The insidious black

1:19 AM, and the moon still treads its steady path. This is not the end, this is just a beginning. Seeking is not itself the answer, but a means to finding it. The answer, as much as it can be culled down to a singularity, lies in everything. It is all around us. It is the fight and the flight, the terror and the horror, the sorrow and the sadness, the rumination and the remembering, the elation and the expectation. The answer lies in the finding, not the seeking. Seeking is an action, not a place to dwell. These abstract notions put together in words make a kind of sense, but it is not the real sense. The real sense is the real. In the experiential we find the present and eternity. All abstractions or generalizations of this real are fabrication, tools implemented to hide and comfort. With that concealing and congenial order they appear to impart, there is some violence done to the original. There is an order, but it does not reside in numbers or figures on paper. It is an ebb and a flow, a natural state of bliss that can be achieved through the real. That is where we belong, and where we keep ourselves from, for fear of the unknown.

---

I want to print this on paper for the aesthetics of it. Standardized serifs litter a page, giving a feeling of righteousness. The page was blank, but it has been imparted with meaning, or perhaps it has shown forth its latent meaning. The Platonic recollection is a kind of image, letting us move tectonic plates in our remembering--the process of discovery. The cover has been undone, and what is remains. It's very abstract and philosophical, this pursuit of the Real and other capitalized nouns, but it is also a concrete and practical occupation. We cannot pretend not to live with our minds, and we (or at least I) can only hope not to live in them. So (as much as I can use "ergo"-style rhetoric in this mush of a logic) the finding is a visceral, earthly adventure. It is rocky and rough, and we cannot pass over this trail without our feet bleeding and our bones breaking. This universe is not a syllogistic one. We exist through connection, and the one thing with which to connect is the real.

---

I don't want to overthink all this shit. I mean, really. We're all here, so what. We might as well enjoy ourselves. I read about people saying that you can't really be a writer unless it's necessary for you to write. You can't not do it. You do it in your free time whether you're getting paid or not, and not always for enjoyment. It's a way of life, an obsession, a ceaseless mantra striking the drums in your head even as you obey and scrawl your yarn. Do I have that obsession? I must be talking less formally in this paragraph, because I'm using more contractions and speaking in the first person. I must have written this a few weeks ago, because it sounds familiar to me--the beauty lies in the act of translation. It's true that we can't transport the abstract into the concrete, we can't really codify an experience. But the beauty is in the experience of creating that approximation, that translation. If it is a good translation, it may stir up some of the same untranslatable sensations in a receiver (reader, listener, viewer, etc). For me, is it that aspect of connecting with what IS and translating it what I want to do? It's not about the result, and I don't know that it ever has been. It's about the experience of approximating. It's exploring those pieces that you never would have seen unless you had to dig through and find the right little structures to attach things to. The right words, notes, images, whatever. This is very philosophical and I know there's at least an aspect of my rotational mind (the new moniker for my mortal enemy) in it. But that's just it--it's another aspect of the appeal of this...whatever you want to call it. This experience, this art, this mantra, this painfully unavoidable way of living. Maybe it's the only way to really live, at least for me. But the rational aspect of it, the exercise of creating structures from nothing, of the information coursing through, of the aesthetics of the technical, also resides in this space for me. It is enjoyable to do meta-art and consider what it is to create, to translate into a communicable medium. What is more artistic than art about art? (Concluding rhetorical question for effect.)

I'm escaping into the mind palace again, leaving behind the anger-rage that was at the beginning of the last page. I'm rebuilding my bubble. It's overtaking me again. My mind is OK with these last paragraphs because they're safe. They're rational. "It's alright, that's why you like this stuff! You can do this, as long as you come back to this place and check in frequently." Curse my rotational mind. Damn it to hell and let it burn. It has given me nothing but pain. It is a block that keeps me from the real. Sure, it's undoubtedly keeping me alive in a lot of ways (I'm still paying my bills, for now), but it. is. not. real. It shouldn't take a Jill Bolte Taylor kind of episode to connect with what is.

This kind of writing is similar in form to writing I've done in the past. I feel bad, angsty, malignant, dulled, crushed. So I write. Partially to indulge myself in the feeling and entice it to stay, but also to encourage it to leave and let me go back to my distracted life. To my web-surfing, book-hoarding-but-not-reading, amassing information for some unknown, abstract reason. I hope that this writing is a little bit different though. The goal is not just to entice the angst to stay, but with the goal of using it to propel me into connection. To the real.

An intersection

Tonight I walked through an intersection
Green one way, red the other
Right through the middle I walked
No cars anywhere in sight
How silly these intersections seem
When the night is empty
And the bustle has been eroded
Are we in such a hurry?
Intent on being rather than becoming
We don't even notice
The near-full moon overhead
Everything up to this moment was a sham
A hasty rush leading only to there
I lament and shake with remorse
For how silly it was and is
And yet it was and is needed
The intersection was constructed
The unnoticed journey still brought us here
And to realize how silly we've been
It only took a moment of stillness

But for you

I am not very transparent
Visionary filled with wandering
Besieged by hidden thoughts
Unknown to their holder.
Haunting each moment
A dusting of fate
The unacceptable is necessary
And becomes acceptable as need.
Consumed by ragelust
Crushing what is with could be
Embalm the old self and renew
Words appear with ease.
Coming to know
The torrents of fire
How strange it is to plumb
The lake that is your home.
You are the crane
Nimbly crossing over
Helping me see
Finding the depths.
That you are here
Fate becomes apparent
Without that reason
Now becomes a hurdle.
I would take back
Control would rule
Messages be unheard
But for you.

Customize OS X Paste and Match Style Shortcut

Mac users, you can customize the shortcut for the "Paste and Match Style" command, meaning you won't get one more 16pt Verdana sentence pasted into your 12pt Palatino essay.

Just navigate to the keyboard screen in System Preferences (above), click the little plus button beneath the list, enter the name in the field exactly as shown, push the shortcut you'd like, and click add.

(via Rocket Science)

Inputting Equations in Pages

It's a pain to enter equations in Pages on a Mac. You can get them to look somewhat right by just entering the text, but there are things you can't do, like insert a vector arrow above a given character. For some simple equations, using Grapher will get the job done, but only for equations that you'd want to graph, so your options are pretty limited.

So what is to do be done? I didn't want to install LibreOffice just to use its equation editor, and the equation editor in Microsoft Office didn't sound much better. Enter the Daum Equation Editor, available on the Mac App Store. You can enter just about any mathematical symbol you can think of, and it looks great in the app. The only problem comes in its export options: It can only export to PNG. This means that when you drop that image into a Pages document, it looks pretty fuzzy, and doesn't scale well.

Not acceptable.

It turns out that Daum is just a GUI for the TeX document formatting system, and as Daum shows the raw TeX syntax for the equation entered (see screenshot below), I figured I could paste that into a true TeX editor, and get much higher quality output. And I was right. That editor is LaTeXiT.

So here is what you need to do:

1. Get the Daum Equation Editor on the Mac App Store for free.
2. Download MacTex (2.1 GB, unfortunately) and install it.
3. Once TeX is installed, open LaTeXiT in /Applications/TeX/.
4. Open Daum Equation Editor.

Now, enter the equation using Daum's interface. 

Copy the code you see in the bottom of the window (if it's hidden, click the blue "TeX" button), and paste it into LaTeXiT.

Once you click "LaTeX it!" you should see your equation magically appear in fully-scalable SVG quality. Drag and drop your rendered equation into your document, and scale to your heart's content.

If you have problems with a symbol not being found, check the preamble within LaTeXiT to make sure the package that contains the symbol you want to use is being included. I was trying to insert a surface integral sign into my equation, but it was throwing an "undefined control sequence" error because it couldn't find the symbol. After I inserted a statement to include the "mathabx" package, it worked just fine.

And this isn't limited to Pages! You should be able to drag and drop the PDF SVG generated by LaTeXiT into any word processor on a Mac, including Microsoft Word. Happy equation-ing!

The Faraday Copter

Faraday meets Tesla. Plus a quadrocopter. What could be better?

(via O'Reilly Radar)

New Anti?-Piracy System

The so-called Center for Copyright Information began rolling out a new anti-piracy system this week, and they are taking an interesting approach: They are aiming to educate consumers, rather than punish them. If you get caught trafficking in copyrighted material, they will send you alerts in a sort of "three-strike" system. If you ignore these alerts, ISPs apparently have the right to throttle your bandwidth or block certain websites.

It seems to be a commendable effort, but I have little faith in its efficacy. If providers don't make their content available in alternative formats, things like Game of Thrones being the most-pirated show of 2012 will just keep happening.

Here is what seems to be a good synopsis of this new development in the online music industry:

If You’re Still Mass-Pirating Music, Expect a Letter From Your ISP

Morning

The sun rises, and everything is good.

Sweat

I loved that feeling of being on top of the mountain, sweating under all the layers, squinting in the sun, relishing in nothing but what was around and how it made, nay, makes me feel. The soreness and fatigue were part of the wonderful discount-package-deal, and weren’t unpleasant at all. THAT was/is what LIVING IS. The unabashed, simple but not trivial, full enjoyment of who and where I am.

My homework isn’t done, and won’t be, but that’s fine. I am conscious that I am a judgmental person, and I am working on it. I enjoy Nutella. I am getting fit, and want to become and stay more so. The only boundaries I have are the ones I set for myself.

What am I doing at St. John’s? Searching for knowledge. There is an infinite number of things I can learn from the absolutely incredible minds that created the works I am studying. But more important than this, I am searching for myself. It’s a not a one-time find, but a slow progression. The next step, and really the only step, is to forget the progression, the kind of 12-step program, of development. Just go. Just go. Just GO.

How much can I do? I don’t know yet. I haven’t even set the bar very high for myself at this point. Most things I’ve done thus far has challenged me in some way, but nothing has been truly hard. I must confront the impossible distance, force the incomprehensible into the light. I have to bend the wild to my will.

Or rather, I must let the wild be my will.

Sleeping in New Places

The pure exponential force would probably implode a lot of things, but that’s beside the point.

It would be there.

The map may fold out, and you’ll never get it back the same way it was, but you’re probably pretty jaded to that kind of thing by now. It takes longer for the gloss to wear away, so you will still have that. Enjoy it while you can. Eventually you’ll become jaded to that as well.

But the important thing is not which way the seams go, or how shiny the gloss is. The points on the map, especially the well-worn ones, are the most interesting. Some may be circled in pen, others may have large XXs through them, and arrows may point from one to another via a different route than you would expect. The routes are something else entirely. Highlights are valuable neon yellow and blue stripes across a beige topographical spectrum, showing where you have been or plan to go. Whether you’ve been or will be there, the important part is that you know that’s what you want.

And now I must dispense with the poetic vagueries, because although I do have a physical map that I just acquired, it is entirely unmarked and therefore not yet valuable. Beyond that, it only covers the immediate geographical around my current residence. It has worth in that it has potential, but I have not imbued it with my own, personal value. Anyway, I choose to caulk the wagon and ford the river, so we move on to specifics.

I often think about being aware, conscious, in-touch, perceptive, and many other synonyms of that ilk, and thus I sometimes write about it. I am learning what this awareness is, and it is not so much about finding the definition of “aware,” but about learning what learning is. I can foresee myself looking back on my current perspective with distaste for my naiveté, but that is the beauty of growing. Learning is not reading or hearing somebody else’s thoughts, but experiencing everything for yourself. And that experiencing is not a one-time, instantaneous checkbox to mark, but more of a process that takes time. Sometimes it takes a lot of time.

I have been working full-time this summer, which is a good thing, because I now may be able to do some things I’ve wanted to for a long time. However, I would be hard-pressed to say that my job is the most fulfilling thing on the planet. The work isn’t bad by any means, and the people are great, but it is not something I want to be doing my entire life, for example. I now know for a fact that I must be doing something I find meaningful and important. It doesn’t matter how much money I am making, or how great the perks are. If I am making 7 cents per hour on a farm in Peru, and I’m happy, then that is the right place. Alright, so Peru might be quite a nice destination, and I want to go there anyway, so maybe it’s not the greatest example for a terrible-yet-wonderful job, but you get my gist.

It all boils down to the fact that I’m slowly learning (see definition above): NOTHING MATTERS. Now, I don’t mean that in a nihilistic or pessimistic way at all, but I also don’t mean it in an overly optimistic way. I don’t harbor disdain for all emotion or disregard the fact that “life is lumpy,” and sometimes the punches you have to roll with really hurt. It’s not that nothing has value and so doesn’t matter, but rather that everything will always be OK. Many things have incredible value, but even if they're lost, you’re fine. Sure, some errors could be more detrimental than others (I’m just conjecturing now, I hope you know), but you will recover.

Aristotle says there is only “now,” and “time” is just a system we members of mankind have created to keep track of this perpetual now-ness streaming out behind us. Or at least he said something like that. If you understood Physics better than I, enlightenment would be greatly appreciated. And as Thich Nhat Hahn knows so well, the only place you can exist is the present. Because the past is gone and the future is nothing to fear, it would be best to live where you exist.

The point is, live in the present. It’s the best way to be.

I seem to have reverted to the non-specific “you,” but I am still talking about things I am learning. Living in the present doesn’t mean I shouldn’t think about my future, just that I shouldn’t worry about it. David Allen knows not to worry about things he can’t do anything about right now, and he seems to have his life under control. The future not something to dwell on, nor is the past. In some sense the past brought you to where you are now, but it certainly doesn’t define where you are now. I am finding that I can’t let old conceptions I have of people (or conceptions I think people may have of me) instruct how we interact now, because that was then and this is distinctly now. I am not who I was then, and neither are they. You, it, we, and they all exist purely in the present moment.

That moment that is the present is just dying to be savored. Literally, each second is dying, being relegated to the netherworld of the past, never to be seen again. All we can do is pay it the attention it deserves, which is really just paying ourselves the attention we deserve. It is only through being mindful that we can grow. Growing does not mean moving on or leaving behind, it simply means finding what we are and what we seek to be with each breath.

That breath is quite a rush.

Read Some

Freedom

Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be

Sigh No More
Mumford and Sons

Contradict

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Song of Myself
Walt Whitman

Ἐνεργεία, or Being-At-Work

Life is thoroughly confusing. There is so much to do, and yet breaks must be taken. Relaxation is necessary for activity. Aristotle knew.

I'm incredibly busy. Between being embroiled with Sweeney Todd (un-italicized so as to preserve the ambiguity of discussing either the show or the character), writing a paper on Nicomachean Ethics, doing the normal load of St. John's homework, and working part-time at the art gallery, I haven't exactly had much time for leisure. No worries, though, as it will all be over soon.

Stress is directly linked to health (as I learned last year), and I have been improving on that front. I may have a lot on my plate, but it's still not worth it to be worrying about things when I am not or can't work on them. I have avoided becoming ill this entire semester, which in my current situation is a feat (no jinxes, please).

Working through Aristotle, Plato, Lucretius, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Homer, and other authors of their ilk is really giving me perspective on the levels of achievement possible. Not only did all these guys think for a good long while about stuff, but they are still conveying those ideas to us in an interesting and engaging way thousands of years later. Not only their original words, but the translators we are reading are taking the ideas and literally re-forming them into a new language we can understand. Joe Sachs may be my new hero. The power and immortality of the written word occupies my thoughts more and more often.

On a less philosophical level, I am wondering about my choice to stay here in Santa Fe this summer. I'll be working full-time, which means income (which hopefully means a digital SLR in my future), but I won't be at home. It's all just life, and the only thing constant is change, so I can't fight it. They say home is where you hang your hat, or where your heart is, or something like that, but it doesn't feel like I can so easily change my definition. I have my better-than-ideal home situation, my family, and at least a part of me will always consider that home. Nonetheless, I must first take a step forward to be able to really decide if I want to stay put. I'll go on the Oregon Trail, see the Pacific, and then decide if I want to return to the East. Hopefully I won't die of dysentery on the way.

I am making good friends here, but more importantly, I am becoming self-sufficient. Like James Redfield says in The Celestine Prophecy, people are always looking for the other half to complete their circle, but they don't realize that they must first complete their own circle, and then they can join it with another full circle. Though, looking back on that book, it has much less weight than it did when I first read it, if any, so I'll take whatever it says with a big grain of salt. Like the kind a horse licks. A horse-lick of salt, you could say. A salty horse-lick. A licky horse-salt. Yes.

Free and wanton and enigmatic and perverse and infatuated and scared and confused and ecstatic and fulfilled and desirous and prepossessed.

Nothing like nice series of adjectives to sum up an evening.

On The Nature Of Things

Apply your mind now, hear the truth of reason!
A new fact fights to clear its way, to accost you
And show you a new aspect of the world.
Nothing's so very easy to believe
Which at first does not seem incredible;
So too nothing's so great or wondrous, whose
Wonder will not diminish, little by little.
The purity and brilliance of the sky–
Observe it first, and all that it encloses,
The planets that veer, the moon, the splendor of sunlight–
If all these, out of the blue, now hurled themselves
For the first time before our human sight,
What could be called more wonderful than they?
What would we less have dared to prophesy?
Nothing. We'd have beheld this sky with awe.
Now no one even deigns to lift his eyes
To the light-filled temples of heaven, so stuffed, so weary
We are with its sight. Leave, then, this terror of mere
Novelty, cease to spit up the truth, but rather
Weigh with a keener judgment; if it seems true,
Surrender; if false, strap on your armor against it.
For the mind seeks to know: if boundless space
Stretches beyond the battlements of the world,
What lies at last where thought desires to glimpse,
Where the hurl of the mind soars far at liberty?

On The Nature Of Things, II.1025-1045 – Lucretius, Esolen translation

Currently

At this distinct moment in time, powered by donuts, coffee, and copious amounts of to-read literature, all I really want to do is a moment-by-moment, perfect, immaculate real-life recreation of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I would obviously play the part of Cameron. I just need, khakis, the shirt, and loafers. I already have the suspenders and swagger. I also need to fill all the other characters, but I have enough people in my life who have attained a sufficiently high level of awesome that could more than suffice.

Who would you be? Ferris, or Rooney?

TRON XTENDED

Oh how I want this.

Journey

Keeping aware is hard. There are approximately 700,000 things happening this very second, if not more. How in the world can I keep track of them? I can’t. I can fess up to that right now. So there. Done.

I have this ideal image of a machine, a brilliant mechanism of spectacular technical capabilities. Taking in and putting out clear, clean, precise information in an easy, efficient manner. Little bits of knowledge on a crystal-fragment series of conveyor belts, never being misplaced or forgotten for a second.

We’re all on this perpetual, mandatory journey. All the street signs glare at us, giving so many options. Sometimes opportunities, sometimes distractions, sometimes disappointments. We sleep, we drive cars, we play baseball, we write novels, we go swimming, we screw in lightbulbs. Infinitely intricate simplicity.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m going nonetheless. I’m learning to simplify, to appreciate, to love. I’m learning.

Streetlights above, I strive.

11-02-2011

Sometimes I just want to get these clear, wonderful objects out of my head and onto the page, but I know they will never be the same. Great as they are at helping me experience the world, my fingers are not very good at communicating. Nor is my voice. Everything tries, and everything struggles.

It’s like these little bits of light that bounce around inside my head, orbiting around the various gravity centers of my brain, all searching for meaning and purpose. But that’s really just the big, corporate monolith Conscience talking. The lights aren’t looking for anything, because they just are. And that’s what I want them to be. The communication conveyor belt is still routed through the corporate underground, and management isn’t always happy with me, so the lights come out a bit fragmented and significantly dimmed.

Sometimes, late at night, or in a warm shower, I think. The beams shine around and illuminate incredible, vast landscapes filled to the nth degree with intricate detail. Vagueries and inconsistent comprehensions flub out onto aural and visual pathways, but they get run over by the cross traffic in the process. I see, hear, and feel so much, but it’s all stuck inside. I can try to share the picture, and a muffled version might escape, but the resulting image will be a whole new panorama.

Iridescent thoughts and indefinable mental creations. Incommunicable. Who knew this gray matter in my head was so enigmatic?

I wish you could see it. I’ll keep practicing. Maybe someday you will.

Maybe someday you will.

The King's Speech

This is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. See it.