originally written and posted on 12.11.2003:

sitting at dinner with the parents. watching one of their favorite tv shows. a sitcom.

a funny moment. i chuckle. a funnier moment. i laugh.

they kind of snarfle, shift in their seats, but otherwise remain silent.

now i know why i grew up largely without a sense of humor. if i could have laughed about angry things i probably wouldn't have learned to like fighting so much.

for over twenty-two years, pops has been doing his best to stay as far away from his kids as possible... and mom dotes on pops so she's picked up the "silence is golden" rule. i think reading your parents' minds will convince you that they hate you, even if they mean the best.

...

maybe if i laugh at them everyday for the rest of their lives it'll be like making up for lost time.

hm... yup, sounds like a plan.

a couple of days later, after putting this new strategy to use, it seemed somewhat petty, almost mean-spirited. after all, bygones are bygones. my lack of piety struck me as quite ungrateful. then i realized something: fuck piety. filial obligations are one thing, but my parents have stunted personalities, probably due in large part to living in a society whose majority hates them because of their culture. struggling against that without strong emotional support can easily create the head-down "warrior" mentality that makes the world seem genuinely red in tooth and claw... having acknowledged that, there's no reason to give deferrence for the sake of formality. they are fine enough people and i love them out of protective instinct, but they are not role models.

and everyone could stand to laugh a bit more in their everyday lives. if not them, why not me?

mutated rhetoric
taken out of context

from alternet:

No longer were we informed on a daily basis of the "sinister nexus between Hussein and al Qaeda," as described by Colin Powell before the United Nations in February.
No longer were we fed the insinuations that Hussein was involved in the attacks of September 11. Certainly, any and all mention of weapons of mass destruction ceased completely.
We were, instead, embarking on some noble democratic experiment.

... possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 1,000,000 pounds of sarin gas, mustard gas, and VX nerve gas, along with 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents, uranium from Niger to be used in nuclear bombs...

... forced some weeks ago to publicly acknowledge that Hussein had nothing to do with September 11...

... overblown rhetoric and outright lies, designed to terrify the American people into supporting an unnecessary go-it-alone war.

narrative
presence, absence, how am i who i am?

[note to self: still a rough bunch of ideas. iron them out further?]

--

thinking of calling a friend tonight... putting it off, procrastinating. distance "makes the heart fonder" but it also increases the separation between people. i like her just as much as i did when we first hung out over the summer, but it is difficult to recall that threshold of comfortable closeness that we had reached when i disappeared from her life for the past few months.

for a sense of the "hi again" conversation, i turned mental images on and imagined a conversation. her face, her voice, both of us groping about for amiably short questions that opportune extended answers and witty stories. pre-visualization, in a sense...

she asks me where i've been, what i've been doing. three sentences later, my mind runs out of words. strange, just yesterday an hour passed in conversation about this and that before realizing where the time had gone. but of course, in that case the questions had been mostly mine, and the answers his.

narrative.

a story told from a particular perspective. consecutive events formed into a cohesive whole along a timeline.

question: do i have anything to talk about?
obvious answer: of course i do.

caveat: the more i try, the less i remember.

why do i have to try to remember? in other words, why do i stop myself from simply telling my story?

one possible answer is self-censorship. trying to come up with acceptable thoughts that the other person won't feel are offensive or strange. this is more a matter of socialization than anything else -- putting on a public face, so to speak, and yet, it feels easier for me to do this with some people than with others.

what exactly is that "face" composed of, then?

like wrinkles and tics, a person's history, as they see it, reveals their self-image as well as their past. it would seem, then, that living "in the moment" is not enough; constant molding of one's sense of the past is necessary as well. during the course of my introspections, i tend to use experience not for it's own sake, but rather to extrapolate an understanding of human qualities as they might apply to other situations as well. for example, researching the reasons behind shyness when speaking to a girl that i know. that shyness is an example of a larger piece in the puzzle. in this way, my self-perception seems more a series of case studies rather than a running soap opera.

it seems that conversation can be used to display [deceptively or truthfully] of one's skill in self-analysis. speaking to others is generally a process of relating to them, seeing oneself in the abstract, telling one's own story as if from without. this kind of interactive self-portrait can serve as a means to understanding a person's relationship to the world -- namely, whether they prefer to dominate or submit, to act or react. a strong person appears "self-possessed" ; with full understanding of the past, this individual is able to chart a relatively reliable course into the future. prediction, in a social environment, is as important as expression, if not more so. i approach mastery within an oppositional context and a holistic context.

the slave only exists by using external opposition as a mirror; competition and "us/them" distinction is the primary tool for understanding. a slave needs someone to fight, a war against other men, nature, or self-directed hatred. the masochistic drive to succeed defines the slave's sense of perfection, if only due to the impossibility of attaining that perfection. in an eternal struggle, the slave alternates between domination and submission, ecstasy and fear. he lives as close to the moment as possible, and therefore is a slave to his desires.

the master needs no external opposition to create an accurate sense of self. sees himself clearly, dealing with others as equals; no intrinsic part of himself is defeated should he "lose" or make a mistake. he lives on his own terms, using self-defined limitations through the interpretation of experience. he cannot be destroyed by failure, and so is not driven by fear of it. thus he can act independently, toward his own sense of truth.

the 'perfect' or enlightened man is normal, flawless, entirely ordinary; not "perfect" but without problems [therefore, in essence, perfect, but without condescension or pejorative comparison with others].

he uses his own mind as a mirror for his actions, living in the world but not a product of the world [see: takuan? zengetsu?]. self-knowledge, then, is not a process of accumulation, but of reduction -- the mirror is originally clear, but is clouded by dust. this mirror of the self must be polished day by day such that at some point, it spontaneously becomes clear; all flaws cease as part of the natural passing of time and habitual effort.

the goal is not the annihilation of the self, but rather the perfection of the process of self-perfection. in the process of learning to see himself clearly, he also realizes [at some level] that the self is simply an image reflecting outward. the person who is perfecting that self is the actually the mirror rather than the subject of the mirror's transposition. the self reflects but has no reflection, because it is the thing doing the reflecting. given the realization of the subjectivist fallacy, he can then manipulate the reflection as needed.

hence the term "self-perfection" is contradictory -- how can one "perfect" oneself? if there is perfection, it must be perceived from a perfect mind, and yet, barring esoteric ideas [solving a mystery by evoking a mystery], there is no perfect mind unless that mind is beyond the qualities that it judges.

to perfect oneself then means to find the emptiness of the self that strives, changing one's character in accordance with the mirror, rather than some endless inferiority complex, analogous to the nietzschean "slave" mentality.

perfection is to see the balanced state within systems that are, from external view, disequilibrious [sp?].

this "mirror-gaze" is distinct from narcissism in that the mirror is not a medium through which the self is adored; rather, the mirror itself is the true self, outside of the qualities that drive the narcissist to distraction. "self-love" is not loving the mirror-image, it is understanding the changeable nature of the attributes that a person accumulates in the desperate search for self. finding the self is an implicit process of comprehension -- comprehension of "me" as entirely ordinary, realizing that "me" is a universal quality, regardless of social station or the trappings of a particular culture/power structure. it is to unconsciously find a place for all the pieces of the puzzle and accept them where they eventually fall.

the narrative, then, becomes a reflection of one's ability to move beyond his own perspective and to become one among many, able to reflect the aspects of his experience that are most amenable to his audience. he does not strive to "control" himself, but rather to apply effort to the situation at hand in accordance with the understanding of context derived from past experience.

i suppose that the key to avoiding self-censure is to engage in as broad a range of activities as possible. there are too many interesting people in the world to limit myself to those who already share experiences with me. of course, finding new people leads to new experiences, which makes me wonder whether this mirror of mine will ever be truly polished...

for now, sleep.

--

postscript: i called her. we talked for about an hour... go figure ;)

_

 

with eyes closed

dreaming of ghosts. standing in the darkness. all around me, dim, pulsing orbs emerge from nothing. there is a malevolence to them; i know that they are manifestations of human emotion from lives that have met violent ends. i run; there are others running with me. as the pulsing flashes begin to solidify, i stop running and watch them take form. they become flesh and blood, physically indistinguishable from the living except for their languorous expressions of sorrow and bewilderment.

how can this be, i ask myself. how can the nonliving become real again? how is it that they exist? do they deserve my fear, or need i take a closer look to find out exactly what they are?

the dream begins to break down; the logic falters, boundaries crumble, coherence is lost.

the dream ends. semi-awake, i realize that the fear was a scripted reaction: by the end of the dream, i felt nothing more than curiosity and a strong sense of disbelief.

---

10.31: a short phone call from the payphone outside the whitney museum. i have three hours to kill before the night's festivities begin. again, the familiar feeling that my senses aren't quite binding into crisp awareness. i let myself go wherever the feet walk, taking in the spectacle of a city living out its fantasies from behind masks and costumes. looking into their eyes, people seem to have regained a kind of forgotten childishness; they laugh openly, shout, run, skip, jump, acting out their inner lives, invisible to the world and therefore free -- as if they are more recognizable in their everyday costumes?

"hey cutie," she shouts after me, part of a giggling group of teenage girls. her face is lost in the swirl of neons, reds, face paint and fangs. i keep walking. peering into the faces of others whose eyes are distinct and non-human; some converted to cat-like vertical slits, some are milky white, others are two pupil-dots fixed in an enigmatic gaze. downtown, uptown, crosstown, moving at a brisk pace, waking up in the darkness. i haven't eaten since breakfast, but a sense of refreshed calm falls over me. legs feel stronger, stride faster. vision and thoughts clearer. i feel a silly grin cross my face as i take in the scene. sexy 'witches' in fishnets are suddenly everywhere... i could swear that i walked past her before. every other female has a tail with a little devil's pointy tip at the end. why can't it be like this every day? lol

i arrive at the pre-party an hour late because of my wanderings. dismayed that i have no costume, she gives me a tight playboy t-shirt to wear. every time i turn my head, it seems like someone gets caught stealing a glance when they think i'm not looking.

later: at the entrance to the club with the twenty dollar cover and the fifteen-minute line outside... reality kicks in, i say peace to my peeps and bounce.

walking to the train station, i find myself immersed in a corridor of eternal daylight. glitzy visuals, loud images, billboard video screens washing the street from high above with split-second cuts of perfect people doing perfect things. buy our lives, they say. you too can be picture-perfect. on the pavement below and bathed in flourescence, flowing throngs of spooky monsters, happy goths and lipstick goblins abound. aesthetically enhanced creatures of the night are everywhere, and my silly grin returns.

i come upon a street corner where the human masses have formed a concave circle of absence. no one walks through that circle; why?

as i approach, i see blue uniforms arranged like the pillars of easter island, casting long pale shadows, numbering no less than six. they stare intently down at the gleaming steel handcuffs chewing into the wrists of the man lying bound at their feet. disoriented, he writhes in pain, half of his dark-skinned face covered in blood. momentarily transfixed by the grim vision, i walk past in perceptual slow motion until i step off the curb and feel myself whisked across the street by the impatient crowd.

was that a ghoulish smirk on his face, cap pulled low, hiding his eyes from view, the badge on his chest glinting darkly? if so, a truly disquieting sight -- yet strangely fitting for a night filled with absurd costumes and otherwise inexplicable behavior.

audio: josh wink . hypnotizin

written 10.29.2003

looking up at terraced wind formations roving in silent herds across the cloudy sky. the midafternoon sun shifts into view, suddenly sharp, a shining globe of white fire too hot for prolonged eye contact. i stare for a brief moment. as the earth hurtles through the dark small [ ? ] universe, my gravity-bound feet feel no tremor, memory recording the retinal slow-motion capture of clear ocean hues reflecting in spherical atmosphere. a projected illusion, and a welcome one at that.

as the sun pushes at the upper portions of cotton-swab vapor, my eye traces the melancholic rumble of an apparently weightless journey, wandering a ponderous shuffle past my field of vision. strobing its last strong rays perhaps for the entire rest of the year, the surface erupts in an electromagnetic storm; invisible particles blast a ravenous path through thousands of miles of space to eventually penetrate and be absorbed by the earth's surface.

my human body is oblivious, but i imagine a creature that could see and feel that section of the spectrum. would the earth apear engulfed in hellish bands of irregular energy, bathed in garish, searing, unstable waves of static interference? or, would the sky become a series of frozen moments displaced from paradise, chaotic immaterial angels dancing along refreshing crests of soothing ethereal wind?

audio: carol cox / josh wink . sixth sense

select, copy and paste.  

Dear Ms. xxx,


I am writing to inform you that I will no longer continue as an "editorial" intern for Xxx Magazine. Unfortunately, it seems that your magazine is not able to provide the editorial [as in "writing"] experience that I was hoping to gain.



I can find paid administrative work with relative ease, and when I do admin work, I expect to be compensated appropriately; I have been performing in the admin/office management field for over six years and do not need unpaid on-the-job guidance in how to perform such duties effectively. Rather, I am looking for writing experience, and the ability to work with others who have more depth of such experience than I do, so that I may learn from them. This is apparently not the case at Xxx Magazine.



Further, expecting workers to bend to your every whim is not a sign of visionary eccentrism -- it is, however, the quickest route to high employee turnover and general dissatisfaction in the workplace. I am unsure of the image that you wish to craft for yourself, but if you intend to work in a managerial capacity in the future [as I assume you will], you would do well to learn about how to interact effectively with people on a professional level. Condescension is not an effective management technique. Assuming that everyone else is stupid or "just not getting it" does nothing to solve the problem -- namely, that you are not getting your message across properly. Antagonism is equally inappropriate. If at first, people do not understand what you are telling them, it is up to you to express yourself more clearly. Otherwise, you seem less visionary than disorganized and arrogant. These are symptoms of a larger problem that often goes unmentioned, because few people will openly criticize the one who gives them their job.



I had hoped that your lack of a background in the publishing industry would not hinder your ability to create a coherent structure for the magazine, and that I could provide assistance in creating that structure. It seems, however, that your strangley controlling behavior [I don't work on national holidays without pay and occasionally I may be late to work, although I will always call ahead of time] precludes a fruitful working relationship from taking shape between us. I have had more than enough experience with managers who obsessed over every aspect of their underlings' work, and their companies are either no longer in existence or have had extensive litigation levelled against them due to mistreatment of employees.



I will not ask you for the previously agreed-upon stipend of fifty dollars that am I owed for the past week [10.6.2003 and 10.8.2003] plus our first meeting on October third. If you choose to take the ethical approach and send my payment via USPS mail, I will be grateful and moderately surprised. My mailing addressed is located in my signature, at the bottom of this message.



Best of luck to you.



Xxx Xxx

xxx.xxx.xxxx

xxx_xxx@xxx.xxx




xxx Xxx Xxx Xxx xxx

Xxx Xxx, XX xxx

empty.

no longer working at the zine. back to web design. a private project with friends. maybe it will make some cash. eventually.

wondering where to go from here.

i write, but am not a writer.

i write code, but am not a programmer.

i train in martial arts, but am not a dojo rat.

i study psychology and physiology, but am neither a psychologist nor a physical trainer/therapist nor a student.

people tell me that i am "sculpted", but i am not a model.

i can perform, but am not an actor.

i want to talk to someone, but don't want to talk to anyone.

what am i?

a riddle with no answer.

but i need an answer. i am running out of time.

repel this
a.k.a. the hipster conundrum

[rewritten 10.4.2003]

green l.e.d.s on the clock radio burned my eyes at a glance: four in the morning. lethargy tormented my eyelids with promises of pleasant dreams as fingers scrolled aimlessly through lines of text on the screen. searching through job listings has become a form of amusement, given the slim chances of actually being noticed in the bitstream crush of resumes. given that i have nothing to lose and probabilistically little to gain, a twisted thought evolved from a blending of faint notions as i typed out a response message.

until that moment i had been using a couple of form letters accompanied by tweaked resumes representing the industries in which i sought employment. in my haste to seem the good, employable candidate, i had forgotten an essential aspect of attention and memory: i was being utterly forgettable. when applying for office jobs, everyone is more or less forgettable -- a skill set and little more. but when applying for writing/media/design jobs as i had begun to do, that approach struck me as the quickest way to the "Trash" box.

stand out or be ignored, i realized. the same as everywhere else.

blinking the blur and sleep to the corners of my eyes, i started to write. the subject was a play on words, the body text was generally self-effacing and humorous, with a writing sample tacked on to the end. i didn't bother including my resume; if they wanted it, they could ask.

in the next couple of days, i continued in this pattern; sending irreverent, apparently careless emails to carefully picked targets. i know what i am worth, this is why; you can hire me if you like.

in a week i had three responses, whereas in the past six months i had received none. one was a flame, trash-talking me for critizing his obnoxious use of all-caps in his ad. but it turned out to be a marketing job, and marketing is a hustle; i am not a hustler, so his anger-management problems got a quick "thank you" response, and *click* the delete button.

the second was a courteous thank-you note for my 'thoughtful letter'; i was to be the front-end coder complementing her graphic design expertise, and we were to form a partnership in providing freelance web design for clients. i haven't heard back from her since i emailed her my rates... lol

the third response, from the zine to whom i had sent my first teaser email, was a request for my resume.

now, a week later, i am editorial assistant intern-slash-webmaster-slash-office manager [?]-slash-[...]. no suits and no corporate bullshit... at least for the time being. seems like right now, my classroom is life.

audio: bjork . i miss you [darren emerson mix]

i like johnny depp.

setting foot outside club demerara as the sun began to rise, he was surprised as well as amused. his exhaustion at dancing for five hours straight could not dampen the smile that curled at the edges of his lips from time to time.

the first had hunted him down on the dance floor as he lost himself in the hard house beats, moving close and gyrating with him as if their bodies were made to be together. she had whispered in his ear, and after a short conversation, her phone number was his.

the second appeared beside him after he had paid ten dollars for water at the bar[!]. their conversation was longer and more intimate, ranging from intellectual topics to the skills of the dj that night. they made plans for ice cream while walking down by the seaport, and she too asked him to call her.

the third, most mysterious and enchanting, had brushed against him as they left the club and accidentally dropped a bracelet and a flyer. they both knelt to retrieve the fallen items and their hands touched for the briefest of moments. taken aback, he stood and grinned sheepishly. she gathered up her things, luxuriant black tresses falling well below her shoulders as she waved a few stray hairs from her face. standing at a distance of just a few inches, she studied his face for a long moment, eyes, nose, cheekbones, lips and jawline. at last she gazed directly into his eyes and smiled a crooked, friendly smile. she was strange and disquieting and obviously not like the others. laughing lightly, she told him that he would do just fine, passing a brief caress down the left side of his throat as if feeling for his pulse. reaching for his hand, she took a pen from the rather ape-ish bouncer, and scrawled a phone number and a happy face into his palm.

all of these women soon became great friends of his, each in their own way. soon, though, they became aware of each other and demanded that he choose just one, and to promise that he would not continue to see the others. with great difficulty, he decided on the one with the crooked smile. she was different and he was secretly enraptured.

the others, however, upon hearing of his choice became consumed in jealous rage, conspiring to tear the two apart. in three weeks' time, rumors had spread and the world began to fall apart for the two. although their embrace was true and real, ms. crooked decided to leave, returning to her ancestral home on the other side of the earth. he too, was heartbroken, but he was also not like most... he quietly spoke to the open sky, words that few knew and fewer could understand. he was never seen again.

in three weeks' time, the two who had betrayed him suffered pains and sickness with no cause or cure, tortured by memories of his friendship as apparitions in the night and the agony of a thousand pins wriggling beneath their skin. they would never forget his love, and they longed for what they had so foolishly sought to destroy.

[ + ] boring3d.  

the joys of fictive chin music

locked into the magnetic holding pattern of a desktop hard drive sits a long, prattling text file, full of gossipy details about things that happened and almost happened this past weekend.

... yawn ...

after the twisty-plot-without-the-plot intrigue and general shadiness of certain people, it seemed necessary to let a couple of heads fall out of the circle; holding them there beyond a certain point was causing undue strain...

having cut a couple of names out of my address book, a story tumbled from my brain and landed on the screen. it makes oblique references to several aspects of the actual situation, but the sequence of events is non-factual.

generally speaking, i haven't written much fiction in the past, probably with good reason ;)

this thankfully short piece was derived as an interpretation one of the maria makiling legends.

principia nonspecifica

i don't know what i was thinking. well, no more, thinking is overrated. for the moment, anyway. there is no larger meaning than the words themselves.

a statement that is, in itself, meaningless.

so so deaf

so music-starved at this point - nearly driven to utter distraction...

pda screen broke the other day [about a month ago]; there's no way to control the user interface. the mp3 module still works, but uploading new songs is a task for macguyver at this point... so i'm stuck with

two speed garage remixes [took about three listens of each to get old]

one kind of triphop-ish song [ listen once... bleah *skip* ]

one hardcore song [will never get boring; unfortunately, sometimes bashing things is not the proper mood]

two r&b songs [the thong song?! noooo! how'd that get there?]

two rap songs [qtip and bustah rhymes [and m.o.p.]... endless rotation]

and

one dnb tune. [more endless airplay]

i have an mp3 collection of at least a thousand songs that i can't access, because the 2.5" hard drive from my old, dead laptop is sitting in a plastic bag along with the 14" display [which just might find it's way to ebay in the distant future]...

oh yeah, and, i left university again, possibly for good this time.

...

anyway, i'm really pissed about these mp3s ;)

audio: [pda playlist, on endless repeat]

worth?

self-worth.

"show me six ab exercises," the brawny personal trainer said. after i had gone through about four reps of each exercise, he nodded his approval at my technique and i stood up, dusting my clothes off. we walked a winding path around the gym floor between weight machines and racks of free weights, eventually arriving at the small cubbyhole that was his office.

he leans forward in his chair, traps merging into a thick, beefy neck, muscles taut as cords of rope beneath the skin. the fabric of his shirt conforms to his body, stretching tight to accomodate his change in position. elbows on his knees, he steeples his fingers and looks up at me from under his heavy brow. a psychological tactic - "the eighthundred pound gorilla speaks with eloquent menace" ;)

he apparently has a firm understanding of these tactics, having made me wait for nearly fifteen minutes in the lobby of the health club after we had agreed to a three oclock interview. these tricks are meaningless to me -- i know the game because i study it; manipulation is a fundamental aspect of human interaction. as distasteful as these games are, everyone plays them, and there are no exceptions. it is a "red queen" process - everyone must compete in order to survive, whether they like it or not. those who pretend to be above the game are just using their feigned innocence as a strategy. a saint would never betray you, but it is easy to forget that there are no saints, there are only humans. give a man a dream, and he will follow you, even to the point of his own death. religions have done this, romance does this, jingoism does this, consumerism does this... addictive ideas that promise a payoff in the hazy future ensnare the hopeful and enslave their ambitions.

i gaze calmly in his direction as he makes very serious-sounding noises about being a "no-bullshit kinda guy", and that as a trainer under him, i would have to show commitment and consistency, blah blah blah... he even struggles for the word ["consistency"] and thanks me as i finish his sentence, knowing full well what he is going to say.

smiling magnanimously, he extends his hand. i stand while showing him my own canines and pump his hand vigorously. we exchange pleasantries momentarily and the interview comes to an end.

----

at times i feel seized by this sense of worthlessness as i look around me at the bizarre opulence/decadence of the city. faux beauty queens click their high heels on the pavement as beggars moan to ransome money for their horrifying indigence. in the same breath, there is the stench of urine intermingled with the scent of perfume.

how am i worthless? not by virtue of internal attribution, but rather through external comparison. i do not internalize this sense of worthlessness because money and status do not create happiness; rather it is the frustration of material limitation while trapped inside the rainbow candy shell of a commercial metropolis.

this shell is a poor mask for the world that it hides: the abortive attempts at self-perfection through expensive clothing and fake tans, the moviestar looks that cannot hide the obvious insecurity and fear of rejection. fashionably scrawny women who are afraid to eat; outcast fat women who pretend to love themselves when really they wish that they could starve like the others.

the more externally perfect a person seems, the more compulsively horrified they are at seeing themselves in the mirror after washing off their makeup at the end of the day. men are the same way; what in life is not treated as a possession, including other people? to be able to make someone happy is to exercise a degree of control over their emotions. as emotion may be the true essence of motivation, this is one of the most satisfying forms of power, and it lies at the root of social manipulation. women appear weak in order to seduce men and attract sympathy, which can then be used to create friendships and prestige; men appear charismatic and powerful in order to subordinate those whose charades are less convincing.

are we not all liars and imitators?

i think about who i am, but am i not just choosing to believe the pleasant fiction that i want to believe? logical analysis can often lead to more than one plausible answer -- how many of the answers about myself have i chosen with the presumption that i am right and good? this is the inherent limitation of introspection. i cannot see myself objectively, because the very fact of self-reference implies subjectivity. i cannot prove the consistency of my own personality from within my own point of view, because the unconscious mind is not directly knowable through the cognitive faculties of conscious thought. the only reliable artifacts that point me to self-knowledge are the actions that i choose to undertake, and even those are subject to prejudicial interpretation. introspection is important for charting a course into an uncertain future, but it cannot serve as a means toward comprehensive self-definition. if a person is to admit that there is an unconscious aspect of mind, one must admit that it is impossible to fully know oneself by using the other ten percent of thought -- the conscious aspect.

how many new ideas have i seized upon seemingly out of the blue, with no previous deliberation or "thought"? there must have been someone thinking inside this brain of mine, and strangely enough, it was me... i just wasn't consciously aware of it. now imagine if this non-awareness could be responsible for emotional states and even behaviors... imagine if the conscious mind were forced to make up a story to explain itself. now, realize that "i" may not be in control as much as it would seem.

...and then there's the question of...
my gay lover?

[ + ] angelina.  

sitting on her bed, her foto album open across both our laps as she leafs through the images of her past: boy george album signing... mm, sexy eyes, i laugh // aids march... // vacation // a lesbian friend who had a sweet little crush on her // assorted murmurs thereafter about other pix...

we sit a little closer, thighs touching gently. she continues to narrate her flipbook life as the fat housecat sits in the armchair opposite us, watching intently, almost protectively, as if she were the cat's kidsister. a pause in the conversation as i turn back to a picture of boy george holding a signed copy of his cd over his face, showing only those beguiling eyes and the bowler hat [?] covering his head.

[ + ] yue.  

questions of sexual orientation are mistaken for more banal inquiries; i notice the light blonde-brown of her long feathery locks, cascading beyond her shoulders as she carefully applies a glistening layer of gloss to her lips, delicious electric inches from my own...

...

audio: dj caffeine . fuck on cocaine

powerless?

peeped in on the world news.

saw fighting in liberia. a small child limping through a doorway. children running through the streets, fleeing gunshots. another child lying in a room with what looked like masking tape covering head wounds. another child lying shirtless, ribs showing through skin stretched taut, struggling for breath.

suddenly i felt a sadness and anger. i should do something. there is so much to do... too much. what can i do?

i've thought about joining the peace corps, i've worked at a nonprofit that supposedly helped developing nations become self-sufficient... but the world isn't run by pacifists and idealism. it is run by guns and political maneuvers, brute force and subtle power games. the united states is the most powerful nation in the world because of its military strength, not this muddled democratic experiment of which "our" president is making a utter mockery.

can i do anything? is there really anything to do?

emergent politics is an awfully cheery concept, but utterly naive... millions can spontaneously protest all over the world, but those in power feel no obligation to listen. that is why i didn't go to washington -- the political landscape is based on majority, not collectivist opinion. voting is the [at least in theory] the mechanism of change, not smart mobs in the streets. but of course, the democratic mechanism has been largely subverted by corporate power and special interests.

why was it that my friends who did protest found themselves constantly referred to as "comrade"?

smart-mob the voting booths, and then things might change. populist uprisings just don't make sense if there is no intent to cause metamorphosis or overthrow of the existing power structure -- if the fat cats stay in office, who cares about protestors?

hm...

<paean to opera7>

opera 7... *shivers*

so much props... about 3megs to download [without java]. it's faster than i.e., slimmer, better gui, better keyboard shortcut support [for those of us who hate mice (the computer kind, that is)]...

... it even got me to write a little javascript after i had sworn off that bizarre addiction to writing code. dammit, i might end up downloading apache and php again, too... and even *gasp* -- perl? i hope i don't start debugging code in my dreams again. that was kinda creepy. cool and very lucid, but creepy.

someone save me, i am suddenly rendered helpless in the face of dormant technolust. well, it's not my computer so i can't go completely apeshit...

and as always, i found a workaround for the opera7 adware: hit 'F11', then maximize the window. no more banner ad. hehe.

</end paean to opera7>

[ + ] serenity rose.  

m u mbles

been on this earth for only twentytwo years and already feel like there's nothing left to do.

quiet desperation is [a quivering, forlorn puppy taking a piss in the corner with its tail between its legs]. loud desperation is [a manic-depressive circus clown with a bullhorn].

maturity is [death looking backward on youth with a rose between its teeth, the vexation of taxation and brainless procreation].

the meaning of life is [to live], and that's [a circular definition]. there's a curly-queue at the edge of that circle, but this appendix is no vestigial organ: [death lies at the end].

what's at the center of a zero? empty space.

i'm not in a rut, and i'm not in a grave... so where the fuck is this place?

read the rhythm.
. . .

[twin hells: intellectual emptiness of definitive reason || chaotic instability of unguided passion]

summer semester ended with two final exams yesterday. I feel restless now, having tortured myself with meditation for only fifteen minutes of wall-gazing in seiza. to no avail, lamentably and obviously; jobless, i am confronted by my aimlessness. no distractions, now, as the computer sits quietly to my right in the small bedroom. outside, and five floors below, someone drives to the interseection nearest this corner of the apartment building, the brainless pounding of anthemic trance music announcing its mechanistic repetitiveness for a brief moment. the light turns green, and the engine grumbles smoothly in competition with driving rhythms as both recede into the distance and quickly return to nothing.

a restless monkey sits perched atop a marble pedestal, tail dangling over the edge. the monkey bares its teeth, smiling a threat with sharp jagged edges. it howls and screams, then becomes quiet. sitting, tail curled around its buttocks and feet, the monkey stares off into the distance. the pain of stillness has internalized its aggressive instincts; mortification of the body through pacification of the senses gives the monkey a false air of reposed introspection. what does it see within its own mind? no thing at all. the tail loses tensile balance and falls, once again dangling over the edge.

i sat restlessly, mind flitting about from breath to sex to disembodied everyday images floating in dreamspace a few feet in front of me. six feet ahead, a three-dimensional cube began to rotate in the air, an object whose visualization replaced the dull ache of legs folded beneath body. the urgency of emptiness confronted me suddenly, not as words but as a raw sensation. muscles clamored for tension, breathing strained at its pace. i held the sensation, consciously relaxing and exhaling evenly. is it objects that i crave? things? or is it the kinship of good company? as i conjured archetypes of both and sat them before me, the mental "object" instance just as quickly faded away, and the "person" instance immediately stood up and walked away into dissipation. all that remains is the observer, and yet the observer [my self] also comes and goes. quantifying, giving shape to my desires, seems not to bring me any closer to fulfilling the contentment that they promise to reveal. then the quality itself must yield the answer. but immediately, having begun the process of comprehending the intensity of feeling itself, i was confronted by the relationship of attachment between quantity and quality. is there only quality in the presence of quantity? is wanting the result of the mind that wants?

but i had forgotten, i realize now, that emotions, impulses, urges, and desires are largely non-rational, unless triggered by rational thought. these urges come and go; reason can sometimes function as a guide, but it can never replace or destroy the passions.

is the creative edge of human chaos defined by the intersection between passions and ideas?

---

okay, no more summer philosophy classes for me...

i must stay permanently stressed. this is the meaning of life! i don't know how i could have missed it all this time.

[ + ] skin.  

three-hour handspeed

one good thing about three-hour workouts is that the next day, my handspeed feels a thousand-times speedy... shadowboxing with five pounds in each hand. maybe i should compete again, sometimes it feels good to hit and get hit, even though competitions are a crock. the last all-styles martial arts "tournament" i participated in had judges who didn't even practice martial arts... shamming like they could count points ;)

plus: a long-forgotten use for self-hatred -- use it to get past consciousness blocks... want to call a certain female, but just can't pick up the phone? get angry at the whiny little idiot blocking the impulse, and do it anyway... of course, i nearly got into countless fights in the street today just because it's the city, it's hot, nothing in my life is working, and my fists are fucking *itchy*... yeah, that side of me isn't dead, it just sleeps.

catharsis is a smiling dog sitting in a fishbowl :: artistic expression of anger is just a distraction tactic;

repression is a lie :: telling myself that i don't feel what i feel or that it will go away;

sublimation is a joke :: using the aggressive energy for a "good" purpose doesn't solve the underlying problem;

selfless compassion is self-contradictory and transparently pious :: dissociate from my anger and pretend to love everyone unconditionally, when the real purpose is to have everyone love the wonderful huggy bear that i've become... the only achievement there is to create a split personality. i can see people who have "decided" to change themselves, and their bodies always use a different language than their words. i don't consciously understand it, but the physical cues are completely off.

i don't believe it is possible to change on purpose, on cue, as if the self were a character to be played in a theater production. in the theater, at the end of the day, the actor always returns to himself, but where can my sense of self go? the key may be to change through action unconsciously, to learn to select particular ways of acting and habituate them rather than stop and judge at every step.

i don't hate myself. i hate feeling the urge to stop myself. sometimes it's better not to think and just to act; but then, how can i mediate my unexpected "gut" responses to stimuli [punch the moron who shouldered into me on the street, say something that i meant but really shouldn't say, etc.]?

but then, every now and then, trouble can be fun...

audio: tribe called quest . amplified . breathe and stop

tron2.0 

compilation to composition

ah... finally back to downloading songs from the point-t0-point network. not quite sure of the reason, but i suppose that something tickled my ear; i was compelled to listen. once the song had downloaded to the handspring mp3 module, a finger touched _play_ and the l e d glowed a green ember, signalling the beginning of the song.

as the voice of tyrese gibson began to reverberate in between my eardrums, the guitar in the background quietly commanded that i listen to it. then the drums, and the variations of tyrese's voice. examining every aspect of the song that i could hear, the different levels of sound becaming increasingly perceptible, from deep and expansive [the baseline] to quick and pervasive [the guitar] to complex and variable [the vocals]. the differentiated levels slowly returned to coalese into one single entity, branching out to enrapture every aspect of my attention.

at about three minutes and forty seconds into the song, everything came together. there was beauty there, somewhere in the song, and i felt as if i understood from the inside -- listening for the quiet guitar loop as it threaded through the melody, harmonizing with the rhythm, the voice, surface to depth, tying everything together in the flow of moments.

time to find something deeper -- something classical, maybe...

audio: deep dish . yoshiesque (cd1) . tall stories . chaser (ian pooley:lars from mars mix)

the hiphop revisionist

and so

blah blah blah blahblahblahblahblah

seriously boring my writing is.

question: what is a jay-z anti-war mp3 without jay-z?
answer: a punjabi mc song.

grrrr.... i'm still kinda diggin it though ;) just wish there was a little jay in there somewhere...
must plug back into a p2p network somewhere... and soon.

note to self -- also, for future reference: tupac . changes

audio: punjabi mc . mundian to bach ke       -|[ jayz version is "beware the boys (remix)" ]|-

eco

recently, it seems that good friends are proving themselves to be alot more like family than blood relations.

my self-image is losing its balance; the balance of familiar things [the martial arts school, college, work -- all stories to be told later, or never] is falling away. the safety of routine expectations is being rubbed raw -- the everyday events of even a day's past become increasingly remote and meaningless.

i look back at that life and it wasn't worth keeping. i was stuck in a rut, and of course, there's the old saying is that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth ;)

it's a frightening clarity, though: the clearer my mind, the less i have to live for, in a strange way...

... but also, it's as if the less i have to live for, the more i see things without obsessing over hypothetical shadows... the mental chessgame that is "the future" quiets down, in a way. i just have to take advantage of the chance to be empty and see things without the blinders that held me in place.

and get rid of this damn sadness...
but then, that's what friends are for.

i guess... ?

or maybe i should keep it.

where is the balance between apathy and detachment?

it's a strange thing to realize that after i die, the world will go on perfectly well without me.

it's even stranger to realize that i've known it all along, yet i tend to forget.

how many planets would an earth full of me-clones require?

...

lucidity «- -» obscurity
see also META

does memory fill the gap between sensation and perception?
» if so, how much of the world do i create within my mind?

the beauty of a photograph lies in that which remains unseen; what can be sensed but not perceived. having looked at a tree, seeming to shimmer in the captured sunlight, is it necesssary to count the leaves? Is it even possible to count the leaves without losing the larger holarchic [ 1 ] cohesion of the still image?

one possible application of computer technology in the creation of art could be the restoration of complexity within the composition process. one of the most difficult aspects of using a brush [or ink, or charcol or pastels] is creating the illusion of depth and detail through the strategic use of light, shadow and color. why not bring those illusions to life instead? it is possible to evolve trees in a simulated environment using unpredictable interactions between the host environment's constituent cellular automata [ 1 ]. and yet, it would seem that the use of perceptual interactions between simple forms to create a convincing "picture" of something far more complex lies within the province of the truly inventive artist.

just as a series of undecidable computations gives rise to an emergent dynamic reality, so can a great artist excite worlds of complexity within the minds of those who witness the fruits of his labor, although his achievement may consist of a single brush stroke. the advantage of suggestion [rather than descriptive indication] is that the truth of the mystery is as much a matter of the beholder's apperceptive powers as it is a question of the artist's demonstrative abilities.

the beauty of simplicity lies within the number of paths that can be taken to reach that simplicity, and the number of steps taken along the way.

audio: beegees . stayin alive

written: 2.21.2003

once a desk jockey, never a wilson*
mind over money

so much for the "invincible old computer", as it was called a few entries back... it held up far better than expected, outlasting that absolutely fabulous dell laptop. the only good thing about dell is the turnaround time -- after sending the computer to them for repair, it was fixed and back in my hands in four days. the downside is that the end user can't touch the insides of the laptop without voiding the warranty, and how much fun is that?

toughbooks are definitely high on my "good hardware" list. the next one will definitely have to support linux. unless i decide to buy a tablet pc... and then the price tag brings reality crashing back in. so i reckon that all these techie dreams will have to wait until i manage to smile-and-hello my way into a new job somewhere.

having harvested the hard drive, screen [14.1"] and modem, all i need is a motherboard and processor for them to talk to. there are a couple of too-good-to-be-true deals on parts floating around the internet here and there. it's a bit uncomfortable to buy from an auction without a refund guarantee, though [in case the seller ships junk merchandise], so it may be a while before this computer gets rebuilt.

it's weird though; even without a computer, i still keep some technological ideas in mind. cyberpunk novels never interested me in the past, but now i find myself reading 0wnz0red, while juggling count zero and the diamond age... count zero was a quick read, but the diamond age is seriously dense, what with all of its nanotech fantasies. the free time brought about by a sudden lack of Internet practically begs the reading of unix bibles and other utterly dry and boring texts.

there was a job interview earlier today; i've refined my knack for missing trains and getting lost such that i can plan for it now [sometimes] ;) in this case the trick was believing that the interview was a half-hour earlier than it actually was, so upon arrival half an hour late, it pleasantly surprising to actually be on time. more proof that there are positive side effects to mild psychosis... lol

» key phrases to tickle the boss and pad the resume

"cost optimization", "Internet research", "corporate intranet strategy", "design and implementation"

the interviewer was running late, but he eventually emerged from a meeting. peeking out of a doorway at the end of the hall, he beckoned, and i strode calmly down beggar's row -- that long fateful walk where composure is either lost or forgotten. after what feels like hundreds of past job interviews, composure and nervousness have been transformed; instead, the interview is an opportunity to smile, nod and embellish my resume in person. no question can cause embarrassment or hesitation. if one key phrase fails to press the interviewer's 'meaningless yet impressive jargon' buttons, the flow continues straight to the next one.

honestly, though, interviewing has a lot less edge if approached this way:

i've already got the job.

if i ever catch the "gotta get this job" willies, i just consider myself hired already. the only purpose of the interview is for them to confirm the hire; in the process my nose becomes a somewhat darker shade of golden brown... er, um... i mean, take a look at the office, talk to the people, and see if i actually want to work there.

» euphemisms: the interviewer really means "you are now entering hellfire and damnation"

"this an intense and fast-paced environment" and "the president has a strong sense of the direction that he wants to take the company, and we all stand behind him one hundred percent"

sitting in the small office and listening to the bespectacled dilbert mumbling euphemisms for "the president is an arsehole", it became clear that this man has his toes to the fire every day. and all of the misgivings about the grey corporate lifestyle that i had lived not so long ago projected themselves from behind my eyes onto the walls of that small office. during appropriate pauses in conversation, i smiled and nodded and regaled the interviewer with stories of my heroic past as an expert in documentation and office management. near the end of the interview, he murmured that he would be "making a decision today" and asked if he could contact me by the number on my resume. the only acceptable response was, of course: sure, feel free to call my mobile, the number's there... and while waiting for the seventeen floors between myself and the lobby to pass in the cramped elevator, i made sure that the phone was turned off for the rest of the day. now the sun has long since traded places with the moon, i have two messages on my cell, and probably a job offer.

i may eventually cozy up to the brimstone, but they're going to have to meet my price. hopefully looking elsewhere will provide less soul-flaying opportunities, but in the meantime, the blog will prolly be a little quieter than usual.

*note to self: if you've forgotten what the word "wilson" means, click here.

George W. Bush Must Answer to the People

I was going to post a link to international a.n.s.w.e.r. [a group that organizes protests] but they seem to have a couple of serious problems with their approach [ 1 ] [ 2 ].

the sad story of saddam and the bionic chimp
an anti-morality tale

war:

• in this case, unnecessary.

• Why a War in Iraq is Unnecessary


• How Mainstream Media Become the Pro-war Propaganda Machine


• What Can Be Done?

also, see Gerard ;)

amateur ::
definition 1: One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.
definition 2: Lover, devoted friend, devotee, enthusiastic pursuer of an objective.

professional ::
definition 1: A skilled practitioner; an expert.
definition 2: Conforming to the standards of a profession.

educated learning?

:: preliminary ruminations

i am bored; i have nothing to do.

i have something to do, actually... schoolwork.

why bother? i have to. if not, i will fail out of school.

:: the question

what would happen if i failed out of school?


:: thoughts
no more school friends, no more school environment, no more camaraderie of suffering under school rules, no more structured learning process, no more pre-accepted yardstick for achievement. without the yardstick, no one would know how to accurately prejudge my skills or intelligence. every meeting with someone new would put me back at the bottom of the barrel with the "drop-outs" and the ones who couldn't make it, couldn't take the "responsibility".

society only recognizes those who play a role that is easily identifiable. the cult of experts who presume to own the world of ideas cannot allow their authority and their process to be undermined. either i am a professional or an amateur: in everday meaning, _amateur_ means "self-taught, hobbyist", whereas _professional_ means "well-trained, educated". to be un-professional is to exist in a nebulous grey area far below the crisp, serious dedication of the formally educated.

the strange fact in all this is that if everyone is 'educated' in the same way, the vast majority will see the same things and be guided to the same truths. even rickety hypotheses become accepted dogma, as blind repetition creates fact from empty words. a nose buried in books of prescribed knowledge naturally succumbs the noxious indoctrination of those who create the curriculum. how can independent thought be founded on the starched and pressed mentality of the steel factory?

it is this problem that has been burning holes into my perception, distorting my view of this educational process. for a long time all i could see was the threat of "accept the artificial reward of a diploma or be burned by the brand of those who didn't measure up: either mold your mind to our specifications, or be considered a failure in the eyes of the world." it is a difficult image to work around, one that has been continually reinforced throughout my life as a student. there seems to be no middle path. there seems to be an assumption that unless it is certified by some accepted authority figure, learning will never progress beyond the level of vague interest.

of course, my first reaction to this is "that's bullshit..." i have already been on a career track as a web development and computer networking professional. many of the computer-enthusiast amateurs that i know have far more technical knowledge than the terminally bored professionals who couldn't be bothered to do more than go through the pre-approved motions. an unfortunate result is my current low level of interest in following the dictates of professors and others who pretend that knowledge can be given and assimilated rather than found and learned.

the provisional solution is this: to only way to avoid indoctrination is to find as many intelligent viewpoints as possible and submit these viewpoints to the test of my own critical thought. my previous rebellion against the knowledge given in classrooms was, and still is, an expression of distrust for authority that exists for its own sake. this kind of authority presumes that it can create order out of the creative process of learning, and direct the proper path on which entire generations of so-called 'educated' people will embark in the search for coherence in the chaotic universe of discourse. i find this to be a ridiculous simplification of the myriad directions that the mind can take in its search for understanding, a stultifying insult to the ability of the individual to use reason in his or her own learning process.

the only way, at present, that i can see to bridge the gap between education and learning is to give oneself the ability to choose between ideas. the goal is to become and remain adaptable in spite of the regimented, industrialized assembly line of thought that is inevitably insisted upon by formal education.

how will i do this? i'm not entirely sure, but i suppose the first step is that for every concept introduced, organize my mind regarding possible alternative viewpoints, as one would arrange the three-hundred and sixty degrees of variation along the circumference of a circle. for each idea, find its antithesis. from there, identify and evaluate as many relevant diametrically oppositional variations as possible along the same continuum of debate and explore them deeply enough to meaningfully grasp their fundaments.

the difficulty of exploring ideas this deeply seems self-evident, but as i see it, this is the only way to maintain any kind of distance from a crudely polarized sense of right, wrong or false objectivity. if nothing else, continuous exposure to various perspectives will help to reinforce the understanding that objectivity is largely a question of he who sees it.

romance and dreams

it seems easy to force romance to submit under the weight and logic of reason. and such exertion may have some kind of truth on its side, some kind of validity. and yet, seeing it directly is very difficult. there are many aspects, as pervasive as my sense of self.

...

eyes opening slowly, taking in the warm radiance of the room. curtained windows lightly waver back and forth in response to the gentle caress of the fresh morning breeze. the cool sheets, satin to the touch, glide smoothly as they outline her lithe form next to me, still asleep. i turn on my side to gaze into her face, taking in the fine contours and skin tones, imperfections and intricacies. eyes closed, lips express quiet contentment as she breathes gently, softly. as i raise my hand to brush a stray hair from her face, something happens.

a shift. the shape of her face changes. from wide and round, to slim and sleek. her eyes change from anglo to asian. then again, she changes, her skin turns to dusk from its previous peach hue. then from dusk to mocha. her width and length of her nose changes accordingly, as do her lips; heart-shaped to pouting to thin to full. i realize that she could be anyone, and so could i.

...

waking up, i am alone in the early evening. part of me wishes she was here, but then i realize that there is no she; there are too many. and i realize that just as that dream is more or less one-size-fits-all, can my dreams for myself possibly be any more unique or real?

the stronger chance, the harder punch

it strikes me how fragile humans are. thinking about what it means to be healthy recently [and contemplating the cost of health "insurance"], i was studying musculoskeletal anatomy. at some point, my thoughts wandered from the parietal bones to the cartilage of the outer ear. from there it was a small step to imagine a moment of foreplay, playfully biting her ear.

the fantasy morphed into myself as a cat, then as a lion, tugging on a shaggy orange fur of a female's ear. thinking of the sharpness of a lion's teeth and the strength of its jaws, i realized just how delicate a bite has to be not to cause pain or draw blood.

anyone who has touched a sharp knife's edge knows that it takes very little pressure to cut below the skin. it's kind of exhilarating to know that for all appearances of strength, humans are, on some level, equally weak and equally strong. skin is skin, a blade is a blade; to bleed is to be vulnerable.

a recent incident at the martial arts school:

we were paired off, me and him. him, an ex-muay thai competitor. word traveled through the school that he was tough and a little wild; everyone knows me for precise technique and somewhat of a disregard for my own safety. we bow slightly to each other, then assume fighting stances. the exercise calls for one man to throw a jab, and the other man to sidestep and throw a hook to the body. we practice the technique for a few turns. on the next turn, i throw the jab, but instead of throwing the hook as i expect, he punches me in the left eye. apologizing profusely, he mumbles something about not meaning to hit me.

that line about "sorry, i didn't mean to" is fine, but this guy should know better. so i shrug my shoulders, smile, and blink to clear the blurry tears that rush in to cleanse the knuckle-grazed eyeball. we continue the workout, and i forget about getting punched. kind of.

after the formal lesson is over, i stay behind to show another student one of the forms. i catch my friend, the muay thai man, as he is about to leave and ask him to stay for a minute. i would like to practice techniques for fighting from inside the clinch; he says sure, knowing that the strategies of thai boxing fascinate me. i appeal to his ego by calling him "ajarn [teacher, in thai]" and jokingly humble myself before his greatness. we both see no point to the formalism in martial arts -- but i'll have more to say about that another time.

i throw a front kick as an entry to the clinch. lunging forward, i clasp my hands behind his neck and draw him close. he takes the same position, and we wrestle for position. i feel his balance shift and tug his head to one side; i throw knees to his left-ribs, then right-ribs, then center-sternum... not too fast, it's just a drill. then i draw him close again to keep him from getting a proper extension with his knees. and so the dance goes for a minute or so, giving and taking.

we release each other.

i ask him, "how about the elbows?"

i already have a rudimentary understanding of the "elbow hook" from dirty boxing, but i want his explanation. he shows me that the elbow can be thrown from anywhere, as long as it's in the proper range. we take fighting stances and incorporate elbows into a couple of minutes of sparring.

we are not wearing headgear or gloves; he throws strong combinations of elbows - lefts, rights, and uppercuts slice through the air an inch from my face. we say a few more words about technique, and then it's my turn. left jab-straight right-hooking elbow, left jab-straight right-uppercutting elbow, footwork starts to move with the hand/elbow techniques, combinations start to flow.

the tempo increases as i start to drive him back a bit, moving just a little too fast for him to keep up. suddenly i misjudge the distance by a couple of inches and a left elbow full-speed crashes into the right side of his face. it was a clean hit; all i felt was a moment of resistance, but i knew from his reaction that i had made contact. apparently, his right hand had been properly guarding his face, but the force of impact had driven his own fist into contact with his cheekbone.

apologies were exchanged as the space around his right upper cheek/eye area began to swell and his eye itself turned pink from several broken blood vessels just beneath the surface. i got him an ice pack from the receptionist [well-stocked in case of emergencies] and apologized again. having joked about taking revenge for his unexpected punch earlier, i now assured him that what had just occurred was not revenge. it was just a mistake. well, it was unintentional, at least.

i knew what i had done, but i hadn't felt consciously involved at all. there is a different sense of being in the four dimensions of space and time -- completely non-intellectual, fully kinesthetic. self-possessed, but not self-preoccupied. the key is to maintain just enough conscious awareness to knew when to stop, but not to the point of inhibition. awareness equates to the smallest possible reaction time.

he was bruised, i was bruised. for all our training, it ultimately comes down to the element of surprise.

no matter how tough i may think that i am, the only true strengths are depth of perceptions and thickness of skin.

audio: moloko . sing it back [todd terry remix]

heat, fear, night
2002

walking uptown on the warm spring night, i see two men about fifty feet away, blocking the sidewalk. as i move closer, i see that they are arguing, intense and loud. "nah, man, fuck your car," the older man says. the younger man is equally furious, and the shouting match escalates as i approach, now only twenty feet between us. a crowd starts to gather. the two men put up their fists and glare at each other.

they hesitate, just out of each others' reach.

i slow my approach a bit, wondering bemusedly if either of them ever had the slightest intention of throwing a punch. it seems that no one else can discern something so simple: both of these guys are angry and hostile, but essentially paralyzed by their fear of what might come next.

still, they hesitate, shuffling around just out of each others' reach.

within about two feet of them, their body language becomes clear to me as i can now see their faces in detail: it's all about letting off steam, each man making sure that the other acknowledges him. they are too afraid, neither wanted this to happen. just as easily, one man could decide to walk away. but neither does.

i sense an opening as one man shifts to the side, and i pass by them, sidestepping as well to avoid tripping him by accident. the crowd parts slightly as i continue on my way, and i don't look back.

audio: mystikal . edge of the blade

redesign number 923842394904.8.

why "point 8"? because I'm not quite sure that it's finished yet. my first stab at positional CSS. maybe it'll shape up in a few days, if i make the time.

audio: ec8or . don't tell me sh*t

um....

... it was possible to glean certain patterns, and one that recurred... was the one about how someone would move into a commune populated by sandal-wearing, peace-sign flashing flower children, and eventually discover that, underneath this facade, the guys who ran it were actually control freaks...

... and that, as living in a commune, where much lip service was paid to ideals of peace, love and harmony, had deprived them of normal, socially approved outlets for their control-freakdom, it tended to come out in other, invariably more sinister, ways.

in the beginning there was the command line

make a killing, save the world
non-profit: predators of conscience

timeframe: just before christmas
event: job? what job?

i remember writing about that wonderful non-profit job that i had taken; the one that made me feel all warm and fuzzy... made me feel all purposeful n'shit... lol

no longer.

i am once again, a bystander in the hit-and-run world of corporations and money politics. someone kicked me out of the backseat of the 16-wheel holy roller express.

scenario: friday, leaving the apartment

[on the phone]
me: hi, i'm going to have to be a little late. urgent school business.
her [boss]: oh, don't bother coming in. we've decided to let you go and re-assess the position.
me: [thinking, "hm... wtf?"] don't be so hasty to send me off. i still have to come in to the office to take any personal belongings and give you back your keys.
her [sensing her own inept management skills]: uh, ok.
me [silently shaking my head]: ...
i'll be in after i'm done at the school.
her: uh, ok.

and for the next fifteen minutes, my body tensed and shook as if i were preparing to tear someone's throat out, as i breathed deeply and visualized the strangeness of walking into the office for the last time. finally i chuckled when i found a positive angle to the situation; grabbed my keys, bookbag and jacket, and left to catch the train.

nothing particularly dramatic happened at the office; it turns out that i was being let go because they needed someone who could work more hours. ironically, i was being laid off because i needed time for school, when i was depending on this job to put me through for next semester. translation: no job, no school. no school meant that i would have enough free time to work. but if i was working, i would have the money for school, which gives me the same dilemma that they were citing as the reason for firing me. argh... when i arrived at the office, i deleted all files pertinent to my duties at work, but nothing sensitive or injurious to the organization. no no... really, i mean that.

after obtaining a signed, written guarantee that i would be paid my last paycheck [i've been screwed out of cash before, so i took no chances this time], i amicably shook hands with all three employees and walked out with nothing on my mind. the gay PR/media relations guy seemed genuinely sad that i was leaving, so i told him that we could talk about "contract work" in the future. even though i'm not gay, i can't resist... something in me definitely has a thing for gay men, kind of like a kid looking in a department store window at the expensive teddy bear that he'll never own. lol...

detachment is a strange thing, sometimes. as i left the office, i felt unburdened and released from one more care, one more aimless worry. as i spun the situation in my mind, i realized that having been "let go" was definitely not something to regret.

why?

i had misplaced my ideals, embodying them in a wish, believing that projecting that wish onto an imperfect reality would bridge the inadequacies before my eyes. the non-profit organization was a way to escape the soul-gouging man-as-skillset mentality of the corporate world. what i found instead was a mirror image of what i had left behind, but with a frightening addition: the moral imperative.

:: doing the world a favor

as i stepped into the office for the first time, i remember sensing a change in the air. i found that everyone seemed to enjoy their work. soon i felt it too, strong enough to get past the fact that i was using about 2% brain capacity as an admin assistant. eventually, though, it became apparent that their love for what they were doing could be summarized by two concepts:

::: a. the party line

the organization was heavily into bible-thumping and holy-rolling -- their official literature was full of gimmicky god-isms. not only was it a marketing ploy to tug at peoples' heartstrings, but it was an internal morale booster for the overwhelmingly christian organization itself. i was assured that the organization was growing out of its religious limitations, but i remained skeptical. in this case, my quarrel was not with religion itself, but the fact that this organization had considerable power in the form of donations from celebrities and the guilty rich [and other contributors]. "god's will" is inherently beyond man to understand, and yet these people were using god as an excuse to enforce their will on the rest of the world using donations. there is thin line between evangelism and fundamentalism. it seems to me that an organization dedicated to universal welfare needs not be motivated by a particular religious agenda.

::: b. emotional investment

with this kind of pious undertone, it is practically inevitable that there will be deep emotional commitment made to "the cause". the disturbing aspect of such commitment was the near-absolute connection made between the goals of the individual and the goals of the organization. this fallacy of composition inevitably translates to groupthink; in the workplace, such voluntary adherence to the so-called higher purpose inevitably raised questions about who exactly was making the decisions. for all the grassroots exterior, this was a hierarchical, well-ordered entity, fueled by the will of god. who could possibly question such methods without casting themselves as an outsider, one of "them" rather than one of "us"? i found that reason is not welcome in the face of an illusory absolute truth, or rather, the righteousness of absolute power. this sense of unassailable morality is immediately undermined, however, by the fact that the words "non-profit" mean relatively little in any practical sense.

:: making money like anyone else -- it just happens to be donations

non-profit organizations, despite the association with altruism and service to others, arise more due to tax considerations than for any other reason. the main distinction of a non-profit is whether or not the organization gains tax-exempt status, a question that is only tangentially related to whether they work for the good of mankind. non-profit organizations are, in all other respects, practically identical to for-profit corporations. just because the corporation itself is not deriving profit doesn't mean that the officers and staff aren't walking away with fat salaries. and why shouldn't they? after all, they do god's work -- should be duly compensated. uh... riiiight.

:: society does not benefit from crusaders; it can only benefit from changing itself

in retrospect, it seems that the entire focus of the non-profit world is misdirected. the world cannot be "saved"; it can only change itself, evolving from within its own collective consciousness. the only way that society can change is if its constituents act in their own self-interest in order to create positive change, either through destruction of the current system, or reform of its existing institutions. there is no way to externalize the needs of society; society is its own problem, and therefore society must find its own solutions. the only role for an outside organization is to function as a catalyst for pre-existing elements of change within the society.

::: giving as confession

by contrast, the model under which non-profits often operate is that of taking money and repurposing it to fit the actions that follow their internally-determined agenda. this is the "confessional gift" concept, in which a person working for an oil company can donate a few dollars to buy a cow for a cute, starving boy in somalia. this, to me, is ridiculous; if the person actually wanted to be an agent of change, he would quit his job at the oil company and take up work elsewhere, in a socially responsible field. giving money to charity is little more than a method of assuaging one's own guilt. it reminds me of a man who sees a priest, and having confessed his sins, goes out and sins again with a clear conscience. he always knows that he can confess and be absolved later, so why not profit now? this is the same moral sinkhole that non-profit organizations encourage by allowing people to measure their social uprightness by a dollar value, rather than the value of acting in a socially conscious way.

::: for us, by who?

this habit of buying indulgences for sins against society, in a perverse way, naturally lends itself to the trend of giving to non-profit organizations. the concept of externalizing all possible costs is one of the main goals of a corporation; it is only natural that in this world dominated by corporations, Morality Inc. would be the next step. so you make a living exploiting the world? no problem! just send us a check, and all your worries disappear.

what a strange world this is.

audio: GU nubreed . sander kleinenberg . jp . onix1