by NoOneImportant » Tue Feb 03, 2015 4:04 pm
John, a few thoughts re: your post. Perhaps some of this may be of use, if not just discard it. Forgive the length
John wrote:
I've been doing this now for 12-13 years. It's gone through stages.
At first it was a theoretical exercise, almost as if I were solving a
math problem. Then it began to become more real, as things began to
happen. I was always able to rationalize this in my mind as being
able to pretend that I was a Martian watching what was happening
without any emotional attachment. Sometimes I would joke was that it
was like we were all in a moving theater watching a horrible movie,
and the doors are locked so we can't get out.
I think that there is a bit of self-protection embodied in the above - there is a pathology of thought involved in the analysis of evil; a mental progression, if you will. We have lived most of our lives in a parochial protected America. Even during the height of the Cold War, here the evil and the monstrous were identified, imprisoned, and/or executed - not for vengeance but rather for self protection. Essentially, the closest most of us have ever come to real evil is a news article. That distance from the reality of real evil creates a level of abstraction, a distance, if you will; a distance that results in a self-protection. "Yes evil exists", we will readily acknowledge... but "excuse me as I really do have to go and mow the lawn now." The closer we get to real evil the scarier the issues become (note the transition above from a safe uninvolved mathematical abstraction, to the impartial Martin observer, then to one who doesn't necessarily participate in the evil, but who is not free to exit the "theater". The actions progress literally from the abstract, to observing evil by choice, then to being constantly involuntarily subject to observing evil without escape. In the final case there is no more cutting of the grass; the evil is no longer an abstract set of categorized numbers. Over time the abstraction has been stripped away, the numbers become people, the evil becomes, in fact, real acts of barbarity executed on real human beings. The academic engages in abstract factual analysis without realizing the enormity of the facts represented by the clean and sterile numbers that he analytically consumes. The second observer (the Martin) chooses to observe, and may, at his discretion, choose not to look. The final observer is given no latitude, the evil is in fact real for him, and for him, it is inescapable. The academic has no emotional involvement at all; the Martin is emotionally protected by the voluntary decision to view, or not to view as he chooses; the final observer has had all protection stripped away... for him the evil is palpable, and he can't get away, he is morally locked into viewing. This brings us to the first part of the Cassandra Curse. When you come to know that evil is, in fact, real; you strain with great effort to obtain insight into what is coming - that it (evil) might be avoided. In the military the idiom is: "forewarned is forearmed." While that may, or may not work for the military depending upon their generational memory, that is not the case with individuals. In effect, that effort to "see" the coming evil is done most often without having the ability to personally affect, evil's intent, or outcome. Often the best we may hope for is to "outlast" the tornado, and thus to attempt to stay out of the coming evil's way. It is of interest to note that Policemen are notorious for having experienced this effect; for once the abstraction of civilized human interaction has been stripped away there is no going back -- trust no one, verify everything.
Additionally John wrote:
One thing I think about all the time is -- how come I'm the only one
doing something like this? Or, perhaps more to the point, why do I,
John Xenakis, seem to be only person in the world capable of doing it?
I know that with over 7 billion people in the world, that statement is
preposterous. And yet, after 12 years, my web site is unique in the
world. How is that possible? A lot of the things that I write about
don't every require anything like generational theory. There are
plenty of people in the world who have the same or superior analytical
abilities as me, and yet that doesn't seem to make a difference.
When attempting to shout in a vacuum the natural inclination is to believe that "there are no others like me." The Left biased media in America has a vested interest, John, in making you feel alone and isolated. During the waining days of the Carter Administration (another idiot who was proclaimed as: "...possibly the brightest man to ever occupy the Oval Office....") I was experiencing a deep feeling of disenfranchisement. I can still remember the feeling of deep despair. Here was a former Governor of Georgia, a former Sub commander who was eviscerating the US Military, after the enormous tragedy of millions being murdered with the fall of South Vietnam, and in the killing fields of Cambodia. Every action he took was counter intuitive. Then, as now, it was a time of pure unadulterated idiocy. Bubbles were everywhere: in the markets, in real estate. Banks were failing at a record rate. Home interest rates were at 22%, the prime rate was at 16%, inflation was running at 11-12% per year. Nothing was working, and there appeared to be no one beside me who appeared to care; no one except one man: Ronald Reagan. In an instant people like me -- millions of them -- came out of the the wood-work and we elected him. The idiot from Georgia was sent packing, after having requested campaign aid from the then intact Soviet Union; that would be the very same Soviet Union who, at that time, was in possession of 48,000 nuclear devices targeted at the West. John, the message I am trying to convey is that there are others. The Generational Dynamics aspect of what you do changes what you do. GD brings order from chaos. Without GD the daily news becomes brownian (essentially random) - chaos. While the inability to precisely time the various GD phases is disconcerting, what is reassuring is that GD gives a measure of order to what until now has been considered to be random events that emerge out of apparent chaos; i.e., events bubbling up out of the ever expanding soup of humanity - a soup that every generation or so has produced some thug that has gone on to sweep huge swaths of humanity out of existence. GD is, perhaps, not exactly a panacea, but GD provides, via generational memory, an explanation where none has previously proved to be all that suitable.
Additionally, John wrote:
Also puzzling is other people's reactions to my web site. Some want
to read it every day, others absolutely can't stand it, and can't
stand me as a result. Ten years ago, friends I've known for years
treated my a harmless kook, but now, as the world worsens as predicted
by my web site, those friends now shun me. This is similar to the
mythical Cassandra, whom I've written about many time.
John, denial is, again, a self-protection mechanism. If one doesn't like where we are headed, then simply deny that we are headed there! There is no need to address a dire destination if you reject that's where we're headed -- it's analogous to the narcissist's rejection of the need to reflect. Reject the evil destination, and to that end you may reject the messenger -- "...how does he know anyway." I have a sister who sees the world through rose colored glasses. I have ceased to attempt to give her insight, or guidance into where we are headed. She prefers, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to see the world as a "nice" place, where someone will always arrive in time to save her, and those she cares about, from evil. Those who choose to be blind, may not be able to be saved. Here (Generational Dynamics) we are not discussing the tragedy of a fairly insignificant Asia Minor city (Troy), but rather here Troy is the world. For many, what has always been is necessarily what they prefer to believe is what, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, will always be. They are the ostrich: " ...if I refuse to see the jeopardy, then QED there is no jeopardy, none" -- okay, good luck with that. For those who think like that, preparation is something that they will do when it's forced upon them. John, you tell them things that make them uncomfortable; whereas they can't mute you, they can refuse to listen to you, and in turn, if they can't discredit you, then they will certainly hate you. Take solace from Churchill; he spent 20 years out in the cold; imagine his hurt, rage, and frustration as he was forced to watch, impotent, the rise of German militancy, and further at having to ally Brittan with Stalin -- the frustration at having to use one monster to, in effect, defeat another. We thus come to the second part of the Cassandra Curse: "... destined never to be believed." Be rest assured, that disbelief by the delusional in no way impacts the ultimate veracity of the evidence leading to a prediction. You just have to ignore them (disbelievers) ... find new friends for reality is a stern mistress, she cares not an iota as to whether they believe or not.
Additionally John wrote:
Over the weekend, I heard something that really struck a chord. There
was a BBC World Service show called "Why Factor," with the subject
"Sad/Gloomy Music." It turns out that some people can listen to sad
music and really enjoy it, while other people listen to sad music and
absolutely can't stand it.
It was the Athenian Greeks who first came to understand the allure, and therapeutic effect of the tragic upon the human psyche. Tragedy, whether in music, poetry, art, drama, or sculpture provides a beneficial effect that in drama ultimately found it's acme (IMO) in the plays of Sophocles, and 2000 years later in Shakespeare. As events unfold in a tragedy (or in a movement of sad piece of music) it takes us, personally, vicariously into the midst of human trauma. In tragedy, we are initially taken into the unfolding events, much as your Martin observer, as impartial, disinterested, and divorced of emotion (I have personally used the term fly-on-the-wall.) . When tragedy is done well, e.g., Bethoven's Fur Elese for example, we are invisibly at once transformed from the fly-on-the-wall, without realizing it, into an active participant in the tragic unfolding events. We actually experience, and "live" those events as the tragedy unfolds for us; we deal with the issues presented; we suffer the distress, the anxiety of the circumstances, and the emotional pain of the outcome. We become Othello, we become Antigone, we become Oedipus, we become the grief stricken Romeo tormented by Juliet's "death", we become a revived Juliet only to find her heart's desire so recently dead that he is still warm, we become the two families of the dead youths each forced to confront the hubris that resulted in the loss of what held so much human promise. Tragedy does indeed take us closer to reality, for it evokes the deep emotions that we seek never to see actualized. It forces us into a reflection that we would ordinarily not willingly engage in -- and the great miracle is that it does it non-destructively, and we are forever changed by the experience. We can never return to who we were before. We can never again become the effete academic, or the disinterested Martin observer. We are forever changed; it's a change that can make us more human -- if we permit it.
John, regarding music, regardless of your age, permit me to suggest that you get a Casio LK-280 lighted keyboard - they are fairly inexpensive (roughly $200), and are sold at Walmart, Toys-R-Us, Target, themusicianfriend.com and other places. Their attraction is that they have a programmed facility to lead the beginner through the learning to play 60 - 80 well known tunes (some classics, some not) stored within the device; each tune may be learned within a few days per tune. The device is not a toy, it is a completely self-contained unit. It consists of a: power brick, USB port, integrated speakers, display, and a 61 key keyboard. It is suitable for taking instruction on the keyboard (should you desire to take a few lessons), or it makes self-teaching practicable. I've played the guitar for much of my adult life (and I must be brutally honest, and admit that I play very very badly, but it satisfies)... the guitar is a very difficult instrument, had I not started playing the guitar so many years ago, I would long ago have switched to the keyboard (regarding the guitar, good time/money after bad you might say). The skills of playing the keyboard are analogous to the skills necessary to type. If you can type, then you can learn to read music and play the keyboard. Playing music is a facility that satisfies for a lifetime, as while playing it is all consuming -- while you are playing, everything else just goes away. After all those years of playing the guitar I only play 10 or twenty tunes. As I learn new tunes, however, I look for note sequences that sound good to me. Then, at a later nondescript time I will spend hours sitting in the dark stitching note sequences from various tunes that I have "learned" together, just to see what they sound like (I call it wandering around on the guitar); i.e. what sounds good to me. Playing music mentally completely consumes me, and while wandering around on the instrument most of what comes out is atrocious, the rare occasion when I find something that works and sounds pretty to me it is just simply the greatest thrill -- simple things for simple minds
.
Sorry that I don't know a thing about prolactin, or hormones. But as in the very bad old joke, I do know how to make a hormone? Don't pay her
Sorry for the length.
John, a few thoughts re: your post. Perhaps some of this may be of use, if not just discard it. Forgive the length
John wrote:
[quote]I've been doing this now for 12-13 years. It's gone through stages.
At first it was a theoretical exercise, almost as if I were solving a
math problem. Then it began to become more real, as things began to
happen. I was always able to rationalize this in my mind as being
able to pretend that I was a Martian watching what was happening
without any emotional attachment. Sometimes I would joke was that it
was like we were all in a moving theater watching a horrible movie,
and the doors are locked so we can't get out.[/quote]
I think that there is a bit of self-protection embodied in the above - there is a pathology of thought involved in the analysis of evil; a mental progression, if you will. We have lived most of our lives in a parochial protected America. Even during the height of the Cold War, here the evil and the monstrous were identified, imprisoned, and/or executed - not for vengeance but rather for self protection. Essentially, the closest most of us have ever come to real evil is a news article. That distance from the reality of real evil creates a level of abstraction, a distance, if you will; a distance that results in a self-protection. "Yes evil exists", we will readily acknowledge... but "excuse me as I really do have to go and mow the lawn now." The closer we get to real evil the scarier the issues become (note the transition above from a safe uninvolved mathematical abstraction, to the impartial Martin observer, then to one who doesn't necessarily participate in the evil, but who is not free to exit the "theater". The actions progress literally from the abstract, to observing evil by choice, then to being constantly involuntarily subject to observing evil without escape. In the final case there is no more cutting of the grass; the evil is no longer an abstract set of categorized numbers. Over time the abstraction has been stripped away, the numbers become people, the evil becomes, in fact, real acts of barbarity executed on real human beings. The academic engages in abstract factual analysis without realizing the enormity of the facts represented by the clean and sterile numbers that he analytically consumes. The second observer (the Martin) chooses to observe, and may, at his discretion, choose not to look. The final observer is given no latitude, the evil is in fact real for him, and for him, it is inescapable. The academic has no emotional involvement at all; the Martin is emotionally protected by the voluntary decision to view, or not to view as he chooses; the final observer has had all protection stripped away... for him the evil is palpable, and he can't get away, he is morally locked into viewing. This brings us to the first part of the Cassandra Curse. When you come to know that evil is, in fact, real; you strain with great effort to obtain insight into what is coming - that it (evil) might be avoided. In the military the idiom is: "forewarned is forearmed." While that may, or may not work for the military depending upon their generational memory, that is not the case with individuals. In effect, that effort to "see" the coming evil is done most often without having the ability to personally affect, evil's intent, or outcome. Often the best we may hope for is to "outlast" the tornado, and thus to attempt to stay out of the coming evil's way. It is of interest to note that Policemen are notorious for having experienced this effect; for once the abstraction of civilized human interaction has been stripped away there is no going back -- trust no one, verify everything.
Additionally John wrote:
[quote]One thing I think about all the time is -- how come I'm the only one
doing something like this? Or, perhaps more to the point, why do I,
John Xenakis, seem to be only person in the world capable of doing it?
I know that with over 7 billion people in the world, that statement is
preposterous. And yet, after 12 years, my web site is unique in the
world. How is that possible? A lot of the things that I write about
don't every require anything like generational theory. There are
plenty of people in the world who have the same or superior analytical
abilities as me, and yet that doesn't seem to make a difference.
[/quote]
When attempting to shout in a vacuum the natural inclination is to believe that "there are no others like me." The Left biased media in America has a vested interest, John, in making you feel alone and isolated. During the waining days of the Carter Administration (another idiot who was proclaimed as: "...possibly the brightest man to ever occupy the Oval Office....") I was experiencing a deep feeling of disenfranchisement. I can still remember the feeling of deep despair. Here was a former Governor of Georgia, a former Sub commander who was eviscerating the US Military, after the enormous tragedy of millions being murdered with the fall of South Vietnam, and in the killing fields of Cambodia. Every action he took was counter intuitive. Then, as now, it was a time of pure unadulterated idiocy. Bubbles were everywhere: in the markets, in real estate. Banks were failing at a record rate. Home interest rates were at 22%, the prime rate was at 16%, inflation was running at 11-12% per year. Nothing was working, and there appeared to be no one beside me who appeared to care; no one except one man: Ronald Reagan. In an instant people like me -- millions of them -- came out of the the wood-work and we elected him. The idiot from Georgia was sent packing, after having requested campaign aid from the then intact Soviet Union; that would be the very same Soviet Union who, at that time, was in possession of 48,000 nuclear devices targeted at the West. John, the message I am trying to convey is that there are others. The Generational Dynamics aspect of what you do changes what you do. GD brings order from chaos. Without GD the daily news becomes brownian (essentially random) - chaos. While the inability to precisely time the various GD phases is disconcerting, what is reassuring is that GD gives a measure of order to what until now has been considered to be random events that emerge out of apparent chaos; i.e., events bubbling up out of the ever expanding soup of humanity - a soup that every generation or so has produced some thug that has gone on to sweep huge swaths of humanity out of existence. GD is, perhaps, not exactly a panacea, but GD provides, via generational memory, an explanation where none has previously proved to be all that suitable.
Additionally, John wrote:
[quote]Also puzzling is other people's reactions to my web site. Some want
to read it every day, others absolutely can't stand it, and can't
stand me as a result. Ten years ago, friends I've known for years
treated my a harmless kook, but now, as the world worsens as predicted
by my web site, those friends now shun me. This is similar to the
mythical Cassandra, whom I've written about many time.
[/quote]
John, denial is, again, a self-protection mechanism. If one doesn't like where we are headed, then simply deny that we are headed there! There is no need to address a dire destination if you reject that's where we're headed -- it's analogous to the narcissist's rejection of the need to reflect. Reject the evil destination, and to that end you may reject the messenger -- "...how does he know anyway." I have a sister who sees the world through rose colored glasses. I have ceased to attempt to give her insight, or guidance into where we are headed. She prefers, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to see the world as a "nice" place, where someone will always arrive in time to save her, and those she cares about, from evil. Those who choose to be blind, may not be able to be saved. Here (Generational Dynamics) we are not discussing the tragedy of a fairly insignificant Asia Minor city (Troy), but rather here Troy is the world. For many, what has always been is necessarily what they prefer to believe is what, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, will always be. They are the ostrich: " ...if I refuse to see the jeopardy, then QED there is no jeopardy, none" -- okay, good luck with that. For those who think like that, preparation is something that they will do when it's forced upon them. John, you tell them things that make them uncomfortable; whereas they can't mute you, they can refuse to listen to you, and in turn, if they can't discredit you, then they will certainly hate you. Take solace from Churchill; he spent 20 years out in the cold; imagine his hurt, rage, and frustration as he was forced to watch, impotent, the rise of German militancy, and further at having to ally Brittan with Stalin -- the frustration at having to use one monster to, in effect, defeat another. We thus come to the second part of the Cassandra Curse: "... destined never to be believed." Be rest assured, that disbelief by the delusional in no way impacts the ultimate veracity of the evidence leading to a prediction. You just have to ignore them (disbelievers) ... find new friends for reality is a stern mistress, she cares not an iota as to whether they believe or not.
Additionally John wrote:
[quote]Over the weekend, I heard something that really struck a chord. There
was a BBC World Service show called "Why Factor," with the subject
"Sad/Gloomy Music." It turns out that some people can listen to sad
music and really enjoy it, while other people listen to sad music and
absolutely can't stand it.[/quote]
It was the Athenian Greeks who first came to understand the allure, and therapeutic effect of the tragic upon the human psyche. Tragedy, whether in music, poetry, art, drama, or sculpture provides a beneficial effect that in drama ultimately found it's acme (IMO) in the plays of Sophocles, and 2000 years later in Shakespeare. As events unfold in a tragedy (or in a movement of sad piece of music) it takes us, personally, vicariously into the midst of human trauma. In tragedy, we are initially taken into the unfolding events, much as your Martin observer, as impartial, disinterested, and divorced of emotion (I have personally used the term fly-on-the-wall.) . When tragedy is done well, e.g., Bethoven's Fur Elese for example, we are invisibly at once transformed from the fly-on-the-wall, without realizing it, into an active participant in the tragic unfolding events. We actually experience, and "live" those events as the tragedy unfolds for us; we deal with the issues presented; we suffer the distress, the anxiety of the circumstances, and the emotional pain of the outcome. We become Othello, we become Antigone, we become Oedipus, we become the grief stricken Romeo tormented by Juliet's "death", we become a revived Juliet only to find her heart's desire so recently dead that he is still warm, we become the two families of the dead youths each forced to confront the hubris that resulted in the loss of what held so much human promise. Tragedy does indeed take us closer to reality, for it evokes the deep emotions that we seek never to see actualized. It forces us into a reflection that we would ordinarily not willingly engage in -- and the great miracle is that it does it non-destructively, and we are forever changed by the experience. We can never return to who we were before. We can never again become the effete academic, or the disinterested Martin observer. We are forever changed; it's a change that can make us more human -- if we permit it.
John, regarding music, regardless of your age, permit me to suggest that you get a Casio LK-280 lighted keyboard - they are fairly inexpensive (roughly $200), and are sold at Walmart, Toys-R-Us, Target, themusicianfriend.com and other places. Their attraction is that they have a programmed facility to lead the beginner through the learning to play 60 - 80 well known tunes (some classics, some not) stored within the device; each tune may be learned within a few days per tune. The device is not a toy, it is a completely self-contained unit. It consists of a: power brick, USB port, integrated speakers, display, and a 61 key keyboard. It is suitable for taking instruction on the keyboard (should you desire to take a few lessons), or it makes self-teaching practicable. I've played the guitar for much of my adult life (and I must be brutally honest, and admit that I play very very badly, but it satisfies)... the guitar is a very difficult instrument, had I not started playing the guitar so many years ago, I would long ago have switched to the keyboard (regarding the guitar, good time/money after bad you might say). The skills of playing the keyboard are analogous to the skills necessary to type. If you can type, then you can learn to read music and play the keyboard. Playing music is a facility that satisfies for a lifetime, as while playing it is all consuming -- while you are playing, everything else just goes away. After all those years of playing the guitar I only play 10 or twenty tunes. As I learn new tunes, however, I look for note sequences that sound good to me. Then, at a later nondescript time I will spend hours sitting in the dark stitching note sequences from various tunes that I have "learned" together, just to see what they sound like (I call it wandering around on the guitar); i.e. what sounds good to me. Playing music mentally completely consumes me, and while wandering around on the instrument most of what comes out is atrocious, the rare occasion when I find something that works and sounds pretty to me it is just simply the greatest thrill -- simple things for simple minds :D .
Sorry that I don't know a thing about prolactin, or hormones. But as in the very bad old joke, I do know how to make a hormone? Don't pay her :D
Sorry for the length.