Year of the Snake

Oh, 2012. You were sorta interesting.

As this past year closes, with the loss of my job, my move across the country, the end of one relationship and the start of another, I feel ready to move on from it. I am ready for 2013, so instead of reflecting on the past year, I find myself fantasizing about the next one.

Bring it on.

Book in the Park in November

Oh, how whispering trees wind
Tales of eighty years so
Very in their own they seek to see.
Sunlight peeks peeringly from
Beneath the leaves up
From where these words shine brightly on the row.
I smell a tint of bitter fall
When the warmth hides quietly behind a cloud.
And orange crumples droop slowly until they are free to dance along the air
And so then fall beside me.
Rippling blades have eyes casting false judgments of the waves,
But they, too, bring memories to life
When webs wandered up to greet the cool,stiff death,
Not rippling lies of warmer times,
But passing comments of what snowy tundra may greet.
Here there is no promise of a merry meet,
No threat of withered spirits or bundled hearts.
In this puzzle piece, a planned place to procreate,
No darkness finds us deep in shivering.

~*~

I love that I can read a book in the park in November.

Change is like the Ocean

It crashes up against the grains of life, picking them up and tumbling them around, shaping the shores of our stories. Sometimes we are on the beach, letting the water sweep over us as the sun makes us sparkle as it sets. Sometimes we are the unfortunate specs that get tossed into the stagnant depths, where it is dark and cold, and the only movement we see is the slight swaying of the seaweeds. 

Sometimes The Ocean

Speaks
When a wave pushes up the beach and reminds us that it is
Oh, so very unpredictable.
When we stand with our feet just along the shore
And the water rushes up our calves
It says, "Move more."
We wiggle our toes about the sand and think
How grand
The universe is for us to explore.

With laced fingers we embrace the sun
As it says goodnight
And lights its stars like a candle at twilight.
As each wave crashes, so do we
Against uncertainty.
Irony, it seems, that the ocean comes to see
The mountain's peak
As we seek
It's dark, rolling mystique.

It reflects us, I know it,
And our altered minds glow
To show it.
And we smile bigger than the ocean can ever
Because the cool, salty breeze says,
"Life is an endeavor."

I Could Only Dream

I wonder why some people remember their dreams more frequently than others. What determines this? Is it something obvious like REM hours? Is it whether someone is a heavy or light sleeper? Or maybe it's something more abstract, like IQ?

I'm curious. I'll probably do some research and post about it later.

Here's a haiku:


I could only dream
That all night I’d see the stars
And lay beside you


It's a really old one I wrote in high school, and it's strange how much more I think it resonates with me now than it ever did in the past. Makes me wonder how much I've really changed.

When I was in high school I trained myself how to remember my dreams for a little while. I would spend the whole night having fantastic, sometimes scary, totally abstract, sometimes vividly realistic dreams that I could recall right away in the morning. I kept a journal next to my bed and wrote them down while they were fresh in my mind. It was almost as if training myself to grab a pen and paper right in the morning kept me in this semi-conscious state where I could easily remember dreams. It was neat while it lasted.

Shhhh

Sometimes I have things to write about that I shouldn't write on a public website.

I like to tell my secrets to the leaves.

Cause a single leaf
Tells the secret to the wind,
And the wind tells the secret
To all the others on a tree.

And they all laugh with me,
All in unison,
Swaying and bending
Over in laughter

Line Between Melody and Peace of Mind

This line is very fine. When a beautiful song comes on, the rest of the world melts away -- my heart flutters and the air sinks deep in my lungs. My breathing slows and my eyes close. I turn the volume up and slip gracefully between the layers as my headphones send positive vibes to my mind. If I had to pick one thing that had the power to manipulate my mood, entice my imagination, and make me feel alive, it is music.

Music makes me fall in love.

Listening to a track from an artist you've never heard of before and falling into that fine line feels just like falling in love. It starts out as a crush -- you can't stop thinking about that one song or that artist, how much you want to be around it, listening to it, singing along with it, smiling with it. And as you keep listening to the artist over and over, you learn more about its intricacies. You allow yourself to be engulfed by its complexities, and it isn't until you take a break for a while that you realize exactly how in love you are.

I have a crush on Mansions on the Moon. This might just be the real deal.

Understanding Awe

You know that feeling you get when you're out in the country and you look up at the night sky full of stars? When the moon sits low in the sky and glows bright orange, looking like a giant copper coin on the horizon? You know that feeling when you think about how tiny we are in the vastness of space? I call that feeling "awe". Awe can come from so many different things -- ocean views or children laughing. Each person gets this feeling from different things, the chemical reaction in your brain triggered by its own unique neural path developed during your entire life.

For me,  awe comes from love a lot of the time. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the same for a lot of people, especially those that tend to equate awe with the feeling of loving their deity (ies), and vice versa.  

As I observe those around me, think about the truly significant things in my life that have affected my spirituality and understanding of religion, I have come to determine that it is important to understand what makes me feel awe. I learn to be capable of differentiating when an experience is my brain telling me to feel awe or of it is somehow unique -- more spiritual in some way.  

I started thinking about this when I heard about something called "noetic science". Noetic Sciences are those that integrate health, healing, and the human potentials; it researches meditation, consciousness, spirituality, psychic abilities and the survival of consciousness after bodily death, as the article linked above explains. In other words: I am totally interested in this shit! 

In the wikipedia article I linked there is a story about the history of the Institute for Noetic Sciences, where one of the co-founders, Edgar Mitchell, a former astronaut, explains that when he saw the earth from orbit, "the presence of divinity became almost palpable, and [he] knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to [him] directly". 

It made me think a lot about how I would feel if I saw the earth from that perspective with my own eyes.  I imagine that I would, too, feel something so magnificent -- a whole new understanding of how small I really am. That moment in my life would be remembered forever, I'm sure. I, like Mitchell, sometimes feel the tendency to push those experiences into the divine or unknown spectrum.  I would probably feel just like Mitchell did. This is why it is so important to be aware of what makes me feel awe; I hold every single divine inspiring, life-changing, perspective altering experience under a magnifying glass to understand why I feel that way and what is making me drift towards this line of thought. Learning something new about what I allow to manipulate my emotions allows me to objectively discern certain moments in my life. I'm skeptical about most paranormal or religious things, and while I love the idea of those beliefs being real and a part of the reality that we're all still trying to understand, I MUST be critical  in order to find the truth.

 I think that Mitchell derived a sense of awe from the experience of seeing the earth from its own orbit. I think he interpreted this feeling of awe through the lens of his belief system instead of considering that the feeling just came from the dopamine inducing experience of learning.But maybe I'm wrong! Maybe Mitchell understands the things that bring him the feeling of awe and the experience truly was divine! I don't know for sure; I do know that his experience made me call into question the experiences I've had in my own life that evoked awe. 

Awe is a beautiful feeling, and I encourage everyone to understand where they derive it from. Figure that out, and you can always make yourself feel better when you're feeling low. 

Goodbye 38 Studios

I took a week to mourn. I'm still mourning, but I'm ready to move on.

Finding a new job is going to be extremely difficult for me. I don't have nearly as much experience as all of the others whom I worked with, and right now we're all going after those same few positions out there.

All I can do is hope.

For a more eloquent and emotionally charged version of the post above, please read this by Steve Danuser. To Steve, you helped to craft a world I fell in love with, and I am so grateful that I got to help shape it with you.

Depersonalization

Why is this feeling appealing?

Why do we cling to anonymity behind the screens of our desktops, laptops, and cell phones? Why do we share some of the deepest parts of ourselves, our views, our lives, in a space that cannot come close to capturing all that we can communicate? Our body language, the way our voice sounds and modulates through a sentence, the micro expressions and that special look in the eye are vacant when you read my words on a screen. But even with all of that lacking, I have expressed my most deepest self through digital conversations I've had with friends. Why do many hold this level of comfort with our computers and lack it in face to face conversation?

There are a couple reasons that I've come up with that I think get to the bottom of it.

-I am more willing to say something risky, deeper, more emotional, when I've had time to think it through. When I write this blog post or I text something to a friend, I can stop and think about each word, and analyze how that word helps to convey what I'm truly thinking. I often write and edit text messages or sentences in my blog posts. While I do that less often with Instant Messages, I can still pause if I've got something serious to ponder, and that time advantage allows me to find just the right words to use to express myself while minimizing risk.

-Less avenues of expression means fewer chances to accidentally express something I'm trying to hide. This can apply to a lot of different scenarios: You just told me you beat my score in an Orcs Must Die level, and although my competitive side wants to show anger, I want to be a good sport. Or maybe he just told you about his new girlfriend, and you really like him and don't want him to see you're crying while you tell him how happy you are for him. Your face may not lie as well as your words can in some situations, and expressing how you really feel can put you in a vulnerable position. I think that the fear of that alone draws people to digital communication.

I think I could come up with many more reasons for why people are drawn to digital forms of communication. 

I'll probably write more on this later.

I am Gomez

I wonder what it feels like to be Phil Fish right now. I wonder what it feels like to have this piece of work, this summation and extension of you and your identity, out and open to the world.

I think he might be afraid.

But if Phil knew me, knew about how deeply someone could experience Fez, appreciate all of its minute and intricate details, I think he would feel relieved. So, Phil, if you're reading this, I just want you to know that this is my way of telling you how much I appreciate the time and effort you put into this game. Fez is by far the most beautiful game I have ever played. Thank you.

I Deserve To Go To Hell

I had a wonderful lunch today with two friends. They are Christian, and I am without doubt that they are some of the most faithful, loyal, logical, intelligent, and good Christians I could ever know. We sat around and talked about religion, morality, science, and politics, and it was one of the most interesting conversations I've had in a while.

I asked them many questions. Why do you believe in Intelligent Design? What about the Big Bang? Why can't we legalize gay marriage? Why do you believe a book that was written by men?

They gave intelligent and reasonable responses to each and every one of those questions.

They felt like the improbability of life having evolved on its own was too great to have been left to chance. They think the Big Bang happened, and it's hard to argue against that. They worry about what opening the doors to other kinds of marriage may let escape. They (unfortunately inaccurately) told me that the eye-witness testimonies were credible, just like a biography of George Washington is. (I later found out that each of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John have unknown authors, and that some of them seem to reference the others in a derivative sort of way).

And for the first time in a long time I understood a Christian point of view.

However, I still can't agree with it. I can't agree that the extreme improbability of life evolving in the universe means there must be something more. I can't agree that the sometimes contradictory accounts of eye witnesses (if they even were eye witnesses) are credible enough to hold water. And finally, I can't agree that perfectly good people deserve to spend an eternity in damnation because they are homosexual and wish to marry.

If God sent Jesus to Earth as our savior, and if when I die I stand before the gate, I won't wait in line to be judged. My soul will plummet to the depths of hell with the rest of the sinners and non believers. I go there knowing that I lived my life full of love, positivity, happiness, and compassion. I learned today that Jesus and I don't agree morally; we have differing views of virtue, goodness, and love. We don't have complementary views of slavery, planned parenting, sex, or gender. The many things that I think we could agree on are not enough, by his standards, to save my soul.

Even if this religion condemns me to hell, I think it is a beautiful religion. The core of who Jesus was and what he believed resonate with me in a lot of ways; I think it is sad to see how much Christians have destroyed their own religion, but today proved to me that there are still those who follow Jesus as I think he probably wished to be followed.

All Things End

I think we struggle our whole lives to come to terms with this seemingly devastating truth. The scale at which we think of this fact varies as we age through understanding; first we think, "This cup of milk is empty", and later, "This relationship is over." Eventually as the complexity of our lives seeps into our consciousness, it sets in that we, too, come to an end.

Although our universe is over 13 billion years old, we still live in an incredibly early stage of it. We understand that all of the points of light in the sky are balls of matter that expand, shrink, explode and eventually fizzle out. We can predict that eventually all of the stars in the sky will cease to emit light -- the white dwarves will cool off, transform into black dwarves, and the last matter inside of those almost lightless forms in space will eventually evaporate into radiation. One day, too, the only remaining bits of matter inside of black holes will turn into energy, and all of this heat will tend towards the same temperature. Eventually there will be no more time -- no changes between the past, present and future. The universe, like all things, will end.

But what about the things that are eternal? If we can't change the past, then is it not something that is eternal? Do the things in the past exist forever -- exist forever in the sense that they will always be in the past? Or is existence only defined by the things that are in the now, and those things that are abstract constructs of our past are merely figments of our imagination?

Can anything other than energy be eternal if our entire universe is moving towards a lightless, matter-less state?

Haha, I don't know for sure, but I do like to think about the energy that flows within me, within my brain and my heart, my body and my senses, as being something that has always existed and always will exist as it moves out of me and throughout the universe. But maybe I'm just comforting myself.

I think that humanity's grip on ideas of eternal love, the soul, cyclical stories of life, death, rebirth, etc. are all proof of our tendency to shy away from the idea that all things end. Why are we afraid of this concept? Isn't the idea that we've got one shot, a single, teeny, tiny, seemingly infinitely minute amount of time in this universe a reason to appreciate every single moment of it? Is it not a reason to wake up every day aware of our societal constructs, of our beautiful diversity, of the miracle of our lives, our advancements, our knowledge, and feel pure joy?

A lot of the inspiration for this post came from Brian Cox and his BBC special "Wonders of the Universe" where he discusses the heat death of the universe. While it is only a theory, it is one that resonates with me as I struggle to come to terms with the answers I find to some of "life's most enduring questions". Give it a watch if you'd like to get goosebumps by the amazing cinematography, beautiful music, and awe-inspiring cosmological topics in the show.

Life Forms

I watched the first episode of "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking" titled Aliens tonight (before painting my nails and electrocuting the enemies of my Sith Sorcerer in SWTOR), and it brought up an important point that I think scientists commonly forget and often misconstrue. Hawking presented the idea that there may be life forms out there that do not operate similarly to us in any way -- they don't need water, carbon, or perhaps various other things we humans cannot exist without. (We know that these types of life forms exist or can be created on Earth now, which is pretty amazing). He posited the idea that perhaps life exists in one of the most seemingly unlikely places: inside the heart of a star. Maybe if we saw this life, it would be completely unrecognizable to us; we would look upon it and think "well, that is clearly inanimate and therefore not alive".

More and more I'm finding articles about newly discovered life forms created or found in nature that go against our previously held understanding and definition of life, and these sorts of discoveries excite me. Stephen Hawking could be absolutely right, and it may change the way we search for extra terrestrial life in the future.

But here's what bothers me: often times people think negatively about the idea of an alien life form coming to earth. "They'll destroy our planet for resources", they say. They justify this hypothesis by comparing these aliens to us, claiming that if we went to another planet that we would use it for its resources before moving elsewhere in the universe. Now, I think it's fair to make hypotheses about our actions when visiting other planets and planets with life, and if we want to think about these aliens as being similar to us in any way, I can understand why people jump to negative conclusions -- but if we found another Earth, would we really destroy the life on it for personal gain? As far as we know now, life, the scientifically accepted definition of it, is relatively rare. (Statistically we believe that there must be other life that exists in the universe, but we haven't found any yet). If we ever found a planet anything like Earth, I doubt so much that we would strip it of its resources and move on. The life on Earth is absolutely amazing, and I can only imagine that the life on other Goldilocks planets must, too, be amazing. I even think that we would make sacrifices in order to preserve that life. I like to think that if aliens came to Earth, and if they were anything like us, that they would see the beauty of this planet and value its preservation. They would study the life and try to understand it scientifically to expand their knowledge and intelligence, just like I think we would do.

While I enjoy hypothesizing about the nature and behavior of E.T.s, I have a hard time accepting the sensationalism that surrounds doomsday theories that involve them. How can we even begin to claim that intelligent extraterrestrial life that has the capability to travel across galaxies would ever think, feel, or function in any way like us? If they were similar to us, then why would we assume that they would do us harm? Why would we assume that they would do good to us?

We don't know, and like many of the larger questions in life (is there a God? Is there a soul? What is our purpose? Why are we here?), we really don't know the answer. And instead of clinging onto a hypothesis that has no proof, I want to spend my life being okay with the Question Mark. I want to spend my life working towards understanding and accepting the fact that I don't know, and even though I will spend my life looking for the answers, I may never know -- and that's OK.

The Bigger Picture

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

I think the first half of Daniel Goldstein's talk about the struggle between the future self and the present self poses some interesting questions. He explains about the losing battle of the future self. This future version of us isn't around all of the time to tell us about what they value and how my actions now directly affect them and their happiness, health, and well-being. I had never thought about my future as it's own version of me. Putting my present goals, values and beliefs into a version of me now + the sum of my actions has made me feel much more self aware. I usually think about the future from various points of view, through specific and narrow lenses that separate my career self from my family self from my social self. But when I realize that it's me with all my complexities and facets and feelings and hopes and dreams, I am reminded that I care for that person.

I was inspired to continue to think about Goldstein's initial points and further develop questions of my own: How many future self constructs do we have? Are we bound by a singular understanding of a future self or can we begin to comprehend ourselves as a truly, larger, whole self -- as a humanity? And finally, looping back into Goldstein's main question, are we capable of feeling motivated to work towards positive or ideal future selves without a commitment device? He thinks so, but I'm not entirely convinced.

A common commitment device I think we easily forget about is regret. I had a conversation with a friend today that reminded me of this difficult feeling. Why do people do things that they put subject to this self affliction? Or to be more specific -- why do people do things that they know they will regret later? I've always been amazed at how we can all think of something we've done in the past that we knew damn well that we would regret later; we thought to ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously, "well, I know I'll regret this later but I'll do it anyway." It's easy to see why people do things they regret in general -- I mean, things are always different with 20/20 hindsight, right? But to be able to turn off that empathy with your future self that you know you'll have to live with (at least until you forget what you did) is different entirely. I think Goldstein's example of the Donut is a good one to ponder on.

Am I the only one who is slightly more concerned for humanity when I consider how shitty we treat our own, singular future selves? The fear of regret just sometimes isn't enough of a commitment device to think about our future selves' well being, and to me that is frightening when I think about how our decisions today impact the future of humanity. If we can't even empathize with ourselves enough to change our actions, how are we capable of doing it for people we don't even know or that don't exist yet?

I put the quote about strength at the beginning of this post because I think strength is related. Like Goldstein mentions, the concern for the future self is really a test of will. Do we have the strength of will to keep to our goals and think about the betterment of our future selves? Frankly, while I think the rest of his talk is a bit less interesting, I commend his work for attempting to get people to empathize with that future self and change their behavior based upon that empathy, I just wonder if it can work. Like I mention earlier, if commitment devices like regret don't really work all of the time, well then it sounds like strength is our only option, right? "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have." -- Unknown

Think about it for yourself -- Do you have the strength to prevent your future self from feeling regret towards the things you knew you had the power avoid?

Are you being a person today that your future you will regret?