Two Professors

Two professors were walking behind me on my way home to TKE today. The conversation went something like this:

"Yes, but polarity is important so you can see the electron valence and..."
"Sure, it's important, and according to the Aufbau principle, the electrons of an atom occupy quantum level..."

Or something like this. I know very little about chemistry and even less about the atom. But I was struck at the historicity of this discussion (I can't rightly call it an argument since I could not distinguish two sides even though it may have been exactly that). But the historicity was readily apparent. This was not an undergraduate discussion, this was a discussion that was years in the making with multiple lectures, notes, experiments and textbooks involved in order for these two men two effortlessly talk about a subject in such a way that it was basically a different language for me.

That's when I realized what the life of a scholar or theorist meant. It meant continuously training the mind until one can speak about fetishization, reliquaries, the trafficking between thing and object, Platonics, tropes and instantly realized obsolescence until you are well-versed in what basically accounts for the language of an intellectual microsociety. And I wondered if that was what I want before I realized that I was already on the road leading to a world of theorizing and critically analyzing every aspect of life as it is lived.

And I decided that life is a grand adventure. Beyond that, it is also something that can be analyzed and dissected. But this is a spice one must use sparingly. Some analysis makes you positive you get life, you really get it. In fact, you are getting more out of life at every minute than most people are. And you are happy about that, not because it makes you better, but because it makes the world better. But at some point you analyze something too much, you see the joke so clear that it is no longer funny. You understand the recipe so well that the joy of the mysterious aroma is dead. Life becomes death at the moment you know everything about it.

So a toast to those of us who know just enough to know that we don't want to know too much more. And a sad lament to those who have gone so far down the road without knowing where it leads only to realize at the last moment that they can't turn back.

Of course, no one can ever turn back. Being on the road has it's perils.

My New Favorite Movie (after Fight Club)

In the last three days I have watched Donnie Darko several times. I have not watched it all the way through every time, but I certainly have noticed that every scene has infinite meaning compacted into it. My two favorite scenes are first the scene where it cuts back and forth from Donnie burning down the Cunningham house and second the first montage showing the character of the school. I will be discussing the shot where Donnie burns down the house.

The shot begins with Donnie leaving the movie theater, and over his shoulder is the marquee displaying the movies The Evil Dead and The Last Temptation of Christ. Donnie Darko is set in 1988, Evil Dead came out in 1981 and Last Temptation DID come out in 1988. Donnie has a sick little grin on his face, and there seems to be a question of which marquee is actually the caption to Mr. Darko. Is he a Christ-Like figure, or he is simply the conglomeration of horrific comedy? This is the central argument to the entire movie, is Donnie actually crazy, or is he able to mold reality to his own liking? This question cannot be answered with a review of this scene alone, and there are arguments to both sides. The importance is not the question itself, but to how much we can identify or impose the question on our own lives. Are we crazy, or can we make a difference? Is there one possibility in the infinite amount of possibilities that we can choose?

Moving forward we cut scene to the talent show that Donnie's little sister Sam is performing in. This show is the complete antithesis of the question inherent in Donnie's character. For the audience is not filled with people who ask these sort of questions, the audience is filled with gawkers laughing at the artistic portrayal in dance by Sherita who have likely never questioned reality or their subjective place in reality. These are the other's, people who will never be able to understand Donnie or reality in any way other than it is different and therefore beyond their scope.

I could go into much more detail, but for the sake of brevity I will skip ahead to the part I particularly enjoy. It's when Sparkle Motion starts their dance. Their dance is perfectly anti-personality. All the girls look the same, move the same, are dressed the same, and have the same facial expression-blank (the same as the people in the airplane escape manuals in Fight Club). They cease to be human and represent only that spectacle for which the audience can understand because the spectacle is all they know. As a friend of mind says, how can you ask a fish to describe water? The people watching the show are the fish, the spectacle is the water. They don't see it, because they can't see it! (By the way, friend, you can learn to see things completely different with an internal reference point) The girls are robots, that is why they sparkle and move. Is that all humanity is?! To these people, yes. The spectacle has reduced them to a point where all they desire is to sparkle (appearance) and go through the motions (to be an object).

I haven't even got to the fire and everything going on when that happens. I will have to do that in a subsequent post.

My Former Co-Worker

So I used to work with this gal named Loma. I say Gal because she surely wasn't a girl, yet she had somehow retained enough of the boisterous energy so often found in that race that I would feel uncomfortable calling her a lady. Loma was hot blooded, not in the typical quick-to-temper manner, but in as that she was always hot. She had to have a fan pointed at her at all times, and she would complain profusely and with as little tact as possible and in the most passive-aggressive way possible. This consisted of commenting on how hot she was constantly, and asking if the temperature on the thermostat was set at the right level. This inevitably involved her turning down the thermostat to increase the cold air blowing on her from every direction possible. And on it would go until someone noticed that the office was freezing. At this point, one of her co-workers would come out and complain first about the air-condition and then about Loma because she was always turning the AC on too high. Our boss was always concerned because she wanted to save money, and the girl that complained was the girl who was most likely the most deceptive and egotistical in the office. She wanted a promotion every three months, was looking for something to brag about, something to tell people was important enough about her so that she could feel better about herself, something to convince her small mind that she was better than you when deep down what she really believed was that she wasn't better than anyone; or at least she wasn't worth a damn until mommy or daddy told her that she was. I of course never noticed all these things at the time, because I was far too ignorant to notice these things day in and day out.

Now day I notice these things, not day in and day out, but moments like these when you think about a person and see past all appearances to the things that really motivates them. I see this, and I ask myself, how can one not be a pessimist? Dear reader, did you like the people that I described above? Well let me tell you something, the first gal was one of the most caring mothers on earth, she would watch her grandson at any time, would brag about her son constantly, and would do anything for her daughter-in-law that she would ask for. The girl was one of the friendliest, charming and charismatic girl you had ever seen, and she was at the time dating my brother. You could not have asked for better people to surround yourselves with.

Witch brings me to the boss. A woman it is still hard for me to find faults in. She owned apartment buildings, threw parties whom she welcomed people from all over the place too, and over-indulged all her employees. I can't tell you how many free lunches (fresh sushi nonetheless), contacts and bonuses I received from this woman. Did I mention I was paid for the lunches? Did I mention she bought me a plane ticket to Oklahoma, and gave me a week to go to Oklahoma and be with my girlfriend? This woman cared so much for the people around her that they would do almost anything she asked them to do.

Yes, these are real people. The complexity of character is not so much shocking as unbelievable. The effort it takes to see these things all at once is alarming; not one of the characteristics would naturally point to all the others. This is the reality of complexities of character. Not every unique character trait points to every other character trait in that person; one may point to one, which may point to another, and another, and another on down the line until you can go from saint to sinner in a metaphysical game of 6 Degrees of Separation. This is how Loma could be the selfish worker and the doting mother in the same person. This is how the other girl (whose name completely escapes me) can go from loving and charming girlfriend to conniving courtier in the same person.

We are not one dimensional, two dimensional or three dimensional. We are the living embodiment of infinite dimensionality... of character.

The boss owned apartment buildings that she rented at a comically high rate to those who were looking for the status symbols to get that promotion they were hunting for in their jobs. She threw parties for her elite circle-peopled by those as rich as her-and invited her lower income friends to some of them so that she could remind the rich people that she still cared about people less fortunate than her, over-indulged her employees so that they would do whatever she wanted for her, gave away free lunches and vacations so that she could keep her businesses in the red (and usable as a write off from the money she made renting apartments). She also gave me a week of vacation so that she could test out other writers without committing to that fact that she was looking for a new writer. It was genius; look for a new writer while keeping the college student on staff in order to have enough time to decide if it was worth keeping on staff for the measly paycheck I earned every week. I was also paid under the table; I don't want to go into how many benefits this was for her.

After I got back she told me she had to hire an outside writer to do some work while I was away. I told her she could have called me and I would have done it while on vacae, but she was sweeter than honey and she didn't want to bother me. The next time it was because we were all over-booked and she didn't want to give me any extra work. I understood-and it was another way she could see how far down she could turn the thermostat.

One day I want from writing press releases to doing graphical work and calling radio stations. I didn't feel the cold air. I had just gotten out of high school, and I had no idea how the world worked. I also didn't want to spend so much time seeing how the world worked. Hindsight is 20/20. I thought I learned a lot while I worked there, I realize I learned a lot more after I left.

And me? Well I was personally happy to take the vacation-I was going to get laid a lot. I also didn't mind working less-I was able to avoid traffic by coming in later. I didn't really care about the company, the people in it were cool, and I liked the cash I was getting paid. I was also happy I had my own office so I could play stupid video games when I knew I could get away with it. I didn't care about that office-it had nothing to do with me at the time.

Of course, it did. And for all the time it took me to figure this out, I wonder how long it will take me to figure out the lessons I am learning right now. Experience is invaluable.

Goodnight.

On Writing

Marx said: "The writer naturally must make money in order to live and write, but he should not under any circumstances live and write in order to make money"

I have forgotten this recently.

DJ always said that he chose not to be a writer because he wasn't good enough to make money from it. This was true. But what he forgot was the purpose of writing was not to make money, and therefore a writer is not someone who makes money from writing. The greatest art ever created was not created for any other reason than it forced it's way from the artists soul through his ego and burst from his brain because it could not be withheld. That is to say, it was created for the ease of the artist and no one else.

There are no ends to art, art is an end in itself (Rivera).

So the reality was the DJ never chose to not be a writer, he was just really good at forcefully imprisoning those things within him that needed creation. He was not a writer also because he forgot the reason to write. For his entire life he thought writing was about quality, to show a presentable and pleasing form that evoked some sort of emotion from his audience. But *slap* there is no audience in art's perception, only in the fool's belief's is an audience necessary.

In a world full of liars, the biggest crime is lying to yourself. Lying to yourself means you don't think you deserve to see the truth. As soon as you realize this, you are slapped. Or not really, you are just hopeful.

So this brings us to emancipation. The veins pop at the very thought of the world, the effort upon which it fights constantly to stifle emancipation. This is not a societal struggle, it is the struggle of one man.

Net Neutrality

A new chance to support Net Neutrality. This is important. Check this out as soon as possible and do something to change the way the internet will be used in the future.

read more digg story

The Free Press Action Fund Team is at

http://www.freepress.net/

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

Is This Interesting?

I'm a little distracted right now because there is this really cute Asian girl wearing a pleated short skirt and black stalkings walking around the computer lab... three of my favorite things all put together. It's like brown paper packages tied up in string, you know what I mean. Oh, she left :(

Right, back to my intellect. I have just discovered this guy named Ray LaMontagne, who is a folk artist with this voice that is just incredible. It reminds me of everything that is good about music. I suggest everyone check him out on Pandora. I just imagine from his voice that he has been through some tough times, some really great experiences, and come out of it the other end slightly jaded, but also with a sense of the importance of things.

Which brings me to something new, the importance of things. I don't mean things in the sense of things around us. I mean things that happen. Everything that happens is so nice, it proves that life is just a beautiful tide rolling in and out. And we're all in it, trying to make sense of something that really makes no sense. And we obsess over it, try and control it. And the artists always have a better idea. The artists are always trying to show everyone else that life is just something that happens, and that makes it more beautiful, not less beautiful.

And yes, it can end at any time, for any reason. So what are we supposed to do in the meantime? I don't know, but I guess there are some popular answers. Some people think the point of life is to find love. I think this is a very romantic gesture, but I personally think that the person looking for love is going to be the last person to find it. Every time it has happened to me it was when I wasn't looking. Some people think that survival is the only purpose in life. I think this is a very scientific view that fails to account for everything that a beautiful mind (as they all are) can offer a world of confusion to help others understand that which they are caught up in. Some people say it is to pass on your genes. This seems rather fatalist to me, as if one could drop dead after they have kids. Some people say everyone has a different purpose, and while I agree I don't think this is a useful answer for anyone.

Sometimes I wish I had the words of a poet, or even a songwriter so I could explain some of these things that I have the compulsion to try and explain. As it is my words never do the job I send them out to do. They try their best, and fight like good little soldiers, but they get confusing orders and the supply lines end up getting cut off every time.

I hope life means as much to you as it does to me. I hope you can see how much life means to me.

And just a question, inspired by Forest Sun, where would the poets be without the rain?

This is not a normal cold...

So Tuesday-Thursday I had this cold, with a fever of 103. I don't even get out of my bed. Friday I feel better. Saturday I feel good enough to socialize. Today I wake up, fever again, and I have to go shopping for a Superbowl party that could have anywhere between 75-100 people attending. And tomorrow I have to cook the food. This cold is evil.

Noticing Things

I've been starting to see things differently these days. First I want to make several observations that I hope will stir up some good conversation:
1) Everything is connected.
2) Very few people see how everything is connected
3) There still remains an unconscious feeling that everything is connected (Re: Jung)
4) Because everyone knows that everything is connected, and because they fail to see that connection, people do as much as they can to create separateness in a world where in the end they are really small and insignificant.
5) When a person can realize that all their attempts at separateness and egotism will fail, they can start to see how everything is connected, and they will then be able to understand that they are not small or insignificant because they are connected to everything.

What does this all mean? Well, of course I don't know. I can only attempt to understand.

Everything is connected: At one time we all came from some infinite origin, something that we really cannot understand because before it there may have been nothing. Thinking about this is troublesome, first there is nothing, then there is something. Regardless of what we call this great creation we can derrive two points from it: one that whatever was before is beyond our comprehension, ie: we will likely never know; two that at one point we were all part of the source of everything. As I've heard many smart people say "we are all made of starstuff." So if everything was once connected the only way we could say that things are now disconnected would be to say that the process of original creation is over. Of course, it is not. Everything that is happening now is an echo of the origin. It's possible that this entire ball of wax is just getting warmed up. On an infinite time line anything is possible. Just because the world makes sense for the most part, doesn't mean it always will. So I would have to say that everything is connected because of these points.

Very people can see how everything is connected. It's good enough to understand what I just said, but it's very hard to see. We go through our daily lives on our cellphones, text messaging, talking, breathing, eating, and the whole time we don't stop to think that everything has a history that brought it to the point in time we are currently in. Even points of data have a history, an origin, and a future. It's not because this is impossible to see, but it is because there is so much in existence that has absolutely nothing to do with us that we are still a part of. It creates a very interesting paradox, how can something have absolutely nothing to do with me yet I am still part of it? When two people in Russia have a conversation about the recent snowfall it has nothing to do with me, at least in their minds they aren't thinking about me when they have this conversation. And that is the important part, we are not consciously aware of everything so we think that we can't be connected to everything. Of course, we are.

Just a timeout here: I know people write entire books about any one of these topics, but I am ranting here so bear with me.

The collective unconscious. I'm just going to explain this on my own terms. Every once and a while we are hit with a moment of serendipity that takes us by no surprise at all. Maybe you run into that person you were thinking of all day, maybe you just do perfect on a videogame you are playing. The point is, on some level we take these things for granted. What are the chances of running into that person? Who can really tell. In the grand scheme of things, over the millions of years of the past, the chances are an infinity to none. let me try and explain, since our atoms came from the same origin, the chances of them bumping into each other again given an infinite amount of time and (possibly) and infinite amount of space, the chances of that same bunch of atoms bumping into each other again is zero. Yet it happens all the time, and does not surprise us. If you are following what I am saying, then you should understand that we should be thankful for each other, and quite honestly thankful and spellbound by every second we have. But we're not, because to be spellbound by our own existence would not be very productive.

People create a separateness. Of course we do, if we didn't would there be any individuality available? This may be the one thing that separates us from the animals: we seek an individuality, where they frankly have no concept (except in some cases in the great apes) of an individuality. Our individuality then becomes a self-feeding fire that could very well be our undoing. I may talk about this more later. To my last point...

Failure: Total separateness would mean death. You can't remove yourself from this world, yet people are always trying to be individuals and let their egos take control. Of course we do. Being an individual is great. But you gotta know when to draw the line. I may talk about this more later too. For now, I have to get to class. Let me know what you all think.

This Site Needs Something

I really want to change the graphical components of this page, of course since I know like nothing about HTML and Web Design it is going to take a long time to get to a point where I can design graphics and post them on this page. So far every attempt I have made has created not a change of scenery, but rather no scenery at all. I must say this is vexing, and I don't mind being vexed about something so trivial. So I have been surfing the web and talking to friends trying to figure out this HTML stuff. I've been referred to webmonkey.com but as classes have just started I haven't been able to get anything done on this front.

On a separate note, my class about Lying seems to be interesting. When I came to Berkeley I never expected to be taking a class titled "Towards an Interpretation of Lies and Liars." One of the thoughts I had about it today is that if one can never know anything (as Aristotle says) than is there ever truth? And if there is never truth, than is it possible to lie when you never know the truth? So thinking about this just makes me want to read the book our professor was talking about titled On Bullshit. The discussion today was an introduction to Hippias Minor. In this text Socrates shows Hippias to be a liar when he claims to know Achilles. I haven't read the text, but the premise is that all pretense to knowledge is a lie. So I assume that Socrates succeeds in proving that it is impossible to truly know anything, as the Socratic Maxim is "I know that I do not know." Of course even in this lies a dillema, and an paradox. How can one know anything given that statement, even if the knowledge is that you know nothing? And how can Aristotle claim that his life's work is the pursuit of knowledge when he acknowleges that there is no such thing possible? Of course, he says it is the pursuit that is important.

But something that came up that I enjoyed was one of the questions that a student asked. She asked if Hippias was responsible for his ignorance. The answer was more of a question, as the professor explained that Hippias's entire education was a matter of memorization, and that the idea of critical thought was not part of the system.

Which leads me to this question: can one question a system if the system does not provide the ability to question? Can one question any part of reality if it is so ingrained that that not only is it impossible to question, but that questioning isn't even an option?

Privacy

A friend of mine recently posted in her Facebook blog "I have no secrets, really. No secrets because nothing embarrasses me. Nothing embarrasses me because…I don’t know. Because my life is currently a result of adult choices?" I thought about this for a while, because as a part of me desires to have a "online diary" a much more conservative part of me wants to reserve a piece of a private life. Everything I am reading these days points to the fact that at some point everything we say do and possibly even think will be digitized, blogcasted and browseable. Hopefully all intellectual rights laws will be deleted, because I am afraid of my memories being charged for the copyright infringements.

Ok, so my rant just went in an odd direction right there. But I don't like the idea of all of my experiences being data ready for download, all of my stories being available without my consent. It's bad enough that every picture taken of me can be posted and anyone with the right friend access (which doesn't mean friends with me) can see pictures of me at my best and at my worst best. Is everyone else comfortable with this? One of my cousins used to say that she didn't want her picture taken because she believed it stole her soul. How far from the truth is this?

You say, "So DJ, why do you have a blog then?" I've been thinking about that for a while. Part of the answer is that I honestly believe that sharing some of your thoughts leads to the benefit of humanity. In fact, people's thoughts interact in such a strange way there is no way to predict who will be affected and how. That is an exciting thing. Another part of the answer is that I believe that we should share our opinions on what is happening in our world. If people see other people thinking the same way about something they may gain the courage to voice opinions previously held captive by fear.

But at the same time will I ever post my private things? Well, how private is this post right now? Honestly, you can probably figure out a few things about me from this post, but I don't know exactly what. I like my secrets, and I want to keep them that way.

Everything that gets put forth into the world is a calculated effort whether you know it or not.

This just in: "ending an unpopular war is the political kiss of death"

Listening to: Arctic Monkeys "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not"

Reading: Wilde, "Soul of Man Under Socialism" - Marx, "Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof"

New Semester

Well, it's a new semester for me at UC Berkeley. Here are some of the things I am excited about:

• Getting Straight A's (AT BERKELEY!)
• Trying out for Club Boxing
• Spring Break in Las Vegas
  
• Red Carnation Ball
• Berkeley's Calendar Page
• Lots of Good Reading

I still haven't decided what I want this blog to be about. But I'm sure I will figure it out as things go on. I'm all for the organic development of a creative project (which is what I believe this to be).

What I am reading right now: 48 Laws of Power

I'm on Law 17, which means I am not even half way done. My impression of this book so far is that there is some good stuff, and some stuff that really only applies to the most paranoid of would-be despots. If you are interested in taking over the world, read this book first.

Classes start on Tuesday, I'm enthusiastic about this.