Knowledge
Knowledge is a trap, and the greatest of its kind.
Knowledge prevents learning. It lays down a certainty in a person’s future that dissolves wonderment and anticipation on contact. If you know the answer to a question, what is the point in asking? If you know sex will happen, where is the thrill of the hunt? If you know a battle will be won, can it truly be called a victory?
Worst of all though, is that knowledge reinforces a false sense of security and finality. We think a piece of knowledge can remain static, that we have gained something which cannot be lost. In times of uncertainty, we bare this weakness to the world by clinging to certainty in desperation. When a person’s religious beliefs are threatened to be torn asunder by attack, apathy or revelation, how do they react? ”But I know! I know of something for certain!” And when the scientist who spent his life researching man’s culpability in progressing global climate change is confronted with new and unforeseen data reducing his highest theories to confusion, does he react any differently?
We often think that love can only be possible with intimate knowledge of immutable qualities in someone else. But what if the truth is as ironic as this: love exists only when someone both has knowledge of another person’s mind, and also knows it can change at any moment?
It is not that knowledge does not exist. It is that knowledge exists in fluidity and malleability. To attempt to attach an indestructible quality of indelibility to a piece of knowledge is to try to stand in the ocean. This is destructive to your psyche. Better to follow the waves and see what they make possible.
A father and son
On the train this morning. Two grown men living a life of hardened lines, but very much together. I wish I had known something like this in my life.
Love
There are things that are reality, and then there are things we need to believe to survive. They don’t often coincide. Sometimes one thing contains the illusion of another.
Any idea can be destroyed by too much analysis; this is the risk of breaking the boundaries within which the idea can live. If you allow your focus to fall outside of these bounds you will lose the meaning of the idea.
Imagine a beautiful piece of art you could produce with your own hands, and then ask yourself, what meaning in it? What is the point? Naturally the point only exists within the context of the aesthetic experience and the fulfillment of great inspiration. To complete it would be to accomplish a memorable and valuable thing. But to ask what else it means is to rupture this context purposefully. This is one of the more malicious thought patterns possible in humans. It is a logically invalid question to break a context and then try to interpret meaning from within that context. It is akin to saying “of all the colors possible to see, what is the number 7?” ”You own a cat; but can it drive a car across the country?” ”You ran 10 miles without stopping. Too bad you can’t fly.” These are all positions outside of their applicability. Any context can be broken and those who exercise this ability delude themselves thinking they have some additional measure of insight. The act of levity is very powerful and thus has all the pitfalls of being a great power, including temptation and corruption.
To take care of ourselves as human beings in all capacities including emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical, we need awareness of what contexts to break and what contexts to solidify. That is the primary mechanism of coming to know yourself. Identify the boundaries and in doing so identify where to find meaning and how to destroy it. How powerful an ability, and what strength it takes to apply it appropriately!
A man practicing objectivity might say that he is fundamentally alone and unknowable to any other person. In some context this might be true, but what is “alone”? Isn’t this a relative word, dependent completely on the concept of “togetherness”? Isn’t it like “courage”, which can’t be defined or in fact achieved without including fear? And so many other notions relative to each other on their own sliding scales; light and dark, black and white, good and evil? No man can be courageous without having fear, or else he is just an automaton. Nothing could be defined as “dark” in a world where there is no light. In other words, without the possibility of contrast, meaning is lost. So I ask, is it possible to be “alone” in some sense where there is no possibility for some kind of “togetherness”? isn’t it a waste of breath, a form of flagellation, to formulate such a destructive idea as “I will always be alone in some way”? Better to avoid it entirely.
Do not think negatively on some part of you that has a kind of permanent distance from others. Accept it, and embrace it. Do not attempt to reach a “greater connection”. You will only pursue a moving phantasm in perpetuity. Allow yourself instead to stop running, stop pursuing, and to let time slow down and give you rest and peace. Only then will you truly come to appreciate the few people in your life who can gift you with the sensation of being together on a deeper level than you can understand. Only then will you occasionally get the most memorable and intimate sensation that someone else has, for a brief instant, penetrated your veil and “felt” you in a new light. The context of being capable of love and of being loved is the most precious thing you will ever have. Allow it to live and breath in its own life. There is no need to prove it, question it, or analyse it. Just enjoy it, and survive by it.
Habit
What is a habit?
A habit is an achievement of efficiency. It uses the invisible learning process to solidify neuron connections in the brain along required pathways and to prevent complication or interference from other pathways. In the mind as representation of behavior of the brain, this translates to a reduction in the amount of thought and focus necessary to complete a task.
Done being scientific. What does this mean in human terms? Habit and thought are antithetical.
The more you think about a thing, the less it can become habit. The deeper a habit is ingrained, the less you think about it. The way to make a habit is to engage in the act of doing a thing repetitively and to avoid thinking about it beyond what is necessary. The way to unlearn a habit therefore, is to focus on it with all the awareness you can muster. Find the reason for the habit, and stare at it mercilessly. Keep your mental eyes on it and convince your mind that this is not an activity you will engage in without consideration and focus. Eventually your mind will capitulate and will begin to disable the mechanism that keeps the process in question moving outside of your conscious control.
Consider as an example: the first time you learned to walk up stairs. You were probably very young and probably needed a few tries to do it successfully, even if your legs were long enough to take it in strides and your muscles strong enough to propel you upward. Eventually your body and mind habituated to it and you found yourself flying up and down stairs with ease. But since then, have you ever tried focusing on climbing stairs? Concentrating on what each muscle group in your legs were engaging in, where your eyes were looking, where your hands and arms were, your sense of balance, breathing, etc. all at one time? What do you think would happen? Undoubtedly you would flounder just as you did as the small child first confronted with a new method of crossing terrain. The mind simply cannot handle so much focus and concentrated effort while also being efficient, which makes complete sense from a logical point of view, but the ramifications of which are too often lost.
Habits are very powerful, and like any power can be abused. The habits we form at any time only become more difficult to observe as the years go on. Eventually we forget the reasons why we set the habits in motion, and may find ourselves needing to revisit them. But old habits die hard, as they say in common language, and knowing you have a bad habit many years old is sometimes not enough to unmake it. There are times when very old memories need to be dredged up, painful as they are, and brought to the surface so we can see clearly where the habit started. Habits like this cannot be fought directly; you cannot hope for victory by fighting a war inside your mind. You must find a way to use your hidden ability to reverse a habit by focusing at its source, and staring long and hard enough at it to convince your mind this is not something it can hide anymore. Keep it in the open sunlight and it will shrivel and die. Then, you’ll have a clean slate upon which to rewrite the way you behave as a person in life.
Promises
Some people are very afraid to make promises. Rationale usually involves pointing out that nothing can be guaranteed. But what is a promise?
A promise is just a statement from a person. When you make a promise you are saying “I feel strongly about this right now, and as far as I can see into the future, this is how I want it to be.” Are you saying “I can guarantee a positive outcome in the future”? Of course not. A promise and a precognition of future events are two completely separate things. Nothing in the future ever happens precisely the way it is predicted in totality; that’s the nature of the chaos system we live in. Should we let knowledge of that reality prevent us from making the strongest statements of feelings we can toward each other? If we’ll do that, might we not as well refuse to tell someone we love them, since we can’t know 100% of everything about them and it therefore it is somehow “false”? This is clearly a bad line of reasoning. There is validity and value in things that are not guaranteed!
Have courage to make your feelings clear. Make promises you would intend to keep as you make them. And for those of you who have received promises and later felt the hand of fate take something away from you, keep your chin up and never let fear stop you from asking for more.
War
Men and women are beautifully different. Each gender has, in general, certain benefits, pressures and expectations in life and society. I’d like to explain a bit more of what drives the average man in daily life from my own perspective.
I enjoy being a man. I like the fact that I make more money than the average woman, because I spend more money on women than I do on myself anyway. This seems to fit in well with everything else I know about the relationship between genders, with man as protector, hunter, provider, etc. and the woman as nurturer and caretaker. I appreciate feminism but I have never been with a woman who didn’t appreciate her own position in a relationship with me as well. I respect and admire women in general and would do almost anything for a woman I love, as long as I am not taken for granted. I think that’s all most men really want, to give all they have and for it to be considered enough to make someone else happy. All I can ask any woman is to be the lover and respite I desire when needed, and never to forget me.
There is so much more to this quality of sacrifice that I want to talk about. Women are expected to be variously beautiful and good mothers, to fit in with cliques of other women and to be faithful, as well as myriad other complicated social ways and mores based on particular culture or religion. As a man I, on the other hand, am constantly assessing myself against other men in terms of financial, physical, and sexual prowess. I live in constant concern over these things as if I could lose everything when a more successful man interferes, or even just by losing my own position. And this is the crux of the issue: as a man, I know without a doubt that I am not as valuable as a woman. These things I consider worthwhile pursuits are merely the least worthless achievements possible for me. I cannot taste the slice of immortality that comes from having a child and providing for it as only a mother can. My sole purpose in life is a figurehead, a giant statue set at the door to keep others away, which could be replaced as needed by another serving a very similar function. And when war is called, I will go and she will stay. My only goal is to live in her memory as a hero. In this way we men will come and go, living lives violent and short, hoping to make a mark. Those not capable of violence will endeavor to be capable and aggressive in any other form available.
A woman’s goal in life is to make life. A man’s goal in life is to give his life. Those of us who accept this fate are the men who understand the nature of war and care more for others than possessions or themselves. Volumes of books can be filled on the various ways many men attempt to deny the truth of their lives’ worth. But if I need someone in the trenches next to me, I will choose the man with the sorrow of real knowledge of his position in life any day. And in the mean time, I will gather around me those men I see as most fit for this very purpose, and look for that one woman who will remember me most clearly.
Review: Rogue Trooper (PC)
Atmosphere: A. Full of dark and brooding colors and environments, it nevertheless has a crispness and completeness to it that makes exploration a pleasure. Very high production values for the time (2006) and still looks decent to me today. The soundtrack (both music and FX) is absolutely fantastic, with rumbling militaristic bass beats in every action scene, fun screams and satisfying gun reports.
Intelligence: B. Conceptually weak on science but better than most games. Where it really shines above however is the script and directing of the entire plotline. There are many cliches, but soldiers speak and think like soldiers and the GI does not screw around; he never sways from his course of duty for a moment, even when characters such as the “high-ranking enemy cliched slutty chick” show up. The player interface is also very well-designed, and getting him to do very deadly things is extremely easy and entertaining.
Involvement: A. I found this game highly addictive from the start, with an interesting and unusual storyline (rich with background information that thankfully isn’t retold much here), good character progression and fun abilities to gain with each new level. Making head shots and stealth kills never really gets old. The idea of walking around in a poisonous atmosphere (and all your enemies suffering in various ways for this fact) is also a lot of fun.
What will annoy you:
Multiplayer. Alas, every good game seems to be missing something big, and for this one, it is a rich multiplayer experience. You are limited to only a few maps with specific mission criteria and no deathmatch. Personally I’m fine with that last omission (since I love co-op), but with so few options to choose from, it would have been a simple way to expand their available options in network play. It is even more disappointing because the game has a wonderful combat system and is high quality in nearly all other respects. And perhaps most relevant of all, at this time (the end of 2010), despite the fact that this game has a devoted (if small) following, lack of good multiplayer has left this gem of a game all but forgotten. The last few times I have checked, there has not been a single online game up and running anywhere in the world. That is a crying shame.
Ease. This game is very easy if you have any FPS skills. Sure, you can die quickly in the wrong spot, but you’ll quickly find all kinds of ways to “game” the system. For instance, no matter what difficulty level, a headshot with the standard rifle is always a kill. Walking around crouched makes you deadly silent and much harder to spot by the enemy than appears reasonable. Even at the highest difficulty you’ll end up getting enough salvage for all your upgrades and any ammo you need, and in the end you’ll rarely use other weapons. Micromines are versatile and powerful, and completely free to use, so you’ll almost never employ grenades. Setting up the tripod as covering fire creates an invulnerable distraction that can kill things forever, while you walk around with a pistol that has infinite ammo, apparently as much power as the rifle, and can make the same head shots (plus it sounds fantastic, like every other sound effect in the game). You’ll even headshot snipers with your pistol from across maps.
Weapons. While very cool in concept and effect, unfortunately most weapons pale in comparison to the standard rifle/pistol at higher difficulty levels. This is because enemies have more hit points, which reduces the effectiveness of even shotguns at short range so greatly that you’ll just go for a headshot instead. Grenades are very effective but I find it hard to use them when I could just lay down a large pattern of Micromines instead (which can kill even the heaviest units after a few drops), without costing a thing. Simply put, if you’ll play this game you might as well spam all your other weapons whenever you please just to have a bit of fun, because you’ll never actually need them save for a few specific circumstances.
Bugs. Only a few, and most of them forgivable, but they’re there. Occasionally you’ll find yourself getting stuck when trying to climb up a ledge from the wrong position or jumping at the wrong angle. Less serious errors include being unable to cancel out of certain motions when done by mistake, which can lead to deaths during combat. Reloading from the last checkpoint is, however, very fast and never requires much backtracking.
Review: Tron Legacy
Atmosphere: A+. Despite all of the modernization and environmental redesign, the Tron universe is very recognizable, and seamlessly executed with visuals and (of course) the Daft Punk soundtrack. Details are everywhere, but rarely threaten to drag the film down the slippery slope of Michael Bay-ish overpowering sensory noise.
Intelligence: C+. Based entirely on preposterous ideas and inexplicable plot devices, it nevertheless does offer a few nice novelties and twists, and maintains passable cohesion in this limited and expected scope. The script dialog for each actor is surprisingly appropriate and reasonable for their characters.
Involvement: B+. Direction and acting are actually quite good (especially Jeff Bridges), but pacing is occasionally a problem. The characters have adequate development and should be somewhat genuinely interesting even to non-fans of Tron. The storyline (if not the science behind it) largely resolves itself naturally with only a few eyebrow-raising moments, and is pleasantly surprising in substance.
What will annoy you:
Plot devices. Many are slap-you-in-the-face obvious for anyone who has seen the previous film or has half a brain. Others are just cliches dressed in new clothing, blurring the line between “program represented as human facsimile” and cheesy heroism/romanticism as a tool to quickly further the story’s progress.
Deviation. Tron made decent attempts to connect real-world computing technology with observable phenomena in the digital world. Tron Legacy received more of a dreamworld treatment where things just “were” a certain way, and I missed this connection to the original universe. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted a 50′s-style educational discourse anywhere in the middle of the film, but a few more intellectually stimulating tidbits here and there would have been welcome.
Marketing. The official trailers for the movie take various scenes out of context and give a false impression of the final product. They seem to focus on outlandishness and tired cinematography, and it’s unfortunate that people might be turned off from what is a much more impressive film in its totality.
Follow-through. I and many other movie-goers waited through all of the credits, fully expecting at least one tie-up of certain open points of interest (I’m pretty sure you’ll think of at least one or two when you see it), but alas, none were to be had. Hopefully this is just to keep you guessing and waiting for a sequel.
Digital Actors. While extremely impressive, I didn’t consider them up to Avatar standards (the new baseline in motion capture technology) and was surprised at how easy it was to see the lack of humanity in them. This may partly be due to the fact that we as human viewers are hard-wired to scrutinize other human faces much more carefully than alien-hybrids, but I’m reasonably certain there is a technological gap here.
Sam Flynn. He’s kind of a dumb-ass compared to his father. This isn’t a huge gripe, except that he’s the lead character. But, at least he isn’t half as annoying or limited in range as Sam Worthington in Avatar.
Resolution. It’s not that there were gaping plot holes; it’s that the ideas behind them were gaping in intelligence. More than one plot point was resolved in fine fashion while also leaving me puzzled as to why it was required. It’s difficult to explain without giving away spoilers, but you may get one or two head-scratching moments even before the heavily-foreshadowed tie-ups take place. ”Reintegration” is one that burns in my mind so badly that I have to mention it here without worrying too much over what it reveals, because I am sure you’ll remember it also.
Favorite Webcomics
I’ve posted a link on the Blogroll to the right where I keep a list of my favorite webcomics. Many are of an adult nature, but all demonstrate considerable talent and intellectual and/or emotional sensitivity and awareness. Some are also just guilty pleasures. 
The example which prompted me to post today from SMBC:
Xtranormal
Just found a piece of pure brilliance, possibly the best idea to hit the web in a long time. I’ve begun turning old email conversations between my brother and I (nothing more than typical hyper-intellectual self-important college students bantering like oblivious idiots over metaphysics and other vapid topics) into this format.
