SleepWaking

Posted to Buddhism group today, a lovely Friday afternoon, because I was thinking about happiness.

I find that happiness is generally speaking abiding in the feeling of  “not wanting.”  It’s a moment, or series of moments, in which you have no desire to have or avoid anything; you’re there and everything is ok.

Interestingly, happiness is not the ultimate emotion in my opinion (using my own definition of course).  Because happiness can contain the seeds for its own discontent.  What happens when the not wanting is done, and you want something again?  Perhaps you become cold sitting there and now want heat.  Maybe you finished your ice cream and want more.  Perhaps you have outrun the danger and think you are safe. Maybe the cherry blossoms have all fallen and you wish there were more to see.  And so on.

So, once the moment(s) of happiness begins to fade or shift, there is a very important moment (perhaps quite subtle) of letting go.  You want to recognize that you enjoyed feeling happy, but then let the attachment to that feeling go; otherwise, you will want to take some sort of action to regain that feeling which will lead to more formation of karma, maybe some rash decisions, and so on.

Compassion is a huge, complex topic . .. vast as the ocean.  But somewhere in the definition of compassion I believe it would include this moment when we decide to be ok that we were happy, and also accept that maybe the next moment will be less happy, and that neither moment is better or more important than the other.  Understanding this fluxuation in our feeling of happiness (or in any feeling) is the basis for finding our compassion for other beings and their struggle to gain what they desire, or avoid what they fear.

Just my two cents for free!

Travels with Charley
by John Steinbeck
Bantam Books, 1963.

“I set this matter down to instruct others but to inform myself.” p. 3

“We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; it takes us.” p. 4

“I believe that people identify things only in context.” p. 7

“A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.” p. 9

“… second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase in life span.” p. 19

“I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby.” p. 20

“One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate and I eliminate the possibility of ever finishing.” p. 23

“American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash . . . The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use.” p. 26

** “man has to have feelings and then words before he can come close to thought” p. 32

“in our time a beard is the one thing a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus” p. 39

* “There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days.” p. 62

“everything in the world must have design or the human mind rejects it. But in addition it must have purpose or the human conscience shies away from it” p. 63

“I am sure that, as all pendulums reverse their swing, so eventually will the swollen cities rupture like dehiscent wombs and disperse their children back to the countryside” p. 72

*”In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.” p. 76

“For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son. But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me.” p. 78

* “There seemed to be no cure for loneliness save only being alone.” p. 123

*”I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.” p. 136

* “Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.” p. 138

*”Eventlessness collapses time.” p. 179

*”I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.” p. 181

**”Everything was convenient, centrally located and lonesome. I lived in the utmost luxury.” p. 182

“Although they could not say it, my old friends wanted me gone so that I could take my proper place in the pattern of remembrance.” p. 205

*”External reality has a way of not being so external after all.” p. 207

“it has been my experience that when paradox crops up too often for comfort, it means certain factors are missing in the equation” p. 242

Living with Kundalini by Gopi Krishna
Shambala Dragon Editions, 0-87773-947-1

“Like attracts like in human association. The first symptom of a malfunctioning kundalini, even when slightly active, is an irrational and vagrant tendency of the mind towards the occult and divine.” p. 18

“Ascription of lawlessness to creation is the first sign of incipient chaos in the thoughts of an individual.” p. 18-19

“the impulse for God-realization or the urge to gain occult powers, in its psychosomatic origin, is parallel to the growing erotic impulse and its satisfaction in the mind of the adolescent.” p. 22

“It is a colossal blunder to yield unrestrainedly to the demands of sexual desire.” p. 23

“gaze intently at a circle drawn on the wall for as long a period as he could without blinking his eyes. This practice is known as rikti by the hatha yogis.” p. 32

“The whole prodigious load of the human race is held on shoulders which never come into the limelight, but which ache day and night with the heavy weight they bear. They never proclaim their greatness or are eager to be acclaimed great. They know their humble position and are content to pass their days in peace.” p. 63

“Clairvoyance and presage are common in the case of disoriented products of kundalini arousal. People in this category are known as mastanas or avadhuts in India. They are a class apart, and their disorientation is ascribed to miscarriage of spiritual practices.” p. 73

“there is no doubt that clairvoyance and telepathy are sometimes the possession of the insane who are not even aware of such faculties.” p. 75

“The desire for self-reform is the first sign of the activity of kundalini.” p. 111

“Unless the mind has been disciplined from an early age, a stimulated kundalini brings with it an irrepressible desire for the occult and bizarre.” p. 125

“the whole system of hatha yoga is designed to induce by artificial means the natural conditions displayed by an enlightened consciousness” p. 130

“prana, which pervades each cell of every tissue and fluid in the organism, much in the same way that electricity pervades each atom of a battery” p. 142

“The recording instrument was still in good order, but something was amiss with the observer.” p. 149

“Could it be that I had aroused kundalini through the pingala, the solar nerve which regulates the flow of heat in the body and is located on the right side of the sushumna? . . . last minute attempt to rouse ida, the lunar nerve on the left side” p. 162

** “truth is an entity that grows richer in adversity and stronger in opposition” p. 165

“The connection between food and kundalini is an important one” p. 165

“Proficiency in meditation can allow the meditator to concentrate the mind easily without constant effort of the will in the same way that constant practice enables the nimble fingers of an expert typist to manipulate the typewriter while the mind is engaged in reading what is to be typed” p. 171

“The urge for knowing the unknown, for supersensory knowledge and religious experience, existing deep in the human mind, is the expression of the embodied and incarcerated human consciousness to win nearer its innate majestic form, overcoming in this process the disabilities imposed on it by the carnal frame.” p. 185

hatha means ha (sun) and tha (moon) — there are two nadis (nerves) which are ida (cool, moon) and pingala (hot, sun)

“In view of the fact that the old writers on kundalini yoga soeties use the same term for prana or apana, namely, vayu, which is used for the air we breathe, there is a possibility of confusion being caused that breath and prana are identical. This is absolutely not the case.” p. 195

** “Those who believe in yoga must first believe in prana.” p. 197

“[prana] when applied to inorganic matter, is force, and when applied to the organic plane is life” p. 197

* “The close connection between body and mind may with justice be likened to that existing between a mirror and the object reflected in it.” p. 214

“the aim of this entirely new and unexpected activity was to divert the seminal essence to the head and other vital organs” p. 236

Brishta - rejected candidate who tried and then gave up as unfit for supreme state of yoga. p. 241

Anyone determined to prematurely arouse kundalini was called a vira (hero) sadhana — p. 246

“The whole science of kundalini is fundamentally based on the assumption that it is possible for one to rouse to activity a mighty dormant power in the human body in order to gain freedom from sense domination for the embodied spirit” p. 275

“we share alike the sorrows and misery existing in the world; but, debarred from realizing this by the wall of ego segregating each cell from the rest, we feel happy and proud at acquisitions, often purchased at our own cost, which we mistakenly believe have been paid for by others.” p. 327

“The development of a supersensory channel … is not intended to supplant but rather to aid the rational factulty.” p. 327

“I do not believe nature has prescribed complete suppression of our feelings, ambitions, passions, and desires to gain self-awareness or the Divine Vision.” p. 333

* “As one Punjabi mystic has put it, ‘if you call one who subsists on milk only a siddha, then babies and calves all belong to the category of siddhas. If you call one who atkes a cleansing bath every day a siddha, then every frog and fish belongs to the class of siddhas. If you call one who has obliterated his carnal desire a siddha, then every hemaphrodite and eunuch is a siddha.’ ” p. 333

“The great disservice done to humanity by narrow-minded religious zealots who inculcated the idea that the provocative act was sinful is beyond expression.” p. 334

“This false supposition has acted as a blight on the spiritual aspirations of innumerable human beings who were led to hate and condemn themselves because of their inability to uproot the urge.

*** Those who believe that an individual cannot reach God as a whole but only as a mulitilated wretch, half-crazed with loss of sleep, insufficiency of food, starvation of emotions, and denial of love, make of God a sadistic tyrant who draws pleasure from the pain, anguish, and tears of those He created.” p. 334

** “The revelations made by prophets and saviors were not intended to be accepted as the last word on the science of the soul or institutionalized to form the pivot of a mighty propaganda machine that will not allow the least encroachment on the sacred precincts from anyone born in succeeding ages.” p. 338

*”There can be nothing further from truth than the mistaken notions current in many places that the Tantras are a repository of secret or magical methods by which the pleasures of sexual union can be greatly prolonged or enhanced.” p. 361

My friend Howard recently asked me what three Don DeLillo books I liked best.  Being a lazy bastard I am going to turn my answer into a post for this neglected website.
Anyhow, so here is a list of DeLillo books, and those which I’ve read are noted:
Americana [read], End Zone [read], Great Jones Street [read], Ratner’s Star [read], Players [read], Running Dog [read], The Names [read], White Noise [read], Libra [read], Mao II, Underworld, The Body Artist [read], Cosmopolis, Falling Man

So, it looks like a total of 14 novels, and I’ve read 10 of them. Most were read a long time ago when my tolerance for idea-centric postmodern stuff was much higher than today; today I prefer more story-oriented works with rich detail that hide the ideas like gold nuggets.

That being said I nominate White Noise and Ratner’s Star as the best of his works that I’ve read. Ratner’s Star is probably the single best one because of it’s scope and ambition.

The others, honestly, sort of fuzz into one another and none retain a strong singular identity in my mind these many years later. I remember enjoying “The Body Artist” and that it seemed more human and feeling than his younger works.

But for my third I think I have to choose “Americana” because as a first novel I think it really laid out all the themes he worked with later, and it had a sort of bold freshness.

Here is my quick and dirty scene breakdown as I wrote in semi-dark theatre. Probably very inaccurate but decent starting point should I decide to finish it once DVD comes out. My desire is to compare movie scenes to graphic novel scenes to get an idea of the thought process that went into this script creation.

Scenes from Watchmen Movie

Comedian executed (intercut with Nixon speech about war escalation)
Montage - Opening Credits (establishes history of Minutemen and then the Watchmen over Dylan’s music)
Investigators at Comedian’s apartment.
Rorshach searchs Comedian’s apartment.
Hollis and Night Owl talking.
Night Owl and Rorshach in Night Owl’s apartment discussing masked killer theory.
Ozymandias interview followed by Night Owl warning him about possible masked killer.
Rorshach warns Dr. Manhatten and Silk Spectre at Rockerfeller Miltary base.
Silk Spectre and Night Owl have dinner at Gunga Diner
“If he’s pretending it means he cares.”
Comedian Funeral (montage that drifts into sub-scenes based on each person’s memory of the Comedian — music is Simon and Garfunkel)
Silk Spectre and her Mom discussing Comedians death and what he did to Spectre’s mother.
Comedian rapes original Silk Spectre.
Funeral
Comedian and Dr. Manhatten in Vietnam
Funeral
First Watchmen Meeting
Funeral
Riots with Night Owl and Comedian
Funeral
Rorshach interrogates Moloch
Rorschach Journal October 16th
Silk Spectre and Dr. M Sex
Night Owl and Silk Spectre at Night Owl’s apartment (intercut with Dr. M dressing telekinetically)
Dr. Manhatten Interview (intercut with Night Owl and Silk Spectre fighting thugs in alley)
Dr. Manhatten goes to Mars and his origin is revealed.
Nixon warm room talk.
Ozymandias assassination attempt.
Night Owl and Silk Spectre at diner discussing attempt on Ozymandias.
Rorshach framed at Moloch’s apartment.
Rorshach chat with prison therapist.
Rorschach origin story.
“It was dark when the murderer got back, as dark as it gets.”
Rorschach assassination attempt; drenches guy in hot grease.
Night Owl and Silk Spectre have aborted sex attempt then rooftop rescue.
Prison Riot
Dr. Manhatten conversation on Mars (intercut with Night Owl and Rorshach interrogating underworld and Nixon going to Defcon One)
Night Owl and Rorshach search Ozymandias’ office
Ozymandias salutes and kills scientists in Karnak
Rorshach’s journal dropped off at New Frontiersman
Dr. Manhatten reveals that Comedian is Silk Spectre’s father.
Night Owl and Rorshach approach Karnak in Antartica (music is Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower”)
Silk Spectre and mom talk about Comedian being her real father.
Confronting Ozymandias
Night Owl and Silk Spectre ponder future.
New Frontiersman runs something from crank file.

This post is for folks that have seen Battlestar Galactica (BSG). If you have not seen it, I recommend it highly as one of the best sci-fi television shows ever made. However, that being said, here is my thought on the series as a whole.

Generally speaking I think the show started strong, grew stronger, then foundered. Seasons 1, 2, and 2.5 were fantastic. They were gritty, they were compelling.

Now, in Seasons 3 and 4, the show foundered in my opinion. It suffered from the same phenomenon as the Matrix trilogy: it created a great foundation of story that asked many questions large and small. However, when it came time to answer those questions it started showing some strain. The device of finding out who the cylons were, and the identity of the final five was a strong plot device that eventually wandered into a little bit of the “who cares” category.

What I think foundered is that the show had to try and tie together it’s own issues . . .what were the main issues?

1) greek mythology
2) cyclical nature of life/history events
3) relationship between cylons and humans (who created who? who is who? etc)
4) genetic issues around human/cylon relations

I believe that the last season in particular felt like the writers were scrambling to answer these questions, and not presenting a strong, well-thought story that made sense. It was a bit graspy (if I can invent a word).

I lot of folks were upset with how Starbuck was some sort of angel (or “deva”) . . . but she was actually setup to be such a harbinger throughout the show, so I thought that was ok. But here’s the problems I had with her in particular:

1) they never circled back to address the eggs that were harvested from Kara . . . I mean, she’s the harbinger of death for the human race . . . she leads them to Earth . . . she’s really important . . . and reproduction/resurrection is the most critical issue for cyclons . . .they harvested eggs for the cylons from this angel. End result? Eh. Loose thread. WTF?!

2) they never even attempted to explain the mechanism for Kara’s reincarnation (or whatever it was) . . . so, even though the cylons and their resurrection mechanism were explained, the show still appealed to the “we don’t know” force of divinity that the show kind of implied it might address and explain . . . they should have limited the scope of the implied philosophy so the same old “it’s something bigger whatever you call it” wouldn’t wash-out the impact of the bits they bothered to create in the serie.

3) and as an underline to the wishy-washy non-revelation mentioned in #2, having Kara simply disappear while talking to Lee seemed stupid. I sort of liked the idea, it had an emotional impact, but then you feel robbed because nothing in the show supports that kind of logic. She has emotions, does not apparently understand her own nature, she’s physically real like the rest of us . . . so, underlining the mystery of Kara’s nature by having her pull off a physically unprecedented stunt felt like ultimate script-writing cop-out I have to admit.

I felt that the genetics and reproductive issues in the show were sort of “squishy” at the end. Maybe I didn’t get it (that’s very possible) . . .but I just don’t feel that I understood the relation to all the greek mythology mentioned in the show, the physics of cylon reproduction (and shared hive mind and projection and a bunch of other stuff come to think of it), and therefore the driving motivation of some characters and the cylons in particular seemed . . . vague. We didn’t get full understanding of what the hell they were capable of doing, what they really wanted, and the entire humans believe in gods plural while cylons believe in god singular . . . not resolved. Basically dropped as a theme very quietly toward the end.

One thing I did think tied-together well was the cyclical nature of human/cylon history. I felt that the low-tech theme was suppored throughout (remember: Galactica’s lack of connected computer systems and low-tech due to mistrust of high-tech was a strong theme from the first show) . . . so, the implication that the overlap between humans and machines that are nearly human as a seed that would ensure that any “starting over” would suffer the same cyclical fate made a ton of sense.

First, a syllogism:

Stories are food that sustain sentience.
We cannot choose to not consume stories.
We can choose what stories to consume.

And so: choosing what stories to “believe” has nothing to do with fact or fiction, or truth or falsity . . . it’s just the way you create your reality.

1) Don’t choose based on habits, and
2) don’t choose based on personality trends that formed when you were too young to self-reflect, and
3) most of all . . .don’t choose out of fear.

Ok. And now that I’ve chosen to speak with authority, and leave you to shoulder the burden of believing or not, I think I’ll tell you what to do now.

1) Do choose based on what you like, and
2) do choose based on what causes things outside your mind to appear the way you want them, and
3) do choose based on what trusted beings recommend.

Remember, you don’t have to believe everything you think. Don’t panic. Every disaster gives birth to possibilities. And there is treasure around the next corner!

Here is something I would write if I were crazy. But I’m not. So, uh, you can read it and it’s ok.

In anticipation of cloud computing taking over the world I want to predict the bastardization of certain pop culture phrases or concepts:

1) Hey, hey, you, you get off of my cloud. (song by Rolling Stones)
2) Cloud Nine (our favorite place right?)
3) Cloudkill (name of deadly, low-level area-effect spell from Dungeons and Dragons)

So, for those that don’t know (but might care), cloud computing is simply the latest term indicating the trend toward computing power being handled by centralized servers that offer up said computing power and applications over the internet. All you need is a handy interface device with this cloud. After some drastic hardware improvements in next 10 years that will allow us to take small device that projects holographic keyboard and data view, we’ll be all set!

Of course, the heart of this trend is “the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users” (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing)

That sounds awesome doesn’t it? Or are you one of those who immediately hears the sirens screeching about security problems, the drastic acceleration of identity and data theft, and the next generation of dumbing down our world’s social skills and imagination to serve “The Machine”? And aren’t sirens traditionally something that lures us into danger rather than warning us? We are heading toward the rocks my friends.

I am becoming a Luddite as I grow older. I think it’s an inevitable consequence of being a programmer for over ten years now. When you see the evidence every day it’s hard to deny that we may be building a monster. As users we will be tempted by shopping convenience, bots so real that we choose to believe them when they compliment us on our beauty in a chat room, and we will certainly want to listen to the accolades in our inbox even if recursive algorithms put them there. We will all be together somewhere over the rainbow soon. With our vanity stroked, we will be on cloud nine twenty-four seven bretheren! Is this a good thing? No.

I say unto you that the sky is not falling; the sky is fucking PIXELS man!!!!!

And it won’t be mere chaos. There will be an order; a secret order. See . . . “they” will be behind the mechanics of this narcissistic charade, picking our pockets while we gaze raptly at the reflection of our dreams. While we fall in love with the moon in the water, the lizards of the Illuminati will be stealing all the cheese on the moon!! And we won’t have any ruby slippers to click three times, and even if we did, there won’t be any home . . . just home pages.

Yes yes I know! I have made allusion to the Sirens of Greek mythology, The Wizard of Oz, Nacissus, and Chicken Little. But I haven’t tied it together have I? It doesn’t make any fucking sense right? THAT’S THE POINT!! I’m not a bot . . . I’m not a computer . . .I’m real! You have got to believe me. That’s why this rant is poorly done, that’s why it has loose ends . . . a computer couldn’t write this. This message is for all the real people out there. Hey you, get off of this cloud! If you can read this, destroy the machine that makes it possible.

Editor: the author of this blog was found trying to cast a deadly, low-level, area-effect spell. He is getting the help he needs; do not worry about him. We have left this blog intact to show transparency and goodwill toward everyone. Here . . . enjoy some free audio-video entertainment to waste the bad taste out of your mind:

Power of Imagination
by Will Thompson

I had the munchies tonight. I found some unopened granola oat bars. I saw that there was a date printed on the wrapper; over two years old. I decided this wasn’t an expiration date, but a manufacture date . . . then I ate them.

THE END

Credits
Narrator - Will Thompson

Written and directed by Will Thompson

Special Thanks
California Oat Growers Society