Exploration of perspective.

whitney music box var. 0 – chromatic – 48 tines

I’m not sure what the full use of this is yet, but I like it anyway.

PS: A prison gang just did a running drill past my house. Kinda scary.

I just finished Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises“. I probably shouldn’t have read it. I did simply for the feat of having Hemingway in my head somewhere. At the same time, it’s a modernist piece that reminds me a lot of “Catcher in the Rye” in terms of tone. Maybe a little lighter, but similar.

However, now I’m wishing I had a group of literary friends who sat around, got drunk in interesting places and had bizarre conversations about this or that arbitrary merit – while we all compared progress on artistic endeavors. Manchester, NH isn’t the place for something like that I guess. At least not that I’ve seen so far.

In the meantime, I have to chose my next book. I’ve a couple already begun, and there’s always my Girard books to read… but I’m thinking of finding something different. I always say that. “I want to read something I wouldn’t normally read.” Hemingway was something out of the ordinary. As is the Book of Mormon (something I’m not a big fan of). Maybe I’ll just finish off some of the books I’ve already started.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who claimed to be searching for some sort of answer. Our conversation revolved around where did we come from (because of the up front conclusion that the Bible is bunk) so the answer supposedly being sought was also involving cosmology.

What I encountered was the firm belief that this individual was operating with an open mind, and thought only closed minds accepted what they read or were taught.

I don’t think I argued this properly or clearly enough, but what I was trying to get at with her was that you can’t say you are working with an open mind and then say you won’t accept any systematized truth as being the answer. If you do this you are working with as many artificial rules and boundaries as those who seem to buy into that “false” sense of truth. The way I’m perceiving this situation – if truth presented itself, no matter the form, this open-minded person wouldn’t accept it. The “doubt everything” perspective seems to look like a genuinely inquisitive and searching point of view, but in fact it is as blind as someone following an incorrect teaching.

(messed up graphic but it works for now)

I am not arguing for any particular cosmology at the moment, but I want to argue that when one has an open mind, they cannot rule out anything until they have rigorously determined that falsehood… and even then they have to be open to the fact they might have been wrong in their estimate.

I want to know how to inoculate a mind (my own included) against the arrogant self-interest of thinking that I will know truth when I see it yet not have to analyze a thing. A simple question can be useful to test if one is convinced of their own ideas, which is fine. But if one thinks that those simple twisting questions will determine for themselves the truth, I just don’t see much success for them.

Wired News: The Game of Art

Just read the article and you’ll know why I like it. Well, so long as you know me to some extent.

Tombs Found in Syria Hold Riches, Signs of Ritual Sacrifice

This is interesting, especially in reference to my last post re: Rene Girard’s theories. The view of why people would bury their rulers in the middle of the city is what I am most interested in (page 2).

Colloquium on Violence and Religion

I should have posted this a while ago. I’ve attended once, and would love to be able to attend the upcoming Europe conference. The thing about this stuff though, it’s hard to grasp. But once you get it, it’s so simple and so blatant. It’s everywhere between everyone. Rene Girard is an amazing thinker, who has brought together some very disparate threads of discipline and made an amazing body of theory out of it. Read up if you want, or ask me for suggestions.

Communist Robot – Where do you stand on the future?

Simply amazing.

Meeting Your Expectations | Cosmic Variance

The results of this study won’t surprise many people. The idea of people living up to expectations whether they be good or bad isn’t very new. But it did get me thinking about this upcoming job I might have. I know that most of what I do will be trying to impart skills into students at various levels. However, how much of an impact can expectations and the perception of expectations influence that transfer of aptitude?

What I’m wondering is how to best use this information to provide a positive expectation environment without inducing a false sense of self-confidence. I’ll be thinking about this for a while I’m sure.

In an hour I walk nearly to where I always walk for work. A mere two blocks away actually. There I will go into the smallish brick building behind the public library and sit down with three administrators to see if I get this tutor job. Unfortunately it means I have to be late for my other job, but in the big picture (which I must remind myself to keep looking at) being a cook is a temporary, fleeting situation. That’s not what I’m supposed to be doing, it’s what I have to do. Tutoring is something I’ve been into for a long time, and it puts me close to teaching (whether or not I end up doing that is another question).

With this job, I think I’ve got a really good hand of cards to play with. My experiences and background consistently points towards my hire as a good thing. Not only that, but I have a range of contacts that have already told me they are willing to help me with the various processes that I would be dealing with in regards to the development of a Student Resource Center.

My only concern right now is that they are going to want to think about it some more after this meeting, which would ruin my time-table for leaving or at the very least cutting back at Margs. I’ve already told the GM, so it’s not completely unfair to them… plus they just got a new guy.

If only I didn’t have this minor head cold.

Always leaving. Always en route. Always arriving.

Those are the three major ways it seems we can see ourselves. Or, not *the* but rather a monad foundation for a particular perspective I enjoy using. I’ve writen about these in my little notebooks, but never on this blog.

[leaving] We can be always leaving the past behind, looking retrospectively at our entirety. We learn a lot this way, every experience is a lesson in living. The possibilities are laid out and what-if games rule the day. Yet those lessons are largely lost. If we live in the past, when will we reap the benefits of all those experiences? That’s the drawback. We won’t. You can never do something about what you don’t see coming. If we are always leaving, we are victims of the future.

[en route] Or we can be always in the now. Life is some amazing journey that is sweeping us along. Everything is fleeting and impermenent. At the same time, history is imaginary and the future will come when it comes. The current moment is all that exists and we should live it to the fullest. If we are en route, we are victims of the future.

[arriving] Here everything is always new. The world is an exciting place that carries with it a staggering sense of awe and majesty. Unfortunately, the past has no weight except that it is gone. If we are always arriving, we are victims of the future.

Perhaps you noticed. The singular use of any of these perspectives is of no direct use. All of them have the property of blinding us to taking control of our own life and making something of what we know. That is why they are all part of the same monadic set. This means that they all have to work together. I am always leaving/en route/arriving essentially. It’s a little odd, partially because it instates a liminal state always while also claiming to have a fixed position. (Odd. I’m reminded of Zeno’s paradox in some way as I go over this. That and some three faced Hindu god waving goodbye, hello, and holding a walking stick at the same time.)