problematizing the 'self'

... of how much banal information one wants to put down. Does my daily activity need to be inscribed, or recorded (though it's also a process of sharing and creating some kind of communicative space)? I would suspect the utility of such a device as this lies more in the recording or archiving of particular, relevant, and not overly melodramatic information. A privacy issue, perhaps, or just one of what puts on for a "public face." I don't really like wearing makeup, and sometimes the world just has to deal with my greasy hair on those days when I stretch out how long I go until washing it. But it's not something I need recoginition for, nor something I want. Aping around just isn't my thing most of the time; better to rant and rave like a street prophet so immersed in the truth of his words that he doesn't care whether or not you respond, whether you take one of his little pamphlets or go home and wrap all your windows in tinfoil to keep the aliens from eating the contents of your freezerbox down in the dirty old basement filled with dusty bowling trophies tv's good housekeeping pictures of your kids or even that dead hooker you forgot to bury in the backyard.

It seems pointless and masturbatory to just tell you about my day. Energies that could otherwise be used productively being splattered all over the lj wall, left to dry and and people to scribble on with their crayons and their multi-coloured markers. Sometimes the release is necessary but often it just becomes a compulsive repetition, something that's there because you have it lying around and can't say no, can't seem to get yourself out of those relations so you just sit their playing with yourself talking watching the world unfold around you making a difference through your participation in a ritual we're all doing at once apart and the same while we chase after our own fetishes desires hungers or even just a dirty old sock to clean up the mess with.

That's the result of connection.

He awoke to that sound, the one which he always hears. At first he didn't know whether it was real, whether it was something he was actually hearing or if it was just something in his mind. Life had become like that; he's start having conversations with people he hadn't seen in ages, then realized halway through that he was talking to the coat rack. The mouse that scurried about at night, snacking on grains and garbage once everyone else went to sleep, seemed to realize this. But it didn't mind; he was crazy just like all the others, those who stayed up late and saw the lights in the sky. Most people didn't see them, this mouse figured, and most wouldn't care. But there was always someone who woke up at night, who would see the lights and hear the sounds.

Of course the mouse didn't notice these things in the same detail; it simply noticed the patterns, got used to the presence of this man. It knew he wouldn't kill it, in fact in knew how to keep him under control, how to creep up at night behind him and scurry past his feet, sending him jumping into the sky screaming "jesus joseph and mary." For the mouse, things were fine if this man woke up. In fact they were all the better, since his late night cooking would send crumbs into the dark corners he'd forget to clean up in his dazed hazed expression, lost in his thoughts that would only lead him into circular trains of thought which frequently collided, killing all of their passengers in horrible explosions. Fireballs that shot out and cinged the hairs in his eardrums, sometimes smoke even started to pour out. On more than one occassion his restless thinking had set off the fire alarm, and when the fire trucks came to clean out the smoke, the found only him, twiddling his thumbs staring at the wall looking at how the colour had slowly changed from off-white to various degrees of dusty, dirty, oil-stained markings of his own minor history. "Now that's what I call a fine wall," he'd think to himself while the firemen would scream into his ear asking of there was anyone else in the house, and where the fire started.

Snapped out of his thoughts, the smoke would go away. The firemen would look at him in horror, realizing the strangeness of this man. But they had no way to explain it outside of the context of experiencing it, and besides, they needed to keep busy to pass the time until Friday hit. Gambling at the station gets old, one can only visit the same prostitute so many times; this man seemed to provide them with a new form of amusement.

That's when one of them got the idea, to use this man. To never have to do real work again, to never have to put his life in danger. Just to take the man, put him in a room inside of a highrise apartment building, or maybe an old factory with those dusty smokestacks that hang around from the heydey of industrial capitalism, before crying at the movies became the new way to earn one's bread and butter. He would give the man something to think about, something which would get all the gears in his mind to spin so fast that the buzz would kill birds in the same room, the sound so strong and fast and intense. But all the other people thought was that he had the TV on, so used to the white noise of their urban jungles were they.

Now what is it about this man that makes him so special, that makes his brain produce smoke and spectacular trainwrecks better than an old film or even the real thing? And why can he do it again and again, while staring at the dirty wall mice scurrying by his feet setting him off the ground spinning him round and round? That man, he saw it, in a dream. That thing he can't quite remember, but he keeps trying to bring back, to recall in full form. His mind can't quite handle the experience, so it short circuits itself, goes into overdrive, and stops things from getting out of control. But every time his brain heats up, the smoke pours out, he gets a little bit closer. The man has a powerful imagination, one strong enough to keep himself entertained at all times, strong enough that approach to every basic, mundane routine activity we do just as a matter of course often gets him labelled either a delusional psychopath or resembling that uncarved block that the Daoists are always ranting on about before they go and have sex for hours, staving off ejactulation and making sure their bodies have plenty of zinc for the cold season.

When he reaches that experience, he doesn't know what will happen. Maybe he'll die, his life will end and his brain explode all over the walls behind him as the pressure builds higher and higher. Valves and gasket work, the smoke pouring out of his ears seems to function under a similar logic. But if you've ever seen a pressure cooker buckle and expand, worrying about it blowing scalding hot stew all over your pretty face, then you'd know why there's a concern. He's aware of this, but he doesn't care. That memory is just so strong, so captivating, in its incomplete state. He's going to go after it all the time, a single-minded focus that some would call Zen, some would call bullshit. Some might just tell him to grow up and get a job, raise a family fuck your kid's babysitter do coke and buy a sports car when you get tired of jerking off in the company washroom. To them he might just do a little dance, reenacting the tragic downfall of Western civilization since the Greeks. Not that they were any better, he might tell them afterwards. Remember, they fucked sheep; we just eat lamb for Easter and wear wool cotton polyester blends. Wouldn't you call that progress?

http://www.nomusicday.com/home.htm

Not that I'll be participating in the festivities. There is music to be heard, which I would like to hear, to celebrate (perhaps hedonistically?) my own existence and the existence of others around me.

No Music Day is, however, an interesting concept especially considering that there is no inherent agenda, manifesto, or reason behind it. Rather, people can post their own statements, and how they will go about observing it.

If, for a moment, we were to cut out all forms of "music" from our day (assuming, of course, that one can reach a uniform definition: would it be particular conventions of arranged modalities of sound? Any form of sonic projection that has a discernable pattern, rhythm, or overall structure?), what would we hear?

Would we have to stop speaking as well for this to work? Or using any form of sound as communication at all? Would we have to switch to a predominantly visual register, or would there be so much "silence" that the sounds around us could be more easily used for communication, through a process of simplication and stripping-down?

Silence



long and somewhat awkard, perhaps
neglecting that which is me
or rather, a part of
the larger being that is
well, me

I simply want to take a moment to affirm my own existence. Little more, but simply, repeat as has been said to be before,
Of course there are multiple registers of "me" that exist at once, mulitiple modalities through which I exist. Yet, "I" am here.
And an archive of data will serve to transmit this to others.

"It's a good day to be alive."

Don't you agree?

...

What would be thought if this were read 100 years from now?

he goes off soon, off to beijing
time to study chinese, it seems
perhaps this time
he'll get it right

a summer of something different, something much needed
not going away, but coming to
a change nonetheless
one that is welcome

yet the calm before the storm is always somewhat strange
one floats as one's roots are slowly severed

"hit the panic button
we're losing control"
the ship is drifting off
the abyss calls it

"what's that sir?"
asks the first mate
"i said, hit the panic button!"
yells the captain

the fools
they don't get it
the button only releases
endorphins
it doesn't save the ship

"what a beatiful sunset"
thinks the fool
staring off into sky
where a hole is ripped

crashing, spiralling down
a clown, usually filled with joy and
whiskey,
cries
solemnly
only he knows
but everyone just
laughs

the children stare
with wolf-like eyes
piercing
lips snarled
drooling
awaiting the apocalypse

when the sky falls
fools steer ships
into lighthouses
and wise men
bask in the light
of the burning world

we, too, are made but of clay

Drawn into creative fires I've been seeking out for ages
frozen stasis was a way of being for some time
returning to new territories
homes I was never raised in
feeling adrift as always
yet soon I may fly forward
powered by rocket ship
cyborg feet space age
newness found me
excitement, arousal, motivation, creative spirits summoned
and in the corner
a cat meows
and a hair hairs
while the world keeps turning

Somewhere along the way, most of my entries started to become friends-only. Go figure. If you're at all interested, I'll certainly add you. I like new people.

And in the visions, thought melted into matter. Faces warped, characteristic of what they were saying. Emotions coloured the air, and permeated the cells of everything. Motion was kinetic, uncanny, and all-powerful.

When reality is constrained by external circumstances, one becomes aware of its boundaries.
But what is it that we have ingested in order to create our sensory perceptions on a day to day basis? Is there a 'real' world out there to perceive that we're all blind to, or is it simply static, noise, waves of light and energy that pulsate and erupt. I laughed as I proclaimed myself insane.

An honest lie will reveal the falsity of all truths.

radiance
it was there
brilliant
overpowering
yet... transient

what the hell did i see then?

And as time progresses, I wonder why I'm still an undergrad. Probably that whole language thing...

I will no longer speak that which words cannot capture
I will sing it loudly
for I have found my voice
and it is beautiful

History of Communications is finished. The prof really liked my group essay. I am pleased.

way too much coffee
twitchbounceshakebounceshaketwitchsshake
i am jittery

home home home home home home home
such a confusing
word
concept
formation of expressing my origins
though I am much more than this

what it means
i don't know (yet all to well i do)

lots of food
comfort drink
people animals
love is strange

warm
big (is it too?) room

this is where I come from
holds memories

somenotyetfarenoughaway
fresh vessels of forgotten sacrifice
soon they will drift away
and melt into the earth

Biking season was offically declared 'over' for me. Ice is slippery, and pavement hurts a lot when you slip, fall, and slam your palm into it. Fortunately my wrist, although in quite a bit of pain periodically, isn't broken, nor is it sprained. And I didn't slam my head; that could have really, really sucked.

Time to bundle up and walk, methinks.

Discussions of 'structural' and 'symbolic' bring about many thoughts. As does media as codes, questions of perception. The basic cognition of the human mind, explained in scientific terms, what are it's boundaries? What systems of reference does it rely upon, and how are those limited by their historical and material embeddedness?

Is there anything such as a grand Truth to end all questions? Why do we search after it, and why are we asking questions in the first place?

What if language itself is a form of mediation that removes us from 'realty'? Is there even such a thing? Or is everything we think of, do, say, act, create all both real and not at the same time?

Can we even begin to separate these sorts of things? Or do we lose their essence (if there even is such a thing) when we put them in a form that is external, no longer simply transitory, something that exists outside of 'ourselves' (but then we ask what the boundaries of self/other are)? What if by simply using language, or any form of expression, we are giving things lives of their own? Or to clarify it, what if our thoughts and ideas are parasites that we create?

writewritewrite
then
sleepsleepsleep

once again

organic circuitry pulsing with electronic organs
dark brown liquid fuel
think, then think again
extra dimensions reveal themselves
to be woven into the flesh

And so the dilemna of finding a roommate has been solved. A cat might be included in the bargain as well.

Writing and creation come at irregular intervals. My brain is not a factory to simply churn out essays on a clockwork basis. But there's something romantic to be said about the late nights, the stress, the insanity that accompanies this sort of work. I'll probably be nostalgic about it in a few years.

Almost surprisingly, I'm actually quite excited about going home next weekend. Fresh air and a change of scenery will be a nice relief; I also like the idea of coming back and reterritorializing my present surroundings.

http://www.scaredsacred.org Amazing film

For no real reason this evening, I suddenly felt claustrophobic in my apartment and needed to race out the door and off to some new territory. It's funny how when you really need to get out of the familiar, a glimpse or memory of the past can sometimes send you spiralling into a moment of paralysis. Incidentally, it was in this case seeing an abject person I don't know on any level, but rather recognize visually, that for some reason set this off. Sometimes I just really need to get away.

Fortunately that moment was short-lived. Warnings of firey chilli filled chocolate preceeded my pleasure. Outside, snow and rain entwined in one watery mess. Somehow it's refreshing in its affirmation of larger patterns of change. Seasons bring with them their own surprises.

---

Memory and self-narrative: a constant process of interaction. Memory is unstable and reliable, and as one's own personal history relies upon it, there is a constant process of change. Events, as the cornerstones of historical narratives, must be processed with time and distance. My mind keeps rewriting the past in relation to the present; certain aspects (or "facts") haven't changed, but rather, my perspective on them. Anger and frustration seem to be passing, and any sense of victimization I may have felt has been waning. Bitterness seems to be on its way out for the time being as well.

May there be peace for others as well.