Words and Thoughts

I looked up at the page sized outline I had made for my paper, taped up to my pop-up Star Wars book. It was so pretty, why did I have to change it? Why did I have to mash it up into edible pieces for the reader to slowly ingest without making them work for it? Why did I even need a reader?

Grumblecakes. You could have all the ideas in the world, but when you can't communicate, everyone thinks you're dumb. I could draw outlines all day, have the most amazing insights into the most mundane processes, but if I couldn't write, it wouldn't matter.

Maybe we just talk to much. Couldn't we just use one word? And then have our auditor examine all their own relations to the word until they got at what we were most logically thinking about? This is probably how the world worked when language consisted simply of categorizing everything into one word. Now we have words that can index things, and people need to know exactly what you're thinking. And even with all that effort, most people fall back on their dumb heuristics and make awful assumptions about the thoughts of others.

Regardless, in 41 hours I'd need to have that essay done. But sleep was probably more important. It always was. Can't communicate when you can barely think about what you're own mind is thinking.

*yawn* Audiences are stupid. I'm the only person, in the entire world, who I find myself caring about how to learn things (this sentence, of course, makes no sense, because I don't have the language to explain such an odd idea). I can explain things to myself so much quicker than I can make my brain spew something forth from my pre-motor cortex.

okay, so i was going to write a really moving entry about identity.
instead i made another amoeba cartoon. lo siento el mundo.

fred the amoeba
he's back.
and he's animated.

College Students, Stop Lying

Everyone is always exaggerating the amount of school work they have, perhaps out of fear that the person they're talking to has more than them, and will scoff off their attempts to sound like they are busy. In this way, exaggeration is naturally selected for by embarrassment.

"I have a twenty-page paper due next Tuesday".
"Really? I have nothing!"
"Oh, well, it's really a group thing, so I only have to write like five pages".

vs.

"I have a five page paper due next Tuesday."
"Five? That's nothing! I have two exams, two twelve page papers, and a presentation."
"Oh..."*

*embarrassment

Why are we a society that thinks the amount of homework you have directly correlates to how awesome you are? Is it because people give you pity for having a lot of stuff to do? Even if the stuff is completely banal? Odd.

Sleeping is the same way:

"I slept four hours!"
"I only got two!"
"I didn't even GET to go to sleep."

Not sleeping causes mental instability.
So does lying about how much school work you have to do.
Stop inflating your homework to convince people to love you.
Concentrate on quality over quantity.
And live life.

Beta Testing

you know how you beta test hardware, software? why not beta test relationships? it's like, let's see if this will actually work, full communication, full analysis, everything...
and a lot of making out

The Dalai Lama's Indirect Teachings

continue

I started crying. My lip contorted upwards and I could feel water pressure behind my eyes. I was going to bawl, the type of tears that would send someone half my age to their mother, but I had no one to kiss my cheek and attempt to make my fears dissipate. I turned to look on at my abandoned room, natural light slitting through the one small window, still harsh enough to overwash all colors. Wanting to hid even more, to find a sanctum even more remote than a locked second floor dorm room, on a hill, surrounded by a minuscule town, I bounded onto my bed and grabbed pillow, forcing it down over my lips to silence the start and go of my sobs.

For the proceeding five minutes I cried, as loudly as possible, uncaring about the percentage of ruckus that would escape and cause discernment among my neighbors. I hadn't managed to hit the crying threshold since my uncertainties over my mom's cancer had eaten away at my psyche. Now a build-up of random events had pushed me to the edge again. It felt good. "There's something I'm not getting in this life", was my mid-cry epiphany as I sat up and found myself looking out the window. Music was still pouring out of the Zune. I had been worried that it was going to effect my ability to cry, but Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her" saw me keep up a constant front of tears. Still, when Aerodynamic came on, I felt motivated to act. You can't feel sorry for yousrself while listening to a raging guitar solo, it's just too hard. Planning an action that would make me a force to be reckoned with, I pulled on a running outfit and shamelessly peaced out of east hall and down the hill as my shorts ran up becoming obnoxiously, well, short.

The town of Hamilton is no stranger to traffic. Hundreds of trucks (maybe) pass through on 12B to get to more populous locals. Yet today seemed to be the first time during my experience that every vehicle on 12B wanted to stay in town. My heart was heaving, lungs collapsing, when I got to my car. I felt like a fool for sprinting in daylight hours, but I had a shameful desire to see the Dalai Lama. continue

There'd be no weaseling my way into enlightenment this time. I would say that in life, I never do things right, but in some circumstances, I am given repetitive chances until I get what I want. I watched my feet as I traversed back to the village square where my car was parked. Somehow I had imagined my bookstore encounter differently. There would've been a lot of tears but I would've been walking away with a ticket in my hand. Light glinted off cars into my eyes, and had I a gun, I probably would've gone "The Stranger" on someone's ass. Alas, I knew nothing about guns, except I hated them, and my mental anguish was slowly righting itself. Sorry Camus. What was the difference really, between sitting in a stadium and physically seeing the Lama or sitting in my room watching him mumble on my computer? With life the way it could be these days, there really wasn't much difference between video chatting a friend or sitting with them in a room, and if I had to take that approach to the Dalai Lama, so be it.

My heart still sunk, and my mind was still painfully active, attempting to find some solace in maybe receiving an extra ticket, or being able to barter with someone up the hill. But clearly I was running out of options. continue

The rats were what allowed me to accept my circumstances. They weren't seeking enlightenment, they were just trying to live, which for them, probably had as many innate rules as any religion. Life was all, all that mattered, everything. The Dalai Lama was historical, but eventually this history would mean nothing. And the meaning I found in my life should be the results of my own endeavours. As for happiness, even in this small smelly room there were tidbits of joy, a rat wrapping its tail around your wrist in a backwards handshake, the lab assistant who spent an unknown amount of time in the basement and looked herself a bit like a mouse in a pastel scrub.

Why hadn't I just kept the ticket in my mailbox? But no sense beating yourself over what-ifs. My mailbox contained a singular newsweek magazine, and I dreaded the thought that mention of his holiness would be in this edition's print. Back outside the sun made me sweat, and I desperately wanted to change clothes once more. But Uday was handing out orange bands. I was short with him as he explained what they were for. "I already know. I know. I know. Uday," a long pause for dramatic effect, "I lost my Dalai Lama Ticket".

"Oh girl. Oh wait, dude, Zunaira has a ticket but she's not going, go get hers," he said in his lilting urdu-accent. At first I was certain he was joking, but he was serious, and I trusted him. "I totally want to have sex with you, in the least physical sense possible" I gushed, smiling broadly, power walking back to my dorm to get the object of my 24 odd hour quest. I spotted Kevin, he was smiling at me. I did a double take and screamed out of a high energy anxiety. He smiled harder. He probably wasn't going to the Dalai Lama. Crazy fucker. continue

Thanks Dad... Thoughtful Morning Sunrise

It made sense. As far as the future was concerned, nobody knew anything. Why should I worry what other people think? First, they were probably poorly informed about it. Second, they were probably wrong. Third, I shouldn't let this get to my head, because it would be bad to view the entire world as a bunch of ignorant aggravations. Regardless, most painful interactions between individuals occur because they don't understand where the other person is coming from, jump to conclusions, and for the most part can't compromise.

Remember that. It's going to be fucking important.

Fear Mongerer

They had probably had had sex, and I had probably failed my fourth neuro exam. I tried to tell myself that they were just two random events, both indirect and invalid evaluations of my character. Sure, I could have been sexier, and I could have known more about the human brain, but these were just trivial changes in the way I was.

It wasn't my fault. These things weren't my fault. Because I was really actually uncertain about these two events, I had no idea about relationship of the former, and I hadn't checked my grade on the latter, this thought comforted me, because in fact, there was a great probability that none of these things had actually happened. The world is a crazy place, full of random actions, and I, I would always have random thoughts to try and sort everything out. But I didn't want lies, and I also didn't want uncertain truth. I just didn't want to know. I wanted to be ignorant about both of these things. And as I clutched my pillow in the twilight's darkness, I prided myself in my recollection of tears, my stoic reserve, knowing well enough, but not willing to mention to myself, that when the details of these two things became clear to me, I would not be so strong.

i can't understand what my peers are saying.

Glass Shards

Who the fuck builds a kaleidoscope
out of real glass these days?

my day dreams used to donate the most
distal dilated shades of dishonest daze.

now my eyes are full of this lukewarm liquid
glazed with life's genuine golden eyeliner.

but this time, without lies
it's blood, or tears. let's finish this cliche,
or sweat.

freeing my face from gauze tomorrow
i'll be awash in monochrome,
remembering two colors in an anxious panic:
the blue between the stripes of your oxford
and the tan of your skin.

answer, a romantic.

What If? (MGMT)

He was like a slave to the lifestyle, stuck in a cage of indigo light. It made his eyes purple, glancing upwards through the human generated smoggy air to concentrate, perhaps? On the lyrics? On the music? Or to try and escape to the place where these words meant what they'd meant when he'd written them down. What was this mob, belching fermented by-products and bouncing with the awkward uncertainty of small children. Self-indulging hedonists, hiring a gig to serve as a small stepping stone in a list of things to do on a party night. The poor man had nowhere to go, crowded onto a stage platform by a throng of people who knew, "a few" songs.

He closed his eyes, he bobbed his head. He wasn't feeling it, it wasn't the kind of head bob you get from counting rhythm or loving your lady. It was mechanical, like the genetically programmed behavior of lizards when they feel their territory is cornered. Birds did it as well, though that was just genetic residue. And now he did it to, but they were still there, even closer now, he glanced quickly around, and then shot his eyes upwards, to the indigo. It wasn't enough now to close his eyes, block out vision, because he was still here, surrounded by people who wouldn't look him in the eyes if the light shined on them, but who stared constantly from the darkness.

omg, it's like you knew every part of me!

Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race

headphones

My headphones would always tangle themselves. It was inevitable. Every time, well not every time, but often, when I was un-looping them, I'd think, "Okay, be careful, don't let this happen again". But it was impossible. It was going to happen.