Human Concepts

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

I believe that my outlook is beginning to change.

Ishkur must have a lot of time on his hands.

But he got to kiss DJ Rap so... what?

I think the word is Scenester.

From the Underground Source reaction to the Selekta.com article Are You an Anti-Raver?:

I think many kids think of the concept of PLUR as an internal philosophy....Its not really ment to fill all of your life but its ment to be a code of conduct at a rave. The words together were originally used by Frankie Bones after a fight broke out at an early N.Y party. The idea is fairly simple, there are alot of people together in a hot building all night...no fights (peace) be friendly (love) we are all in here together for a good time (unity) don't get in someones way or steal bags on the floor (respect)...

Personally the whole PLUR thing is overused way to much...it was for ravers at raves....the point was not to change the world but to have an escape from it....back in the day people knew that, they didn't want everyone looking in and pointing fingers....if that was the case raves would have started in Time Square during the afternoon....but they started late at night in industrial areas where people couldn't find them.

Seth gets props for that post.

postscript to 7.8.2001:

That entry was inspired by the movie Desperado.

And no, I don't know why.

Philip Humbert:

If you desire unusual success, over the long haul, you will have to get very good at what you do, and that may require lots of time and practice. It may require
persistence, patience, or determination. You may be misunderstood or criticized by those who disagree with your goals. And through it all, you will have to keep going.

I like Toshi.

I first remember hearing Toshinobu Kubota sing "La La La Love Song" somewhere near 1996, but not until somewhere around last year did I come to understand that he is recognized internationally. Soul Bangin is the song of his that most recently landmarks my Kubota thought process, and I was equally impressed with the video as I was with the song [okay, maybe the ratio was 1.5:4 in favor of the song]. But the video was pretty smooth.

It's all about the groovitational field theory.

The Deadly Embrace

This is a term used in computing some years ago to signify a problem between two computer programs. Program A takes exclusive control of record 1, and program B takes record 2. Program A then tries to get exclusive access to record 2, but as this is under exclusive control of the other program, it can't. The program then waits until record 2 is released. Meanwhile, program B tries to get exclusive control of record 1, but can't, as it is under the exclusive control of program A. Program B waits until record 1 is released. Therefore, neither program can make any progress because it is waiting for the other program to give way. A similar situation can occur in discussions if each person is trying to get the other to concede the flaws in his/her argument, without conceding the flaws in his own. The way out of this situation is to look for the points of agreement, rather than trying to spot flaws.

Me, my ego and I have something to say about this. But we can't agree on just what it is.

I was thinking recently about my focus and aspirations. Recently I have found myself craving speed and re-discovered my curiosity about the "art of cornering", a.k.a. sportbikes.

I have long maintained an interesting in racing and sportbikes in general but never seriously persued the idea. Now, however, the fact that I don't own a car and am finally in the process of becoming licenced to drive naturally re-ignited my interest in two wheeled methods of transportation.

having looked around at various options, i realized that i have very little money to spend on things in general and a bike in particular. a sportbike isn't made for everyday use, hauling gear and human cargo from a to b. sportbikes are made for speed and control -- namely, racing. while i would love to spend some time burning up the track, i have a hard time reconciling the price tag associated with it. besides, i already have one extracurricular activity: martial arts.

life for me is a process of self-understanding. i have to repeat this to myself in order to maintain a grasp of my purpose. every now and then technology and materialism overtake my mind and cloud the thoughts that i have been indoctrinating myself with over the past few years. i have dedicated myself to understanding death and impermanence from a human point of view, and all these external trappings are very difficult to resist. i am fascinated by computer programming, procedural logic and making things work; at times it is difficult to separate the knowledge that flows into my mind from the understanding that i aspire to attain.

a few years ago, i conceived of martial arts as the primary means through which i would find, grasp and internalize "reality" in the same vein as the taoist master or the bodhisattva. now i realize that this aspiration is representative of a continuous herculean effort. in this society, even for someone with various sub/cross-cultural influences and minimal interest in the mainstream, i find it difficult not to absorb the insidious tendencies of capitalistic ambition. my interminable curiosity becomes unfocused and diffuse, resulting in too many options and too little time.

the remedy? meditation with focus on certain intrinsic understandings that form my ideological base. of course, the meditation itself consists of looking inward and resolving all internal issues towards emptying the mind, and yet i do believe that there must be a conceptual origin that initiates proper alignment of mind and action throughout the day in which the grasping mind constantly attempts to assert itself. without this rooting of mind, meditation becomes hollow and susceptible to being corrupted into the blithe indulgence of mental chatter.

i must remind myself constantly of my true aim and maintain focus on my true direction.

Is Your Job Your Calling?

PS>> and we'll see about the bike.

human life may be shorter than it appears in the bathroom mirror.

premise: money is a relative measure of the worth of an individual's time at a particular moment.

my current hourly rate is, let's say, $20/hour. Now, this means that for seven of every twenty-four hours of my life [I only work 35 hours per week], my time is worth $20. To simplify a bit, a $20/hour wage for seven of every twenty-four hours of five out of every seven days, or

$20/7/24/5/7

properly stated as

((($20*7)/24)*5)/7

(((140)/24)*5)/7
((5.83)*5)/7
(29.16)/7
=4.16

so for every hour of my life while I am being paid $20/hr for 7/24 of a day for 5/7 of a week, my time is worth $4.16.

because of this, i can say that in this economy, every time I buy something, it has taken xxx number of hours out of my life to attain that thing.

for example, if i want to buy a nice couch for my new apartment, it's going to cost me, let's say, $1500. If I'm making $4.16 every hour of every day (during the time that I have a job that pays me $20/hour), then it will cost me approximately 360 hours of my life (the calculation is 1500/4.16). If I get a better-paying job while I am paying the installments for the couch, then of course the amount of time required will drop. but until then, I will have to spend 15 days of my life working to get my new couch.

if i had a chronic illness like asthma and i had to pay $150 every two months for new inhalers, over a year i would have spent 1.5 days of my life working to pay for medication.

if i had bought a used sportbike for $4000, over a year that would equate to having worked for 40 days of my life.

using this calculation on things like chronic illness, everyday payments and things like that gives me quite a new understanding of the meaning of money. the less money you make, the shorter your life becomes as you continue to spend money.

the concept of saving money is affected as well. while young and healthy, your time may be more valuable than in the future when you've gotten old. therefore, people try to save money while they are young and their time is valuable so that they can spend their amassed "time" [as expressed in saved dollars] later in life when they are not as "valuable". unfortunately, this approach fails to take into account the facts of chance and the impossibility of 'saving' the moment itself to be lived later. thus, money can never be equal to time; this moment is invaluable to a human being and can never be 'saved for later'. how can you save your youth for when you're old?

never put aside the opportunity to do now that which you love in favor of the 'security' of saving for later. if you put a firefly into a jar, it may live for a time, but the fire is gone forever. if it stays in the wild, it may have a shorter life, but the luminescence will be magnificient as a expression of the uninhibited individual truth displayed by that creature in the moment.

find something you love and do it; otherwise, you're just wasting your life away. money is the capitalist expression of the concept, and as such it is a pale comparison to the infinite dimensions of life itself.

except from an overheard conversation at a barbeque two days ago:

"... and so he and I were talking, and that's what he said. of course, he was just a kid, around age eighteen."

"And how old are you, twenty-one?"

...



Age is more a question of perspective than of numbers and "experience". The challenge lies here:

Wisdom and understanding exist according to who's perspective?
Mine, yours, the the grizzled old man with "that look" in his eye?

Age and wisdom are subjective. Therefore, who truly understands? And who, then, does not?

Created on 7.4.2001@11.31.00am, posted now:

I have this concept in mind of creating a story that is a metaphor for a real-life concept that I am dealing with in my own personal experience; what with all of the people and circumstances that would probably prefer not to be directly identified... you know, like the times when someone is standing directly behind you and you are trying to make them feel like there is something that you are explaining to them, and yet you have the desire to be pedagogical in your lesson-giving so you say something entirely clever like "hypothetically speaking..." or "you know, it's funny when people do things like this..." and then you shoot a sly look at the intended recipient of the barb just to make it horribly obvious that 'yes, I was talking about/to you.'

ah, yes... an allegory.

I think this idea could take on a life of its own... and many, if not most, if not all, of these allegorical creations will be centered around the martial arts. i could even do things like explore other styles, ones that i haven't experienced yet through the writing. i've done varying amounts of research on many different types and styles of martial arts, but haven't quite tried to use their minds to interpret the combative idea.

the combative idea refers to the questioning hand of wing chun or the boxing jab or the various guard positions of gracie. all these are manifestations of the first question that i ask myself in a sparring or fighting situation: how to use my body to attain superior position in relation to my opponent? from a superior position, the fight or match can be won. from an inferior position, overcoming the opponent becomes much more difficult, inviting the analogy of running uphill towards the peak from which you look down and see a city lying in the valley -- full of options and crises from which favorable outcome can emerge.

so back to the original concept of writing these allegorical tales from which hopefully i may recontextualize experience and thus gain a fresh insight into things, i believe that there may be two main factors to take into consideration: narrowness of perspective and loss of the actual memory over time. my perspective may remain too narrow if i choose to recast events in my 'favorite' light, the martial arts. the counter to that idea is that giving myself this new set of parameters [the martial arts], or a "new set of eyes", so to speak, regarding my life experience may prove invaluable to the shaping of my interpretive understanding. i may even succeed in segueing my life experience to those of the ancient times in which the tao, the buddha and even the more pragmatic teachings of christ were not so divorced from the everday lives of those who used those ways of thinking to attain self-understanding. possibly this will be able to polish my experience into something a bit less bound my the particular time and circumstance in which the empirical unit of perspective may be revealed.

the other possible drawback that i take into consideration is that i may lose the actual experience itself in the drama and metamorphoric transformations that take place as a result of creative story telling. in taking on the guise of a young monk speaking to old man lao, or the fiery protege engaging in a challenge match to forcibly extract a single pearl of wisdom from the practictioner of a seemingly contradictory style, i may eclipse the perspective from which i see, instead creating a perspective that is a more quixotic or romantic styling of my thought process. i suppose a bit of that "entertainment" mindset is inevitable and i look forward to it, in moderation. i may decided to write the actual experience in stream of consciousness style, and settle into a more practiced groove with the thematic representations of the martial arts as a revelation of the underlying thought processes. who knows, i may even touch the back of my mind within some of these writings. ha ha! wouldn't that be interesting...

we shall see.

audio [now]: Modjo.Chillin

A quick jot:

Never mistake desperation for inspiration.