Curious thought...
May. 17th, 2004 02:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedarksiren2If you could erase someone from your life, would you do it?
Please explain.
I personally would not. I am who I am because of the experiences I have had, both good and bad. Granted, there are times I really wish some of those experiences didn't exist in my memory, but still, I wouldn't be as strong or focused perhaps. It's all a part of me, everyone I've ever been in contact with is, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Please explain.
I personally would not. I am who I am because of the experiences I have had, both good and bad. Granted, there are times I really wish some of those experiences didn't exist in my memory, but still, I wouldn't be as strong or focused perhaps. It's all a part of me, everyone I've ever been in contact with is, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-16 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 12:46 am (UTC)~;)
regaurdless of how good or bad they were...
Date: 2004-05-17 12:06 am (UTC)Re: regaurdless of how good or bad they were...
Date: 2004-05-18 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 08:01 am (UTC)The concept behind the film doesn't allow for someone to erase bits and pieces, however (seeing as I don't know if you've seen it, which you SHOULD BTW, I'll not say anymore than that~;)
But if we were to erase someone in the furture context, couldn't it be said that we are erasing them from our memories anyway, and again, erasing that part of us?
BTW...
IRL I think we do a sort of fishing out the "bad shtuff" overall, but not erasing. In fact, I'd have to say that, as unfortunate as it is, the people whom I literally "hate" are the some of the strongest memories I have, just because of their profound impact on my existence. Simultaneously, I feel the same of the people I love the most. Those are my strongest emotions, the two balancing scales...lucky for me, the love outweighs the hatred at this point.~8)
Changes
Date: 2004-05-17 05:52 am (UTC)Re: Changes
Date: 2004-05-18 12:48 am (UTC)~;)
I actually meant "amen," but couldn't pass up an opportunity to say "TESTIFY!"
Re: Changes
Date: 2004-05-18 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 06:01 am (UTC)if i could just erase the person as of present id need one of those big art erasers cause id have a field day!
even though i have a few soour memories, i wouldnt wanna erase them. i totally agree that my life has made me who i am.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 12:49 am (UTC)~8)
thanks for answering.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 09:28 am (UTC)woohoo! im at ADORABLE status!!!
wuv ya dawn dawn
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 10:10 am (UTC)You are so right !
Date: 2004-05-17 09:47 am (UTC)BTW this ties in with some ideas in my head that have recently crystallised - I believe that your identity doesn't have a hard boundrary.
YOU don't stop with the borders of your conciousness, the borders of your mind, of even those of your body, any more than an onion 'stops' after the first couple of layers at the centre.
You are inseparable from your environment, and in particular the people you interact with.
And the converse is also true: everyone and everything you affect is an extension of your mind.
Re: You are so right !
Date: 2004-05-17 11:58 am (UTC)Thank you! :)
Date: 2004-05-17 12:30 pm (UTC)Many thanks.
Re: You are so right !
Date: 2004-05-18 12:57 am (UTC)*adds to list of books to read over the summer*
Re: You are so right !
Date: 2004-05-18 12:55 am (UTC)I like your thoughts on this, and am curious as to how you came upon them.
Some friends of mine and I were discussing *roles* people play in society, and someone stated that they thought of me as a "leader" in my group of friends. I thought of myself as more of a hub, spreading my fingers like spokes outward and spinning between all the myriad people I have the pleasure of knowing. Of course, it adds a certain excitement (lack of a better term right now...it's almost 4AM, and I'll surely be mocked soon!) to the equation, knowing that I have an impact on as many people as I do, which is where I think this concept of mine might intertwine with yours.
HOWEVER...I still want to hear about where these ideas were born and have since morphed into what they are in your world...should you wish to share, that is. ~8)
Where the thoughts came from...
Date: 2004-05-18 04:27 am (UTC)You are right - you are a hub. And I'm probably in a fairly similar position with my mates. Thing is, ALL OF OUR MATES are also hubs, they're just probably being lazy and allowing you to do more 'hubbing' than they do.
I can't really give you a clear explanation of how the stuff gestated in 'my' mind, but I can clearly explain the last couple of things that crystallised the thoughts, but they are very personal anecdotes, and are effectively just the last couple of grains of sand that caused the collapse of the sand-dune, conceptually speaking.
And it doesn't really matter, anyway, my sources only affected who I was *as much as they did* because of who I was before... they may have less impact on you.
But that doesn't matter, either, cos this idea *is in the air*.
It's been around for ages, it's particularly strong at the moment, it's not 'mine' or anyone else's.
It's a DISCOVERY, not an INVENTION, of a point of view.
In reverse order by date:
1. I recently drew an absolutely brilliant, surreal digital painting. The concept of the painting was not invented by me, and it's the 'meat' of the creative endeavour.
You know those conversations with one's friends that snowball out of hand, and all of a sudden you're talking about something utterly bizarre and hysterical? One of those.
No one at that table, in that pub, even the ones who were silent except for laughing, were any less 'the author' of the concept than I was, even if I am 'more' the author of what is effectively just a souveneir of that conversation.
2. The 'reverse' situation. A friend of mine [[Bad username or site: 'alec_hhc' @ livejournal.com] is in art school. He recently did a very succesful project, which is absolutely brilliant.
Now in this case, the work is almost wholely and predominantly 'his', and he deserves all meaningful credit for it. He chose the sources that he conceptually recombined, no-one else can claim authorship of the piece.
BUT... He was only aware of a major component of the work because *I* brought it to his attention. And I was only aware of it because my brother brought it to my attention...
So, simply by being around him, and gathering conceptual pollen for the gestalt, I helped create the conditions which allowed him to express his own ideas in a particular way... In fact, that allowed him to form his own ideas in the first place.
When I look at the work he did, I stress that it is in no way 'mine'.
But it would, in a way, be immoral if I denied any responsibility for it, nor took a great deal of pride in it.
This isn't meant to be as patronizing as it sounds, but it's like the pride parent's feel when their kids do something really well - they don't take credit, but, you know, it *is* a reflection their relationship with the person who actually had the achievement.
3. 'My' best creative achievement has been the making of a short film based on an idea I had. I am a major author of that work. I am NOT BY ANY MEANS 'the' author of the work - AND NEITHER IS ANYONE ELSE.
The 'main' author is the director, who worked his arse off more than ten times that the rest of us did. If I had to say 'this is the author', I'd pick him.
However, he realizes that without the rest of us, it simply would not exist. He considers the rest of us equally important to the process, and continually downplays his exceptional efforts. Very vocally and publically.
His generosity beyond reason with 'credit' made him leap even higher in my regard than he already was, and he was always 'mah niggah'. And then a light went on...
This attitude is both a product, and a cause, of the making of the film, his creativity in general, and his excellence as a human being [sorry, went into oscar mode there].
Part 2 - consider this an LJ Cut...
Date: 2004-05-18 04:29 am (UTC)Here's a random tip of the iceberg:
- The buddhist analogy of 'the chariot'
- Algorithmic compression theory
- Burroughs: "Language is a virus". Evolutionary biologists and archaeologists say a similar thing.
- 'The library of babel' by Jorge Louis Borges {the single richest source of philosophy ever. I mean that. *EVER*. And Borges would deny full authorship of it! :) }
- The ideas found in management self-help and very much in 12-step recovery programs (which I generally loathe, but credit where it's due) that, in general: "I CAN'T, but WE CAN."
- Studying the history of mathematics - Newton REALLY MEANT IT when he said he was standing on the shoulders, he was if anything being too arrogant!
I can't eccommend this one highly enough. Most mind expanding activity there is. Particularly when you work out that the binary arithmetic and logic used in computers is culturally 'hubbed' [centre of the light cone] by Liebniz, who came up with it because of his mystical meditations on Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu concepts of Void and Existence.
No lie.
- Also from history of mathematics, appreciation that common ideas about 'cultures' and their boundraries are mythical. Particularly the insidious, and deceitful assumptions about 'who owns what', culturally speaking.
{
And also that it cuts both ways.
Edward Said's 'Orientalism' is a brilliant book, but it is guilty of the charge it brings on others. It is 'Occidentalist'.
}
Now apply that notion to the ideas in your head, and about your head.
- The song "Each one, teach one" by the absolutely amazing London hip-hop collective The 57th Dynasty ("The spoken word" is one of the best albums of all time. The real revolution happens in your mind, and spreads through the word, not the sword.)
- Strange-loops and feedback is central to all this, not just 'social netwoking': Godel Escher Bach: An eternal golden Braid, any book on NLP,
- Nietzsche, Sufism, lots of marijuana, Jung, Beaudrillard, usual suspects, really
- The fact that I only properly found out about Beaudrillard because of references to the reference in the Matrix about his theory about references and referents ! [see: strange loop]
- Tielhard de Chardin
- The X-shaped 'light cone' idea used by Richard Feynman et al in their idiot's primer's on quantum physics.
- Aleister Crowley (tosser, but his definition of 'magick' is spot on - any way your mind influences your environment is 'magickal', including talking to or punching someone)
- Edgar Allan Poe's description of kinds of sorry being like a rainbow, applied to Descarte's ideas about "clear" and "distinct" differences
- A [drug-induced] psychotic breakdown I had
- Richard Dawkins 'memetics' (also generally loathe)
- Terry Pratchett's 'joke' that ideas are just floating in the air, and occaionally get lodged in people's brains. Very profund and illustrative in terms of killing your ego, but unhelpful because it ignores the fact that you can bias the density and kinds of 'ideas' floating around you by where you choose to go, mentally speaking.
- 'My own' idea of 'anti-branding'/'community endorsement', which basically means consciously wearing t-shirts that promote 'underground' stuff that's important you, so you choose to market it by wearing it
- The enlightenment idea of babies being 'tabula rasa' - not TRUE, but in terms of human interaction and the formation of personality and creative expressive capability, ABSOLUTELY true.
What can a baby do except gurgle, eat, cry and shit? Nothing. They may have individual TEMPERAMENTS and/or souls or whatever, but they don't identical CHARACTERS, so to speak.
- Warhol, Amon Tobin, and most crucially, listening to and learning about DUB REGGAE.
- Emergent phenomena everywhere, moiree patterns, 'artificial life', biology, the un-planned melodies that come out of phillip glass' "Music with changing parts"
Re: Part 2 - consider this an LJ Cut...
Date: 2004-05-18 10:35 am (UTC)I know and adore some of the things you've listed, but am admittedly quite ignorant of many more. However, you have given me some outstanding resources, reminded me of some of my very own that I may have laid in the more dormant areas of my mind, and have overall made a most outstanding first few impressions on the Inhabitants of Dawndom.
~8)
Re: Where the thoughts came from...
Date: 2004-05-18 10:27 am (UTC)As for the events and creations you've mentioned, I *so* get this; whether we are hubs, gardeners planting those proverbial seeds in others' minds, or maybe even harvesters of those growths, it's all this lovely entanglement of minds and thoughts and ideas...it's absolutely amazing!
What I like about your perspective on all of this is the aspect of sharing and collaboration, the acceptance and humility offered in your examples, even the one wherein you were proud of your brother. I understand that sense of pride TREMENDOUSLY, as a sister myself, a friend and caregiver.
And isn't it invigorating? The sense of accomplishment, being creative with others, collaborating with them, be it consciously or subconsciously, it is, IMO & metaphorically speaking, much like having a child, nurturing it and watching it grow into whatever manifestation it chooses. Granted, it has 2+ minds helping to mold it, such as the case with your friends at the bar & your resulting painting (which I'd love to get the chance to see, should you ever feel like sharing it), but seeing as I am a strong believer in the aspect of free-will amongst the living, then I would have to wonder if certain "inanimate" objects do, in fact, have a life of their own, if only because of their very own hub-like existence between all those *creators*?
BTW About that picture...
Date: 2004-05-18 04:05 pm (UTC)I'm happy to mail it to you - I don't have hosting.
Re: BTW About that picture...
Date: 2004-05-20 12:39 pm (UTC)thedarksiren@yahoo.com
~8)
P.s.
Date: 2004-05-18 10:29 am (UTC)~8)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-17 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 01:03 am (UTC)Do you think that a person who was left in the woods to survive would be better at shaping themselves into their very own *natural* human likeness, like, without the influence of others around them? What if they were raised by wolves...would he/she have to erase the wolves? Better yet, what would become of a person who was raised by wolves if the wolves were erased???
EXCELLENT point !
Date: 2004-05-18 04:39 am (UTC)Not that I disagree with the claw's idea of taking control of your life, but as you know, IMHO her conception of herself as an island of personality somehow separate from her environment is just wrong.
Similarly, another pair of things to consider...
"No man is an island". Good poem. Now consider the theory of 'natural rights'...
I'm a believer in human rights, but only as a short-hand for SOCIETAL OBLIGATIONS.
In other words, see where your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness get you on your own in the rainforest.
Eaten, that's where.
'Human rights' are actually restrictions placed on the other members of a society, not priviliges granted to an individual. They just *look* like that on the surface.
IMHO.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 10:23 am (UTC)But that arguement ventures unneccesarily into the impossible. Even if you could erase every memory of a person, your personality would still be influenced by them. Lets say I became more defensive because of an ex-boyfriend. If I erase the ex-boyfriend, I would still be defensive, I just wouldn't be able to trace back why. In the same way that a person raised by wolves would still be raised by wolves if you erased every dog creature on the planet from their head, but they wouldn't remember why and might be confused as to why they feel the need to travel in large groups of people, and can't go to sleep at night.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 10:59 am (UTC)I agree that there is nothing remotely wrong with innocence, and find extreme beauty in those who radiate with it. Sometimes I myself am envious, but at the same time those individuals remind me to utilize the experiences I have had...not to say that I am better or worse off, more good or worse off. The thing is, I make that choice to view things from a lighter perspective when I feel I can, and when I do, I often wonder if I am so wise or experienced at all. In those moments, the world is a much more beautiful place, and I feel more beautiful for noticing and embracing them.
Conversely, I spent years fighting away all the demons, my own bad tastes, trying to swish and hell, even SWALLOWING the many forms of *mouthwash* in hopes of erasing any part I could tangibly do so with. What I didn't realize is that the mind, or at least my mind, had already put on blinders in many instances, black masks that won't be taken off until my mind decides it's ready to handle those hurts. So there I was indulging in all my many vices (and believe me, there were MANY~;) all the while more miserable than when I began, only now I couldn't pin-point why I was miserable, just that I was.
What happened? I proved your theory, that erasing them, be they people or memories, etc., didn't change who I was, but in fact only confused the situation more, and may have even escalated the dismay I felt.
I think this is where the roundabout occurs between you and me in this instance. I got rid of my *erasers*, and do what I can to fully indulge myself in all the emotions as they come, which is not something I did before. The trick, as I am finding, is to not get lost in them, which is super easy to do, and where I am reminded that, indeed, I am not so completely experienced in the ways of the world and our environment, and I do still have innocence.
I am rambling...it's been a rambly few days. ~;P
Basically all I am getting at is, I think you're right - erasing someone wouldn't solve/ change anything. We are shaped by those around us. There is nothing wrong with wishing someone away -- well, tell ya what. We should do lunch very soon and I'll go more into that specific detail with you IRL.
Thanks for getting my mind reeling, B. ~8)