New Roommate:
Ξ October 2nd, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ News |
Our close friend Josiah has moved into our spare bedroom for the time being. We love Josiah, and we’re very happy to finally have him here in the city.
Unmaintainable Chemistry
Ξ October 2nd, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Culture, General, Philosophy |
Have you ever had a job that drives you insane? Good, you’re normal. So here comes my job rant. In principle I love my job. I have easy hours, great benefits, and sit at a desk all day doing things that I love (coding, coding, and more coding). The thing is though, every once in a while, meaning daily, I have to stop doing what I love, and fix other peoples messes. Messes made because other people didn’t test what they built, or think very far ahead when they coded.
Now don’t mistake me, I’m not getting all high and mighty about programming styles, but I find that I have a pretty easily negotiable style, and I like it.
That’s not really the point though, nor is my preference being ignored by others the point. But I have a seriously difficult time trying to grasp the ‘just make it work’ philosophy of so many people. Not even the people I work with particularly. Just people in general. I don’t understand why people don’t ever want to take the time to do it right in the first place. Instead they put band-aid after band-aid on the problem until they have a heaping pile of gauze and sticky and plastic. Then they wonder why they can’t feel their finger anymore.
I see this in my job daily, but it occurs to me that it’s a much much larger problem then lazy developers. It’s cultural. To look at the band-aid analogy, only from a different light. Look at the way our allopathic practitioners handle our medical care. They ask you what’s wrong, and then give you a perscription medication to ‘fix’ it. Except the medication doesn’t fix it. It alleviates the symptoms. To fix it, you need to know what caused it, and that would require a much better understanding of the human body than western doctors have. (Yes, I know there are a lot of great doctors out there, many of whom take good care of their patients. But there is a philosophical epidemic in the western world, particularly in North America, that indicates medication is the solution to our ‘problems.’)
But even looking at the poorly conceived concept of medicine isn’t a big enough picture. Why do we get sick in the first place? Laziness. We do exactly what some of my co-workers do. Instead of taking care of ourselves and building a healthy life to begin with, we do what’s easy, and work to get by. Then we are constantly supporting and reevaluating, and changing our lifestyles, or adjusting our bodies chemical balance to try and restore ourselves to a comfortable state of living. Just like my coworkers who just keep adding an extra line of code here and there to ‘get by.’ Eventually the projects source is so fixed that it’s unmaintainable and requires an expert who has studied the monstrosity just to make a minor adjustment, or it works in some frankensteinian manner that is unweildly and ultimately ineffective.
This is exactly what happens to our lives. Instead of making the changes that will bring us back to Actual health, we settle for the easy choice that returns us to an operable state. And every time we compromise and attain an operable state, we go a little further into that morass of chemically altered confusion that becomes more and more difficult to maintain and uphold.
I’m no better. Just like every one of us I’ve been conditioned to pursue a livable life with as little work as possible. It takes me enormous effort to make small changes to my lifestyle and patterns, to try to live a healthier, cleaner life. I struggle every day to detoxify my body and mind, to cleanse the misconceptions and damaged awarenesses. And I often fail.
That said, I am trying. And I encourage those around me to do the same.
The Purpose of Art
Ξ October 1st, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ General, Philosophy, Writing |
Do you ever have the urge to write and not know what to write? Do you sit down with a pen in your hand, or at your computer, and place your fingers upon the keys and close your eyes? Waiting? Waiting for the elusive words that should be flowing from your mind into your hands?
Do you mutter to yourself, snippets of sentences, phrases of description for a scene that is playing in your mind? Do you hear your characters, real as life, acting in your dreaming mind?
Where is the purpose that drives an artists creations? There is none that can be seen. Oh we may couch it in whatever terms we find appropriate. There are activist artists, who send messages with their art. Their are artists who use their medium to survive. There are artists who have reasons unknown to the world at large, but none of these reasons are true. The purpose that drives an artists creations is merely creation itself.
You see, the artist, the writer/poet/painter/sculptor/dancer/musician/composer/architect/etc. is nothing more than a tool. Not a tool of worship, nor of the everpresent man, no. The artist is always a tool of the universe, of that force of creation which is immanent and battles always with the supression of expression. There is in our world today a drive to supress true artistry, to create a uniformity of expression that would white-bread us into the voids, the places where all is possible but nothing may change. How can you create if you can not offend?
What is the purpose of a creation? To exist! To be! To thrust its presence in the face of women whose sensibilities are too small. To expose himself to the fires that burn and transform; to give itself to the world in a hunger for life; to know the suffering and compassion that is reality.
What is the purpose of art? To Create! To Be! To exist in defiance of the void, that power which devours all and desires the cessation of love.
What is the purpose of art? To Be! to Be! to Be!
Ξ October 1st, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ General |
I tend to surround myself with intelligent people. Well, not really intelligent people, their intelligence is usualy significantly above average, but smarts seems to be the lesser of the requirements. My friends and I are social rejects. We don’t fit in with normal people for one reason or another. It is beyond me to try and explain this here, but I wanted to mention it, because it leads me to what I do want to write about now. Understanding and Compassion.
You see, it takes a special person to have compassion for people you don’t understand. Take me for example. I’m a deeply spiritual person. Having been raised agnostic, I came to my spirituality gradually, over many years of experiences and study. The experience of discovering Spirit is one of the strongest, most defining pieces of my life. Perhaps the most potent, because it is such an extensive and ongoing process. As a result of all this though, I really don’t understand people who don’t have some sort of spirituality in their lives, who don’t have some experience, perception, or belief in the subnoumenal/philosophical reality.
I don’t expect everyone, or even a great many people to share my personal philosophy. The middle pillar is not a path that everyone is meant to walk. (I may seem pretty solidy LHP, but there is more to me than meets the eyes). My spirituality demands a penance of me, a balance that is delicate, and takes great work to maintain. Mine is the path of the world-walker, and the places I sometimes go are not meant for the souls of men.
But I find it exceedingly difficult to understand people who don’t have any spirituality at all in their lives. I’ve finally come to the realization that I am not able to understand them. Oh, intellectually I can. I can logically interpret their beliefs, and evaluate the experiences that they’ve had. I can comprehend their lack of spirituality. But it doesn’t mean anything to me.
I’ve written about it before, — although I’m not sure I’ve written about it here — but Compassion is the base for all human connection. It is the elevated resonance of Love. When I speak of Compassion, I am not speaking of empathy, nor of understanding. When you empathize with someone you are sharing their feelings, you are emotionally sharing an experience. When you understand someone you are intellectually sharing their experience. Having compassion is something different entirely. To have Compassion for someone is akin to faith. Compassion is acceptance of their actions, and their personage, without understanding or empathy (though they may be present.)
Compassion is giving value, weight, and reality to a person you do not have commonality with. It is from Compassion that we find the strength to hold each other in the darkness, to be alone, to know suffering, to share pain, and still to love. Compassion is the art of creating a connection where none previously existed. It is the practice of Creating Love.
The next time you fail to understand someone, or you fail to empathize with them, try to be compassionate instead.