WoW

I don't remember much of what I've written down there.

Clever some of it - but was it me?

25 cents, Please

Chopping wood and fetching water does give enlightenment. The world is present.

Waiting for the daily commute gives frustration. Only the human world is present.

The corollary is that a working life doesn't give much chance for enlightenment.

Prisms, Metaphors and Quietness

I've read a bit of Darwin and I've read a bit of Bohr. I've read quite a lot of bits of quite a lot of pieces. But a lotta details are gone. A few isolated peaks (the good bits) are left.

These bits are my credentials for living in the modern paradigm.

But i probably don't understand any of it. Not really. Not any more and not in any depth. And I am well aware, that even these fragments can long ago have been replaced and my threadbare meanings more obsolete than ever.

Like mathematics from school these "peak achievements" have little utility in my lifespace.

More and more I reflect, that reflections blind living in lifespace.

And a Little Fun Too

Flipping around the net I sometimes get wiser - but not always.

I am beginning to think that it is the pictures I love the most. Somehow they talk to me - without all the words and all the hassle of understanding all the words (and then trying to remember 'em).

Knowledge has to be internal before it works. It has to be personal and relevant.

The eye sees it all - immediately - relevance or irrelevance.

I regard my little computer as a scrapbook. I borrow pictures and diary-entries from others. I move around whilst sitting down.

But then I must move my body in the world - because only if knowledge is useful is it useful.

Time Flies

January lasted 3 months, February was like a week.

But I don''t know if time moves (or if it is mindthatismoving).

And sometimes my MIND just sits still - like hitting a lot of red lights in a row. Grrrrrr.....

Or too many tasks one after the other - waiting for me... Blowing my mind like the staccato of a machine gun.

The quality of time is beyond my powers.

The Unpredictability of Human Behaviour

There can be no science of LifeSpace when the set has the size of one.

Patterns are inventions of the mind glossing over the differences. Our tool is the STORY filled with narrative tradition and idiosyncratic style ranging from ghost stories to fairy tales and the cliches of our tribe.

The Disappearance Act of Thought

Let's say that you make an important discovery about the secret of life and it can be said in few words. You write the words the down (all the better to remember with).

You are pleased with yourself - after all you are the owner of a new insight, and it churns around in your head a couple of days. And boy does it explain a lot.

And then you sort of forget it. You read the note and it all comes back. And then you sort of forget it, and you read the note and it doesn't quite mean the same as it did. And it doesn't seem to explain nearly as much as it did.

And then you have completely forgotten all about that, because you are making a new note that explains everything.

And so it goes.

The understanding of LifeSpace disappears. The continuing absence of understanding is bottomless - only an echo reaches the top.

What is Important?

Good question.

Suggestions are welcome...

How about comfort?

I think this word can be stretched to encompass what is and is not important. I don't think I have other suggestions.

Words Are Rubbish

Imagine, if you will, THX rumbling bass and a theatrical voice with trained pauses telling us that there are 1500 volcanoes in the world, we know about. There is danger in the air and under our feet. We can feel it. Now the voice tells us that there is at least one volcano, we don't know about. THX makes it easy to become more anxious about this thing, that is present, which we don't know about.

But how do we know it is present, when we don't know it is present?

A little later a youthful voice tells us, that this is good stuff. It will blow your brains out. "I saw fairies for three days."

I don't want to see fucking fairies.

(With thanx to Infected Mushrooms)

Catching Up

January has been DownTime. The lights have been out.

February has the promise of returning light.

Next year I am going to follow the Sun. (I promise myself this each year - and seem to forget it - until it hits me again.)

So: What have I been thinking about?

A nice thought yesterday was "Starting and Stopping Time". Caught in the traffic we were starting&stopping and flowing all the time. It was effortful and it seemed like a good "equivalent" for this Stuff Called Time.

I hate changing directions. I hate stopping and starting. I hate a lot of tasks waiting for me lined up in the future.

Time should just flow. When time doesn't flow - you (I) get stress.

So the name of the game is LifeStreaming. Just bubbling along without too many goals and stops along the way.

I am still trying to keep my New Year's Resolution: Lift Light. This is not easy. But some of my thoughts along the way have been:

1) Amateur doodling is better than professional tasking.
2) My field is ideas and they decidedly don't have to work on the world. Ideas do not have to move Things. Ideas move ideas.
3) No hurry No pressure - the slogan for a HiFi store gives also purchase in the real world.
4) The Age of Plentitude gives another psychology than Times of
Scarcity. An infinity of ideas obviates the need of being right.
Abundance gives tolerance for Mad Mixes. Criticism is unnecessary -
something better is just a mouseclick away.
5) Projects of Self-Improvement are illusionary in a World of Misery.
6) The world works things out. Chopping firewood, locking my cycle and washing up are OK. Otherwise the world does fine on
its own.
7) An artist works with his own subjectivity. Scientists work in teams. All those Bright Scientists are getting it right. I think I will
get me it wrong.

Not bad for a dark and windy January with Gods own PowerCut.

SAD

Seasonal Affective Disorder is indeed a sad, sad affair. January hits me worst. The smallest hurdle is enough to knock me over. Matchsticks on the road make me groan in the extra effort necessary to lift my foot over them.

Last year it all stopped the first of February. Suddenly I knew it was over. There was enough light so I could breathe, lift my head up and shoulder my burdens. I didn't need to stamp my feet in rage, cry in despair and fall asleep at nine o'clock in the evening.

I use a "light-box" flooding my system with photons. It helps - but not enough.

I watched the light disappear this evening - at around 5 in the afternoon. It was a wonderfully slow process. The branches of trees black i silhouette and this watercolour blue tinged with salmon pink reminding my nervous system of times gone by. I resonate. I resonate and I hope this natural cue is better than my "depression lamp".

Two days from now I hope to be released from my prison.

See yah.