Trying to define Love may be one of the most difficult challenges I've faced so far. Love is the subject of unknown numbers of books, papers, dialogs, television and radio programs, movies, and nearly any other media category. I see it plastered on billboards, in newspaper ads, thrown about in the classifieds, and inscribed upon bathroom stalls. Love is pervasive (at the very least as a word). I mentioned in one of my first posts that I would be making a future entry on Love, but I've been uninspired lately. A conversation I recently had with a dear friend was the catalyst.
As introduction: I Love Love. Why capitalize Love? The big "L" functions as a way to highlight Love's importance and give it a sort of personality, as if it were a living, thinking, dreaming creature sitting next to me. I imagine Love as overall androgynous, though a great deal of the time it comes into my mind as a woman. But the image is never clear. There aren't any boundaries, hard lines, or logical direction. Love appears in my dreams as if all of space around me were filled with color and light. It's like when I gaze into the night sky and a starry point of light becomes fuzzy only when I try to focus on it. In peripheral the image sharpens, but, because it's peripheral, I can't focus on it. Love is everywhere in my dreamscapes, in the minute spaces between my cells, encasing my body, always flowing, never smothering, visible, never containable, and, after that long string of descriptives, still as undefinable as ever. I am trying to express a paradox I feel about Love. I seek to put descriptive limits on Love, but, by my definition, there can be no limits. Love is unquantifiable and unmeasurable (by conventional means, compared to the wavelength of light or the stress on a steel bar). It has no units, no boundary conditions, no one-sentence definition (not even a 10,000,000 sentence version). No telling where it began or where it ends. Maybe I'm a nutter and you see it differently Dear Reader?
Love all, Love all. Love in your own way. For me, Loving is finding joy in their joy, pain in their pain, wholeness in their wholeness. Loving is devotion to individual choice. Loving means overthrowing all mental walls, criticisms, and assumptions to view them through a Lens of Love. I say a "Lens" to further stress the importance of relativism. Love is how you see it. I believe in no absolute definition of Love when considering fine details (good example of the Absolute/Relative paradox ... I'm all over the paradoxes today). Specific perceptions, scenarios, and experiences create a vast spectrum of Lenses. Yet, I think the absolute theme in Love is connection--relationship. I cannot conceive a circumstance where Love exists without connection of any kind, brief or long, intimate or distant. Maybe, you have examples Dear Reader?
What a lot of words. As far as I know, every human language has at least one word for it. Love is the ultimate one-way radio. It effects me, but I cannot change it, give it form, find the limits of its curves, the endpoints of its influence. I'm like a point charge so close to a surface it makes up my whole reality, my whole existence. Metaphors and Similes aside, Love is my world, both waking and sleeping. I am not always paying attention to this fact and exude un-Love. Yet, even when I feel consumed with anger, fear, and bitterness, I have always ascended from those lonely depths to see through my Love Lens again. I cannot say anything for indisputable truth (as is true for all of this post), but I deeply believe I belong with my Lens at every instant, waking or sleeping. I Love Love.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Guest Appearance
I want to preface this post because it is, beyond this preface, not my own. I am placing a bit of fiction here, written by a good friend, Mike Raevsky. Through a collaboration of our own reasons, it is appearing here in Wanderal. A note to you, Dear Reader: The content is not light and may cause you to think deeply ... or, perhaps not. Your reaction depends, forebodingly, on your perception.
Deja Vu
The conniving controller created a swirling cacophony of colors caustically crossing his vision contriving a low level panic. This was the Somnatextorix's job every night; to oversee the maelstrom of dreams that hid her creative process. Now, the floor dropped out from under Maxwell, and he was swimming in a giant tank with fish, manta rays, and most quizzical of all, audacious swimming parrots. This didn't seem strange to Maxwell because, of course, he was dreaming. It happened every night. The sun rose below the ocean, and the diaphanous explosion of salmon and burnt umber hues evaporated the sea. The fish and manta rays became cats and cars, and Maxwell flew far above a typical English countryside. Exultant in the feeling of flight, Maxwell was dry and weightless.
Somnatextorix couldn't feel. She understood the idea of emotions much like a physicist understands that electrons are waves and particles, but she couldn't fathom what they would be like. She attributed colors to them, named them, and above all, she inflicted them on Maxwell. The key to the whole process was to drain his mind of any possibility of remembering the events of the evening. The cheery green hills and vibrant blue sky filled with impossibly puffy and white clouds began to gray. The undersides of the clouds began the process, and as they expanded, they foretold a violent storm that would rend the world. Maxwell was dimly aware that the flying had stopped and the world was fading. He was along for the ride tonight.
Maxwell walked past street lamps, grateful for the light they gave off. It wasn't as cheery as the setting sun, but ominous brick buildings blocked its warming glow. He wanted into the door. He needed something inside that building, and the door was locked. Of course, he'd left the key. The crushed sky made him feel like he had sepia toned sunglasses, and the shadows from the buildings cut across the street, stark and mysterious. The transformation from dream to
nightmare was complete settings wise, now Somnatextorix infused the plot with details from his ordinary life. A hurt friend inside the building, the key at his work. Maxwell was running by this time. Endurance is never an issue for Maxwell because he is a confident man, but in this dream, he could never be fast enough.
His office is locked, so he climbs up the outside to an open window on the second floor. Somnatextorix added another floor between him and the open window, and then another. The journey must be interminable, but when Maxwell reaches the open window reflecting the sun like an egg white on a cast iron skillet, he looks down to the harsh asphalt just one floor below, unsurprised that he's only climbed one story.
The office has been ransacked, and he trips on his way to his cubicle. The light switch doesn't work, and he walks by inference through the subdued navy and gray tone shapes to his desk. There is a meatball sandwich with lettuce covering the meatballs on the left, and on the
right, he sees a stack of papers. The key! Maxwell exits the front door without incident, but he can't remember where the building is. He runs in what he senses is the right direction. There are new turns on his route back, but Somnatextorix guides him with her most ingenious creation. Death would not be so frightening if you could see it. The Enemy has no real properties except for its shining red eyes and the sound that it makes as it follows you, just entering your sight as you round corners, always encroaching. Like a kitten playing with a mouse, the Enemy guides Maxwell and his hammering heart to the building with the nerve jangling sound only possible within the confines of nightmares.
Somnatextorix inserts a fumble before Maxwell gets the door open, but he is inside before the Enemy reaches him. The search begins again, and when Maxwell finds his friend, there isn't much left. The sadness that would accompany an ordinary death doesn't strike Maxwell; his terror and self-preservation instinct cause him to coldly examine the red splatter painting for patterns that might lead to the killer. Whether Maxwell is intent on vengeance or flight is unclear at this time, but he studies. Limbs seem to be strewn over the floor at random, and a grisly head with eye-sockets and upper teeth glares at the wall in a pose fit for eternity. Maxwell finds tracks in the blood. They are the Enemy's, but Maxwell does not know this. Maxwell wants out, and he would like to wake up.
Somnatextorix pulls him up just enough to feel the comfort of darkness and blankets before bringing him back down to a red velvet room. The windows have translucent white curtains that gently flutter in a breeze that Maxwell cannot feel. There is a four mahogany post bed in this room, and a doorway that leads to a bathroom. Maxwell is wearing faded blue jeans and a tight white T-shirt. His belt is simple, well loved leather, and a pair of old cowboy boots adorn his feet. He smells flowers and turns around to see a woman, five foot eight and draped in a satin night robe. The sunlight flows freely through the windows that do not allow the wind to pass, and he moves to her.
Some part of Maxwell knows this is a dream, but running his fingers through her auburn hair and tenderly examining her stunning hazel eyes, he lets himself enjoy the foreplay. She runs her hands up his chest, fingernails first, sending chills up and down his spine, and he pulls her robe off with a flourish to reveal beautifully freckled, somewhat tan skin that runs all the way to her toes.
"Max" she breathes. Her deep purple bra only just holds her breasts. He doesn't know her name, but this is a dream, so what the hell. He reaches around her waist with his right hand while running his left hand's fingers up her neck, into her hair to pull her face to his. Their kiss is slow and passionate, allowing all 20 fingers to explore cheeks, then necks, then backs, then breasts and buttocks. He picks her up just above her thigh, and she wraps her legs around his waist while he carries her to the bed. It's a dream, so she doesn't weigh anything; all he feels is her warmth encircling him.
She reaches for the ground with her toes, and when he lets her down, she unbuckles his belt, and pulls it out with a satisfying snap. With a devilish glint in her eyes that never leave his, she belts his feet to the bottom of the bedpost. Her fingernails push his T-shirt up over his head, but by some trickery that Maxwell doesn't understand, his hands are locked above his head by the shirt, and she is kissing his chest as she unbuttons his jeans. She moves with a frenzy that would
have scared him if he'd been conscious, but he's not. Her bra and panties vanish and she's kissing him and standing up on the bed, holding the bedpost above his head. She bends her knees to position herself and pushes him inside her, warm and safe. She holds there for a full minute, kissing his lips, neck, and chest. He kisses her in return, but as she moves out of range, he is forced to look at her hungrily. Again, she grips his hips with her legs, but this time, she moves her hands down the bedpost behind his head, and leans back putting tension in her arms.
She lustily looks into his eyes as her hips begin to move. He can see her lithe thighs, abdomen, and hips flex in a slow, coordinated symphony of movement that has brought men to their knees from the dawn of time. He moves in time and out of phase, all the while yearning to taste her lips on his. Her wanton eyes loll around the room as she moves up and down on him, and he watches her breasts and stomach. He can now feel the gentle breeze flowing across his bare skin, pulling the sweat off. She moves faster and faster, and he surges to keep up. Maxwell is virtually senseless with ecstasy but as she reaches her climax, the world fades to black, and the real dreaming begins.
Somnatextorix could not have said if she was the woman in Maxwell's dreams. She did not have emotions. She could not feel. She certainly moved her, but those two things perhaps aren't the same. Then again, it doesn't really matter. Maxwell's emotions had run a brutal gauntlet, and now that he is drained, she goes through his life as it will be for the next month. She builds the scenery and the images with an amazing eye for realism. Part of what makes Somnatextorix godlike is her ability to build realities with whatever stylistic bias she wants. The dialog is infinitely faster than the backdrop. People transmit infinitesimal bits of information over periods of hours, while building a sunset requires an incredible swath of data for every changing instant and every viewpoint. It was the rare person that valued her work, but again, she could not feel; she could not care.
She weaved her creation together with the realities of nearby people to create a seamless version of their lives yet to be. As she finished up with his dinner, he began to recover. He rolled over in his sleep, and she considered the possibility that he would remember this snippet of his future. The stars came out after dinner as he walked away from the restaurant, and she pulled out. She'd have to finish his month later. If she could love, she might have had feelings for Maxwell; she always gave him more time than her other charges because he stopped to enjoy her sunsets. It did not occur to her that he might be watching her sunsets because they were more beautiful for him, or that if he was simply watching because he enjoyed them, that his life wasn't as preordained as she believed. A small part of Maxwell knew though. What made Maxwell special was that he also knew that it didn't matter, and that made the sunsets worth watching.
Deja Vu
The conniving controller created a swirling cacophony of colors caustically crossing his vision contriving a low level panic. This was the Somnatextorix's job every night; to oversee the maelstrom of dreams that hid her creative process. Now, the floor dropped out from under Maxwell, and he was swimming in a giant tank with fish, manta rays, and most quizzical of all, audacious swimming parrots. This didn't seem strange to Maxwell because, of course, he was dreaming. It happened every night. The sun rose below the ocean, and the diaphanous explosion of salmon and burnt umber hues evaporated the sea. The fish and manta rays became cats and cars, and Maxwell flew far above a typical English countryside. Exultant in the feeling of flight, Maxwell was dry and weightless.
Somnatextorix couldn't feel. She understood the idea of emotions much like a physicist understands that electrons are waves and particles, but she couldn't fathom what they would be like. She attributed colors to them, named them, and above all, she inflicted them on Maxwell. The key to the whole process was to drain his mind of any possibility of remembering the events of the evening. The cheery green hills and vibrant blue sky filled with impossibly puffy and white clouds began to gray. The undersides of the clouds began the process, and as they expanded, they foretold a violent storm that would rend the world. Maxwell was dimly aware that the flying had stopped and the world was fading. He was along for the ride tonight.
Maxwell walked past street lamps, grateful for the light they gave off. It wasn't as cheery as the setting sun, but ominous brick buildings blocked its warming glow. He wanted into the door. He needed something inside that building, and the door was locked. Of course, he'd left the key. The crushed sky made him feel like he had sepia toned sunglasses, and the shadows from the buildings cut across the street, stark and mysterious. The transformation from dream to
nightmare was complete settings wise, now Somnatextorix infused the plot with details from his ordinary life. A hurt friend inside the building, the key at his work. Maxwell was running by this time. Endurance is never an issue for Maxwell because he is a confident man, but in this dream, he could never be fast enough.
His office is locked, so he climbs up the outside to an open window on the second floor. Somnatextorix added another floor between him and the open window, and then another. The journey must be interminable, but when Maxwell reaches the open window reflecting the sun like an egg white on a cast iron skillet, he looks down to the harsh asphalt just one floor below, unsurprised that he's only climbed one story.
The office has been ransacked, and he trips on his way to his cubicle. The light switch doesn't work, and he walks by inference through the subdued navy and gray tone shapes to his desk. There is a meatball sandwich with lettuce covering the meatballs on the left, and on the
right, he sees a stack of papers. The key! Maxwell exits the front door without incident, but he can't remember where the building is. He runs in what he senses is the right direction. There are new turns on his route back, but Somnatextorix guides him with her most ingenious creation. Death would not be so frightening if you could see it. The Enemy has no real properties except for its shining red eyes and the sound that it makes as it follows you, just entering your sight as you round corners, always encroaching. Like a kitten playing with a mouse, the Enemy guides Maxwell and his hammering heart to the building with the nerve jangling sound only possible within the confines of nightmares.
Somnatextorix inserts a fumble before Maxwell gets the door open, but he is inside before the Enemy reaches him. The search begins again, and when Maxwell finds his friend, there isn't much left. The sadness that would accompany an ordinary death doesn't strike Maxwell; his terror and self-preservation instinct cause him to coldly examine the red splatter painting for patterns that might lead to the killer. Whether Maxwell is intent on vengeance or flight is unclear at this time, but he studies. Limbs seem to be strewn over the floor at random, and a grisly head with eye-sockets and upper teeth glares at the wall in a pose fit for eternity. Maxwell finds tracks in the blood. They are the Enemy's, but Maxwell does not know this. Maxwell wants out, and he would like to wake up.
Somnatextorix pulls him up just enough to feel the comfort of darkness and blankets before bringing him back down to a red velvet room. The windows have translucent white curtains that gently flutter in a breeze that Maxwell cannot feel. There is a four mahogany post bed in this room, and a doorway that leads to a bathroom. Maxwell is wearing faded blue jeans and a tight white T-shirt. His belt is simple, well loved leather, and a pair of old cowboy boots adorn his feet. He smells flowers and turns around to see a woman, five foot eight and draped in a satin night robe. The sunlight flows freely through the windows that do not allow the wind to pass, and he moves to her.
Some part of Maxwell knows this is a dream, but running his fingers through her auburn hair and tenderly examining her stunning hazel eyes, he lets himself enjoy the foreplay. She runs her hands up his chest, fingernails first, sending chills up and down his spine, and he pulls her robe off with a flourish to reveal beautifully freckled, somewhat tan skin that runs all the way to her toes.
"Max" she breathes. Her deep purple bra only just holds her breasts. He doesn't know her name, but this is a dream, so what the hell. He reaches around her waist with his right hand while running his left hand's fingers up her neck, into her hair to pull her face to his. Their kiss is slow and passionate, allowing all 20 fingers to explore cheeks, then necks, then backs, then breasts and buttocks. He picks her up just above her thigh, and she wraps her legs around his waist while he carries her to the bed. It's a dream, so she doesn't weigh anything; all he feels is her warmth encircling him.
She reaches for the ground with her toes, and when he lets her down, she unbuckles his belt, and pulls it out with a satisfying snap. With a devilish glint in her eyes that never leave his, she belts his feet to the bottom of the bedpost. Her fingernails push his T-shirt up over his head, but by some trickery that Maxwell doesn't understand, his hands are locked above his head by the shirt, and she is kissing his chest as she unbuttons his jeans. She moves with a frenzy that would
have scared him if he'd been conscious, but he's not. Her bra and panties vanish and she's kissing him and standing up on the bed, holding the bedpost above his head. She bends her knees to position herself and pushes him inside her, warm and safe. She holds there for a full minute, kissing his lips, neck, and chest. He kisses her in return, but as she moves out of range, he is forced to look at her hungrily. Again, she grips his hips with her legs, but this time, she moves her hands down the bedpost behind his head, and leans back putting tension in her arms.
She lustily looks into his eyes as her hips begin to move. He can see her lithe thighs, abdomen, and hips flex in a slow, coordinated symphony of movement that has brought men to their knees from the dawn of time. He moves in time and out of phase, all the while yearning to taste her lips on his. Her wanton eyes loll around the room as she moves up and down on him, and he watches her breasts and stomach. He can now feel the gentle breeze flowing across his bare skin, pulling the sweat off. She moves faster and faster, and he surges to keep up. Maxwell is virtually senseless with ecstasy but as she reaches her climax, the world fades to black, and the real dreaming begins.
Somnatextorix could not have said if she was the woman in Maxwell's dreams. She did not have emotions. She could not feel. She certainly moved her, but those two things perhaps aren't the same. Then again, it doesn't really matter. Maxwell's emotions had run a brutal gauntlet, and now that he is drained, she goes through his life as it will be for the next month. She builds the scenery and the images with an amazing eye for realism. Part of what makes Somnatextorix godlike is her ability to build realities with whatever stylistic bias she wants. The dialog is infinitely faster than the backdrop. People transmit infinitesimal bits of information over periods of hours, while building a sunset requires an incredible swath of data for every changing instant and every viewpoint. It was the rare person that valued her work, but again, she could not feel; she could not care.
She weaved her creation together with the realities of nearby people to create a seamless version of their lives yet to be. As she finished up with his dinner, he began to recover. He rolled over in his sleep, and she considered the possibility that he would remember this snippet of his future. The stars came out after dinner as he walked away from the restaurant, and she pulled out. She'd have to finish his month later. If she could love, she might have had feelings for Maxwell; she always gave him more time than her other charges because he stopped to enjoy her sunsets. It did not occur to her that he might be watching her sunsets because they were more beautiful for him, or that if he was simply watching because he enjoyed them, that his life wasn't as preordained as she believed. A small part of Maxwell knew though. What made Maxwell special was that he also knew that it didn't matter, and that made the sunsets worth watching.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Insomnia
I have been bitten. I am here at nearly 1:30 am, writing a blog post because the fever I've been developing all day is making it impossible to sleep. So I was lying in bed, and thought, let's get up and be productive. Sometimes I enjoy being idle, but tonight, I have an itch in my brain that must be scratched.
I finalized my application for graduate school here at Mines in the coming fall. I feel a sense of pride in this fact, since I actually spent a great deal of time assembling it. What surprised me the most of all the application's elements was the statement of goals. As described on the application's web interface (more and more of the world is being run through the internet these days), this short essay should describe my interests at Mines and beyond and why. Though I've written many papers for classes over the years of my academic career, this brief personal decree plagued me. By far, it underwent the most revisions I've given any writing assignment to date: eight. Throughout the whole application process I have felt a great sense of anxiety that I will make some egregious error (or multiple ones) and be rejected from admission. I have been struggling to put words to these emotions and I think I have found a good explanation. I believe I have not done my best over my college career and I desperately want to change my image in graduate studies. I have always battled with confidence and self-worth issues, but I am strongly compelled to prove to myself that I can shine on a more advanced academic level. I long to 'make waves' in the realm where my work has the potential to be published and read by many intellectual and scientific minds, rather than simply be marked with red pen and returned to me to sit on a shelf collecting dust.
I have found all of this striving and thinking to be rooted in some fundamental characteristics of me. First, I am a voracious learner (this trait is tempered, sometimes embarrassingly, with powerful habits of laziness and inadequate patience) who wants to understand how all of the physical world operates. From Physics to Economics, I desire to cover all subjects, gathering as much instruction as my neurons can contain (I expect I have not even begun to make a dent in their capacity), and to remember it. I have great admiration for a friend of mine, Sean, who possesses the astounding ability to store and access a vast amount of information without writing it down. Whether this characteristic is inborn or comes out of an iron-clad self confidence and deep understanding of himself, I am not yet certain. I like to think the latter is true and that if I can develop my own mental skills in such ways, I will be more satisfied with my efforts to look on the universe and know its workings.
I seek to comprehend the why of all things too. As Mike pointed out to me recently, the whys of the world are dealt with from a more spiritual and metaphysical perspective. Gravity is a mysterious physical presence that, literally, binds much of the universe together. As a physicist I can study its effects on macroscopic entities and observe its reality. But to answer the question of why gravity exists is a much fuzzier query than my soul can grasp. I say soul because I think the mind deals with the how and the soul with the why. I must justify to myself that the world I perceive operates for a reason, whether that reason is order borne of pure chaos, or of intelligent design (a two-word snippet of language that has become quite trite over the last century).
It seems as though the fever and the lateness have caused me to babble and ramble, but what I really want to say is that I have caught another disease. The joyous plague of wanting to know, to explore, to wonder. I do not mean this condition in a bad sense, though the words 'disease' and 'plague' have, traditionally, negative connotations. What I mean is, I cannot help myself in these pursuits, that they are embedded in me so completely, I am sure I will never recover. I will never be complacent with stopping my trek for knowledge. I will never be satisfied with a day job at a restaurant, where the only intellectual stimulation comes in the form of day dreams while whiny American customers demand my immediate and complete attention. I will not truly be at peace until my feet touch the surface of an extraterrestrial sphere and I can look up into the heavens and see only more adventure and more wonderment.
I think I'm going to go do some homework Dear Reader. Whomever you may be, I hope you'll look at this smattering of sentences and not see disconnected mumblings. Rather, a restless spirit who still needs to learn patience and coherence in a wide wide universe of possibility.
I finalized my application for graduate school here at Mines in the coming fall. I feel a sense of pride in this fact, since I actually spent a great deal of time assembling it. What surprised me the most of all the application's elements was the statement of goals. As described on the application's web interface (more and more of the world is being run through the internet these days), this short essay should describe my interests at Mines and beyond and why. Though I've written many papers for classes over the years of my academic career, this brief personal decree plagued me. By far, it underwent the most revisions I've given any writing assignment to date: eight. Throughout the whole application process I have felt a great sense of anxiety that I will make some egregious error (or multiple ones) and be rejected from admission. I have been struggling to put words to these emotions and I think I have found a good explanation. I believe I have not done my best over my college career and I desperately want to change my image in graduate studies. I have always battled with confidence and self-worth issues, but I am strongly compelled to prove to myself that I can shine on a more advanced academic level. I long to 'make waves' in the realm where my work has the potential to be published and read by many intellectual and scientific minds, rather than simply be marked with red pen and returned to me to sit on a shelf collecting dust.
I have found all of this striving and thinking to be rooted in some fundamental characteristics of me. First, I am a voracious learner (this trait is tempered, sometimes embarrassingly, with powerful habits of laziness and inadequate patience) who wants to understand how all of the physical world operates. From Physics to Economics, I desire to cover all subjects, gathering as much instruction as my neurons can contain (I expect I have not even begun to make a dent in their capacity), and to remember it. I have great admiration for a friend of mine, Sean, who possesses the astounding ability to store and access a vast amount of information without writing it down. Whether this characteristic is inborn or comes out of an iron-clad self confidence and deep understanding of himself, I am not yet certain. I like to think the latter is true and that if I can develop my own mental skills in such ways, I will be more satisfied with my efforts to look on the universe and know its workings.
I seek to comprehend the why of all things too. As Mike pointed out to me recently, the whys of the world are dealt with from a more spiritual and metaphysical perspective. Gravity is a mysterious physical presence that, literally, binds much of the universe together. As a physicist I can study its effects on macroscopic entities and observe its reality. But to answer the question of why gravity exists is a much fuzzier query than my soul can grasp. I say soul because I think the mind deals with the how and the soul with the why. I must justify to myself that the world I perceive operates for a reason, whether that reason is order borne of pure chaos, or of intelligent design (a two-word snippet of language that has become quite trite over the last century).
It seems as though the fever and the lateness have caused me to babble and ramble, but what I really want to say is that I have caught another disease. The joyous plague of wanting to know, to explore, to wonder. I do not mean this condition in a bad sense, though the words 'disease' and 'plague' have, traditionally, negative connotations. What I mean is, I cannot help myself in these pursuits, that they are embedded in me so completely, I am sure I will never recover. I will never be complacent with stopping my trek for knowledge. I will never be satisfied with a day job at a restaurant, where the only intellectual stimulation comes in the form of day dreams while whiny American customers demand my immediate and complete attention. I will not truly be at peace until my feet touch the surface of an extraterrestrial sphere and I can look up into the heavens and see only more adventure and more wonderment.
I think I'm going to go do some homework Dear Reader. Whomever you may be, I hope you'll look at this smattering of sentences and not see disconnected mumblings. Rather, a restless spirit who still needs to learn patience and coherence in a wide wide universe of possibility.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Need to Read
I first researched Creative Commons by reading an XKCD comic involving one Cory Doctorow. Following a trail of Google Screes and Wikipedia entries, I discovered the Canadian novelist and internet activist has published a lot of material online about limited copyright and free flow of information. Recently I have become more interested in news, current events, politics, and the like. I want to read read read read READ! The amount of information available in the world is gargantuan, and (for me) there's rarely a boring moment in the trolling of online media material.
Yet, I am sometimes blocked from reading certain items by the demand of payment (e.g. majority of The Economist.com). SpringerLink and other online journal archives are very protective of their content and, being a frugal college student, these cash-keyed barriers make research (for pleasure and work) difficult. I imagine there is a plethora of interconnecting reasons and agendas for why so much interesting reading is walled away behind subscription-only gates, but I get frustrated nonetheless.
Perhaps there is a better way of organizing and distributing online information. By "better" I mean easy access for everyone, without paying for a subscription. Businesses have to offset the cost of supporting an online interface by charging customers, but maybe there can be cooperation between state departments and the private sector: subsidization of online costs for the purpose of making all journal and news material free to viewers. This suggestion may sound political (another annoying stigma of my culture: the habit of labeling ideas with partisan politics right up front), but I think it has merit beyond campaign fodder. We citizens already pay for internet service to our homes and offices, perhaps a cooperation between ISP companies and information brokers would be a better solution. Cash flow could be further supported by side bar and banner ads for the ISPs and there services.
Looking back on these last few paragraphs, I need more research to support these ideas. For now, total free access to internet material is a nice thought, and I know I'm not alone in that dream. There has already been a great deal of talk about this subject. Entities like Creative Commons are monuments to this public dialog. A third thought that occurred to me was the ever-increasing "blogosphere." I came into contact with quantifiable information about the world of blogging recently, through a Popular Science article on techpresident.com. This site tracks the 2008 presidential candidates to correlate their online presence with their success in the polls and at the caucuses. Techpresident compiles and daily updates statistics like MySpace friends, Facebook supporters, and, most importantly, the discussion of the candidates in blogs from all over the net. While there is doubt as to the reliability of the site's 'measuring sticks,' I think the concept is brilliant. Most important of all, every last byte of information is FREE. From techpresident.com I traveled to Technorati.com, a website dedicated to compiling blogs from around the world and posting a select few for online readers to view, much like how Google News sets up their site. This blog archive (blarchive -- credit Mike) is also free to any internet user. Check out the "About" section on Technorati.com. The figures on blogs are quite telling of the blogosphere's size and influence.
All free, all available. I am fortunate enough to have been born in a time where information is power and more and more people are striving for it to become totally accessible to all humankind. There is no excuse to not learn about the world.
Yet, I am sometimes blocked from reading certain items by the demand of payment (e.g. majority of The Economist.com). SpringerLink and other online journal archives are very protective of their content and, being a frugal college student, these cash-keyed barriers make research (for pleasure and work) difficult. I imagine there is a plethora of interconnecting reasons and agendas for why so much interesting reading is walled away behind subscription-only gates, but I get frustrated nonetheless.
Perhaps there is a better way of organizing and distributing online information. By "better" I mean easy access for everyone, without paying for a subscription. Businesses have to offset the cost of supporting an online interface by charging customers, but maybe there can be cooperation between state departments and the private sector: subsidization of online costs for the purpose of making all journal and news material free to viewers. This suggestion may sound political (another annoying stigma of my culture: the habit of labeling ideas with partisan politics right up front), but I think it has merit beyond campaign fodder. We citizens already pay for internet service to our homes and offices, perhaps a cooperation between ISP companies and information brokers would be a better solution. Cash flow could be further supported by side bar and banner ads for the ISPs and there services.
Looking back on these last few paragraphs, I need more research to support these ideas. For now, total free access to internet material is a nice thought, and I know I'm not alone in that dream. There has already been a great deal of talk about this subject. Entities like Creative Commons are monuments to this public dialog. A third thought that occurred to me was the ever-increasing "blogosphere." I came into contact with quantifiable information about the world of blogging recently, through a Popular Science article on techpresident.com. This site tracks the 2008 presidential candidates to correlate their online presence with their success in the polls and at the caucuses. Techpresident compiles and daily updates statistics like MySpace friends, Facebook supporters, and, most importantly, the discussion of the candidates in blogs from all over the net. While there is doubt as to the reliability of the site's 'measuring sticks,' I think the concept is brilliant. Most important of all, every last byte of information is FREE. From techpresident.com I traveled to Technorati.com, a website dedicated to compiling blogs from around the world and posting a select few for online readers to view, much like how Google News sets up their site. This blog archive (blarchive -- credit Mike) is also free to any internet user. Check out the "About" section on Technorati.com. The figures on blogs are quite telling of the blogosphere's size and influence.
All free, all available. I am fortunate enough to have been born in a time where information is power and more and more people are striving for it to become totally accessible to all humankind. There is no excuse to not learn about the world.
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