Well my mind doesn't work consistently either way anymore. I'm grey-brained, apparently.

I'm not sure exactly what's happening. I don't recognize patterns as I used to; I don't read words from jumbled bunches of characters as well as I did before; I don't sketch-envision mechanisms; I don't logic-process puzzles. But I do see 'negative space' more readily now; I 'feel' language with its tempo, rather than merely parse it rationally; I sometimes comprehend my words or actions from a sort of midway perspective not exactly my own and not exactly that of my counterpart. I wonder if I'm presently in the process of giving myself a non-surgical lobotomy.

And it's funny... I rationally finger my recent diet as the culprit but I probably should just give in and accept that I no longer live in a black-and-white world. That would mean that it's okay for me to eat tater tots with my lentil soup and spinach. And salmon, too, though it's purported by some to be a gateway flesh that leads to ever more meat, some of which might be raised in non-humane conditions. It's a lot to think about and I'm going right now to drink a beer to help put my mind at ease about it all.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T11:18:00.000-08:00

Have a sedentary 2009!

Okay, be happy but not sedentary.

Snow Day Amusement

2008-12-21T12:02:00.000-08:00

I waited at the snowed-in park-and-ride lot. The buses operate sporadically during snow conditions so I looked for some activities for immediate entertainment. A mated pair of crows stalked the area around the shelters and I thought about foodstuffs I might have brought -- or yet bring to them -- to help them endure the cold. Really, crows are much tougher about winter storms than I am, but the black birds always receive tasty gifts with their unique crow-ish gratitude. I remembered I had half a milk chocolate bar stuffed in the outside pocket of my knapsack -- chocolate is as good as bread or french fries, right? I broke it into chunks and tossed a couple in the direction of the crows. The male collected both and flew up directly to perch upon a box-shaped, metal light fixture situated at the top of a tall pole. He jackhammered loudly at the frozen chocolate with his bill and tossed his head back now and then to down the slivers he'd broken off. I thought that was pretty funny; I laughed out there all by myself... except I did have the crows for company so I guess I really wasn't alone.

I tossed another pair of bite-sized pieces toward the female. She took only one and worked at it on the pavement, with a less vigorous technique for breaking it down. She seemed to have shaved at it with her bill whilst holding it against a curb. I think her method is more effective. The male's ratio of banging to swallowing seemed inefficient; he banged a lot and for a long time. He was determined, though, and I give him props for that.

I walked around the downtown core yesterday and tested my bright new f/2.8 lens on the people I saw. I need more people pictures and the wider aperture is going to help me get those photos in dark, dark Seattle. I'm amazed at how much faster I can work my shutter with the aperture opened up by a stop or two. I knew I'd get that result, of course -- that's why I bought the lens -- but it's amazing to see after having used only the 'cheaper' f/3.5-5.6 lenses. I am impressed by the clarity I get, too, though I think I need better sharpness from it. It was only my first day with it and I'm sure I'll figure out how to get better pics out of it. When the sky clears a bit I should be able to catch people with shutter speeds of 1/500th at ISO 100. I could get a flash, of course, but I don't want to be obnoxious. I have to remember, too, that I dialed back the camera's sharpening setting to -2 to eliminate risk of haloing. I'll check my photos with NX to see if I can magically get my sharpness back.

A guy snapped a group of strangers and me yesterday as we crossed the street at Pike and 2nd. He has a down-low, from-the-hip technique that I suppose he considers to be pretty slick. His camera is a little orange or red point and shoot gizmo with flash output that's maybe best described as cute and sparkly. But it serves me right I guess; I specifically shot people shooting photographs for my ad hoc 'photographic technique' collection. It was some kind of karmic thing for the guy to catch me with my camera slung across my chest. When I want a picture, though, I put my viewfinder to my eye and I frame my shot. I take pictures like a man, dammit. None of that pussyfooting shit for me. And when I use flash I will use a bazooka-sized flash and light the place up. Yeah, don't you know it.

Nonexistent Bonds

2008-12-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

It only works if you do it. That's what I wanted to say, anyway. She told me it doesn't work for everybody; she's tried it but hasn't seen any difference; she implied that it doesn't work for her. I'd have pointed out that dabbling isn't an effective means to gain anything but there's never any profit in pushing the suggestion beyond its initial offering; some will embrace it and some won't. Those who take it up meaningfully come into its effects whether they know what's coming or not, whether they want what's coming or not. Those that continue to skip along the same ways as before will continue to live as they've always lived. C'est la vie.

Once taken up the commitment persists indefinitely. To cease the endeavor is to gradually lose whatever effects have thus far been gained. I see this for myself now. I've worked to smooth the surfaces at the interface and I've had the peacefulness that comes of it; I let off for a while and let the impulse diminish and now I watch my imagination wander unharnessed and seemingly in directions of its own choosing. I watch it saturate moments of my life with a psychology that doesn't belong to me, a way of thinking that I didn't evolve from my own experiences. I catch my mind at these runaway thoughts and fade them away so I can think freely again. I wonder, though: Is this why people do these hardened, cynical things that they do? Is it because they don't see these outwardly-linked imaginings as not their own that they act so insensitively towards themselves and everybody else? But I already know the answer to that question.

Changing the Scenery

2008-11-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and felt unmotivated to go to the studio to practice. I've been skipping yoga lots of mornings since the time I was supposed to have recommenced the daily practice so today I laid in bed and thought through it all. I really don't want to go back right now.

I'd started practicing there at the beginning of the year so that I could fill in all seven days of the week with yoga. When AYS closed in the springtime, I switched right over and practiced there full-time. But in these past months I just haven't been able to draw from myself any sort of direction in my yoga practice. It's been flat and I've gradually regressed to an un-energetic place that isn't recognizable from where I was in February. I miss the dynamism and I don't recall ever feeling it during practice at the present studio. Several possible reasons come to mind but I'm not really interested in sorting out the details behind the backslide. I'd rather skip right to the solutions and reacquire the momentum I've lost.

So beginning tomorrow I'm a member of the Ashtanga Home Practicers League. I'm in skivvies from here on out, save for the occasions when I feel like I should visit the friendly faces at the studio, or those former AYS companeros who've been practicing at Eight Limbs (I'll pull b-ball shorts over my boxer-briefs for the public yoga). I miss the gang and I'd also enjoy seeing Tracy again so I'll surely drop in there, cold studio or otherwise.

I have a lot of ground to recover.

Love and Connection

2008-11-25T11:56:00.001-08:00

Flashback to six years ago: a woman with whom I had been developing a romantic involvement asked me if I'd ever been in love. I responded automatically that I had. She asked how I knew that I had. My emphatic, almost defensive answer: "Because!" But I pondered the question then and I still do, from time to time, when I think about intimate companionship and the little issues surrounding mating.

The quick answer to the question is that love is as we each define it for ourselves; however we want to think of it, and whatever we say about it, that's what goes. The quick answer doesn't help much for figuring out the slow dilemma, however. I find myself not matched up per the social norms and I wonder why.

I've come to understand that there isn't a genuine distinction that can be made in the quality of love between being "in love" and being of the regular kind. The former and the latter are the same thing, really, except that those who ascribe the latter to their condition experience a bunch of add-ons and upgrades that don't necessarily come bundled with the former. But there is no difference between love_A and love_B; there's not any difference amongst loves A, B, C or N, where N represents any random type or value. All the extra googly excitement and stuff that are part of "being in love" are just that -- excitement and stuff; the underlying emotion is the same old pedestrian-quality love that gets issued to everybody on their first day in the big show.

That's not to imply the I don't think there's value to the extra sweetness and spice that are part of finding somebody exciting and wanting to discover all there is to be known about her. That state of arousal is beautiful and luscious. I love it! Some think it should be possible to pair most any two people together and with proper effort they should be able to foster that butterfly state perpetually in themselves. Maybe that's true but I don't see evidence of it; if it is true then not many people bother to do it.

The burbling feelings and the excitement come partly by way of compatibility, though there are individual factors involved that might skew results. Some just want to be loved and they feel that excitement when others show interest in them. Others are hardened and difficult to penetrate and they shield themselves from the newness feelings. Anyway, concentrating on the arousal rather than on the reason behind it camouflages the relative compatibility of pairs. It's too easy to get caught up in the swirling feelings and to neglect to consider what reasons two people might have for forming a bond. Some pair off with their chosen companions for little reason other than their initial excitement.

Love is the connective emotion and the add-on excitment is the stimulus that arouses us to look deeper within our companions. Compatibility is what causes us to like what we see when we cast or attention deeper; without compatibility, we eventually lose that initial interest.

This is why I haven't followed the social norms and attached myself to a lifelong mate. I haven't yet found a companion with whom I share that kind of compatibility.

The Religion Question

2008-11-20T15:42:00.000-08:00

I got an offer to try out for FREE a whiz-bang internet dating site that boasts a rigorous 29-point method for matching participants. I was momentarily tired of poring over lousy photos and I was curious about it so I took a break and created an account. I worked my way through the lengthy questionnire (20 minues worth, thoughtfully answered) and by the time I'd finished I wondered how I could explain my "religious views" to others. It's probably not a big deal for the majority of people out there -- most decide upon a particular adjective and then leave it alone from then on. But since I innately follow the most complicated path in all things, I have to find a better way of explaining myself.

I am not religious by any stretch of the word. I could have become religious but certain circumstances of my childhood spared me (serendipitously!) from that fate. My parents imparted some of the ripples of their "faith" to me but I lost those during some depression-induced soul searching more than 20 years ago. And in the years since then, I have furthered my irreligiousness such that I would prefer not even to bother using the word anymore in explaining myself. 'Areligiousness' is simply religiousness with a 'nought' in front of it -- i.e., it is a religiosity-centric word. Being irreligious, however, I shouldn't need any form of the word to describe myself... except that I can't seem to avoid it. It's a silly situation, really, and I'd prefer to put my energy into other things.

On those rare occasions when conversation turns toward faith and my companions ask me what sort of beliefs I subscribe to, I briefly explain that I have none of that. And the response always is the same; they say: "Oh, you're an atheist!" But I am not a theist, negated. I am not religious person, negated. I do not reject theism or religion, I just don't abide it. I am me, with none of that, and I don't want any of those corraling, compartmentalizing labels affixed to me. It's easy to explain this here on my blog where I have freedom to bust out as many hundreds of words as I like. Ultra-brevity is high virtue in an online personals ad, however, so I need to find a way to explain all that in ten words or less.

I wish I knew more about web programming; I'd create a dating website workable solely by people smart enough to figure out how to find one another without using these limiting categories.

Fat Fuzzles

2008-11-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

I spotted Daisy and Clover together this morning! I'd been watching for them but poor weather and work scheduling prevented us from coinciding. But here they both are together and they've gotten FAT! They're obviously eating for the coming winter.

I forgot to switch on the vibration reduction feature of the lens (I switched it off last night while I shot some moon photos from the tripod) so these shots are a bit blurry. It also didn't help that I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. Daisy is in the upper photo and Clover follows here. The lady who allows her two ankle-biters to run free despite the rules which stipulate that dogs MUST BE LEASHED had just opened her door. Here, D and C are both on high alert.

Here's a neighbor squirrel waiting for a handful of slivered almonds to sprinkle down from heaven. All the squirrels here get along well and Daisy and Clover have a peaceful home. I am quite happy about this.

Back Again

2008-10-28T17:06:00.001-07:00

I went to yoga practice this morning and ended my one-month break. I felt for a variety of reasons that I should take time off so that's what I did. In the interval I re-discovered just why it's important to me to practice daily. I also discovered that daily asana practice brings physical challenges that prolong progress in the asana practice; though the body is the pallette upon which the 'work' is done, there are other means to shift one's colors.

Troy quipped that I look skinny and he wondered if I'd lost weight. I'd not been eating as well as I should have so I think I may have lost a few pounds for that reason. I certainly have lost muscle tone -- my shirts drape a little more loosely and even my watch slides on my wrist much more than before. It'll all come back quickly enough, though; all I have to do is practice as before.

I have realized some of the benefits I sought by breaking out of the cycle. Work became somewhat more demanding for a while and because my schedule was already tight I needed to institute some lifestyle measures to avoid feeling harried. October has been mostly peaceful for me, despite the higher occupational output, so that's a plus. Also, I want to spend as much of the waning season outside where I can figure out more about the magical photographic art. Those who've not discovered the joy of cameras and capturing their observations with photographs should give it a try.