Lately I have been thinking a lot about books and reading them. I haven't been reading books lately, instead I've been listening to them on my iPhone after buying them from Audible which is a pretty legit website, they have a good selection and customer service. I would get my audio books from the library but my phone is too old to use their app. It seems strange to me that a government agency is using technology too advanced for me, but it's true.
Anyway, I've been burning through audio books pretty fast, "reading" things from Mary Roach's cleverly titled books to books about that dude I'm always talking about to a series of novels about a poor man's John Constantine (not that the current one is that great, moving old John from Vertigo to DC proper was a bad idea, but that's a very different blog post.) Basically anything I can find that looks even remotely interesting I'll get. It's how I used to read maybe three years ago, before I hit some rather rough patches in life that took me away from reading. It's been great to get back into the swing of reading, even if someone else is doing it for me, and I've gotten back into reading printed books as well, which I still prefer, but are much less practical.
Listening to books that I purchased and downloaded from the internet got me thinking about books in general though, as did being able to sit at work at four in the morning and watch very internet things on my pocket computer device that we're still calling a phone for some reason. It made me wonder--were books only ever popular because there was no other alternative? In this day, when anything and everything can play a YouTube video or stream music or let you update your friends on how that bulge on your left nipple is doing, do people have time for books? And more poignantly, should they?
I struggled with that question. Especially when I was in the depths of my interlibrum. I spent the time I'd normally spend reading watching Netflix or YouTube or whatever. The ease of pulling out my little glass window to the internet was infinitely better than needing to crack open that paper book and reading it. Was my love of books something that was born only out of my being born before the ease of watching cats do cute shit in my hands? And if so, who was I to encourage people to read? Why should I tell you to read Catch-22 when you can watch the movie on Netflix without getting out of bed?
After a lot of thought, and getting back into books with a vengeance thanks to the very same device that brought those doubts down on me in the first place, I've decided that none of the above is true. I love books as much now, if not more, as I did when I was ten and reading Stephen King books that weighed as much as I did. The ease of watching videos or tweeting or whatever doesn't make them better than books, it only makes them easier.
During my lapse in reading I was having a tough time in life on multiple fronts. The details are unimportant, what is important is that I was looking for escape. Books are, of course, excellent means of escape--but I needed something easier. I needed to be able to tap my phone a few times and have someone else do everything for me, the explaining, the acting, the thinking. I needed to be the guy from the cartoon who's staring into the television with a slack face and whirlpool eyes. I didn't want to engage my brain for anything at all. I just wanted to stare into bright, flashy entertainment and not think.
Books require thought. Not just a running visual of what's happening based on the descriptions, but remembering what has happened, who's speaking, what a comma means. They require much more engagement from their audience than videos of someone playing a videogame. I think this is one of the greatest things about books, if they're fiction, they pull you into the story not just via good descriptions or characters or plot or whatever, but because you are involved intimately with the author in creating the scenes. The author has sent his thoughts out into the world in the form of text and you are connecting with him or her and translating his or her thoughts into your own. It's really a pretty remarkable experience when you think about it--a shockingly intense and close connection between two people who may never have even met.
I sure hope you're now thinking about how you totally let me into your head.
So is this a good thing? Should people bother? I think so. Obviously I'm biased, I like to read. And obviously there are connections to be made with creators through things other than books. Movies, videos, paintings, songs--all of them can provide that connection. Some are even more intense and personal than a book's can be, although I'd argue that a novel's connection is the most intimate. The one where you have to maintain that connection with the author for the longest time. There's more to books than the connection, though. All the thought I was talking about wanting to avoid when I was sad is a good thing. Your brain is strengthened by those thoughts, you become more adept at thinking around corners. I'm not shockingly intelligent, but I'm not stupid. Any intelligence I have I attribute entirely to reading voraciously. There's a reason that we refer to smart people as "bookish". The effort one puts into reading a book pays out in dividends of knowledge and understanding.
So, read. Don't just read news blogs or tweets or email blasts (do people really say that?) Read things that stimulate your mind. Remember that even today with all the money and CG and shit that the Avengers or The Hobbit deploy you can still see much better effects in a good book and you'll be smarter after experiencing them as well. I'm not saying you have to stop watching the Epic Fail of the Week videos, but maybe cut them with some good books?
And if you do, let me know, I love talking about them.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Sunday, November 24, 2013
On Ewoks
Tonight I got home with the intention of working on some story stuff. Instead I wound up playing a lot of the sequel to Defense of the Ancients with my friends. When we finished I felt like the creative juice had somewhat flown from my body. However, every writer I've ever read has stressed the idea that you have to write even when you are not feeling inspired or ready. I've decided to split the difference and type some dumb shit on the Internet.
Specifically dumb shit about ewoks. And probably a lot of shit about Star Wars in general.
First, I want to say up front that I love Star Wars. I love it un-ironically, wholeheartedly, and dearly. I know that these days it is a bit cooler to be into "nerd" stuff like Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever. I know a lot of people enjoy deconstructing Star Wars and talking about stupid shit like the second Death Star's fallout over Endor or how Luke kissed his sister because George Lucas didn't actually have some great uber-plot encompassing all of the movies. So fucking what? Neither did J. K. Rowling but no one calls her out.
Anyway, my point is that all that shit is not what I'm talking about. I'm also not talking about the prequel trilogy--which isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. It has several gems shimmering in the darkness that is the three movies, but for the most part they're not great. But forget about that, I'm not talking about the prequels, the deconstructions, the pictures of Chewbacca with sunglasses on or any of that shit. I'm talking about the feeling you get when this shit blasts the fuck on to the screen all brass and drums and big stupid 70s letters and the stars and everything. If you don't understand what I mean when I say that feeling, then you and I have very different ideas about what Star Wars is and you are probably not someone I want to talk to.
Now, before I get to the meat of this entry, which is the ewoks, I just want to mention that I don't think it's super cool to be cynical about Star Wars, especially the first three movies. Are there plot holes, cliches, silly shit and bad costumes? Yes, and we could spend all day pointing them out and feeling smugly superior to all the silly Star Wars fanboys, but, as I said in an earlier blog, you shouldn't waste your time doing that and if you are the sort of person who enjoys that, well, this entry is probably going to annoy you and you should leave.
Alright, now, let's talk ewoks.
To start talking about ewoks, one has to talk about Return of the Jedi. People say this movie the the worst of the original Star Wars movies, or sometimes they say shit like it's the "weakest" of the three or whatever. I think this is a recent development spurred on by the Internet and everyone needing to hate everything, but I may be wrong. Maybe people have said for years that Return of the Jedi is the worst of the original Star Wars films. Whatever, my point here is I don't think that Jedi is a weak film. It think it's a great film. Never once when I was watching it and taking in only my own opinions did I ever think of it as weaker or less than the other two movies. I never found any of the original movies weak, they were all equally great to me, at all times. If anything it was the much beloved Empire Strikes Back that I didn't like. Granted, this was because I was a kid and it was the only Star Wars movie we had when I was very young (my dad had recorded it with our VCR off of ABC or something) and I watched it so many times that I just got sick of it.
One of the main complaints people have with Jedi is the ewoks. They say the ewoks are designed to appeal to kids, to sell toys, to make it into a Disney movie or whatever the hell else you want to say about the little teddy bear bastards. They say it was a glimpse into how Lucas was already starting to lose his shit and the first step on the road to Jar Jar Binks (another character I didn't think was that bad).
I say nay, to these men and women. I say that, in their haste to be derisive and coolly cynical they have missed the entire point of the ewoks. Which is sad because it is a glaringly obvious point.
That point, stated plainly, is that appearances are deceiving. Not only is this a great theme, its the central fucking theme of almost everything in Star Wars, from Luke and Leia to Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon, to Darth fucking Vader. Everything in Star Wars is about certain points of view.
The ewoks look like cute little animals, their language is chirps and gurgles and shit like "nub nub". The Empire saw them as animals that were no threat at all to their operations, and so-called fans of Star Wars see them in the same light despite their obvious proofs otherwise.
What proofs? Well, when they first find the rebels on their planet they capture them, tie them up and bring them to their village to fucking eat them. Yeah, not to make friends with them, not to ask them to help their poor village or show them the power of love or whatever, they want to roast them alive over a fire and fucking eat their tasty human flesh. They obviously know that Luke and Han are sentient beings since they have Leia in their village as a guest but they don't give a shit. Even when their god tells them to let their prisoners go they ignore him and continue to prepare to cook them. It isn't until C-3PO "levitates" to display his anger that the ewoks relent and release the rebels.
So what does this first encounter tell us? That the ewoks are not what they appear to be. They are not cute, friendly animals. Sure, Wicket was nice enough (even though he did totally brandish a spear at Leia) but he was just a kid, not a hardened ewok warrior.
And are the ewoks hardened? Fuck yes. Even ignoring the ewok movies, which I do, they're shown to be capable fighters when they join the rebels to assault the shield generator on the moon.
So people get mad at this fight too because, I guess, the ewoks are not all slaughtered wholesale by the stormtroopers and hit them with rocks which knocks the elite legion soldiers over and they kill AT-STs or something.
Well guys, shit like that happens in real life too. You don't get to see the ewoks piling onto the felled stormtroopers to rip off their armor and stab them to death because it's a Star Wars movie and not Saving Private Ryan, but we can imagine that shit happened. Did the ewoks outnumber the stormtroopers? Probably. They also had the terrain on their side and several elite rebel soldiers on their side. Even without these advantages they nearly lose the battle. It isn't until Chewbacca and a few ewoks are able to take an AT-ST and use it to fight off the Empire that they win the battle.
Is this goofy and stupid and an attempt by Lucas to sell toys? I say no. I say that the ewoks helping the rebels and revealing themselves to be vicious fighters who PLAYED DRUMS ON THE SKULLS OF THEIR DEFEATED FOES not only fits into the logical world of Star Wars but is totally in step with the whole rest of the entire saga by being things that appear to be one thing and then reveal themselves to be something different.
So, the next time someone takes a smug shot at how stupid the ewoks were, yell "yub nub" and stab his stupid fucking face with a wooden spear and then tear off his head and use it to play sweet, sweet victory music.
Or maybe just tell him he's dumb and use this blog to illustrate that. Either one works.
Specifically dumb shit about ewoks. And probably a lot of shit about Star Wars in general.
First, I want to say up front that I love Star Wars. I love it un-ironically, wholeheartedly, and dearly. I know that these days it is a bit cooler to be into "nerd" stuff like Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever. I know a lot of people enjoy deconstructing Star Wars and talking about stupid shit like the second Death Star's fallout over Endor or how Luke kissed his sister because George Lucas didn't actually have some great uber-plot encompassing all of the movies. So fucking what? Neither did J. K. Rowling but no one calls her out.
Anyway, my point is that all that shit is not what I'm talking about. I'm also not talking about the prequel trilogy--which isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. It has several gems shimmering in the darkness that is the three movies, but for the most part they're not great. But forget about that, I'm not talking about the prequels, the deconstructions, the pictures of Chewbacca with sunglasses on or any of that shit. I'm talking about the feeling you get when this shit blasts the fuck on to the screen all brass and drums and big stupid 70s letters and the stars and everything. If you don't understand what I mean when I say that feeling, then you and I have very different ideas about what Star Wars is and you are probably not someone I want to talk to.
Now, before I get to the meat of this entry, which is the ewoks, I just want to mention that I don't think it's super cool to be cynical about Star Wars, especially the first three movies. Are there plot holes, cliches, silly shit and bad costumes? Yes, and we could spend all day pointing them out and feeling smugly superior to all the silly Star Wars fanboys, but, as I said in an earlier blog, you shouldn't waste your time doing that and if you are the sort of person who enjoys that, well, this entry is probably going to annoy you and you should leave.
Alright, now, let's talk ewoks.
To start talking about ewoks, one has to talk about Return of the Jedi. People say this movie the the worst of the original Star Wars movies, or sometimes they say shit like it's the "weakest" of the three or whatever. I think this is a recent development spurred on by the Internet and everyone needing to hate everything, but I may be wrong. Maybe people have said for years that Return of the Jedi is the worst of the original Star Wars films. Whatever, my point here is I don't think that Jedi is a weak film. It think it's a great film. Never once when I was watching it and taking in only my own opinions did I ever think of it as weaker or less than the other two movies. I never found any of the original movies weak, they were all equally great to me, at all times. If anything it was the much beloved Empire Strikes Back that I didn't like. Granted, this was because I was a kid and it was the only Star Wars movie we had when I was very young (my dad had recorded it with our VCR off of ABC or something) and I watched it so many times that I just got sick of it.
One of the main complaints people have with Jedi is the ewoks. They say the ewoks are designed to appeal to kids, to sell toys, to make it into a Disney movie or whatever the hell else you want to say about the little teddy bear bastards. They say it was a glimpse into how Lucas was already starting to lose his shit and the first step on the road to Jar Jar Binks (another character I didn't think was that bad).
I say nay, to these men and women. I say that, in their haste to be derisive and coolly cynical they have missed the entire point of the ewoks. Which is sad because it is a glaringly obvious point.
That point, stated plainly, is that appearances are deceiving. Not only is this a great theme, its the central fucking theme of almost everything in Star Wars, from Luke and Leia to Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon, to Darth fucking Vader. Everything in Star Wars is about certain points of view.
The ewoks look like cute little animals, their language is chirps and gurgles and shit like "nub nub". The Empire saw them as animals that were no threat at all to their operations, and so-called fans of Star Wars see them in the same light despite their obvious proofs otherwise.
What proofs? Well, when they first find the rebels on their planet they capture them, tie them up and bring them to their village to fucking eat them. Yeah, not to make friends with them, not to ask them to help their poor village or show them the power of love or whatever, they want to roast them alive over a fire and fucking eat their tasty human flesh. They obviously know that Luke and Han are sentient beings since they have Leia in their village as a guest but they don't give a shit. Even when their god tells them to let their prisoners go they ignore him and continue to prepare to cook them. It isn't until C-3PO "levitates" to display his anger that the ewoks relent and release the rebels.
So what does this first encounter tell us? That the ewoks are not what they appear to be. They are not cute, friendly animals. Sure, Wicket was nice enough (even though he did totally brandish a spear at Leia) but he was just a kid, not a hardened ewok warrior.
And are the ewoks hardened? Fuck yes. Even ignoring the ewok movies, which I do, they're shown to be capable fighters when they join the rebels to assault the shield generator on the moon.
So people get mad at this fight too because, I guess, the ewoks are not all slaughtered wholesale by the stormtroopers and hit them with rocks which knocks the elite legion soldiers over and they kill AT-STs or something.
Well guys, shit like that happens in real life too. You don't get to see the ewoks piling onto the felled stormtroopers to rip off their armor and stab them to death because it's a Star Wars movie and not Saving Private Ryan, but we can imagine that shit happened. Did the ewoks outnumber the stormtroopers? Probably. They also had the terrain on their side and several elite rebel soldiers on their side. Even without these advantages they nearly lose the battle. It isn't until Chewbacca and a few ewoks are able to take an AT-ST and use it to fight off the Empire that they win the battle.
Is this goofy and stupid and an attempt by Lucas to sell toys? I say no. I say that the ewoks helping the rebels and revealing themselves to be vicious fighters who PLAYED DRUMS ON THE SKULLS OF THEIR DEFEATED FOES not only fits into the logical world of Star Wars but is totally in step with the whole rest of the entire saga by being things that appear to be one thing and then reveal themselves to be something different.
So, the next time someone takes a smug shot at how stupid the ewoks were, yell "yub nub" and stab his stupid fucking face with a wooden spear and then tear off his head and use it to play sweet, sweet victory music.
Or maybe just tell him he's dumb and use this blog to illustrate that. Either one works.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Of Things to Come
So when I started this blog thing I'm pretty sure I made references to the fact that I would be writing it when the urge to write something overtook me but I didn't want to actually put any real thought of effort into what I was writing. Hence the title, right? So writing this blog became a way for me basically to procrastinate from working on things that I actually wanted to be writing.
Despite this I am pleased to say that I have finished what I was writing when not wasting time on this blog--all the stories for the first book I'm ever going to actually publish (self published, yes, but so what) are done and 90% edited. Not only that, but a very talented, awesome, lovely, and generally fantastic human being named Re has been kind (or foolish) enough to actually take time out of her life to draw me a cover for the book. Earlier today Re sent me a very rough sketch of the book's main character, Christopher Prometheus. I was so taken by her work that I asked her to let me put it up here so that 1) people could see how cool it looked and 2) maybe a few people might start to get as excited to get the book as I am to finally, finally get it out where people can purchase it.
So, for your viewing pleasure, here is the very first ever drawing of Christopher Prometheus!
I don't know about you, but I have seriously been staring at that little sketch all god damn day. I can't get enough of it. Re got his face so right that even I wouldn't have been able to tell her how to draw it before I saw that. If you dig what you see here from Re, which you should even if you have no intention of ever reading anything I ever write again, then she can be see and followed and whatever else people do these days on Instagram here. Also I need to admit that before this very moment I have never, even once, been to the Instagram website in my entire life and going there made me feel very old and out of touch.
But wait, there's more!
In case you were not excited by the mere prospect of having your imagination set aflame by the visual representation of my book's hero, I have decided in my infinite wisdom to actually post a small sample from one of the stories here in an EXCLUSIVE look at Christopher Prometheus and the Dead City which has never been seen before ever anywhere! (unless you're a friend of mine who I've sent the story to and begged you to tell me what you think of it, then you're probably sick of it)
So! TWO EXCLUSIVES! The picture above, and this story excerpt below. Enjoy, and I hope to see you all when the book uh, launches? Is released? Whatever books do, when it does that.
Despite this I am pleased to say that I have finished what I was writing when not wasting time on this blog--all the stories for the first book I'm ever going to actually publish (self published, yes, but so what) are done and 90% edited. Not only that, but a very talented, awesome, lovely, and generally fantastic human being named Re has been kind (or foolish) enough to actually take time out of her life to draw me a cover for the book. Earlier today Re sent me a very rough sketch of the book's main character, Christopher Prometheus. I was so taken by her work that I asked her to let me put it up here so that 1) people could see how cool it looked and 2) maybe a few people might start to get as excited to get the book as I am to finally, finally get it out where people can purchase it.
So, for your viewing pleasure, here is the very first ever drawing of Christopher Prometheus!
I don't know about you, but I have seriously been staring at that little sketch all god damn day. I can't get enough of it. Re got his face so right that even I wouldn't have been able to tell her how to draw it before I saw that. If you dig what you see here from Re, which you should even if you have no intention of ever reading anything I ever write again, then she can be see and followed and whatever else people do these days on Instagram here. Also I need to admit that before this very moment I have never, even once, been to the Instagram website in my entire life and going there made me feel very old and out of touch.
But wait, there's more!
In case you were not excited by the mere prospect of having your imagination set aflame by the visual representation of my book's hero, I have decided in my infinite wisdom to actually post a small sample from one of the stories here in an EXCLUSIVE look at Christopher Prometheus and the Dead City which has never been seen before ever anywhere! (unless you're a friend of mine who I've sent the story to and begged you to tell me what you think of it, then you're probably sick of it)
So! TWO EXCLUSIVES! The picture above, and this story excerpt below. Enjoy, and I hope to see you all when the book uh, launches? Is released? Whatever books do, when it does that.
“What are we
waiting for?” Emily asked, he could hear fear scratching at her
words.
“I'm thinking,”
Chris said. These 'Gunners' were not just some random gang. He was
starting to doubt Emily's story about them coming after her for a
shotgun—even one from Before—but this was no time to interrogate
her. It seemed they were checking each floor, and he had seen enough
of them outside to think there were more than the two or three he
could see in the elevator shaft.
“We can't go
this way,” he said.
“So we'll take
the stairs or something!” Emily was grabbing at his sleeve.
Chris shook his
head, “I don't think that would work.”
“What do you
mean?” Emily was almost shouting now, “We can't go down here, we
have to take the stairs, there's no other way out! Let's just run
down the stairs, shoot the ones in the way, and get out of here!”
“We're fewer, we
should be able to evade them, and we're weaker, so we need to be able
to evade them.”
“What? What the
hell are you talking about?”
“Sun Tzu.”
“Sun who?”
“Nothing, this
way.”
Christopher jogged
back down the hall they had come from. Emily's panic was starting to
infect him, and the sounds of the men in the lower floors were
getting louder. His mind was racing for a solution. Things seemed
very dire, but there was always a solution. He just needed to figure
it out.
Chris stopped,
staring at one of the maps that were attached to the inside of each
room's door. Without much thought he yanked the plastic holder out of
the door, it came easily from the rotted wood, and slid the map out.
“Now what are
you doing?” Emily asked as he studied the map in the dying
sunlight.
“Looking for a
way out.”
“Paper is going
to tell you how to get out?”
“No it's a map.
I'm—” he looked up at her as he spoke, her face seemed almost as
blank as Cat's, who was standing next to her.
“Yeah, it's
going to show me the way out.”
The map showed
that there were four stairways, and the elevator shaft. Chris was
willing to bet that the Gunners had men in all of the stairwells,
probably one standing guard while others searched the rooms, moving
up methodically. They might not, but he was not willing to risk
running in to three or four armed men alone.
There was a
covered driveway at the bottom of the map, on the opposite side of
the hotel that Chris had come in through, a valet area. Chris thought
valets were servants or something, but whatever the map meant, it
looked like there was something there that he might be able to run
along without being seen by people beneath it.
Now he just needed
to get down to it.
Friday, November 15, 2013
"I say there is no Darkness but Ignorance."
You know what is an amazing and incredibly fun thing to do? Learning something.
I feel like this fact has been put in our faces so much by faded old posters on the backs of dusty library doors that people have forgotten how true it actually is. When you approach something you don't know anything about, or very little about, and are able to actually learn how to do it or what it means or how it works--well, the feeling is like nothing else is the world. At least to me, maybe you like feeling stupid, I don't know.
I think that as children we all find learning very easy, and why not? Our brains are as plastic and mercurial as they will ever be. They're begging for input like Jonny Five in a bookstore. We can learn without even trying as kids, whether it be walking, speaking, smiling, whatever--our brains learn instinctively so we don't even have to try.
It is a great tragedy that we as a society don't try harder to nourish and encourage that type of easy and free learning forever. I mean we do, sort of, see the aforementioned shitty posters. Bonus points if there's an apple or some equally trite crap on there. But our system of education is not geared towards learning, just instruction. Memorization. People say you should go to school so you can get a job, so you can get money, buy things, have a mortgage. They don't say you should go to school to learn. They see people who major in art or theater...or English and scoff at them. What a waste of money, a worthless degree. They casually disregard all of the knowledge and learning a person gains from that sort of education, immediately calculating about what material wealth the learning will give them and then callously mocking the person.
And fuck me, they're probably right. I'll probably live the rest of my life working shit jobs doing manual labor or telling black kids to behave or making wealthier people food. And that sucks, because money is great. But I have to wonder, in a world where wanting to learn for the sake of learning is a "waste of time" and all of life has to be focused on profit and loss and getting paid, are people like me the ones who are wrong? Maybe the world should try to be more like us, you know? I think a world where everyone learned art and poetry and network programming would be a better world for everyone.
But I'm getting off subject here. I don't want to whine about how unfair it is that no one wants to pay me to read Lord of the Flies to them and talk about the metaphysical properties of the conch. I'll probably write that blog in a month or so. What I want to talk about is the actual experience of learning and how fucking great it is.
I mentioned the ease with which very young children learn. We all know as time goes on it becomes harder to learn. The brain becomes less elastic. Patterns get worn into our ways of thinking, we struggle to change or add even simple things. One way to combat this, I think, is to always be learning something--be that through reading lots of books, listening to lots of music, watching lots of movies, anything where you're actually engaging your brain, not just staring at some brainless reality show or listening to some by the numbers song. It keeps your mind a little more agile, a bit more adaptive.
The other way, I think, is to meet someone who is really good at something or very passionate about it.
I have two friends who are DJs. They play at clubs I'd never go to and dress with more style when they roll out of bed than I'd manage if I spent five hours trying to pick out cool clothes at the Cool Clothes for Cool Cats store. I've heard the music they make and it's fucking phenomenal. It's so totally outside of my understanding or capability that I'd never hope to actually study it and understand it--but talking to them about it I feel like I am gleaning some small bit of the obviously massive knowledge they have built up over the years about musical theory and even just the computer programs they use to create the stuff. It's a heady feeling, a great feeling, meeting someone that knows so much about something they obviously love so much.
But let's not limit these thoughts to this wishy-washy liberal arts bullshit. My girlfriend's brother is a student learning computer programming. He's got more brains in his occipital lobe than I do in my whole nervous system. I know pretty much jack shit about computer programming. I know it has lots of different "languages" and that's about it. But when I hear this guy talking about writing code I'm always super interested, learning what I can even in simplified moron talk is absolutely fascinating to me. It makes me sad that I can't reset my life at like 18 and start learning this stuff, then reset it again and learn how to DJ, then reset again and learn about drumming or sky diving or neurology or sculpture or any of a million other things that a person could spend forever learning about.
It's a depressing reality that I often don't get to have as long and involved conversations with these sorts of people as I'd like. People don't always like talking about this stuff with weird guys like me, and it can be awkward as hell trying to tease out this sort of information for people. Still, when you can get someone who obviously loves and is knowledgeable about something to talk about it at length I encourage you to pick their brains as long as you can. You'll find yourself learning things in a way that reading a wikipedia page just cannot compare to.
And then you'll get that sweet, sweet knowledge high.
I feel like this fact has been put in our faces so much by faded old posters on the backs of dusty library doors that people have forgotten how true it actually is. When you approach something you don't know anything about, or very little about, and are able to actually learn how to do it or what it means or how it works--well, the feeling is like nothing else is the world. At least to me, maybe you like feeling stupid, I don't know.
I think that as children we all find learning very easy, and why not? Our brains are as plastic and mercurial as they will ever be. They're begging for input like Jonny Five in a bookstore. We can learn without even trying as kids, whether it be walking, speaking, smiling, whatever--our brains learn instinctively so we don't even have to try.
It is a great tragedy that we as a society don't try harder to nourish and encourage that type of easy and free learning forever. I mean we do, sort of, see the aforementioned shitty posters. Bonus points if there's an apple or some equally trite crap on there. But our system of education is not geared towards learning, just instruction. Memorization. People say you should go to school so you can get a job, so you can get money, buy things, have a mortgage. They don't say you should go to school to learn. They see people who major in art or theater...or English and scoff at them. What a waste of money, a worthless degree. They casually disregard all of the knowledge and learning a person gains from that sort of education, immediately calculating about what material wealth the learning will give them and then callously mocking the person.
And fuck me, they're probably right. I'll probably live the rest of my life working shit jobs doing manual labor or telling black kids to behave or making wealthier people food. And that sucks, because money is great. But I have to wonder, in a world where wanting to learn for the sake of learning is a "waste of time" and all of life has to be focused on profit and loss and getting paid, are people like me the ones who are wrong? Maybe the world should try to be more like us, you know? I think a world where everyone learned art and poetry and network programming would be a better world for everyone.
But I'm getting off subject here. I don't want to whine about how unfair it is that no one wants to pay me to read Lord of the Flies to them and talk about the metaphysical properties of the conch. I'll probably write that blog in a month or so. What I want to talk about is the actual experience of learning and how fucking great it is.
I mentioned the ease with which very young children learn. We all know as time goes on it becomes harder to learn. The brain becomes less elastic. Patterns get worn into our ways of thinking, we struggle to change or add even simple things. One way to combat this, I think, is to always be learning something--be that through reading lots of books, listening to lots of music, watching lots of movies, anything where you're actually engaging your brain, not just staring at some brainless reality show or listening to some by the numbers song. It keeps your mind a little more agile, a bit more adaptive.
The other way, I think, is to meet someone who is really good at something or very passionate about it.
I have two friends who are DJs. They play at clubs I'd never go to and dress with more style when they roll out of bed than I'd manage if I spent five hours trying to pick out cool clothes at the Cool Clothes for Cool Cats store. I've heard the music they make and it's fucking phenomenal. It's so totally outside of my understanding or capability that I'd never hope to actually study it and understand it--but talking to them about it I feel like I am gleaning some small bit of the obviously massive knowledge they have built up over the years about musical theory and even just the computer programs they use to create the stuff. It's a heady feeling, a great feeling, meeting someone that knows so much about something they obviously love so much.
But let's not limit these thoughts to this wishy-washy liberal arts bullshit. My girlfriend's brother is a student learning computer programming. He's got more brains in his occipital lobe than I do in my whole nervous system. I know pretty much jack shit about computer programming. I know it has lots of different "languages" and that's about it. But when I hear this guy talking about writing code I'm always super interested, learning what I can even in simplified moron talk is absolutely fascinating to me. It makes me sad that I can't reset my life at like 18 and start learning this stuff, then reset it again and learn how to DJ, then reset again and learn about drumming or sky diving or neurology or sculpture or any of a million other things that a person could spend forever learning about.
It's a depressing reality that I often don't get to have as long and involved conversations with these sorts of people as I'd like. People don't always like talking about this stuff with weird guys like me, and it can be awkward as hell trying to tease out this sort of information for people. Still, when you can get someone who obviously loves and is knowledgeable about something to talk about it at length I encourage you to pick their brains as long as you can. You'll find yourself learning things in a way that reading a wikipedia page just cannot compare to.
And then you'll get that sweet, sweet knowledge high.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Like the Things You Like to Like.
I really dislike the idea of a "guilty pleasure." What is a guilty pleasure, anyway? Something you like, but are ashamed of liking. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why be ashamed of something you like? Why should something that makes you happy be a source of guilt or awkwardness?
There are a few things, I suppose, that could legitimately be called guilty pleasures--killing people, for example, that's probably something you should be a little guilty about enjoying. I am sure, though, that you could probably wrangle that into some sort of career if you really wanted to.
Less extremely I guess maybe eating unhealthy food might be a guilty pleasure in that you know eating a gallon of ice cream while you sit on your ass and watch shitty television is not something you should be doing. I would argue, though, that eating that gallon of icecream is okay as long as you do it moderately.
Did you notice up there how I called The Voice shitty television? That was totally bullshit for me to do; I've never seen an episode of The Voice in my life. I have only the vaguest idea whatsoever what that show is about, I make an instant judgment about it being bad with no knowledge of what it actually is. This is the source of guilty pleasure. It's not something that you really feel guilty about because it's bad for you or hurts people--you have that guilt because someone else says that what you like is shitty.
I think there are two problems with that outlook on things. First there's the person saying something is shitty. I am guilty of this, probably the most guilty of all the people I know. The internet has made this problem about a quadrillion times worse than it was when I was a kid. There's a whole goddamn culture of dismissiveness and elitism and arrogance about what to like and what not to like that staggers the mind in it's vehemence and venom. People get together and enjoy talking about how much they hate things that, honestly, don't matter one fucking bit--television shows, videogames, presidential elections. They brutally tear down whatever thing they don't like and treat the people who do like it like utter shit.
It's a terrible way to be. As I get older I realize this more and more. I struggle with my habits to sneer at things I don't like or understand--and it is a habit, an automatic reaction to belittle and insult. It is not easy to overcome. When I was younger I often had to deal with shit from other kids because I was an unmitigated loser, so I became sarcastic, dry, and quick to disregard anything that I didn't like. I still do it, much more often than I would like and more often than is even funny. I'm sure my friends would agree--but I've realized that life is much more fun when you're enjoying things that you like rather than trying to enjoy hating things you don't.
The second problem here, and the more severe one I think (or maybe just the one I think we can fix more easily) is people giving a shit that people mock them for what they like. As I write this I'm listening to a song about Liu Kang. Is it a goofy song? Sure, it was made a really long time ago, the only things even known about Liu Kang then were his name, his nationality, and that he could throw fireballs and The Immortals made it into an awesome song. Some people might feel that listening to that song should be considered a guilty pleasure, but I don't. I'm not ashamed to say that I really, seriously like the Mortal Kombat album, I really like Mortal Kombat and I think the music on that album is totally inappropriate for the game but still really kickass, fun music you can dance to.
My point is that if you like something, you should like it. You don't have to run around throwing it in people's faces, that can be annoying, but if someone doesn't like what you like, if people say that you shouldn't like Nickelback even if you think How You Remind Me is a cool song (which I do) well, fuck those people. If you really like something then it shouldn't matter what people think about it. If they talk down to you or make fun of you for something you genuinely like then those people are shitty people.
I'm referencing a lot of music here because when I write I listen to music, but this applies to pretty much everything out there. If you're way into football or tennis or lumberjacking then get the fuck into it. Personally I enjoy nothing so much as someone who not only has something they enjoy, but gets into it and can tell you all the sorts of things that only a true aficionado can. It's harder to find people like this in a time when you can become an expert on something with half an hour and an internet connection, but there's a difference between the Google crammer and a real fan of something--be that the Legacy of Kain series or sixteenth century architecture.
I've wondered lately if maybe some attributes of guilty pleasures have led to this recent trend of liking things "ironically." I absolutely despise this trend or fad or whatever the fuck it is. I really don't understand why you'd waste time claiming to like something that you actually think is stupid or whatever, just as a joke or something? It's god damn maddening to even try to consider for me. Why waste your time? I seriously can't get it.
I suppose it means I'm just getting older. Maybe liking things ironically is a younger man's game? I don't know. Just don't say you like things you don't like. Just like them, and like them in spite of people saying you shouldn't like them. And don't like things just because people say you should like them, if you don't like Star Wars then that's fine, don't like it. But don't like it because you think it's dumb--not because lots of people do like it and you want to be super cool and not like the popular thing.
Basically what I'm saying is you should endeavor to find things in your life that you like based on the enjoyment you get out of liking them and not base it on anything anyone else has to say about it. Life is vanishingly short--don't waste it not liking things.
There are a few things, I suppose, that could legitimately be called guilty pleasures--killing people, for example, that's probably something you should be a little guilty about enjoying. I am sure, though, that you could probably wrangle that into some sort of career if you really wanted to.
Less extremely I guess maybe eating unhealthy food might be a guilty pleasure in that you know eating a gallon of ice cream while you sit on your ass and watch shitty television is not something you should be doing. I would argue, though, that eating that gallon of icecream is okay as long as you do it moderately.
Did you notice up there how I called The Voice shitty television? That was totally bullshit for me to do; I've never seen an episode of The Voice in my life. I have only the vaguest idea whatsoever what that show is about, I make an instant judgment about it being bad with no knowledge of what it actually is. This is the source of guilty pleasure. It's not something that you really feel guilty about because it's bad for you or hurts people--you have that guilt because someone else says that what you like is shitty.
I think there are two problems with that outlook on things. First there's the person saying something is shitty. I am guilty of this, probably the most guilty of all the people I know. The internet has made this problem about a quadrillion times worse than it was when I was a kid. There's a whole goddamn culture of dismissiveness and elitism and arrogance about what to like and what not to like that staggers the mind in it's vehemence and venom. People get together and enjoy talking about how much they hate things that, honestly, don't matter one fucking bit--television shows, videogames, presidential elections. They brutally tear down whatever thing they don't like and treat the people who do like it like utter shit.
It's a terrible way to be. As I get older I realize this more and more. I struggle with my habits to sneer at things I don't like or understand--and it is a habit, an automatic reaction to belittle and insult. It is not easy to overcome. When I was younger I often had to deal with shit from other kids because I was an unmitigated loser, so I became sarcastic, dry, and quick to disregard anything that I didn't like. I still do it, much more often than I would like and more often than is even funny. I'm sure my friends would agree--but I've realized that life is much more fun when you're enjoying things that you like rather than trying to enjoy hating things you don't.
The second problem here, and the more severe one I think (or maybe just the one I think we can fix more easily) is people giving a shit that people mock them for what they like. As I write this I'm listening to a song about Liu Kang. Is it a goofy song? Sure, it was made a really long time ago, the only things even known about Liu Kang then were his name, his nationality, and that he could throw fireballs and The Immortals made it into an awesome song. Some people might feel that listening to that song should be considered a guilty pleasure, but I don't. I'm not ashamed to say that I really, seriously like the Mortal Kombat album, I really like Mortal Kombat and I think the music on that album is totally inappropriate for the game but still really kickass, fun music you can dance to.
My point is that if you like something, you should like it. You don't have to run around throwing it in people's faces, that can be annoying, but if someone doesn't like what you like, if people say that you shouldn't like Nickelback even if you think How You Remind Me is a cool song (which I do) well, fuck those people. If you really like something then it shouldn't matter what people think about it. If they talk down to you or make fun of you for something you genuinely like then those people are shitty people.
I'm referencing a lot of music here because when I write I listen to music, but this applies to pretty much everything out there. If you're way into football or tennis or lumberjacking then get the fuck into it. Personally I enjoy nothing so much as someone who not only has something they enjoy, but gets into it and can tell you all the sorts of things that only a true aficionado can. It's harder to find people like this in a time when you can become an expert on something with half an hour and an internet connection, but there's a difference between the Google crammer and a real fan of something--be that the Legacy of Kain series or sixteenth century architecture.
I've wondered lately if maybe some attributes of guilty pleasures have led to this recent trend of liking things "ironically." I absolutely despise this trend or fad or whatever the fuck it is. I really don't understand why you'd waste time claiming to like something that you actually think is stupid or whatever, just as a joke or something? It's god damn maddening to even try to consider for me. Why waste your time? I seriously can't get it.
I suppose it means I'm just getting older. Maybe liking things ironically is a younger man's game? I don't know. Just don't say you like things you don't like. Just like them, and like them in spite of people saying you shouldn't like them. And don't like things just because people say you should like them, if you don't like Star Wars then that's fine, don't like it. But don't like it because you think it's dumb--not because lots of people do like it and you want to be super cool and not like the popular thing.
Basically what I'm saying is you should endeavor to find things in your life that you like based on the enjoyment you get out of liking them and not base it on anything anyone else has to say about it. Life is vanishingly short--don't waste it not liking things.
Monday, May 13, 2013
ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY
This is how I think most people understand all of human history:
God makes the Earth (or the big bang happens and the Earth pops out of it, I think to even most non-religious people the formation of the planet is still pretty mysterious)
There are cave men.
There are the Romans or Greeks or something.
There are a bunch of knights with swords and they all are dumb and can't read or brush their teeth.
Shakespeare happens. Some people probably imagine this was at the same time as the knights and the castles.
America happens and everyone is introduced to democracy for the first time.
The Americans save the world from Germany in some black and white (I mean like the pictures are in black and white, not like there was an obviously good side and an obviously bad side because whichever side the US is on must be the good one. Or the bad one, depending on if you vote democrat or republican) war.
Vietnam and hippies happen.
Then you're in modern times. Or possibly if you're a young teenager then after the Vietnam thing some big buildings in New York got destroyed by some middle eastern people (or the president depending on how much internet you read.)
This incredibly simplistic view of history is compounded by an intimidatingly massive amount of shitty movies, books, comcis, ect... all based on various "historical" stories or whatever they want to call the fiction they create to frame human history and it makes me really sad. I don't have time to come up with a cogent argument about why history matters (I'm already going over my lunch break,) but I really wish more people would the the incredibly complex and involved series of events that link humans and our modern day society all the way back to pre-history. We don't exist in a vacuum, everything about the way the world is right now happened for a reason. I think if more people could see and understand where we've come from, we might have a better idea of where we're going, and how to get there.
Or at least I'd spend less time being annoyed at people's weird understanding of history.
God makes the Earth (or the big bang happens and the Earth pops out of it, I think to even most non-religious people the formation of the planet is still pretty mysterious)
There are cave men.
There are the Romans or Greeks or something.
There are a bunch of knights with swords and they all are dumb and can't read or brush their teeth.
Shakespeare happens. Some people probably imagine this was at the same time as the knights and the castles.
America happens and everyone is introduced to democracy for the first time.
The Americans save the world from Germany in some black and white (I mean like the pictures are in black and white, not like there was an obviously good side and an obviously bad side because whichever side the US is on must be the good one. Or the bad one, depending on if you vote democrat or republican) war.
Vietnam and hippies happen.
Then you're in modern times. Or possibly if you're a young teenager then after the Vietnam thing some big buildings in New York got destroyed by some middle eastern people (or the president depending on how much internet you read.)
This incredibly simplistic view of history is compounded by an intimidatingly massive amount of shitty movies, books, comcis, ect... all based on various "historical" stories or whatever they want to call the fiction they create to frame human history and it makes me really sad. I don't have time to come up with a cogent argument about why history matters (I'm already going over my lunch break,) but I really wish more people would the the incredibly complex and involved series of events that link humans and our modern day society all the way back to pre-history. We don't exist in a vacuum, everything about the way the world is right now happened for a reason. I think if more people could see and understand where we've come from, we might have a better idea of where we're going, and how to get there.
Or at least I'd spend less time being annoyed at people's weird understanding of history.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
A Thousand (and sixty four) Words
I've never had a job that I liked to do.
I've had jobs that I hated, working as a mall cop for two years were some of the absolute shittiest working years of my life. I actively dreaded going to work every night, literally anything seemed preferable to putting on that smelly white button-up shirt (the buttons were fake, it was actually a zipper up the middle. I cannot think of a more succinct way of explaining everything there is to being a mall cop than that; the zipper under fake buttons) and spending eight to sixteen hours in the mall.
I've had jobs that I didn't mind. Being a valet was pretty good, I was young and healthy and made a lot of money. Working as a line cook in a tennis club was all right, I got to eat a lot of bacon and hamburgers, sure I wound up gaining about thirty pounds and made barely any money, but it wasn't loathsome.
But none of those jobs did I really like, I certainly didn't love any of them. Because none of them had anything at all to do with what I love to do.
Which is write.
It strikes me as paradoxical, then, that I have such a hard time doing it. Writing I mean. When I'm doing it, when it's working, when the ideas are coming hot and fast and I'm watching the story happen without even trying it is the best feeling in the world, it's like being high, like everything in the world is swirling around me into some sort of raw material I can drink in with my eyes and ears and mouth and nose and take it into myself and shape it and change it and set it free from the tips of my fingers.
When I'm writing like that my fingers go numb because they're hitting the keyboard so fast that the blood gets driven out of them, I'll write whole pages without even looking up at the screen unless I feel that I typed something wrong.
But I find it hard, maybe harder than it has been in the past, to get to that point. Some of it is work, I imagine, my job is a physically demanding one, and not a very mentally stimulating one. When I finish after long days I often feel like I should just drink a beer, watch television, and sleep. I usually don't do those things, but I don't write either.
It isn't all work, though, because I spend time away from work and still don't write. I took most of this week off of work to spend time with my girlfriend for her birthday and I didn't write a goddamn thing. I thought about it a lot, I wanted to, but I didn't.
I think there's a few reasons for my not writing. First of all, it's scary. I think I've said before here about how, when the idea is in your head, it is perfect, everything works out exactly how you want it, the moments you see so clearly in your head and the character's voices and faces and everything else--they're all crystal clear and you know it's the best idea you've ever had and it'll be absolutely fantastic.
Then you write it down and things are lost in the translation. To reuse a metaphor, you see the story in the wood of your imagination, and when you whittle the shape free with the blade of your pencil or pen or word processor, you make mistakes, miss things, or maybe cut a bit too much away.
The thing you wind up with might still be good, it might still be great, but it isn't what you saw, not exactly. Even the best things I've written aren't exactly what I saw in my mind. Maybe that's even a good thing, but the fear of getting it wrong makes me wary of even trying it.
Then there's the difficulty of showing off.
I realize it's vanity to want people to see and appreciate my writing, I know I should just be writing for myself, and I do, but I'm human, and like any human I like attention. I like to be told what I create is good, or interesting, or thought provoking. The difficulty with writing is that it isn't something someone can glance at and appreciate. I can't slap a page from a story on Facebook, tag some people in it, and then get likes or comments or whatever.
Sometimes I wish I was an artist or a photographer or a musician or something.
I'm not saying that those people's creations are somehow lesser than things that are written--just easier to take in--something longer than a line or two requires a bit of an investment, not much of one, but in today's world of 140 character limits and "Reading Less to Know More", it's an investment most people don't want to make.
C'est la vie. So what, who cares? I endeavor not to. Really, I do.
So the final, and biggest, thing that stops me from writing is this sensation I get in my chest, a real physical feeling right in the middle of my sternum that trails down into my guts. It's a weight that grows with each day that I don't write something, like an imaginary blockage in my chest. A tension, a growing ball of anxiety and self-defeating rhetoric. I tell myself terrible things, about how bad my writing is, how I can't even type properly, bad spelling, worse grammar, and far, far, far too many commas.
When I write, that blockage persists for a while, slowing my thoughts and making my fingers into dumb, clumsy logs that slap at the keyboard like a metaphor for something that slaps clumsily. The block lifts, though, after thirty minutes to and hour, and I remember that I like writing, that I love it, that I am passionate about it. I'd talk all day every day about writing if I could. I don't because I like having friend and don't want to annoy them out of the door, but I really would if I could.
It's the block that makes me not write, because it makes me forget that I love writing, makes me hate it, makes me fear it and loathe it as something that is burdensome and anxiety-inducting, instead of what it is.
Beautiful...and liberating.
I've had jobs that I hated, working as a mall cop for two years were some of the absolute shittiest working years of my life. I actively dreaded going to work every night, literally anything seemed preferable to putting on that smelly white button-up shirt (the buttons were fake, it was actually a zipper up the middle. I cannot think of a more succinct way of explaining everything there is to being a mall cop than that; the zipper under fake buttons) and spending eight to sixteen hours in the mall.
I've had jobs that I didn't mind. Being a valet was pretty good, I was young and healthy and made a lot of money. Working as a line cook in a tennis club was all right, I got to eat a lot of bacon and hamburgers, sure I wound up gaining about thirty pounds and made barely any money, but it wasn't loathsome.
But none of those jobs did I really like, I certainly didn't love any of them. Because none of them had anything at all to do with what I love to do.
Which is write.
It strikes me as paradoxical, then, that I have such a hard time doing it. Writing I mean. When I'm doing it, when it's working, when the ideas are coming hot and fast and I'm watching the story happen without even trying it is the best feeling in the world, it's like being high, like everything in the world is swirling around me into some sort of raw material I can drink in with my eyes and ears and mouth and nose and take it into myself and shape it and change it and set it free from the tips of my fingers.
When I'm writing like that my fingers go numb because they're hitting the keyboard so fast that the blood gets driven out of them, I'll write whole pages without even looking up at the screen unless I feel that I typed something wrong.
But I find it hard, maybe harder than it has been in the past, to get to that point. Some of it is work, I imagine, my job is a physically demanding one, and not a very mentally stimulating one. When I finish after long days I often feel like I should just drink a beer, watch television, and sleep. I usually don't do those things, but I don't write either.
It isn't all work, though, because I spend time away from work and still don't write. I took most of this week off of work to spend time with my girlfriend for her birthday and I didn't write a goddamn thing. I thought about it a lot, I wanted to, but I didn't.
I think there's a few reasons for my not writing. First of all, it's scary. I think I've said before here about how, when the idea is in your head, it is perfect, everything works out exactly how you want it, the moments you see so clearly in your head and the character's voices and faces and everything else--they're all crystal clear and you know it's the best idea you've ever had and it'll be absolutely fantastic.
Then you write it down and things are lost in the translation. To reuse a metaphor, you see the story in the wood of your imagination, and when you whittle the shape free with the blade of your pencil or pen or word processor, you make mistakes, miss things, or maybe cut a bit too much away.
The thing you wind up with might still be good, it might still be great, but it isn't what you saw, not exactly. Even the best things I've written aren't exactly what I saw in my mind. Maybe that's even a good thing, but the fear of getting it wrong makes me wary of even trying it.
Then there's the difficulty of showing off.
I realize it's vanity to want people to see and appreciate my writing, I know I should just be writing for myself, and I do, but I'm human, and like any human I like attention. I like to be told what I create is good, or interesting, or thought provoking. The difficulty with writing is that it isn't something someone can glance at and appreciate. I can't slap a page from a story on Facebook, tag some people in it, and then get likes or comments or whatever.
Sometimes I wish I was an artist or a photographer or a musician or something.
I'm not saying that those people's creations are somehow lesser than things that are written--just easier to take in--something longer than a line or two requires a bit of an investment, not much of one, but in today's world of 140 character limits and "Reading Less to Know More", it's an investment most people don't want to make.
C'est la vie. So what, who cares? I endeavor not to. Really, I do.
So the final, and biggest, thing that stops me from writing is this sensation I get in my chest, a real physical feeling right in the middle of my sternum that trails down into my guts. It's a weight that grows with each day that I don't write something, like an imaginary blockage in my chest. A tension, a growing ball of anxiety and self-defeating rhetoric. I tell myself terrible things, about how bad my writing is, how I can't even type properly, bad spelling, worse grammar, and far, far, far too many commas.
When I write, that blockage persists for a while, slowing my thoughts and making my fingers into dumb, clumsy logs that slap at the keyboard like a metaphor for something that slaps clumsily. The block lifts, though, after thirty minutes to and hour, and I remember that I like writing, that I love it, that I am passionate about it. I'd talk all day every day about writing if I could. I don't because I like having friend and don't want to annoy them out of the door, but I really would if I could.
It's the block that makes me not write, because it makes me forget that I love writing, makes me hate it, makes me fear it and loathe it as something that is burdensome and anxiety-inducting, instead of what it is.
Beautiful...and liberating.
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