Laziness as habit in a 2-D world. What are we losing?

You know when you stand on a chair and the room looks completely different? Let’s think about that a moment. You get used to seeing the world in a habitual way. You are comfortable coming home at a certain time after class/work, hitting the snooze alarm 3 times before you even consider waking up, usually choosing to eat either X, Y, or Z as part of the majority of your meals, etc. You are used to SOME form of routine.

I want to discuss laziness. Laziness as routine; as a routine part of your life; as your life.

I believe our culture has greatly contributed to its own laziness through its forms of entertainment. Think of the last activity you partook in… aside from Halloween parties–I’m totally writing this post at the wrong time (everyone was actually out doing something this weekend). So, aside from special events/holidays, when was the last time you did something that didn’t involve sitting on your ba-donka?

I already know how much time is wasted on the computer or in front of the t.v. (why do you think it has taken me such a long time to sit down & write a decent post? …if you dare to call this decent). The few times my computer/charger/internet went out, I accomplished so much more than I normally would in a week across a couple of days.

Have you ever thought about how it not only changes our lifestyle and productivity, but it changes our PERCEPTION of life? That we view the habitual as normal?

Now, you can take this idea and go with it in a variety of ways:

(1) Relationships between tv dramatization “reality” we are living vicariously through & real life’s reality, spending our money on movies that really tell us nothing about life except that two people fell in love, or a bunch of people blew things up and ran around trying to catch and/or kill one another? Some movies can teach us a lot–I’m not dogging on films, there are many great ones out there with important messages, expression, artistry, and the human condition that provide a bridge between wisdom and enjoyment–but there is a lot of stuff we too often waste our time & money on that really has no progressive meaning to it.

(2) What good are we doing sitting in front of screens all day? How much of your life has been taken up sitting in front of a screen? When you are doing this, how much are you really learning? How much are you experiencing for yourself? What are you really enjoying? How much of the time are you enjoying something which is helping you grow vs. wasting your life & ultimately helping you die? Are you enjoying a fictional depiction of what you psychologically want to happen? are scared could happen? are told you should want to happen? Are living through someone else’s ideas or learning from them through relation?

Think about the setting without the substance. What are you doing?–sitting in a room, concentrating on a screen. Where is the life? Where is the third dimension–where is the depth? I definitely appreciate and enjoy film as an art form. I believe we can learn something through the eyes of others and that films give us the ability to somewhat “experience” this. However, much of the time we spend sitting in front of screens is on the computer.

A huge portion of our generation’s time and concern is spent with facebook, a networking site that lets you keep up with your friends, but is a great contributor to our nosiness. Oftentimes, people browse through facebook to look at one another’s pages in comparison to their own lives–you either criticize others or criticize yourself in comparison to what you conclude about their lives. I think it’s important to think how much of YOUR OWN life you are actively living (For more on this topic, see my previous post “We Settle For Convenience“)

(3) How do you perceive REAL life? Yes, life away from a 2-D screen. Do you think in flat images? Do you see the world in front of you like a t.v. screen? Where is the depth? Where did it go? If you have lost the depth, have you lost your sense of self? I mean, the depth is what is in front of and beyond the “screen” you perceive.

So, do you perceive yourself as separate from your perceived world? Do you feel the depth of the book in front of you or see it as the 2-D illusion it reflects off the back of your retina through light and shadow? We have more senses than just vision, however we seem to depend on vision more than most of the rest. Are we using vision as a crutch? Do we mute the rest of our senses, and ultimately life experience in doing so? Are we perceiving the world as separate from ourselves? We are in the world–look down. You see your hands and arms? You ARE part of the world. You are the world. The person across the street is a part of the world. I know you get that because you SEE them as part of the world. However, do you understand that you and they are both (equally) thriving souls & pieces of the world?

(4) Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr, explores the idea that Google search engines & the internet’s functionality shapes our cognitive development. Our learning is shaped in ways which seek instant information, like a search engine, rather than the more developed and conclusive information through traditional reading and learning.

–So, …what do you think?

Family of the Year

So, I’m in love with Family of the Year: http://www.myspace.com/familyoftheyear (Just listen to the song “Summer Girl” and tell me you don’t love them).

They’re a relatively new band I came across a few months ago, right after they’d decided their current name. They’re playing in Austin in 2 weekends with Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (another amazing band:http://www.myspace.com/edwardsharpe) & I really want to go! [If any of my friends reading this are interested in coming it's a $12 all ages show (I believe) Friday, Nov. 6th at 9pm.]

If you’re into them, you either download their EP & leave a (paypal) donation or order their CD here: (http://www.familyoftheyear.net/)

Stop-Motion Chalk Music Video

Yanni Kronenberg and Lucinda Schreiber took 6 months to produce this animation using only chalk and blackboards. The song is Autumn Story, by the Firekites.

Looking for a new book?

The following site asks you to enter the title of a book you enjoyed, then suggests a list of books you should enjoy based on the provided title…

Check it out: http://bookseer.com/

[Thanks to Travis for sending me this page]

Back from summer break with an amazing video for you!

Hi all,

So this summer has been a little hectic with class & moving apartments. I’m finally feeling organized enough to start posting again.

The following video was sent to me by my dearest friend Lauren (she is the same person who sent me the Travis Wall video I posted previously). It is beatiful choreography by Wade Robson… whether you are a dancer or not, whether you understand how brilliant the choreography is or can just connect to the emotion the dancers bring to the stage, you [should] enjoy it.

Before Wade Robson set this piece on Josh & Katee for SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (Season 4), he created the original version on his beautiful dancers from his Cirque Du Soleil show. He then decided to shoot a short film of two of his dancers that really connected with the piece, Ben Susak & Pam Chu. This was Josh and Katee’s inspirational guide. Enjoy.

Texture.

We are extremely visual creatures. Our visual perceptions are constructed by light and shadow. We feel moods suggested in color combinations. Optical Illusions are simply fluctuations beyond the perceptual constancy with which your vision has developed.

Sound plays constant roles in our lives. Loud noises capture your attention in an instant. We are able to tell location and direction based on what we hear & where it’s headed. Verbal communication relies on sound. Even if you are lip-reading, you’re basing the translation on the sounds someone is attempting to formulate.

Smells can bring us back to a moment, a feeling, a memory. Sense of smell is often discussed as the strongest memory trigger. Taste mainly has to do with food experiences. Your body tells you you’re thirsty and is affected by your health. It doesn’t play as big a ‘part’ in our constant experience of the world because we are not constantly eating. However, taste does affect smell.

While visual and auditory stimuli are recognized as examples of gestaltism (relational psychology), smell and taste recognition are much more discriminatory. However, all of our senses blend together and fade into ‘life’ when explicit attention is not being used–we are ‘desensitized’ to the backgrounds of our lives. So what are we letting fade into the background? What are our foregrounds made up of? For starters, one detail of life we often take for granted is the sense I feel is most overlooked–sense of touch.

You are always touching something. The keyboard your wrists and fingertips are resting on, the chair gravity is pulling you into, the clothes separating you from the chair (maybe), the floor/socks/shoes beneath your feet. Your tongue to the roof of your mouth, your arm against your side, etc. You don’t normally recognize these experiences unless you’re experiencing a drastic change of temperature/aggravation or explicitly directing your attention towards them–as I’m assuming you did while reading through the previous list.

We often use the terms “feel” and “touch” when talking about contact that is not only physical, but emotional, spiritual, etc. Nonetheless, it is used to translate many forms of sensory experience in a significant way. Our contact with life is something we rarely examine. We get caught up in the strong current of our busy lives and float along the surface in our inner tubes of habitual comfort (Did I take that metaphor too far? Haha).

So, in an effort to examine your life on a more delicate and beautiful level, I challenge you to spend a day actively thinking about what you come in contact with. It’s best to start out physically because your personal experience in life and your perception of the world is what the rest of your experiences are based off of. If you have a hard time remembering, write “feel” or something of the sort on your hand to keep you with it throughout the day. You should be able to describe the textures of everything you touch, every bite of food you take (focus on the flavors too of course!),  and even try physically translating the textures you see or hear. Through this examination you’ll experience a deeper form of wonder. Don’t just touch, but feel the walls and trees you walk by, the counter tops you lean against. Feel the space and thickness of life it holds.

Even internally–feel your movements–stretch; dance; breathe. You ARE part of the world. You are not separate from it. Your skin is an organ, it is part of you–it is not a barrier. It is part of the world, constructed not around you but with you. You are in the world and the world is in you. No matter how abstract that sounds it’s TRUE. We are so caught up in the current/busy/norm experience we underestimate and overlook simplicities.

Our lives are filled with many so complexities we round off as single units/experiences because our minds like simplification and categorization. We simplify these complex experiences and objects through condensed labeling rather than in parts rather than breaking these complexities down through detail isolation and enjoying their details.

So I ask you, what textures does your life hold? Physically, personally, emotionally, spiritually.This challenge guarantees meaning. A new perspective of daily life; a new layer of wonder and admiration. One idea is to write it down. It may help you later with inspiration or reflection if you’re into that sort of thing (if you’re still reading this, I’m guessing you are). Above all, enjoy it–it’s your life & it is what you make it. Life is finite–experience as much of it as you can. When it comes down to it, we have little say in the quantity of life we are allotted. We do however, have a say in the qualities of our lives. How deep are you living?

Next challenge: COLOR. Once you feel you’ve mastered a day of texture observation. Try color. Look at something. Picture it as a black and white photograph. Notice the shadows and highlights. Let the color slowly fade back in certain areas of your ‘photograph’ and see how rich and unique the color you perceive truly is. Play with more than one color fading in at once. We see colors and their vibrancy is delegated by their surroundings. When a color is isolated or compared to others and examined for what it truly is without relation to another object, you see its truth. How does this relate to your life?

Overall, I hope you get a chance to enjoy the smaller things in life. The details that are so often overlooked. The beauty of it is astounding. I personally can’t get enough.

Dance Discoveries: Travis Wall “Windowdipper” Solo

My friend Lauren sent this amazing video to me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did… without the nostalgia of course.

Theo Jansen creates new creatures to live on beaches.

My friend Rachel showed this to me & I couldn’t resist sharing it with you!

It’s called “kinetic sculpture,” a beautiful mix of art & physics/engineering. He did all of this with an art degree.

This is probably one of THE most amazing things I’ve seen.

Watch the whole thing–he tells you how he has built these “creatures” to sustain themselves on the beach–& don’t worry, he’ll answer all your questions!

more about “Theo Jansen creates new creatures | V…“, posted with vodpod

So, how many dimensions are there?

I know many people see unseen dimensions as a magnitude of possibilities. On the contrary it tends to makes me feel rather claustrophobic. I can’t believe there is so much around me I’m unable to experience; so many possibilities & I’m limited to understanding & experiencing 3 and a half! It’s bad enough looking at the sky and realizing we are merely this big.

[Well, we all know the first three (height, width & depth). The fourth is time, which we experience in one direction (forward).]

In the following video, Carl Sagan explains how the fourth spatial (not time) dimension works:

Tesseract

The book Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott does a good job at describing a world with 2 dimensions (Full text available for download or HTML view here–if you were wondering, it’s a pretty short read).

I’m not sure how many of you read A Wrinkle In Time when you were a kid, but it’s definitely one of my all time favorites. In this novel, the 4th spatial dimension is used for “tesseracting” (bending the structure of space).  A similar worm-hole effect can be found in Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Mathematically, a tesseract is a figure used to describe the 4th spatial dimension, and can be seen in the picture to the left.

If you’re interested in a more “fictitious” (as in, unproven/not backed by quantum physics–but extremely interesting & mind bending) theory of spatial dimensions commonly found in science fiction novels/movies/ideas, the following video may be of interest to you:

If you’re interested in how string theory & superstring theory (backed by quantum physics) work and how they plan to test whether or not these extra dimensions are real, Brian Green discusses these topics in this video:

So, I guess the answer is however many dimensions it takes to make a theory work.

(Afterall, boson theory relies on 26…)

I’m back!

After a long hiatus with a few small posts over the course of a month or so I have returned. I have had a pretty heavy workload in my classes lately but am at a point where I can handle things again. The delay was also somewhat due to a post I have been putting off based on the intimidating power of its length, research depth & controversy, however that is coming. In the meantime I should keep things flowing for whomever decides to read this. It will be soon though, I promise. The books are due back at the library in a week so I can’t take too much longer on it.

I registered for my summer and spring classes a few days ago. I realized when I had finished that I knew exactly what courses I have left to take next Spring, and then I graduate. I have felt how close I am to being out of school, but it’s kind of unreal. I know I am going to grad school after I graduate, but I think I’m going to take a year off to work and accomplish some things I haven’t had much time to between everything. I feel like I’m not organized enough in what I’d want to do to go straight into grad school–I would need to be applying for places in a matter of months–and I am still figuring out the details of exactly what I want to be doing with my life. I wouldn’t want to put myself in debt (student loans) over something I’m unsure of. Planning is good to an extent, I just don’t want to limit myself with my plans. I think it’s all the possibilities life holds vs. the concreteness of what graduate school means to a career (Unlike undergraduate degrees, masters are usually quite specific in how they contribute to your future/licenses/etc.), We get so used to confining ourselves. We base our capability on what we see around us. I just want to pull my head out of this shallow tidal pool and discover the ocean. Not just see it–I’m just beginning to see it–but swim in it.

I’ve recently noticed how many possibilities life holds and how little we actually identify as existing in our lives. We live in the comfort of our small bubble of habitual experiences, within another bubble of things we think we experience but really just label & push to the side, within another bubble we have vaguely seen, within another bubble we merely hear stories of. I don’t want bubbles in my life. I want a web. Some knots will be denser than others, and those at the heart of it will certainly be more closely strung. I want something that spreads and expands and weaves and attaches and feels. Not something that confines.

I know I sound like a hopeless dreamer. Someone who talks about doing great things and being capable of doing anything you wish for. The simplicity of this view creates a fantasy. It omits the work that will be involved & the human capability to do the work necessary to achieve these things. It is possible. It sounds out of reach & tired because it is quite often we do not get what we wish. If someone has been able to do it before, what is to keep you from doing it too? A lot of things may be based on luck, but this luck is set in motion with your life. You are lucky to meet some experience/person because you have made a decision about another experience. That’s the beauty of it. Its instability. Its uniqueness. Its possibilities.

Practicality is one thing, but I feel like I’m a cautious enough person that the bridge between my idealizations and realism is quite strong. Now don’t get me wrong, just because I’m speaking of great things doesn’t mean it is specifically about things large in physical size. I am one person, but there is something greater than tangibility. In my cognition class we learned that information theory (the old psychological theory that the mind worked like a computer) could never be correct because the mind has something a computer doesn’t have. The capability to feel. To love; to hurt; to empathize; to weigh  morals. There is something greater than physical size. The impact a person has on another–emotion, feeling, understanding, relatability, etc.–is something that can only be shared human to human. It is who we are.

This gift of life, this essence, is what I hope to extend. What I want to grow into and experience, like a searching vine. I want to communicate, spread, feel, SHARE. What kind of life do you live in isolation? We isolate ourselves from others even in their presence. We have the habit of creating a blockade between one another by assuming privacy and dividing ourselves by flesh. We create a comfortable home within ourselves and are unwilling to reach out of our haven of comfort. We fail to realize that our neighbor is made of the same ingredients as us, we just notice the differences that are merely their measurements.

The 2 criteria for what I want to do with my life are (1) help others/make a difference & (2) be happy/enjoy what I’m doing. These two things seem to go hand in hand. However life itself is made up of so many complex layers, our lives should be resemblant. If we are part of this world why shouldn’t the way we carry out somewhat match it? The world is configured in a naturally calm state yet its details and complexities are astounding. If we are creatures of this world it is only natural that our lives somewhat follow this bearing. While I hope to live a simple life, I also hope for it to be a complex one with great depth.

So that’s kind of where I’m at right now….