My List (in progress)

-People with goatees

-People who use "literally" inappropriately just to get attention

-People who don't let you finish speaking

The Fourth Dimension

I don't know a whole lot about physics. But I know from reading A Wrinkle In Time that time is considered the fourth dimension, after the 3rd dimension, depth. That makes sense to me. I don't understand the 5th dimension and onwards very well, even after watching a video attempting to explain it. Not my learning style, whatever. Anyway since we can sense time, we live in the 4th dimension. If we could only perceive up to the 3rd dimension, life would suck even more.

I feel a definite lack of teaching as far as dealing in the dimension of time. Parents teach some "time management" but really it is up to the individual to learn the cold hard facts for himself. Once a person really gets the hang of dealing with time, and making time work for him, he is probably older. He is a master of time and probably space, as far as his physical abilities and mental faculties allow.

What am I saying here? That I want to learn more about the dimensions we inhabit and then teach in simple terms to any children I have.

I'm losing the steam that propelled me to write this so now I feel unauthentic.

I also want to show my children a certain canon of art and media so they know where the ideas forming the world they inhabit originated. People don't want to acknowledge the source because they crave originality. But according to something Picasso (probably never) said, "good artists borrow and great artists steal." Nothing is really original, but everything has a unique mixture of influences which leads to the illusion of originality.

What if we could trace everything back to its source material? Would it be good or bad? Would it overload our minds and data stores? Or would it lead to true awareness of art's and science's ultimate context?

Another question I struggle to articulate, much less ask.

Now the caffeine has worn off and I must focus on an animation project. Nothing to complain about, you say? You wish you could do something so exciting instead of writing boring papers?

Well you're not me. Actually the internal voice posing these questions IS me. It's my ego or superego I think. The sensible voice. My id wants to smash a window, get in my car and drive to Canada, shooting at cars on the highway the entire way. I think.

History

I like heavy music. I didn't always. And I wasn't always open to new bands like that. My brother Josiah listened to a lot more than me, and had friends who were into "tough guy" hardcore which I was not a fan of. The tag turned me off.

Anyway, I gradually got into it, from listening to bands with some screaming in their songs to bands that have songs that are so chaotic, heavy, and complicated, I still like to listen to the complexity because I can't wrap my head around it. It was a journey through time(trends in the scene) and space(sub-genres).

Something I think about sometimes is people who used to be into hardcore and the things they say nowadays. And this relates back to the first post on here about dismissal. I had someone in one of my classes tell me that he's seen me wearing band shirts and that he used to be into hardcore too. He really meant deathcore/post-metalcore (and the subgenres are a major point of contention so don't argue with me about them too much[but you don't know this kid or the bands he mentioned so you can't]) and it made me kind of sad to think that he used to hang out with people who listened to popular deathcore so he thinks he understands hardcore and he almost implied that he was at a more advanced stage since he was no longer into it. He wears fishing t-shirts and deck shoes and khaki shorts, etc. Which is cool, especially since he actually fishes and goes boating. I guess what I'm saying is: I wish he would have kept his mouth shut. Or brought it up a different way. If you tell me "I used to be into hardcore" I'm gonna think, "what a non-committal loser." You're double-minded. Either you're into it, or you're on your way to being into it, or you "used to listen to it" and you're going to consistently give up your interests whenever you meet new friends.

No. I look at the world through my own eyes, and I choose my friends based on whether I like them. If you're a pretty girl who just isn't smart, and refuses to improve yourself, forget you. I don't care. If you're the cool guy who knows everyone and throws parties, I'm not going to be your friend just to try and reap the benefits.

Something I need to work on, actually, is an extreme form of this sentiment where I avoid starting relationships with people because I assume they're not the type of person I want to meet based on nonverbal cues.

I am me. If we don't get along, I'm better off alone. I'm used to it anyway.

So don't talk to me about how you "went through a phase" in your teens where you listened to Asking Alexandria and Underoath. I don't care.

Whatever you listen to now is probably just what your current set of friends is telling you about, and that's dumb. Don't give up on heavy music. I'm laughing at myself as I type that. I sound boorish. At least you know I don't take myself too seriously. A lot of tough things I say can be easily brushed aside. Generally because I really want to say something deeper than what the words mean in the dictionary. I probably want to demonstrate some type of emotion or mock a social norm by becoming the extreme of it, a form of performance satire in real life. No type of medium. That's why people don't get my jokes or things that I say. I intend them to mean deeper things. I seek to poke fun at the situations I live every day by saying stereotypical things about them. But they often fall flat. (I typed most of this paragraph after I typed the following paragraph. In case they seem disjunctive. I typed "that's dumb" and then "This feels...")

This feels anticlimactic. I thought I had something smashing to say but now I'm getting sleepy. And I have to finish a presentation. And I open at work in the morning. Katy's. Grill. That's it.

Where I work. 9 a.m. Let's do it. Buy some energy drinks, I mean. As much as I dislike popular culture and find commonalities boring(McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Bud Light, Wal-Mart, etc), I really like most energy drinks. They make me feel good. I wish I had one. But then I couldn't sleep. ;)

Holla

Advising

Advice. Let me give you some advice.

I've been thinking about advice today and whether you can really give it to someone. We watched Super Size Me today in Documentary class and my pattern of thought resurfaced when Morgan Spurlock's girlfriend told him he needed to think about what he was doing to his body. At first Spurlock thought she was telling him to become vegan like her but she said that wasn't what she meant.

What I've been thinking has to do with how my parents raised and taught me. When they told me things, they didn't always take time to "make a lesson" out of it. This I seem to regret, as a form of individual attention in a family with 6 kids. My mother specifically, I remember generally teaching us life lessons on the run, as they came up. Not that I agree with this method, but I probably don't agree with the method you're thinking of either. Can you really tell a child to do things a certain way? Or to do one thing and not another?

Can you tell someone to lose weight? Yes. Will they do it? Probably not. I think the moment they decide to lose weight will come on its own, without nagging. It may come during a training regimen, the same way some contestants on The Biggest Loser choose to continue with a healthy lifestyle after the show ends. They were forced to exercise and eat healthy, and then at some point it occurred to them that they truly wanted to and were going to do this for their lifetime.

What are my deepest convictions? The ones I see occur time and time again in my life. Personal, dirty, and close to home, they define my existence and continue to be proven. An example: "change occurs gradually, not overnight."

See how I didn't say "Rome wasn't built in a day?"

So my point is that you have to show people, not tell them. Language isn't as useful for criticism and teaching as it is for declarative communication. The subtext and deeper meaning has ultimately to be derived by the individual. These are some of my thoughts. I'm getting tired and I just got back from eating after I wrote that "Rome" comment. So I'm cutting these valuable nuggets short for now. Sad huh?

Note to self

talk about people who always call out awkward moments

OK so someone at work talked about awkward moments tonight. And I said "I don't feel awkward. I've been in way more awkward situations than most." It only gets awkward if you feel awkward. If no one is talking, and you're all just looking at each other, don't call out the moment as awkward. Say something about something you see. Or just say nothing until someone has a thought. There's nothing awkward about just waiting. Don't make it weird. That's what someone I know said. You make it weird and awkward. No big deal. Seize the moment. Seize the castle. Seizure. Seize him.

Basically: don't talk about awkward moments when they're happening. Don't watch that show on MTV that has the word awkward in the title. You know why? Because "awkward" is not an easy word to type. And I am typing it because I want you to stop saying it. It's somewhat trendy to say that among new kids. Like kids under 20. I'm not that much older but I feel the division.

I think my little brother, Isaac, has an easy time with "awkward" moments like I do. It's no big deal. We don't depend on funny social butterflies to lift up the moment with a funny story or a series of jokes. We make dumb jokes ourselves. Maybe they're not funny, but they keep it going. Keep the ball rolling. Keep the fire burning. Keep of the castle.

It's a form of confrontationalism, for me. It weeds out the people who can't withstand a lack of finesse in social interaction. That's a sign of a good person to work with in a people-centered environment. And I don't want to work with things.

That's what my parents always used to ask me. Do you want to work with things or people?

I said things at one time but that leads to social atrophy and I'll start buying androids for companionship once they come out with affordable substitutes for real people. That's scary.

I want to improve. That's one of my mottos, and something I get from Papi. That, and frustration that I can't hear well sometimes. Usually I can't hear people in the noisy kitchen when they yell things across the room and don't enunciate. Jerks.

Committed to self-improvement.

Talks

I had things to say but the process of choosing a name for this blog distracted my mind and now I kind of forgot. The main thing I wanted to discuss was basically the type of people who dismiss other groups or classes of people as a matter of course. Why do they think this is acceptable? A standard phrase uttered by these people is "Oh, Christians" or "Oh, screaming music," usually followed by "I used to be into that" or "I've read about that. [My opinion and thus dismissal of the subject]." The underlying idea here is that an opinion needs to be formed for each group, ideology, or social phenomenon that one hears about. That way you're an opinionated individual. Right?
You have neat little packaged segments of conversation ready to go. You know where you stand on all issues and probably can't be swayed.
Well here's how I feel (or don't feel). You can't sum up a movement in a sentence. You can't choose a single word to name a blog. You can't write a synopsis of a movie, and you sure can't tell me about a movie in a book. You can refer to it. That's what I dislike about film school. More articles to read than movies to watch. Writing is hardly related to film as a medium of expression. They are often paired, and especially so in the French cinephile community. Based on what I've heard, new directors are quizzed and interviewed ad nauseum about their cineliteracy and their reasons for making films. Many of them write articles for journals like Cahiers du Cinema before or after they begin making films.
Whether social traditions are wrong or right is another topic altogether, and undertaken with a great sense of weight and either vast ramifications in the time of an idea's ripeness, or no results in one's lifetime. A soul-splitting decision would need to be made in consideration of such a venture.
So one of my goals is to explore the legitimacy of mediums and placement of ideas.
I push aside offers of entry to groups and movements to see whether the social institutions that begot the controversy were really ever necessary. I question things at their most base level, far from offering conspiracy theories or arguing for a morality, I wish to examine the architects of modern consciousness.
I struggle to find words to describe the swirling ideas I have, but for the time being I think they are necessary. Why do we think so differently than we speak or write? If I created a paper the same way I imagine the ideas I am compelled to present, it would look more like an amorphous quilt than sheets of flat white material, crudely stacked on top of each other.
I stumbledupon a link recently that had a connection to sixth-sense technology and I became very interested in the thought process of the creator, more so than the creation itself. Can we rewrite our basic modes of interaction with the world? How much of what I am forced to endure in school is really necessary? Those two may not seem related but what I mean is; Is writing papers a truly valuable process? I hate it.
I think I'm done for now. I should be reading for school but I like to think I'm preventing "my schooling from getting in the way of my education." I want to do well this semester but I think some of my teachers are teaching because they wouldn't do well in the industry. I believe in the pragmatism employed in business dealings. It's the only true way to measure social interactions. Maybe I'll pick up there next time.