Jan 29, 2021: On Depth

I'm recording a timelapse video right now of Caitlin and I sitting next to each other in bed. She's working from home. I'm doing my thing—reading and writing this. I'll post it here in a bit. It feels weird to share this part of myself but... well, why not? (Because our room is a disgusting mess; there's a beer can in the shot from the night before last and more hidden out of view.) We're in need of cleaning...

It's 10am. At 1pm I'll go to a friends house in West Seattle. Kris (and Will) will be there. Will has a nice mirrorless digital camera that he's using to take video. Apparently he was involved in film production somehow and he wants to learn how to do more stuff so he can stop paying other people do that stuff. Anyway, he's going to film me, wearing his helmet and jacket, riding his bike. And. Um. His bike is a Ducati Hypermotard, which has 2x as much horsepower as my bike. It's intimidating. And I can't fucking wait. 

...

I've been slowly working my way through The Listening Society. I've said this before, I forget where: This book feels like a capstone to so much of my reading, neatly tying so much of what I've been trying to put into words, and it does it in relatively simple language. 

There are a few chapters dedicated to what the author(s) call Depth. I needed a new understanding of this word. According to Hanzi, depth is the capacity for a person to subjectively experience—to feel—high states of being and low states of being,. to feel really good and really bad, but in a more religious sense—to travel between heaven and hell in one's everyday life. 

Depth isn't a good thing or a bad thing. It's not related to how intelligent a person is. It's not related to how educated a person is. Depth is the intensity of the high and low feeling—and not just low or high, it is the total distance both, the distance between an ocean trench and a mountain peak. 

Hanzi pokes fun at Eckhart Tolle, which made me giggle. I fucking hate Tolle. Tolle is a quasi-religious figure. And I could not figure out why I hated him so much until now. It's because he has great depth, but he's really unsophisticated. He thinks flowers are enlightened plants and that we can stop suffering in this world by "spreading light". But it's like dude, you're forgetting about a lot of things—politics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, natural environmental disaster etc. Providing one single answer—kindness, awareness, "light", healing, or love—doesn't solve anything no matter how hopeful it feels.

Anyway, everyone has a different level of depth, but the problem is that we can't see other people's depth because we can't experience exactly what they experience. We all feel that we're a walking mystery, a special black box. 

This is one of those rare "intellectual books" that handles the nature of religious experiences in a way that really does them justice. There's value in that.

Hanzi also has a good definition of wisdom: a combination of good mental health, depth, and complexity (in my words, intellectual-sophistication). 

Here are relevant quotes:

"Depth is a person’s intimate, embodied acquaintance with subjective states. A person’s inner depth increases through her felt, lived and intuitive knowledge of a new subjective state (lower or higher than previously experienced)—and when the intimate acquaintance of that state becomes an integrated part of her psychological constitution; a part, if you will, of her personality."

"...another way of describing the matter is that depth is a person’s innermost recognition of the greatness and/or seriousness of reality. As with subjective states we don’t have the relevant data, which means that we cannot say very much about how depth is distributed in a population."

"A great-depth response involves yet more universal values which do not necessarily correspond to aspects of everyday life: to manifest divinity in the world, to find radical acceptance, to serve the becoming of the most profound possible unity and multiplicity, to surrender fully and without compromise to God or existence, to “be” wordless emptiness and recognize the pristine meaninglessness of the ultimate truth."

"Beauty, in this sense, is a kind of recognition. We recognize things such as harmony, balance, proportionality, contrast, pattern, variation, rhythm, repetition; aspects of the world that we spontaneously seem to appreciate. We appear to be able to deepen our relationship with reality by expanding this recognition."

"I would like to suggest that there are three specific forms of inner depth that a person can develop. These follow the fundamental philosophical form of Plato’s “big three”: beauty, truth and justice. Although in this context I have found it more appropriate to speak of the three categories beauty, mystery and tragedy."

"But for all its blinding beauty and mysterious elegance, the universe is always broken. We have already discussed that our planet is perpetually screaming into the silence of the surrounding cold, empty cosmos. All systems, all living organisms, are always falling apart. A million things always can, and always will, go horribly wrong. [...] If there is a fundamental divide between the innocence of (healthy) childhood and the maturity of adulthood, it is that children live in blissful unknowing of the utter tragedy of existence, whereas the (spiritually mature) adult lives in full awareness of suffering."

January 27, 2021 (Not a vegetarian)

(I definitely need to come back and edit this later)

I can reasonably say that I don't have COVID. Caitlin and I received negative tests. If we were exposed last sunday, then we are still in the incubation period. However, Mariah, our dear vector, tested positive last week but tested again this week and came back negative; last week was probably a false positive. She has been getting tested twice a week at her work. I suppose a false-positive was bound to happen at her place of work eventually. It's just funny that it happened to her. 

...

I'm doing intermittent fasting with the help of a half-dose of BronkAid (over the counter ephedrine) in the morning paired with black coffee. I'll start going on walks in the morning soon. I've been too sedentary. I'm looking forward to having a gym again.

I feel weird admitting that I'm using ephedrine, but it's the truth. And I'm aiming for honesty here. 

From a phenomenological (subjective) perspective, it doesn't feel like much is going on. My head is a little quieter. I'm not hungry. I can breather more clearly (surprise surprise). I feel more focused, but not by much. 

I had an adderall prescription some years ago, and that significantly altered my state of being—and not in a good way either. The difference between half a dose of BronkAid and a 30mg dose of Adderall is like comparing drinking half a glass of wine to two or three back-to-back tequila shots. Maybe a full dose of Bronk will upgrade the experience to a full glass of wine.

...

Oh, here's a big one: 

I'm in the early stages of limiting my meat consumption for ethical reasons. I finished the book The Feeling of Life Itself by Christof Koch, on a recommendation by The Listening Society. The book made a good argument that animals do have some level of consciousness. 

I wrote an okay paper in an epistemology class that discussed consciousness. I said that the fundamental difference between the human mind and the mind of a chimpanzee (or a bee) is similar to the structural difference between the hand of a chimp and the hand of a human—one slight change to one particular bone in the hand or thumb and a species goes from smashing rocks against things to making machines that can manipulate individual atoms. I called this uniquely human quality universality; universality is a quality of mind and body that we possess and other animals do not—as far as I can tell, anyway.

Language, and the mind, can turn in on itself and transform itself in infinite ways. Given enough time, we have the necessary equipment (brains, hands, and language) to represent any true proposition or really do anything. Meanwhile, the "animal kingdom" seems to be at a steady equilibrium. (This last paragraph is dubious, but you get the idea. We have in us, right now, a quality that animals do not, this quality includes the capacity for ethics Zack made an interesting point yesterday, saying, should we allow animals to eat each other? —sure why not.) 

Anway—yeah—I think humans are fundamentally different from animals in terms of our subjective experience. Humans have meaningful experiences; animals just have mere-experiences. (And we have what Heidegger calls Dasein, and animals do not.) We are unmatched in our ability to represent and transform our environment according to our desires (for better or worse because of how short sighted our desires are). Yes, I think we are, in fact, special. I also think that given enough time and the right conditions, any species could eventually reach our level. But we are more capable in terms of our development of consciousness. (See: Model of Hierarchical Complexity)

All that being said, I think that animals do experience the world, albeit in a less sophisticated way that we do. And I also think that hippies and animal rights activists overestimate the capacity that animals have for consciousness/subjective experience. But I don't think animals are mere clockwork. 

So here's the grand conclusion:

I want to eat less factory farmed meat. Life is tragic and full of suffering. We're all just struggling to get by on Earth. We all meet death, and that encounter often involves great pain. But a factory farm is hell, not Earth. Every being deserves a reasonable chance at living at least an okay life.

Not all animals are created equal; so here's my first shot at a hierarchical list of what not to eat:

• Dolphins and friends
• Apes/Monkeys
• Pigs
• Octopuses (unsure about squid)
• Corvids/Parrots
• Rats/Racoons/Squirresl
• Cows
• Chickens
• Most fish

Fair Game: Generally speaking the idea is to avoid factory farmed meat. 

• If it's hunted or wild caught, it's probably fair game. 
• Happy, pasture raised cows/chickens are okay 

...

I am reminded of being seventeen, wandering the desert that one night, tripping my balls off, and standing by a yucca plant and feeling a white glow of being. In its own way it said, "Hi, don't mind me here; I'm just here growing."—Now, that's some hippy, pantheist bullshit. But that's what I felt. And it was meaningful, even if it was just a projection (my mind simulating what a plant might feel). 

Anyway, if carrots scream, then, sorry carrots; this is necessary: life feeds on life.

Jan 25, 2021

I might have COVID. We'll see in within the next 48 hours. Everyone involved is asymptomatic at this point. One friend just happens to get tested twice a week. 

...

I found myself taking a piss (literally) and fantasizing about great future achievements of great philosophical achievement. I imagined people coming to me from far away to see my wisdom. But rather than being on a lonely mountaintop, I would be tending a garden, or riding a motorcycle; I would be out there living a good life.

I don't suppose I'll ever be a great thinker. That dream stinks of caustic golden smoke. But I see the value in that fantasy. 

...

Some popculture guy probably already figured it out. I need to pay more attention to popculture movements. I need to figure out if there is some meaningful trend I am missing. It's too convenient for me to just wave it all away. 

January 20, 2021 Hell is a place on Earth

It's just before 5pm. I've just returned from the grocery store to pick up beer, onions, and ground beef. The cat is sitting beside me while I type this up. The groceries need to be put away, but I find that it is more important to get these thoughts down. 

There was a woman outside the grocery store entrance, wearing a thin white t-shirt with no bra, black pants, way underdressed for a cold, dry, evening. She was attractive, quite beautiful, but tragically so. She had short hair which was fairly well-kept, all things considered. I have seen her once before, in the summer, walking barefoot along the same sidewalk, in a confused, solipsistic daze. This time, things were different. 

I can still see her standing there. I'm walking toward her. There's a crowd of four gathered behind her. She's staring past me, screaming. I can't make sense of what she is saying. I don't remember precisely what she said. —demons! There are demons here! Can't you see? They are all here...— It doesn't matter precisely what she said. It was her comportment, her countenance—her being. 

This moment will stay with me. Another ghost joins the fold. 

There go I but for the crapiscious will of chance. I am one traumatic brain injury, prion, or other meaningless misfortune away from joining that woman in hell. 

Hell is place on Earth.

Hell is in my neighborhood.

...

I wish I could have gotten this on video. I wish others could have felt what I felt in that moment. It had the power of what Maslow called a Peak Experience, but it was in the other direction. The experience came with a message, and the message was this: You and your neighbors, in spite of your virtues and vices, may find yourselves in hell.

I have a lingering doubt whether or not this was "real". It could have been art. Well, if it was an art performance, it was real enough. This moment was an accurate representation of a larger problem, repeated in too many people.

How many live in hell like this?

...

This woman needs help. There are many people like her who need help. Many of these people who need help do not have friends or family. Many of them have alienated every ally. Many of them are ugly in face and in soul; they are socially and economically useless. Even so, they deserve better than hell. The least we can do is better accommodate them; if we can, we should. —Social programs, church programs, community outreaches, it really doesn't matter, the more the better.

...

Reading today, Hanzi's The Listening Society:

"A lot of the less-than-fully-functional people in society tend to out-depth most of us—or at least they have the potential to do so. [They have deep hearts, deep emotions, existential depth.] Broken and crazy people, for all their limitations, often live in greater worlds; they have walked to hell and back. A lot of them just stumbled on their way back."

January 14, 2021: ghosts

Before I fell asleep last night, I was visited by a ghost: I heard my mother weeping bitterly. I texted her this morning to make sure she was still alive. She's alive. But, nonetheless, it was her ghost.

I get the sense that this is one of those moments that is important from a psychoanalytic standpoint. When I felt her weeping, she wasn't weeping as my mother. Rather, she was weeping because she was in grief. She was weeping in the fullness of herself, in a greater totality of her being—not as a mother.

It's an achievement of personal development to be able to understand our parents as individuals with their own lives, seeing them not framed within their archetypal role as parents. That being said, I feel behind the curve because I have had such a problematic relationship with my parents because of our religious and ideological differences.

...

The feeling itself was intense. It has colored my thoughts even now after I return to this document over twelve hours later. Every time I think of my mother, I think of her in a state of suffering. She's suffering with the totality of her being.

I don't think she would have ever showed me such a face. She would never admit to despairing of life; she instantly pulls up a mask of humble, god-fearing, piety.. I assume that she felt the need to set an example—to point to the right way. 

But children need to watch adults overcome, for they do as their parents do, not as their say; for they are as their parents are, not as their parents wish they were.

...

On the metaphysics/ontology of ghosts: 

They are real. And you have encountered them. I do not know if they take physical form beyond the firing of neurons in the brain. But they exist and influence our world. Their relation to the world of physical matter is beyond me; they are not readily summoned by materialistic means. But the arts [e/i]nvoke them. 

They live alongside our ideas and the gods. Oftentimes, we're unable to distinguish between our ideas and them; most people don't even notice the difference between themselves and gods and ghosts.

A ghost says, the gods and daimons speak; you only need to inquire within. 

Jan 12, 2021

I am in the living room. The TV is going. Regular Show is playing. It's underrated. Caitlin loves it. I love it. I hope an academic acknowledges its brilliance someday, if they haven't already. 

A thought came to mind that I felt the need to share. Hopefully I can catch it. 

So, there's this idea that if you're doing the right thing in the right way, then you're so busy being "good" (that is, good at something) that you don't notice how bad the world is. This phenomenon is better accurately described by psychologists when they describe flow. 

I think the opposite of flow is the Heideggerian idea of present-at-hand—when we encounter an object/habit/something that is no longer working, it forces us to sit and contemplate the theoretical nature of the object. If we're at our keyboard, in the middle of trying to post something to reddit and the internet stops working, then we're no longer on a reddit-machine; we're trying to diagnose a problem; we're in problem solving mode, trying to figure out what it really means. The computer stops being a tool, and it becomes a series of puzzles.

I feel like over the past two years I have been coming out of a present-at-hand mindset—a fog. It as if my being—what I am—has been in a state of constant-maintenance, like a motorcycle that spends too much time in the garage. But now I feel like I am a more reliable machine, worthy of long-distance travel.

This is good. When I was younger, if I would have been in flow I would have been "flowing" in the wrong direction—better to be (self-aware and) neurotic and set my-self in order. 

That being said, it's not that I don't find myself in the garage often. Rather, I feel that I have the confidence to ride—to do and be—onward, however long the journey may be, I can plan for it. (Well, within one or two lifetimes; eternity is another matter, for the opus magnum is seldom completed in one lifetime.)

January 9, 2021

It's actually the 10th, shortly after 1am. I'm in bed, and the rain has just started to pick up outside, slow steady drops. Caitlin is asleep beside me. She's not snoring this time. We had a good day today. We drove to Cle Elum and Roslyn. I found Caitlin a pair of good ($20) socks for $3 at a thrift store.  I took pictures, and then we drove back. Then we had my favorite fried chicken at Sisters and Brothers Bar on Ellis, a few blocks away. I spent the rest of the evening editing photos.

While we were making our way over the pass, Caitlin read a little bit of The Story of Philosophy by Durant. She's only getting started with the book (and reluctantly). She's reading about Plato's Republic. Its discussion about the potential perils that we face as a society feel exceptionally relevant at the moment. The Capitol building was breached by Trump fanatics who wanted—well, no one is quite sure precisely what they wanted, but we know that it's bad and that it's stoked on by Trump's insistence that he won the election. 

I sincerely wish the entire country would read The Story of Philosophy. But I doubt I can even get Caitlin to read it. Well, pearls before swine; garnets in the grass. —Sorry, Caitlin. (My father shares this same impulse, the desire to force information on people. I can never forget him once saying that he wishes he could do a Vulcan mind meld on people so they could know what he knows; sorry, Father, a Vulcan mind meld goes both ways.) 

I'm not sure how afraid I should be. I have been worried for a long time that the United States may face a civil war or perhaps prolonged domestic terrorism. It doesn't look like we're going to suddenly plunge into war and strife. But there will be fallout. If his spell isn't broken and his lies aren't brought out of darkness, Trump will be remain political martyr, a rally cry. 

I found the New York Times article The American Abyss by Timothy Snyder to most accurately reflect my beliefs. What I wrote above is significantly influenced by his opinion. (I signed up for The New York Times today on Don and Zack's recommendation, so far so good.)

...

The new website is coming along nicely. I think the plan is to make it a reflection of my most important ideas.

January 4, 2021

It's just before noon. I have work in an hour. I'm in jeans, sitting beside Caitlin on the bed while she works from home.

This weekend was busy and full: We had friends over. I bought a new camera. We accidentally spent $50 on two chicken legs (2 pounds) from a truck operated by Sea Breeze Farm at the Ballard farmers market; the chicken was, without a doubt, worth every penny, and now we are ruined, for every chicken will pale in comparison, living in the shadow of that . I also lost myself in Adobe Lightroom for hours. And I pu

I bought a used DSLR at a good discount from Glazers. Like the idiot noob I am, I thought it was broken because the viewfinder was blurry. So, now two days later, I went back to the store to see what was up.  Well, turns out that there's a small dial by the viewfinder. Anyway, I bought a spare SD card, a lens cleaning kit, and two books—The Essence of Photography and Extraordinary Everyday Photography. Reading makes a difference, especially when it comes to things like this; technical manuals are not enough. 

I also bought the domain curiousredthread.com to use for my short stories and essays. That is going to be an interesting project. 

Here are some pictures I took. I'll need to figure out a way to format them to make them look good on this blog.