no idea

I was just reading an acquaintance's blog and about his "integrated" media company he built from the ground up. While I highly admire the raw ambition and headstrongness it takes a person to see such a thing through I could not help but recognize a widening emptiness as I read about the possible capitalizations to be made on said entwined media -- producer engages consumer -- experience. He spoke of having a "set apart" sensation from early childhood and that this media exploration of his was to be the conduit through which his intrinsic purpose could be satiated. From my perspective it is no wonder he also remarked on this not actually being his "true calling." It seems to me that if a person has an authentic, birth-rite purpose and if this person believes this to be a God-ordained purpose then pursuing a dream that (from his own description) appears to only serve to put money in people's pockets who have a great deal of it and push content on undiscerning consumers solely for the sake of having more content. Integrate because you can. It's the future and the future is all that matters. It's all we have. The future is fucking now.

New media has always fascinated me mainly because it seems to be a phenomena that isn't. It is only special because someone says it is. Any device that spreads information in a slightly tweaked format is the harbinger of a cultural seachange. It is an irony that I cannot stop laughing at. It is all so self-glorifying. Everything is inward and it is no surprise that most new technologies usually serve to isolate and divide rather than foster community. I suddenly have a notion to entirely throw off all amplification of myself beyond that which can come about through my true voice and body. I could stop this blog immediately. I could never use the telephone again because it only allows a sliver of who I am to reach the receiver. Even letter writing is dangerous. Too much amplification. Too wide spread. Any music I play could only broadcast as loud as the unsupplemented instrument can carry itself. That blows considering my primary instrument is the electric bass which is next to impossible to hear without juice. I shall hone my accordian and saxophone chops then. All is not lost. There are too many stringed instruments anyhow. I need people to come closer. Maybe I will just play my bass on the street corner so people have to crane their necks and press their ears right up to the strings to hear anything and then certainly we will know each other better through this interaction. Much better than a mediated conversation could afford. I want to read books aloud to children and speak without microphones.

I want us all to be heard as we are and not as we seem to be through infinitely integrated systems of "communication." John Lennon and Yoko Ono had this "project" they called real communication. It was quite hokey but the sentiment was earnest and provocative. The project was more of a lifestyle of artistic expressions that drew out honesty from yourself, even if it didn't make sense what you were expressing, with the purpose of engendering community and (of course) peace. They did bizarre things like wear only black trashbags or staying in bed for 24 hours (with plenty of media coverage to be sure). Things that I am not sure were not merely ways to express their desire to attract attention but I suppose there were no moral stipulations on their "real communication" so self worship was hardly taboo if it was merely honest self worship.

I don't know. I have no ideas.

no excess

I found this story on the "New Voices" portion of Granta.com. Please read it. It is short and very fascinating. I remember in college attempting to write a story from the second person and becoming so entirely befuddled at how to make it sound natural that I recall crying for days. The young writer of the story I linked to not only beautifully used the second person but seamlessly intertwined it with a first person that does not break up the flow or seem like a cop-out. I am jealous and intrigued. Also I love the brevity of each thought. There is no excess and in that way it gains a true poetic voice. It reminded me of the first twenty minutes of the new Pixar movie, UP, in how it gently and reverently guides you through a couple simple, romantic lives without belaboring anything yet skimping on nothing.

I am truly, truly inspired by this story. I want to write like that. Ever since college I have been so enamoured by authors who can write volumes by writing a few perfect paragraphs. I wish to live my life in that manner as well. Full and simple.

brandonpiercegeary

a shower a day...

It goes without saying that having a day off is a welcome respite. Or should be rather. Today I had a day off work and I feel more exhausted than ever. I do not feel like going to get our car looked at (even though the accident wasn't Melissa's fault and the lady's insurance will surely cover the expenses). I do not feel like reading the Haruki Marukami novel that I should have finished by now (even though everyone else in the reading group read ahead and finished the novel before we had a chance to discuss the first four chapters like we were supposed to so now I look like an even slower reader than the one I actually am). I do not feel like picking up after myself (even though I have been all day). And I do not feel like sleeping (even though I have stumbled through my day in a mysterious half-slumber since I got out of the shower).

And I believe I have finally discovered the base issue. I should not have taken a shower this morning. I find that if I wake up before seven o'clock a shower is just the right remedy for a newly awoken body. I also find that if I wake up after ten o'clock a shower is a lengthy chore that puts a kink in an otherwise productive day. I can prove this is so, just look at today. Lethargy city.

brandonpiercegeary

stupid is: stupid does

"Any idea that is worthwhile is very nearly a stupid one." (or something like that)*
- Michel Gondry

*not actually part of the quote

I feel like all my ideas are stupid. And not the secretly brilliant ones disguised as stupid but objectively ridiculous. Except for starting to write letters to my father. That was a good idea. But everything else, no good. Actually I take that back. In truth I think far too highly of my ideas. I love them dearly. I hold them so close that no one else can see them. Mine all mine.

I actually just got a great idea. I must water our house plants and water our garden. I believe our brown little conifer on our table is beyond help so maybe instead of watering it I will just sing to it and hope that it had lived long enough to bear seeds and multiply. I think we will be enjoying its kin for years to come... somewhere.

brandonpiercegeary

pontifical man

I surprised Melissa with a trip to the movies the other day. It wasn't the grand romantic gesture I worked it up in my mind to be but it sure did make her happy and therefore was a success. We saw Enlighten Up about a documentary director making a documentary about a young man she hand picked to be the center of an experiment to find meaning in yoga. It was mentioned in the film how it seems she should have just performed the 6-month experiment herself since it was her own diminishing faith in yoga that prompted her to devise the scheme. But she held that she wanted to see if yoga could have "transformative" effects on the uninitiated. Nick, the subject, said he had never considered yoga or any spiritual endeavor before agreeing to submit to Kate's , the director, plan.

The film seemed to come at yoga from nearly every angle people approach it from except for perhaps someone who would consider yoga offensive, if there is anybody. They did talk a little about how in India, at some point but perhaps not in modern day, people talked of Yogis as demonic wanderers who steal away children and wreak general havoc as opposed to individuals who are merely yoga enthusiasts. Other than that they explored the physical and metaphysical practices associated with yoga. Nick began as a willing skeptic and Kate as the waning believer. By the end they weren't much closer to discovering "true yoga" or a universal transformative power it might hold. The actually ended up nearly right where they began with only a greater sense of the history of yoga and a vocabulary useful in discussing its various forms. Sure it was only six months but I expected a little bit of transformation or perhaps maturing. But perhpaps this is all we can hope for. More knowledge, no wisdom. The two seekers did find they had a deeper desire for the purer things in life: family, health, quiet meditation.

I wonder if their journey's flaw was the fact that they said they were pursuing a means to be happy and fulfilled. They didn't request wisdom or even greater insight into living at peace with others. They kept wanting to find a wholeness in-and-of themselves. I suppose one could spend a lifetime pursuing wholeness in all of its manifestations and never be consumed by it because it seems to me that looking at one's own self constantly gives you the same view consistently. Perhaps if spending ourselves on everyone else and in effect being that magnanimous person of grace before we feel like we have attained what we think is required to live in such a way we will gain a truer perspective of ourselves and see G-d. I think a greater virtue than pursuing inner peace is to make peace.