Just Because I'm Losing Doesn't Mean I'm Lost

The Truth is that which is there, it is the extension of reality. About reality, Philip K. Dick wrote it is, that which does not cease to exist when you stop believing in it. After watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for the second time, I find myself sitting here in bed, thinking about a certain truth. Mortal Truth. I think about age, I think about time, circumstance, direction, ambition; I think about motivation, determination, strive and fear. At my hands, do my eyes fall, searching for younger layers of youth, curious of future layers of age. I sit here on this bed and more or less think about Death and all his Friends.

I see this place in terms of Universe. I don't live in an apartment, street, city, state, country, etc...I live in a universe. It has to be that sparse, that complex, otherwise I'm not impressed. Life is too large, too interwoven with multi-facets to be limited in the frame of planet or solar system. Life would burst the seams, compromise the foundation, if such the idea would be to attempt its maintenance within so small a border. Life needs an entire Universe in order to operate.

I hold sacred that every moment is in fact a new universe, an infinity of combinations and codes, endlessly spiraling, with no two moments ever universally repeating. Thats my definition of Life. In this manner it can be said that no one is ever really one person or ever even in the same place twice, we are all cosmonauts, ever changing like scramble suits, indefinitely traveling throughout a universe in a ship called Life that so happens to also be an ocean.

But Life ends. The Universe might have no end, Life does. The Ocean dries up, concentrates into a powerful drop that eventually also departs, evaporates, fuses with the rest of time and space. Its the best you can do to make every moment the Prime of all its possibilities, of all its potentialities. You'll never know if you're right or wrong, there will be no judge, no guideline, no examples from which your recourse will be contrasted to and decided whether you played the right card, took the right door, were at the right places at the right time and so forth. Sure, on Earth others can judge these things, on Earth we have formed opinions about what feels good and what doesn't, what a good life is and what a good life isn't. However, if you're not careful you might fall into the idea that another person's opinion, because it seems more generally observed than others, is a fact. But here I say to you my opinion: your universe and their universe will never be one. There is no right choice or wrong one, there is only the choice...and having made it, you have changed the universe and if it feels right to you then you've made your right choice.

Fish Out of Water

I had a dream last night

a fish on land

gasping for breath

just laughed

and sang this song

is life like this for everyone?

is life like this for everyone?

Gill Expansion

I love these lyrics. They are by an artist who's songs are instantly residence of my heart and mind. Lhasa de Sela, who I have blogged about a number of times already, is like if my brain were to separate from my body and sing to me riddles that may one day lead to a reunion.

Forget that "fish" is a very common symbol for savior, forget that "water" similarly symbolizes origin or purity and truth, just think of yourself and your life, just think about how you breathe. Its no big deal to you because you are used to it. How painful it must be to a fish? What were the steps for that ancestor of ours that dared to venture further than the rest and emerge from that primordial beach. Surely Grandpa Zoa had to become amphibious before reptilian and later mammal. How painful was it, breathing air, to the amphibian pioneers? That is before they got used to it.

I immediately think about scent. Have you ever been on a train with a noxiously oppressive odor? Have you noticed that some commuters remain in that same train car, regardless of the green cloud above their heads. After a while, the olfactory senses become used to the otherwise repugnant stench. The way a serious cigarette smoker can't smell his/her clothes the way a non-smoker (like myself) can immediately become repulsed by it.

The lyrics bring to my mind, overstimulation and how an outsider may respond to what may appear absolutely normal and in fact, natural to others.

I love that the fish laughs, perhaps finding the situation ridiculous. "Only a masochist would live under these conditions," the fish might think to itself. If breathing in this song can be said to be the act of living itself, then you may do well to conclude the fish observes a pain that rolls synonymous to living. A somewhat prerequisite suffering taxed on us land breathing creatures. If this is the case then we don't seem to mind, in fact, some of us believe it natural. "Life's a bitch and then you die!"

I don't think Life is a bitch, Aesop Rock sums it quite nicely when he said, "Life's not a bitch/ life is a beautiful woman/ you're just mad cuz she won't let you get that pussy/ maybe she didn't feel ya shared any similar interests/ or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet talk the princess..." Its all about circumstance, true-- but is pain truly part of life? Has someone lived more simply under the basis that they've experienced more pain and suffering than another? Or even experience itself, is Life defined by experience? If a person does, by comparison, very "little" in life, does that in some sense imply that that person has wasted a chance to truly live? By such criteria, only the thrill seekers are worth the lungs in their chests. But most thrill seekers are just bored and overstimulated, they constantly need to "raise the bar" to feel as if Life has any meaning. Nothing wrong with that. I myself am bored and in many aspects overstimulated. But is there anything wrong with being satisfied, truly satisfied and happy doing nothing.

What was I talking about? Whatever!

How Far, Icarus, How Far?

FALL FOR GRACE

The story of Icarus is one that I've had as of late, very freshly in the fluency of thoughts. The story resonates an ongoing truth, analogously, about Man. We are that creature that will fly too close to the sun, regardless of how good a thing we have we will carelessly push passed safe and destroy even ourselves to savor happiness. At least that is my interpretation of the myth of Icarus applied philosophically to Man.

Found in any addiction, any vice or obsession, its the echo of Icarus' fall, cloud through cloud, ending in a death-pounding plunge into the Icarian Sea. He could not contend himself with flight, an achievement in itself so marvelous that following his father, Daedalus' instructions or precautions would have proven alone, a reward. The reward of flight. But Icarus took advantage, saw an opportunity and decided to withdraw the most he could from the experience. Of course, he paid with his life yet when he flew--Good God, how he flew! It could never be said that in comparison to Daedalus' flight, of the two it was certainly his son, Icarus who flew. Freely, with the confidence and command of a naturally winged creature, that is how Icarus flew; while Daedalus remained a human flapping wax wings and thereby remaining alive, survived his son.

Taking this myth and applying to it, one of the current and more obvious areas of human ingenuity to which Icarus may play as a perfect analogy, I find myself conflicted. Conflicted because upon reflection to Man's daring and careless innovation, I at times feel like a Daedalus rather than that plunging, screaming, wingless man falling his last seconds of life away. The good example of today's "wax wings" is found in technology. The wax wings themselves were a technology and Daedalus, known for his ability as a master craftsman (earlier, he had designed the labyrinth for King Minos to trap the Minotaur). Technology alone is not the harmful flight. Tools are helpful by definition and their utilitarian function has helped to in turn, define Man. We are after all, a tool using animal. But so long has passed between the wheel, fire, and spear to maglev trains, space travel, and atom bombs; we are approaching a peak to the Information Age. We are approaching Singularity.

And there my friends, is when the sun is too close and we heed not the previous warnings or the consequence of flying farther and faster with wax wings. In the myth, I side with Icarus. I side with the idea that no limits should hinder experience; that Man must push beyond, regardless of what consequence may result. Even if you expire yourself in the process, you at least lived a moment to its fullest and most possibly, dangerous potential. This being my stand, one would furrow their brow to see me swiftly transformed into a scolding Daedalus when Singularity is brought up. My position changes, I believe, for a very valid purpose. Singularity is so perverse, so destructive to the idea of what Man has been as, that its hard to compare it lightly to a pair of wax wings when its more analogously accurate to compare Singularity to a highly evolved suicide method.

Of course, my conflict is much deeper. After all, a man with wings is just as perverse as downloading your mind into a computer. I am farther removed from the Icarus myth to be at all shocked by it but I assume part of the thrill in the story was applying Man domain over an unnatural and therefore exotic tool (wax wings). There is absolutely no difference between wax wings and Singularity. And still I am a practical Daedalus who sees only a minimal mean to an end, while Icarian engineers see a new playground, a new opening to peek through the eyes of a god, a careless creator.

Try as I will I cannot be upset with the Icaruses of my time because there is no separation. There is no division of Man, where this side is Icarus and the other Daedalus. Man is a unified experience of the Universe, what one man creates, all Man creates; what one man is bound to do all Man is bound to exercise. There is only the collective representation. So it is logical that I include myself as part of that Icarus that happens to be 21st Century Man. Elemental as I am to this 21st Century Icarus, one can see why I understand. I can pardon the reasons--reasons, which I feel need not be apologized for in the first place--but I mourn. I prepare myself for that fall. I mourn for everything that came before that descent, all the heights and cleverness that lead to the creation of wax wings. I mourn for that falling creature who flew too close to the sun; who had a good thing before becoming curious about what was further up and unsatisfied with playing it safe. Falling the last seconds of his life away.

We're Gonna Be Fine

A Serious Man - (2009) Directed by the Coens Brothers

Starring Michael Stuhbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed

Sari Lennick, Aaron Wolff

Here is the IMDb plot summary for A Serious Man:

"A black comedy set in 1967 and centered on Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel when his wife prepares to leave him because his inept brother won't move out of the house."

I find it very strange to read the plot description to any Coen Brothers film. At the same time that they are correct and further, an accurate and fair factual summary of the plot, these details also make you aware how special the film actually was. What I mean is, by reminding you of the bare facts, you realize in tenfold how much more was provided for you in a film whose plot is accurately described as much less.

Here is the IMDb plot for No Country for Old Men:

"Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande."

Again, this is so on the money! That is exactly what happens in the film but at the same time, to see it written or hear it said makes you notice that that same plot could easily have been executed differently, thus killing the reasons why that film is so good.

A Serious Man did splendors for my inner Riddler, constantly obsessed with analysis and megamorphing mysteries from just about any source, particularly unfortunate events. Larry Gopnik, played by Michael Stuhberg, is a man who is faced with a marathon of stressful incidents, he is a mathematical man; reason must skeleton every action and event. His world soon becomes a Schrodinger's Cat that is both dead and alive and moreover, he isn't allowed to peek inside the box to set his uncertainty to rest.

The film presents me with a story that is tightly wound and yet loosened, the more weight I give the plot the more it pulls me down. However, its all a matter of perspective, (hahaha) its a parking lot! A foreign parking lot that looks overwhelming at first but then becomes as simple as the locals perceive it to be, as it becomes part of your daily life.

Larry Gopnik's counterpart in the film his in fact, his teenage son, Danny. The pot smoking, Jefferson Airplane-head who is approaching his Bar Mitzvah, who owes twenty dollars to school tough, Mike Fagle, and who has parents that may be divorcing. Danny is far more easy going than his dad. His teenage reactions to Crisis are marked by tactics that include outrunning Fagle after every school day to avoid an ass beating, getting stoned right before his Bar Mitzvah to cool his nerves; overall, its a response to Crisis rather than an analysis of, the latter seeming to be Danny's father's forte.

I feel this was the Coens flexing their writing muscle, the film was visually good but it was all about the idea of the film, the questions and the answers that never came.

Death on the Installment Plan

II.
The summation of random events is life and life is the self-presented perspective of universe. The summation of random events leads to more random events. Every life will lead one way or another to the random event of death. Most have a default setting of thought foundation applied to death; they believe death will come at an old age when life is fully lived. Death is a random event that can arrive as plainly as the next breath. One will never discover the pattern in a pattern-less system. Most fear that which is without judgement and cannot be controlled or influenced. Every moment has been added by everything that came before it. Every moment is sequence followed by random consequences. And every consequence is in itself a newly added sequence. I believe everything you learn and experience will give you nothing after death. I believe the random events of life are solely for the living to make the most of and lead to no goal or lesson. The only thing it leads to is just a random death that becomes the consequence of their living sequence and that very same consequence of death is in itself a random sequence added to the random events of those who are still living.