Up Down Up Down Up Down

Tags:avoidance, friends, fun, homework, internet, school.

No, I’m not talking about a trampoline, or doing the bouncy-bouncy, or even the stock market.

I’m talking about my internet connection. As a highly-evolved (snicker), ordained High Priestess (whoa, that’s weird), I should be able to take this inconsistency in stride. After all, I’m the Priestess of Controlled Chaos! I’ve survived being homeless, raising two Gemini children (well, that’s ongoing), and dancing topless with a knife in my mouth! What’s a little internet irritation compared to that?

Well, funny you should ask, because I’ve been pondering that myself.

Here’s what I think it is (I mean, since you asked and all) -

I think the reason why it drives me so crazy is because it interferes with my addiction (there, I’ve said it!) to my community. Ok, maybe that’s an extreme way to phrase it, but how it plays out is thus: I want to hang out with my peeps. They are busy. I am busy. I am thwarted in my desires. I feel sad. But, wait! Almost everyone has a blog! Those that don’t are pathologically addicted to email like I am! So, connection to the internet = connection to community.

Pathetic? Well, maaaaybe. Still true? Hell yes.

Then there’s the other factor of it (that is, my lack of consistent connectivity) interefering with my homework avoidance strategy.

How can I put off doing my homework if I have nothing to distract me? No emails to reply to or blogs to read? Terrible. I can’t quite justify turning on the TV or watching a movie because that’s too overt an avoidance technique, it’s completely unjustifiable. Email, on the other hand, is pernicious and insidious (two excellent words). It subtly steals my time away in the most enjoyable fashion. But, only when it’s working. Rats!

Alright, I’ve successfully made a blog post about avoiding homework, so that I could avoid doing homework for just a little longer. Now I guess it’s time to hit the books! Maybe I’ll just check my email one more time…

The “Aha” moment and other unrelated things

Tags:deduction, geek, improbability drive, inference, nerd, Sherlock Holmes, skulls, The Beatles, transcendence.

I was talking with Mawi last night about chaos versus the trickster and how it relates to two kinds of Sherlockian reasoning. By the way, as if I weren’t a big enough geek already, I am also a HUGE Sherlock Holmes fan. I have often said that he was my first love (but then I realized Kermit came first).

We discussed the notion that Mawi’s style of reasoning was generally inferential, in which one extrapolates specific details from the overall picture. (It smells smoky in here, therefore someone must have been smoking recently and there must be cigarette butts in the ashtray.)
My style of reasoning is generally deductive, in which one takes specific details and extrapolates the overall picture. (There are cigarette butts in the ashtray, therefore someone must have been smoking in here recently, which also explains the funky smell.)

So, to summarize (in case I lost anyone with my nerdiness, and yes, I am both a nerd and a geek, but that’s a discussion for another time):
Mawi = from the general to the specific = inference
me = from the specific to the general = deduction

In reality, we all use both at different times (or we simply suck at figuring out why anything happens in our lives, I know people like that), but that’s kind of beside the point at the moment. My point is, Mawi and I were discussing the “aha” moment that happens when specific details coalesce into an overall picture, like when you learn a language and suddenly you stop translating in your head and just understand it.

I live for those moments. Those are transcendent moments.

And then I realized why I am an obsessive collector of skills:
because I’m addicted to the “aha” moment, I’m addicted to transcendence.

My friends (lovingly) accuse me (J’accuse!) of being able to do and/or make anything. This is not actually true, of course, and I am both flattered and embarrassed by the suggestion. BUT, all the same, I do like (I mean, really like) knowing things and knowing how to do things. I thought maybe it was because I was trying to prove to myself (and the world?) that I really am good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.

Well, that’s certainly valid (you know, I’m neurotic), but last night I realized I also just can’t get enough of the excitement that comes from connecting the dots, from relating one thing to another (apparently) vastly different thing, and from understanding the deeper connections underneath it all.

The more one knows about different stuff, the more one can find those connections, and the more one has the “aha” experience. (Then one’s brain becomes a giant tangled web of overlapping and contingent realities. It has its drawbacks, like making it incredibly difficult to decide what to order at a restaurant or whether to do homework or take a nap.)
In order to attain that moment of clarity, we must engage our internal improbability drives and allow our subconscious (or perhaps the collective unconscious) to draw the lines that we don’t overtly see (chaos, baby!).

Then, suddenly, it all takes shape, like a star coalescing from a cloud of superheated gas, and the brilliant glow of the realization warms the psyche and mesmerizes the mind.

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."
   - William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

(the poem goes on quite a bit after that, but the rest is a rather ponderous, IMHO)

In other news, Liverpool Hope University is now offering a Master of Arts degree
in The Beatles. I kid you not.

And just for fun, I invite you to peruse Skull-A-Day.
Yup, it's just what it sounds like, but so much more!
I want to encourage your dark inner geeky soul because I'm like that.

Of friendship, love, and community.
Of change, the infinite, and Netflix.

Tags:art, beauty, CAYA, change, dreams, family, friends, fun, Italy, love, movies, Pantheacon, school.

You know, little things.

I have fallen off the blog bandwagon, and hard. I don’t know why but I’ve had a positive aversion to posting lately (lately, as in the last three whole months).

Anyway, I was one of the tribe who went to Pantheacon and I’m not sure what I can add to the already wonderful and brilliant descriptions and reflections on the experience. Honestly I think I’m still processing it all.

I’m still having weird and intense (though good) dreams about my covenmates every night and every time I take a nap; they are so intense that it makes me wonder if the people in them are having the same dreams…

I learned that I love my tribe so much it’s kinda indescribable, that it’s actually pretty damn ok to be the Tower, and that I look good in a corset (who doesn’t, really?). I learned that the rituals and performances my group did were some of the best in the entire Con.

I learned that I’m wiser and more dangerous than I give myself credit for. I’m not sure, but I think those are both good things.

I also learned that those PCon organizers weren’t kidding when they said you should eat at least 2 meals and get at least 6 hours sleep every day (I learned that one the hard way, I got a terrible, miserable cold the week after PCon), but it was fun anyway so who really cares?

And, not least of all, I learned, by missing a week of school because I was so sick, that my coven community is far more important than my school community because my school is full of shit 90% of the time (see, Thora, we totally agree about pretentious artist crap) and that I really don’t care about my degree anymore except that I’m planning on using financial aid to get to Italy this summer and I only have a year to go and I don’t want to be a quitter.

The result of all this epiphany is that I haven’t watched any of my Netflix movies in over a month and have certainly paid several times over to have simply bought them by now.

Ah well.