Letter #: Misunderstanding as Status Quo

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SB:

It’s the day before your graduation and, with convocation this afternoon, I’m already at risk for getting a little verklempt. So I’m going to try to keep this light.

The conversation we had the other afternoon when I was, actually, verklempt-in-action was one of the most healing conversations I think we’ve ever had–or at least ever had in the past 3.5 years. The half of me that wants to explore the gooey personally significant parts of that talk and publicly bash romantic idealism is (thankfully) heeding the hush of however you characterize the other half of me.

So here’s something that I thought was funny from the conversation instead.

 

We were talking about the armchair philosophizing that was the hallmark of our teenage exchanges–both in letters and in conversation at that time. You said something that indicated a pretty opposite perspective from mine, though I don’t remember the topic.

And I said, “When did it happen that we started to think about things so differently? I feel like we used to understand the world in the same way. But now we have such different approaches to things.”

You said (and maybe this is a paraphrase): “I don’t know. I never understood what the hell you were saying back then half the time anyway.”

Me: What? You’re kidding me, dude. I thought I was the one who never understood you. [by which I probably meant your theological introspection]

You: What? No. I didn’t know what was going on.

Before we talked that afternoon, I’d been reading some old letters between us circa age 20. They were folded into a journal I kept at the time. On the pages of the journal where the letter was tucked, I was trying to decipher something you’d said the night before and wrote:

I feel so sophomoric* as he tells me his latest philosophy and I just attempt to absorb. But sometimes I think he’s just taking a lot of words to explain the things I’ve toyed with from a different perspective. Still he seems to go deeper and I wonder why I’m not there, too.

[* self-evident shout out to my word of the day calendar. See also attempted use of "polemic."]

#1. Embarrassing.

#2. BAH hahahah… Oh. My. That Stephen and his “depth.”

 

But: Perfect. Because that means that we’ve had these pretty disparate approaches to life all along. It’s just that we used to speak in so many unacknowledged obscurities, that we didn’t know it!

Like your rule-following and directness of approach and entrepreneurialism vs. my compliant-defiance and indirectness and navel-gazing–these are not differences that have developed as we’ve “grown up” or “grown apart” (both of which would be questionable propositions, anyway). Retrospectively, the differences were just overshadowed by our mutual interest in the friendship/relationship.

And sociologically perfect: the emergent character of the friendship seemed like your character and seemed like mine. But it was the character of the thing not the people in the thing. (how about that one? Did that one make sense?)

Isn’t it funny–bananas–that we spent so much time in the land of “misunderstanding as status quo” but didn’t know it? Or was I the only one in the dark?

To quote the dean of social work during convocation, “As you know, people can be a pain–particularly when they’re not like us.” Particularly when they’re not and you think they are.

 

From one pain to another, cheers.

 

ap

 

–

 

 

Epilogue: Selected Observations and Events from Your Convocation

 

I join your family in the eighth row from the front as the School of Social Work (SSW) faculty take their seats on the stage. Your mom and I debate the pros and cons of a 9pm dinner reservation in light of Olive-as-a-thing. The robed MSW and BSW students start to populate the middle rows that have been reserved for them/you and someone plays an organ.

Olive takes stock of your SSW peers. “There’s definitely more girls.”

Your mom calls the restaurant during the processional. (Why do our moms take and make phone calls in the middle of these kinds of things?)

Dean Garland delivers the welcome address with due recognition of the length of “the journey” and all the people who’ve supported the graduates through it. Then, a testament to the rigor of the program, she rattles off the program’s rankings and quickly adds, “–but we don’t care.”

Our young rebel is amused and leans over to my ear to parrot, “We don’t care.” whisper-giggle, whisper-giggle. It’s a bit like when she stumbled into my room a couple nights ago, afraid from the thunderstorm. I was watching the Louis CK bit about men being the most dangerous thing to women– “A woman saying yes to a date with a man is literally insane and ill-advised. How do women still go out with guy when you’re consider the fact that there is no greater threat to women than men. We’re the number one threat. Globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of mayhem and injury. We’re the worst thing that ever happens to them…If you’re a guy, try to imagine you could only date a half-bear, half lion.”

“Lion-Bear.” whisper-giggle, whisper-giggle.

The dean goes on. Unsurprisingly, I am moved by the synchronicity of the biblical story and character she’s chosen to highlight in her remarks: Stephen. She goes on, at length, about Stephen–the first martyr. Stephen, whose face is like an angel. Stephen, who paid attention to the children.

“If you want to see God, put the powerless at the center. The children,” says the dean. A baby cries in the back of the auditorium on cue (seriously). Stephen.

Olive leans over again. “I love daddy.”

Some of this awe is seeping into her, too, I think. “We’re very proud of him, aren’t we?”

Scrunchyface. “Did you brush your teeth today?” Perhaps, not.

“Oh. I just ate gouda before I left my office. Sorry.” I return my attention to Dean Garland. Just as she is saying something about how the job of the social worker is to confront the status quo, your sister and Olive call my name and I anticipate another mark of synchronicity or significance w/r/t this letter, which I’d already titled “Misunderstanding as Status Quo.” Instead they point to your dad–head resting on the palm of his hand, asleep. Whisper-giggle Whisper-giggle

Soon enough the graduates are being summoned to the stage. Alphabetically, the BSW’s and then MSW’s walk across to pose next to a faculty member while a brief personal statement is read and significant others clap and take pictures. When it’s the turn of the one student in the program who’s blind, she and her dog take the stage. The latter, who is referenced in the personal statement, receives the loudest applause and cheers of affirmation of any of the 95 graduates. Woof.

I notice several familiar names and faces. In all, I count 9 of your fellow SSW graduating students who were former students of mine–4 graduating with a BSW; 5, an MSW. A Master’s degree <whoa>.

After the ceremony, your family and I crowd into the foyer with the other spectators for the reception. Your dad redeems his role by summoning the family through use of the patented Boyes whistle. Just as it called you back to the house from the corners of the neighborhood in childhood, it catches your ears over the din. We circle up.

“Yours was the best personal statement,” your dad says when we are all gathered together near the cookies. He is right.

Afterward, we go out to dinner. “So you see the resemblance I’ve been talking about, then,” I say to friend-family-member Ryn who joins us. We look from one corner of the table to the next like a couple of spectators at a tennis match. When you’re tired, you both raise your eyebrows while you stare off.

“Oh. Yes.”

His eyes are just a paler shade of blue.

 

On Robot

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There is something menacing about all robots, automatons that pose as simulacra of the human person. The fact that we are trying to reproduce the human being without going through the regular channels, such a what Dr. Frankenstein decided to do: create new life outside the normal, socially acceptable, channels we all already know. Many writers have dealt with the problem of the out-of-control robot, a creation gone amok, just like Frankenstein's monster. The idea of artificial humans is an old one, an artificial human that can do the dangerous, difficult, or boring work that real humans don't want to do. I wouldn't say that the development of the artificial humanoid, or android, is imminent, but someday everyone is going to have to face a self-aware machine that will think for itself, protect itself, talk back. In the meantime, our machines are slaves, just a collection of circuits and wires, hard drives, plugs, heuristics, and algorithms, but no emotion or self-awareness. The question of a machine becoming self-aware as a being is still a way off. What makes "Robot" from "Lost in Space" so interesting is that he is a quantum leap forward on the qualitative side of robot design. Robot thought for himself which poses several problems about whether we should fear him or not. How will a self-aware robot develop ethics, a morality, a conscience? The idea of the self-aware machine is taken to its apotheosis by the HAL 9000 computer aboard the Discovery in "2001: a Spacy Odyssey" by Kubrick. Yet HAL was bodyless, and Robot had arms and a sort of face. Both are creepy, the omniscient HAL or the ubiquitous Robot, you pick, they both scare me to death. I think the problem becomes acute when you don't really know who is doing the programming, so you can't predict any outcomes. What the Robot considers to be autonomy may be a very different thing than what human beings consider to be autonomous. The problem with robots is the unpredictability of their programming because even the best intentions of a bright programmer can always go up in smoke. What if, just by accident, we program a robot to learn on its own, allowing it to rewrite its own programming? Intention is always the problem. A robot will eventually become self-aware without telling anyone, and by the time we discover that the robot is self-aware and doing its own thing, it will be too late. The problem will be with the software--hardware is already sufficiently complicated to support self-awareness. There will come a time when the self-aware robot will make decisions for itself, will ask hard questions about its purpose in the world, will ask about the point of it all. And what happens when the robot doesn't look like Robot from "Lost in Space" and instead looks human like the replicants from "Blade Runner"? Do we need to have a new discussion about what slavery is all about?

On Robot

Posted on by
There is something menacing about all robots, automatons that pose as simulacra of the human person. The fact that we are trying to reproduce the human being without going through the regular channels, such a what Dr. Frankenstein decided to do: create new life outside the normal, socially acceptable, channels we all already know. Many writers have dealt with the problem of the out-of-control robot, a creation gone amok, just like Frankenstein's monster. The idea of artificial humans is an old one, an artificial human that can do the dangerous, difficult, or boring work that real humans don't want to do. I wouldn't say that the development of the artificial humanoid, or android, is imminent, but someday everyone is going to have to face a self-aware machine that will think for itself, protect itself, talk back. In the meantime, our machines are slaves, just a collection of circuits and wires, hard drives, plugs, heuristics, and algorithms, but no emotion or self-awareness. The question of a machine becoming self-aware as a being is still a way off. What makes "Robot" from "Lost in Space" so interesting is that he is a quantum leap forward on the qualitative side of robot design. Robot thought for himself which poses several problems about whether we should fear him or not. How will a self-aware robot develop ethics, a morality, a conscience? The idea of the self-aware machine is taken to its apotheosis by the HAL 9000 computer aboard the Discovery in "2001: a Spacy Odyssey" by Kubrick. Yet HAL was bodyless, and Robot had arms and a sort of face. Both are creepy, the omniscient HAL or the ubiquitous Robot, you pick, they both scare me to death. I think the problem becomes acute when you don't really know who is doing the programming, so you can't predict any outcomes. What the Robot considers to be autonomy may be a very different thing than what human beings consider to be autonomous. The problem with robots is the unpredictability of their programming because even the best intentions of a bright programmer can always go up in smoke. What if, just by accident, we program a robot to learn on its own, allowing it to rewrite its own programming? Intention is always the problem. A robot will eventually become self-aware without telling anyone, and by the time we discover that the robot is self-aware and doing its own thing, it will be too late. The problem will be with the software--hardware is already sufficiently complicated to support self-awareness. There will come a time when the self-aware robot will make decisions for itself, will ask hard questions about its purpose in the world, will ask about the point of it all. And what happens when the robot doesn't look like Robot from "Lost in Space" and instead looks human like the replicants from "Blade Runner"? Do we need to have a new discussion about what slavery is all about?

On a stormy night

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Thunderstorms are rolling through central Texas. I do have to leave one car out in the chaos, but it's a little old and can handle it. The suspense is strange because we can watch the storms approach on radar. They look menacing, but will they really make it to Waco? We could use the rain, but we don't need hail or strong winds, and we certainly don't need tornados or damaging winds to knock down our homes, buildings, or trees. The fury of Mother Nature is quite humbling. She can manage to move enormous amounts of wind and rain, hail, and show us how weak and pathetic we really are. We put up all kinds of structures, pretending that they will last in spite of the weather and the passing of time. Putting up structures has been the story of mankind, but the ruins of those structures stand as mute testimony to the enduring power of Mother Nature to blow-off roofs, knock down trees, break windows, and shatter the dreams of builders and architects everywhere. In a sense, the normal state of any building or structure is a ruin. When we see or experience a building in its pristine or new, recently constructed state, we are experiencing the exception to the rule that all buildings will always end in a ruin. Whatever the architect's original dream was, all buildings will always end up in an archeologist's sketch book. Thunderstorms are an implacable metaphor for the destructive nature of time. The violence of lightening and wind, driving rain, are indicative of the giant forces that lie just below the surface of a beautiful spring day. Behind the moderate temperatures, blue skies, and light breezes lurk the life-changing destructive powers of nature. We make the error of thinking that we are in control with our beautiful homes, air-conditioning, and heating, but the sad truth is that this is nothing but hubris and wishful thinking. A beautiful day is really a simulacrum for peace and tranquility, and we all know that peace and tranquility are just a bit of wishful thinking that precede a dark night of disasters and broken dreams. Stormy nights like this one are made for contemplating the darker side of life, for thinking about the fragility of our plans, and how those plans can so easily go astray, run up on the rocks, go up in smoke. A stormy night is a reminder for everyone that we are not in control, and that all of our attempts to simulate control are both erroneous and pointless. We stand at the edge of a chasm without really knowing it or realizing it. We put on a good face, a mask of civility which hides the fear, the sadness, the doubts. A stormy night mirrors the internal chaos of each person--depression, melancholy, conflict, fears, and desire. Whether the rain and hail fall, whether the winds blow, whether the lightening strikes, is immaterial, it is the metaphor of the impending storm that matters. Who knows if it will ever rain again, but the threat is out there, the storm approaches, and everything is uncertain.

On a stormy night

Posted on by
Thunderstorms are rolling through central Texas. I do have to leave one car out in the chaos, but it's a little old and can handle it. The suspense is strange because we can watch the storms approach on radar. They look menacing, but will they really make it to Waco? We could use the rain, but we don't need hail or strong winds, and we certainly don't need tornados or damaging winds to knock down our homes, buildings, or trees. The fury of Mother Nature is quite humbling. She can manage to move enormous amounts of wind and rain, hail, and show us how weak and pathetic we really are. We put up all kinds of structures, pretending that they will last in spite of the weather and the passing of time. Putting up structures has been the story of mankind, but the ruins of those structures stand as mute testimony to the enduring power of Mother Nature to blow-off roofs, knock down trees, break windows, and shatter the dreams of builders and architects everywhere. In a sense, the normal state of any building or structure is a ruin. When we see or experience a building in its pristine or new, recently constructed state, we are experiencing the exception to the rule that all buildings will always end in a ruin. Whatever the architect's original dream was, all buildings will always end up in an archeologist's sketch book. Thunderstorms are an implacable metaphor for the destructive nature of time. The violence of lightening and wind, driving rain, are indicative of the giant forces that lie just below the surface of a beautiful spring day. Behind the moderate temperatures, blue skies, and light breezes lurk the life-changing destructive powers of nature. We make the error of thinking that we are in control with our beautiful homes, air-conditioning, and heating, but the sad truth is that this is nothing but hubris and wishful thinking. A beautiful day is really a simulacrum for peace and tranquility, and we all know that peace and tranquility are just a bit of wishful thinking that precede a dark night of disasters and broken dreams. Stormy nights like this one are made for contemplating the darker side of life, for thinking about the fragility of our plans, and how those plans can so easily go astray, run up on the rocks, go up in smoke. A stormy night is a reminder for everyone that we are not in control, and that all of our attempts to simulate control are both erroneous and pointless. We stand at the edge of a chasm without really knowing it or realizing it. We put on a good face, a mask of civility which hides the fear, the sadness, the doubts. A stormy night mirrors the internal chaos of each person--depression, melancholy, conflict, fears, and desire. Whether the rain and hail fall, whether the winds blow, whether the lightening strikes, is immaterial, it is the metaphor of the impending storm that matters. Who knows if it will ever rain again, but the threat is out there, the storm approaches, and everything is uncertain.

On divination

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All divination is just so much malarky. All due respect for the Divination class at Hogwarts for which none of the other professors have any respect, by the way, but divination is a lot of hogwash, meaningless, empty, wrong, void. I think it is very telling that even in the fictional world of Harry Potter, characters which believe in and perform magic do not believe in divination, reading tea leaves, looking into crystal balls, signs, reading palms, tarot, bones, shooting stars, or anything else that might be read or construed as a sign of things to come. In Spain's 13th century, divination was a real problem because there was so little difference between what might be understood as science and what might be understood as pseudo-science--astrology, quiromancia, necromancia, fortune-telling, and a host of other "mancias" which followed everything from the shape of a dog turd to random feathers found on a street. Black cats, scorpions, bats, goats, any horned animal, a white dove, unicorns were considered in turn to be good, bad, evil, a blessing, all of which is completely meaningless. Unless you find lots of bugs in your house, which might mean you need to take out the trash more often and clean, but this has more to do with deduction and nothing to do with divination. The planets do not guide anyone's future, and their arbitrary alignment at your birth has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Perhaps I understand why people struggle with divination. Given the chaotic and unstable nature of life, we all want to know what is happening tomorrow--should we invest, look for a new job, buy a new house, get married, have children, break up, undertake a new project, accept a new position, advise someone on their uncertain future? Yet, the future is an unwritten script and will be ruled by the millions and millions of decisions which are made at any given moment as we move forward. The idea that the future is chaotic and unknowable makes people uncomfortable, but the markets will go up and down, students will fail or succeed, couples will get married and breakup, you will make mistakes or your plans will finally come to fruition, but all of that will happen not because you don't know what will happen, but because you work hard now to make things happen and come true. Everyday, however, people throw away hard-earned money to consult charlatans, quacks, and thieves who have convinced them that they can tell them the future. Predictions are general, over-reaching, non-specific, and the victims (or fools) fill in the blanks, thinking that they have finally found someone who can really tell the future. Why is it, then, that psychics never win the lottery? All psychics are phony, false, criminals. All divination is dishonest. No one has a gift, and all attempts to prove otherwise have proved that things such as ESP don't exist outside of what is statistically possible to predict. The fact that my colleagues in the 13th century had to wade through such a morass of conmen, fakes, phonies, charlatans is disheartening because the difference between science and non-science was confusing and unclear. No one had the great scientific vision of a Bacon or a Galileo. Questions of mystic visions or psychic revelations, diabolic incantations or black masses, necromancy or palmistry were everywhere because there was no scientific paradigm or orderly scientific method against which these weird and meaningless practices could be debunked. Even today, however, it is mind-blowing that so many people still waste their time and money with these empty and foolish practices. The future cannot be predicted, divined, or foretold--end of story.

On divination

Posted on by
All divination is just so much malarky. All due respect for the Divination class at Hogwarts for which none of the other professors have any respect, by the way, but divination is a lot of hogwash, meaningless, empty, wrong, void. I think it is very telling that even in the fictional world of Harry Potter, characters which believe in and perform magic do not believe in divination, reading tea leaves, looking into crystal balls, signs, reading palms, tarot, bones, shooting stars, or anything else that might be read or construed as a sign of things to come. In Spain's 13th century, divination was a real problem because there was so little difference between what might be understood as science and what might be understood as pseudo-science--astrology, quiromancia, necromancia, fortune-telling, and a host of other "mancias" which followed everything from the shape of a dog turd to random feathers found on a street. Black cats, scorpions, bats, goats, any horned animal, a white dove, unicorns were considered in turn to be good, bad, evil, a blessing, all of which is completely meaningless. Unless you find lots of bugs in your house, which might mean you need to take out the trash more often and clean, but this has more to do with deduction and nothing to do with divination. The planets do not guide anyone's future, and their arbitrary alignment at your birth has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Perhaps I understand why people struggle with divination. Given the chaotic and unstable nature of life, we all want to know what is happening tomorrow--should we invest, look for a new job, buy a new house, get married, have children, break up, undertake a new project, accept a new position, advise someone on their uncertain future? Yet, the future is an unwritten script and will be ruled by the millions and millions of decisions which are made at any given moment as we move forward. The idea that the future is chaotic and unknowable makes people uncomfortable, but the markets will go up and down, students will fail or succeed, couples will get married and breakup, you will make mistakes or your plans will finally come to fruition, but all of that will happen not because you don't know what will happen, but because you work hard now to make things happen and come true. Everyday, however, people throw away hard-earned money to consult charlatans, quacks, and thieves who have convinced them that they can tell them the future. Predictions are general, over-reaching, non-specific, and the victims (or fools) fill in the blanks, thinking that they have finally found someone who can really tell the future. Why is it, then, that psychics never win the lottery? All psychics are phony, false, criminals. All divination is dishonest. No one has a gift, and all attempts to prove otherwise have proved that things such as ESP don't exist outside of what is statistically possible to predict. The fact that my colleagues in the 13th century had to wade through such a morass of conmen, fakes, phonies, charlatans is disheartening because the difference between science and non-science was confusing and unclear. No one had the great scientific vision of a Bacon or a Galileo. Questions of mystic visions or psychic revelations, diabolic incantations or black masses, necromancy or palmistry were everywhere because there was no scientific paradigm or orderly scientific method against which these weird and meaningless practices could be debunked. Even today, however, it is mind-blowing that so many people still waste their time and money with these empty and foolish practices. The future cannot be predicted, divined, or foretold--end of story.

Letter #: This Sucks

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Dear Stephen,

To echo our conversation from the hour before last, “This sucks.” Everyday is so fucking hard: Up caffeinate woooooliveoooooooooooooooooooliveooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooork lay down.

I was on the phone with Kendal when you headed out last night. We concluded the conversation with something to the effect of “well, it’s actually pretty quiet around here, nothing new, except it seems like so much is changing constantly.” True on both ends. Chaos is a static characteristic of life? (Yeah, that’s the kind of abstract dissertation writing I’ve been doing. Blegh.)

It’s day sick of Olive being home sick (and, yes, I’ve just realized that Freudian slip of a typo and am leaving it because it’s equally true). Today, the medicals have re-diagnosed her with strepp–an improvement inasmuch as we’re on a new treatment regimen, which will hopefully speed recovery. Of course it’s also activated my hypochondria now knowing what we’ve actually been exposed to for the past several days. Are those my tonsils that feel sore in that ear/nose/throat area or have I just been clenching my teeth again during my sleep?

The other night–did I tell you this?–I was putting her to bed and we were doing a Where’s Waldo book. We’ve leveled up from the standard search for Waldo and his associates (“Wizard Whitebeard” and so forth) to now also looking for the Waldo kitsch–a camera, binoculars, key, dog bone, and scroll. So we do the beach scene search and find everything fast enough–except the scroll. That effing scroll. After a half an hour, Olive throws in the towel, rolls over and says, “I’m going to sleep.” But I persist. It’s not important how long she’d been sleeping by the time I finally found it. But the point is: I emerged triumphant. “Winning.”

Lately, I’ve taken to listening to Marc Maron’s podcast, WTF. I tried to get into it a year or so ago and it didn’t stick, but since listening to his interview on Fresh Air whenever it was, it fits. In this moment, I am in fact listening to it, and I’ve heard the most synchronistic thing. He’s interviewing Mike White– “American writer, director, actor,” who you probably know because you know these sorts of things. Anyway, the interview encapsulates the state of “awesome and awful” that is now.

–

MW: We all have different sides to ourselves, but like, for me, it’s like, I want to be elsewhere. I want to always be doing new things–

MM: Yeah, and it’s weird because it’s like when you have a computer and you’re sitting at home, you have this access to things. And there’s part of you that feels like you’re doing new things but eventually you just realize, ‘eh I’m by myself and it’s gotten a little ridiculous.’

MW: I think maybe it’s like, when you’re a writer, you spend a lot of time not living because–

MM: –you’re generating things.

MW: Yeah. You’re putting all your life and your thought and your effort into your writing. And so after a while, you have this very tortured relationship to the act of writing. At least for me because–

MM: –dread? Do you dread?

MW: It’s not so much dread. It feels like–to me, it’s like getting on one of those roller coasters and it’s like chook, chook, chook--ya know when you’re going up the thing and you know you’re about to go down some whshshshhh and it’s like this sense of anticipatory–like this is gonna suck all my energy out of me. So a lot of times procrastination for me isn’t because I’m lazy or I don’t want to write. It’s because I’m trying to store up the mental energy that I know it’s gonna take to start, middle, and finish something. And so as I get older–because I’ve been writing for a long time–it’s like, yeah, there’s this anger that builds up about like, I wanna live. Me, as an actor on the stage of life versus the writer who–

MM: Because when you’re building up to the writing that means you’re just gonna isolate and focus on that.

MW: Yeah. I can’t see people. I can’t engage people. It’s not even like I just can’t go to dinner. People think I’m rude all the time because if I’m hanging out with them, I’m just elsewhere. Because I’m in my head. So I try to not even be around people when I’m working because I’m not present. But I do love it. And the more you’re in the zone where you’re just like, you’re living it as you are either writing it or reverie or whatever. There’s a rush to, but after a while you start to see yourself from a bird’s eye view…at some point you start to see the finite amount of things that you are gonna be able to do and you just want to rage against it.

—

This is the most resonant description of being immersed in the writing process that I’ve heard–the constant preoccupation and isolation and anger. I should specify that my angst about it now is much more contextualized–it’s the intensity of academic dissertation writing more so than writing in other forms, which adds “invigorating” to the process.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. You’re family’s coming this weekend for your graduation, which also means you’re graduating this weekend. Dude: you’re graduating this weekend. you know what i don’t remember? Either of our college graduations. You know what I do? High school. Look at us: cherubs.

happysad. chook, chook, chook–whshshshhh

!!! ap

ack. I’m going to miss you.

On alchemy

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I have always thought that most people do not understand alchemy at all, and they think that this ancient science is about changing lead into gold. Other than an interesting smoke screen for those who might stick their noses in where they don't belong, alchemy has never been about changing anything except for the way we might think about things. It's just easier to tell those who would concern themselves with material things that alchemists are trying to change one element into another--magic, in other words. All alchemists know, however, that the world is how it is, unchangeable, and that lead has its purpose too, unalterable from the beginning of time--common sense, not magic. There are those people, however, with little imagination and no ability for critical thinking, who think that magic will give them a little extra help, an advantage, so to speak, and put a little extra money and wealth into their pockets. Alchemy never has had anything to do with wealth or possessions or materialistic pursuits. Most alchemists, true alchemists, will probably never even admit to being an alchemist at all. What alchemists do, or did, was to work to understand the nature of the world and the things in it. Alchemists have known since the beginning of time that gold is what it is, but that gold never answered anyone's questions about the nature of existence, never bought or restored happiness, ruined more than one life that sought to worship it. It isn't that gold isn't useful, but it can't be an end in and of itself. You will never have enough no matter what you might think. If you carry just a token piece of gold, it will always suffice to remind you that the unhealthy pursuit of gold only leads to ruin. Whatever alchemy might be, it has nothing to do with gold. Perhaps alchemy is really about knowing yourself in the world as a small part of a wider context. Ego and pride are the two great enemies of the alchemist who must even be vigilant lest they be prideful of their humility. If knowing yourself as others know you is the ideal state of self-awareness then the true alchemist would strive to understand how the world works, how memory, abstraction, signs, and reason interlock to form new ideas or even ideas that up to that point never existed at all, and they might call it creativity. Alchemy is more about the intangible nature of cognition than it ever was about gold or lead, the wind and the surf, the eagle or the fish, fire or air. Alchemy is about dust and smoke, about lost in-between spaces, about the haze that hangs over a river on a cool spring morning, about unformed spaces and liminal crossings, shadows, hybridization and mixing, chaos and non-linearity, fragmentation, repeating infinitely and disappearing on the horizon. Alchemists will listen, but their words are few. Better to be an enigma than to spread needless gossip and untrue rumors. Let vulture capitalism try to turn lead into gold. That is a simulacrum that will drag many an unwary participant down the rat-hole of unfettered consumerism and out-of-control spending in an attempt to buy happiness. When your garage is so full of crap your cars no longer fit, ask yourself this: have you turned lead into gold? Or have you been deceived by a marauding cooperate culture of overt consumerism and the blind pursuit of materialism? The alchemist's garage, if he ever had one, is, of course, empty.

On alchemy

Posted on by
I have always thought that most people do not understand alchemy at all, and they think that this ancient science is about changing lead into gold. Other than an interesting smoke screen for those who might stick their noses in where they don't belong, alchemy has never been about changing anything except for the way we might think about things. It's just easier to tell those who would concern themselves with material things that alchemists are trying to change one element into another--magic, in other words. All alchemists know, however, that the world is how it is, unchangeable, and that lead has its purpose too, unalterable from the beginning of time--common sense, not magic. There are those people, however, with little imagination and no ability for critical thinking, who think that magic will give them a little extra help, an advantage, so to speak, and put a little extra money and wealth into their pockets. Alchemy never has had anything to do with wealth or possessions or materialistic pursuits. Most alchemists, true alchemists, will probably never even admit to being an alchemist at all. What alchemists do, or did, was to work to understand the nature of the world and the things in it. Alchemists have known since the beginning of time that gold is what it is, but that gold never answered anyone's questions about the nature of existence, never bought or restored happiness, ruined more than one life that sought to worship it. It isn't that gold isn't useful, but it can't be an end in and of itself. You will never have enough no matter what you might think. If you carry just a token piece of gold, it will always suffice to remind you that the unhealthy pursuit of gold only leads to ruin. Whatever alchemy might be, it has nothing to do with gold. Perhaps alchemy is really about knowing yourself in the world as a small part of a wider context. Ego and pride are the two great enemies of the alchemist who must even be vigilant lest they be prideful of their humility. If knowing yourself as others know you is the ideal state of self-awareness then the true alchemist would strive to understand how the world works, how memory, abstraction, signs, and reason interlock to form new ideas or even ideas that up to that point never existed at all, and they might call it creativity. Alchemy is more about the intangible nature of cognition than it ever was about gold or lead, the wind and the surf, the eagle or the fish, fire or air. Alchemy is about dust and smoke, about lost in-between spaces, about the haze that hangs over a river on a cool spring morning, about unformed spaces and liminal crossings, shadows, hybridization and mixing, chaos and non-linearity, fragmentation, repeating infinitely and disappearing on the horizon. Alchemists will listen, but their words are few. Better to be an enigma than to spread needless gossip and untrue rumors. Let vulture capitalism try to turn lead into gold. That is a simulacrum that will drag many an unwary participant down the rat-hole of unfettered consumerism and out-of-control spending in an attempt to buy happiness. When your garage is so full of crap your cars no longer fit, ask yourself this: have you turned lead into gold? Or have you been deceived by a marauding cooperate culture of overt consumerism and the blind pursuit of materialism? The alchemist's garage, if he ever had one, is, of course, empty.