Below are the most recent 13 friends' journal entries.

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
puf_almighty	10:11p	Book of changes. Quittin my job. And I'm EXCITED. :D Current Music: Mos Def- Boogie Man Song (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
epictetus_rex	10:52a	http://ow.ly/PSMK (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 1st, 2010
epictetus_rex	10:27p	(6 Comments |Comment on this)
epictetus_rex	1:50p	Sitting indoors, listening to the rain fall, drinking a creamy java, listening to the accordion, tending to a poor, disheveled, hung-over, yet still wonderfully beautiful woman... all is well. (Comment on this)
i_am_lane	1:12a	My 2010 Resolution METAL AND WAR! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
i_am_lane	2:51a	Review of Avatar Colonialism. There, I've said it. Now we can talk about the 50-pound blue elephant in the room. Be warned, SPOILERS ARE GONNA FOLLOW AND I'M NOT ABOUT TO COMMENT THEM OUT. YOU WERE WARNED. ( I'm assuming if you're still reading, you have either already seen it or don't care about spoilers ) Avatar is a big movie begging for a bigger novelization where these ideas can be dealt with in a better fashion. It is an intriguing sci-fi universe that wants not for exploration, scope, grandeur or action, but rather for more human(oid)s to populate its planets. (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 4th, 2010
epictetus_rex	6:00p	Humanities II After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. - Richard Dawkins "Our fate is indissolubly bound up with science. It is essential as a matter of simple survival for us to understand science. Evolution has primed us for this by arranging that we may take pleasure in understanding... The universe belongs to those who, at least to some degree, have figured it out." - Carl Sagan, "Science as a Candle In The Dark" Now, in order to understand the value of the humanities, we can begin by asking: what is it that Sagan and Dawkins have articulated in these passages? They are clearly not doing science as it is understood. Yet, they are undisputed heavyweights in the scientific establishment. What role do such musings play in their work, in their lives, in the lives of their colleagues around the world? In the 20th century, science became a pursuit open to just about anyone. Vast funds were allocated to the sciences and science education exploded into the mainstream. Tapping into centuries-old European stories about exploration as human destiny, we taught our children that our fate lay beyond our planet, that enormous value lay in the discoveries and technologies ahead, and that the penetration of the mysteries of the universe was what humanity was basically for... all sentiments firmly repeated by Neil Armstrong on the moon. The result was predictable: huge numbers of people flowed into the sciences, and our civilization is now intimately bound up in their efforts. It is clear that without the mythmaking, without the imposition of meaning and purpose upon history, human nature and the universe itself, this would not be the case. Such stories are preconditions for organized large-scale social activity. Indeed, a sense of meaning and purpose are preconditions for any kind of complex, purposive activity in a human individual. In my terminology, personal-normative inquiry is a necessary precondition for any other kind of inquiry. In the case of some people, this inquiry is conducted and concluded at a very young age. They find themselves immersed in a culture where their talents and predispositions match nicely with a pre-existing and powerful narrative. The meaning of their lives is given to them as they begin to achieve full self-consciousness. For others, however, this is simply not the case. They find that their talents and inclinations do not seem to have any place in any grand story. Their education might help them develop their talents and may even provide them with information about how to pursue a career, but this is not the same thing as having a cultural role delivered straight to you. That a sense of meaninglessness and depression/anxiety go hand in hand is so well-confirmed, conceptually and experimentally, that it need not be argued for, here. What we must realize is that the dominance of certain kinds of narratives combined with the loss of tradition as a source of meaning implies a kind of existential ghetto, populated by lonely, depressed and alienated individuals. There will always be large groups of individuals who have great difficulty in seeing what they are for, yet who are nonetheless expected (by a widespread non-traditional individualism) to discover what they are for. In my MA research, I discovered that these observations helpd to explain the extraordinary rate of depression, anxiety and general antisociality in people with artistic-creative talents. These mental problems are empirical facts: but they cannot be necessary ones. To see why, we must note that this whole phenomenon is a peculiar feature of modern, industrialized societies. In more traditional cultures, just about any individual has a rich and unitary source of meaning delivered straight to them as children. The artistic type, for example, is not an "individual", expected to pull creative genius from the depths of their own authentic soul. Rather, he or she is generally seen as someone who perpetuates tradition and culture, who is a symbol of a certain way of life. They, like Dawkins and Sagan, find themselves born into meaning. Such a life is simply not an option for many of us, and this is where the Humanities come in. The broadly philosophical study of history, art, literature, mythology and religion are profoundly liberating for certain individuals because such study helps them to see the historically contingent character of the very narratives which alienate and depress them. To study the humanities is to (amongst other things) come into direct contact alternative ways of life, alternative roles that one might fill, alternative value-systems, alternative sources of meaning. Now, none of this implies that humanities departments are in any way particularly valuable to our culture at large. In fact, these observations can easily be turned into scathing critiques of certain degenerate humanities programs, whose descent into dizzying, abstruse scholasticism has served to render them basically useless. All humanities programs are capable of providing resources for those trapped outside of dominant narratives: many have totally shunned this role. What is necessary is that the responsible and informed study of the humanities remains an option for the average person. In a culture where each individual is expected to find themselves, such a resource is simply not optional: it is essential. ---- Related Sources: Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot Marcus Bowman, The Last Resistance (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
epictetus_rex	11:22a	The "Humanities" and Human Inquiry In General, Part 1 of 2 A sustained defense of the humanities cannot rest on a demonstration of their economic value, No-one really believes that intrinsic value can be measured by money, and the suggestion is absurd. Nor can it identify "the humanities" with "humanities departments in universities". Such departments can and do slide into nonsensical irrelevance, but only the person who makes this false identification is lead to believe that this means anything at all for the humanities. This focus on institutions contributes to the first error, as the state funds universities and has a reciprocal right to demand some kind of measurable return. No, we speak here of an activity, not of an institution. The real question is: of the various forms of human inquiry, why should anyone pursue the study of the humanities, at home, at work or in school? The real strategy here must therefore be to classify human inquiry, to draw a kind of map of all of the things that happen when a human being investigates anything. With that in place, we could then see where the various fields of the humanities fit, and how their value might be measured against different forms of inquiry. Many kinds of maps might be drawn, but a good one must have two features. First, it must remain as general as possible so as to capture all forms of inquiry. Second, it must be value-neutral, so as to not presume (right off the bat) an answer to the very question we are posing. I propose to classify inquiry by what it aims to study and how it aims to study it: by object and by method. I propose that two very general types of objects may be studied: the normative and the factual. This, of course, is no dichotomy, but rather a simple distinction, one which is very familiar to us. We may ask questions about what to believe, or we may ask questions about what to value, desire, or take as action-guiding. Furthermore, there seem to be two very general and distinct methods of inquiry. The objective method seeks to distance itself, as much as possible, from the local perspectives of individual inquirers. Thus a scientist may use all manner of means (instruments, repetition, consultation with others, reference to well-established theory) to correct any biases or errors in his conclusions and observations. The personal method, on the other hand, takes the particular perspective of the inquirer to be of paramount importance. Questions about the character of one's subjective experience are, under this method, answered by that experience and by the individual subject's characterization of it. The question of how a particular object looks to me or about how a particular ethical choice feels to me are, under this method, questions only I can answer. Finally, and most importantly, these are aims of inquiry. I make no claims as to whether any field successfully accesses its object of study, nor do I necessarily claim that either the objective or the personal method is correct or successful. It is simply not necessary to answer these questions, and they would import metaphysical and normative views that we cannot build in at this point in the game. These are (I hope) natural and intuitive ways of classifying what inquiry looks like. ( Here, then, is my map. ) (12 Comments |Comment on this)
virum	2:32a	When The Lights Go Out When The Lights Go Out, originally uploaded by joshuanitschke. (Comment on this)
puf_almighty	12:48a	The first time this happened I was six and it was with the concept "wooly mammoth" You know how sometimes you learn of something, then suddenly it seems to appear everywhere in life? It's like the scriptwriter for your life (let's call her "God" for lack of a better name) just came up with this cool new idea and wanted to start working it in. I know full well the argument that it's always been there, that previously I was just ignoring evidences of it or writing it off as noise, but now that I know the context for it I'm suddenly perceiving it everywhere. But no, no. I'm scientific enough. I'm going to say that the scriptwriter for my life has just invented the Kon-Tiki raft expedition for my amusement, and is now populating the rest of my universe with it too. And if you tell me I'm wrong I shall ignore you. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 25th, 2009
puf_almighty	8:57a	Parkour Oh speaking of enjoying life, let me say the best thing I've done recently- I ran six blocks across downtown Austin! I've never been able to run before, but now that I'm vegetarian and smaller, I've got so much more energy and endurance than I've ever had. I know running six blocks isn't a great feat for normal people, but I loved it! I had to do it to keep up with Aley on his bike. Walking was getting boring. At the end there was a fire escape, so I climbed up it. I ran up the wall and jumped off and grabbed the ladder, like Jackie Chan, and pulled myself up. I have NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DO SHIT LIKE THIS BEFORE. I feel like superman. The enduring feeling is "Wheee!" :) Current Music: Sublime- Summertime (Comment on this)
puf_almighty	8:51a	Apex Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. _One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no additional mission which would lead it beyond human life. Rather, it is human, and only its possessor and begetter takes it so solemnly-as though the world's axis turned within it. But if we could communicate with the gnat, we would learn that he likewise flies through the air with the same solemnity, that he feels the flying center of the universe within himself. There is nothing so reprehensible and unimportant in nature that it would not immediately swell up like a balloon at the slightest puff of this power of knowing. And just as every porter wants to have an admirer, so even the proudest of men, the philosopher, supposes that he sees on all sides the eyes of the universe telescopically focused upon his action and thought. - Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth And Lies In A Nonmoral Sense (1873) Ay dawg, yo name sounds like somethin you can buy at a Texas State Fair (cuz it's fried, get it?) Reminds me of a discussion I was having with Aley yesterday. We were talking about whether or not we were wasting our lives, or whether they were well spent. I started talking about how in order for us to be sitting there eating nice food in a nice place with nice music playing, off a menu that says "3" or "11" or "25" instead of "3.95" and "6.75", and drinking tea from around the world, there had to be a whole world of people farming, driving, preparing- people of a lower socioeconomic class than us. Aley's a citizen of three countries, so he's full aware of his status as a citizen of the world. I was born into labor strikes and blues music, so I growl and struggle against my ascending class status. I don't ever wanna forget what it's like, and the hell I'll let my children be yuppies (Man, I remember during AmeriCorps, my restaurants said "1.95" and "4.99"). But we're both aware that we're towards the apex of the world in this regard- how much has to go on for us to be here, having conversations about the meaning of life while working politics on Christmas Eve. And I went on- every apex predator is this way, dependent on a huge and expansive biomass under them (Humans, dried, would comprise about 100 million tons of earth's biomass. Total biomass production per year for the planet at the plant level is like 105 billion tons. And in a third way, you can see our entire lives as dependent on a huge and inconceivable span of time, in which this flicker of my consciousness could exist. That this moment of awareness is dependent on 14 billion years before my existence, and an undefinable amount of years after my existence (in which I will never dance, or cry, or breathe again). And in a fourth way, you can see that among humans, there is a minority that we find memorable enough- Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan- to talk about thousands of years later. So that all the teeming mass of humanity had to live and die in passion for us to remember just a few. And think of how every one of their lives was just as rich and full as the Great Men. Not one moment was wasted, but we're only aware of a few. And in a fifth way, our own lives: so much of them is spent sleeping, and pooping, and showering, and trimming toenails, and cutting hair, and walking from here to there. So much of them is spent in the ordinary boring ol' day to day things, but what we actually talk about is five or ten interesting minutes. I think that when I ask, "am I wasting my life?" that question is easy to answer. I say, if I died right now, looking back, which parts of my life would have been wasted, and which parts would I have been proud of? And it's time spent with friends, whether my new Austin cool intellectual type friends, or my old dorky video games and D&D friends (honest to god I wish I could meet more creative dorks in Austin. All I've met in those circles thus far were geeks :( ). Time spent reading, times when I went outside and saw something amazing in nature, times teaching children, times playing with dogs, moments crying and wracked with pain, moments gritting my teeth against the temptation to quit, moments winning and moments losing. But it's not the moments when I got honors, or laurel wreaths, or when I got promoted, or when I graduated, or when I got laid several times with several women, or when I won a fight. It's like these moments, rather than being valuable in themselves, are just relief from the pressure or sickness of ego and pride. They're not moments at the top, rather, they're moments gasping for air from the suffocating feeling of inadequacy. "Life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after fame is oblivion." "Perfection of character consists in this; living each day as if it were the last, and spending each moment in peace." - Marcus Aurelius So why feel inadequate? In 14 billion years, I get 70, so isn't every breath precious, even the ones trimming my toenails? Isn't my very existence a rare and beautiful thing? So why waste my life chasing the things that, in hindsight, I don't care about? I know what I value and enjoy. "And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not." - Soren Kierkegaard, "The Sickness Unto Death" To spend each moment in peace, like the dude says, you have to learn how to love and enjoy every moment. Failure or success, pride or shame, pain or pleasure. Just like every peasant is just as precious and rare as Caesar, every moment is just as precious and rare as every other. It's all the apex of existence. "Gratitude is an action." -Anonymous Current Music: Motley Crue- Saints Of Los Angeles (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
virum	4:12p	Instant Film Fun The Elegant Neck, originally uploaded by joshuanitschke. (Comment on this)