A Poem.

A temporal fixation,
a strange sensation,
a strong anomaly.
A dance, a dash, a twirl, a twist.
A squiggle, a squaggle, a fritz and a zap.

Shock my heart and take my tongue,
crack my ribs and blind me.
Feed me poison, give me hope,
then take it all away.

I'll measure every shred,
search under every rock,
find the right needle and stitch the wound.
All my days my eyes will open,
and I'll still be loving you.

Superstition

This was a response to a friend asking the vague question: "Without speaking religion, is it predetermined or chaos and chemical?"

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Mad Hatter

What goes bump in the night? Does a particular dance bring the rain? Superstition is well documented across all cultures and in many species. Pavlov's experiments are classic too and prove this. Watch Mr Nobody if you want an awesome movie explanation, the whole structure of that film is to play on superstition (if you can handle some self-aware cheese). 

In the physical world, predetermined vs chaos and chemical is not necessarily a different thing. Complexity is, however, different, and goes a lot farther in explaining all this. But that's inconvenient, who wants to have to read books and books and actually pay proper attention to all of their senses to "get it?" That means giving up a lot of ego, though. We exist at the end of 10,000 years of recordings and 1 million years of being human. As evolution shows that all adds up and it's on us, the living, to know that.

No magic crystals. No crosses. No special stories you think only you know the secret to. Nothing, or you'll only be misled into comforting myths and mental loops that go nowhere till you're dead, and probably because you'll simply be ignorant or scared or hungry or horny or especially lonely at the time the belief is established. It's all superstition and ego.

Worst part is it's extremely hard to tell when you are being misled by yourself, by some information you like or by your own emotions, only judge the strange beliefs you may begin to have and without attachment (initially. It's cool to be attached to things later I think, I ain't no radical Buddhist). Actually discerning that requires you to know what's coming in and coming out, from all culture and symbolism to your own psychology and physical health, it's all intertwined. And when you think you know, you probably don't. And don't do coffee enemas either haha, that's weird. 

There's infinite more we can do than all this superstition in our time, but not enough are doing it, at least in very interesting ways. We're too busy being all fucked up on our selves and our circumstances and especially our beliefs, which are all the same damn thing.  

So "I'm afraid it's so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are." - Alice

Blub blub

I lay in bed, sleepless. I can see stars over my head out the window, and sense them behind me down through the other side of the earth's deep rumbling belly. I can breathe in deep and imagine the earth forever turning round and round, tumbling with this galaxy at like 100,000 miles an hour. My upright ape existence on this screaming metal death trap will amount to about 30% sleeping, 30% managing my body, 30% navel-gazing, and that last precious arbitrary 10% doing fuck knows what. 

I find myself alive somewhere in the middle of history, with an ultra convoluted past/present and a sense that anything I make in the future will be naught but something to pass my short, simple time. I'll be just one more life to add to our confused, squirming, semi-conscious biomass, and without ever being able to return all of the immeasurable grace I've witnessed and been given.

My borrowed knowledge will be lost, never spoken today, and scrubbed by tomorrow's narratives. What survives of me will be mere whispers of someone who may have existed, whom most people will never know a thing about. I am fated to spectate from a castle crumbling in tidal sands, washed up over and over on a shore of this cosmic ocean until my light expires. All while chilling with and looking after all the rest I've met on their way to a similar fate.

And I think to myself, "lol dickbutt."

My friend the dreamer

I'm posting to raise awareness of a different type of social justice we need more of, one for those with disabilities. I've had some first-hand experience with the issues and complications of care work and it was often easy to see all the things that could be improved systemically, as well as the massive undertaking that would require to figure out and accomplish. The system in place now works pretty well in that people get taken care of, but it's badly in need of both more professionals and more culture. It was profound to see the people who have dedicated their lives to people who they consider friends. It was a privilege to learn about compassion and professionalism from them, and they'd all agree that we all only want the best for afflicted individuals, and that they could make great use of more guidance and resources.

This is a little bit about the life of a friend with Friedrich's Ataxia who receives this type of care. 
  
A very close friend of mine is so good at lucid dreaming he can sometimes live a thousand lives each morning in that period between being completely asleep or awake. He's described to me the deepest horrors to the highest fantasies, super powers and a literal fight against the darkness in his own mind. To him, he describes the waking world as another fleeting dream in a tailspin of conscious occurrences of himself.

Why? He is so severely disabled he has nearly no agency when awake, though he's fully self aware. Not to mention being on a vast changing cocktail of medicines to prevent the slew of excruciating defects his genetics provided that will eventually kill him, if only due to the sheer stress of living with his condition. On top of that, he's rarely intellectually engaged by others, only left to ruminate and entertain himself with what little he has or knows. This constantly reminds him of his condition while his growth as a human being goes cynically unnoticed and unaided. Combine a spiral of suffering and utter banality in his waking life with enough neurological and sleeping medicines and his mind is on fire at night. The horrors he faces in his dreams stem from waking up into a sedative coma during back surgery for getting rods installed. He fights off these horrors, sometimes in vast displays, destroying cities of nightmares and planets of demons to find better adventures.

He's conceded to the humor in everything in our world, the most Mark Twain-esque mo-fo you've ever met. Yet he's alive, he has dreams, and he does enjoy good company - especially his awesome family. His waking life doesn't need to be so banal, and it's a result of our infrastructure lacking in knowledgeable and observant human support networks. Rather, he's often dehumanized in a by-the-books manner or just by what he calls "sympathy smiles" in public. This causes a great lacking in real and constructive human presence and all the problems that can come with that alienation. However, he's given himself a new life to look forward to through mastery of his sleep.

The following is a story from his dreams:
He awoke in front of a ladder. He stood up out of his wheel chair and decided to climb it. He climbed higher and higher, fascinated at his view of the world around him until he rose into the clouds. Then, he rose to the top of the clouds and found a vast sea of naked and beautiful angels. These angels began clawing and violently wounding each other while making love. He let go and fell back down to the earth in shock, into another dream. That's just the average.

He says there are times where he is constantly destroying and reshaping his dreams, trying to find one that won't be full of horrors. Other times he is a super saiyan who spends 1000 years conquering the universe, taking turns with each character in the saga. Other times he dreams of being awake in his room for hours with a crushing weight on his chest, preventing him from calling for help. He's had to learn to shut these dreams down in many different ways to stay ahead of the nightmares.

All of the individuals I got to know who were all around my age and had the worst kinds of diseases were also very intelligent and experienced people with a lot to offer given a good platform. Isaac Musser, who passed away in fall of 2015 of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at 28, would teach me all about natural gardening and how to grow the best possible crops and keep the soil healthy. He managed to stay off pain medications and even improve his health to some degree by researching his own diet.

The link below is to a piece by his older brother with the same disease about his own life. He is a writer and has an unpublished book of the same title, but is struggling with failing health - including progressive blindness and deafness - to do the final edits and find a publisher. Would someone want to help? It would mean the world.

Follow this link:
http://www.smithmag.net/mylifesofar/story.php?did=263744

Cultivate your Active Imagination

Alright people, take this one slow. There's a lot of different ideas going on here, but this is firstly about the way our minds actually work. Please give this time to consider, you won't regret it even if you decide I'm full of shit.
 
Meditation or prayer practice in almost all cultures are actually often huge misinterpretations of the process of cultivating what Jung called an Active Imagination or what others may call Enlightenment, where we can fudge our senses into hallucinating based on whatever signifiers we focus on. In plain speech, it's the ability to observe the flow between your conscious and subconscious and reprogram it all at will (yes, even to vividly hallucinate and lucid dream, as Carl Jung achieved among tons of others). There are many methods to do this, like Three Point Breathing or Chakra Breathing to name popular ones. This is really really important and I will be sad if you don't remember this: a lot of people might actually achieve this ability, too, through their dogmas, but never realize it and merely deem themselves "sensitive," their unique perceptions forever embedded in a false ideology or "Archetypal reality." And I'm talking some hardcore, dreamlike, dissociative, walk-on-the-moon hallucinations here as well. So many monks, priests, churchgoers, psychics, mediums, and anyone else who breathes has these stories and it turns out it's a legit but poorly understood use of our brains, often ending in bullshit superstitions. These aren't mystical psychic powers, but certainly the closest thing to it, and what Buddhists and alchemists and Taoists and others who get it are actually talking about.
 
The point of all that religion-wise is to prove to yourself that the world isn't really what it appears to be and that you can tear an existential and perceptual rift in it and explore new ones, hopefully gaining insight toward a perceived truth. We're really just incoherently tripping out together all the time, though, as our most coherent theories seem to indicate. We've just culturally tripped into the banal and mundane with an acceptance of some separate higher "spirit" rather than attempting to understand our conscious experience for what it is, the actual formless and guiding individualized thingy people wave their hands about. It's our language, our bodies and our environment, nothing more and nothing less. Turns out we're all responsible for all of that and can exert some amount of control on that based on our health and focus and the depth of our understanding of physical reality.

"To know is to possess, & any fact is possessed by everyone who knows it, whereas those who feel the truth are possessed, not possessors." - E.E. Cummings
 
Our Active Imagination is something we can learn to use to great benefit instead of being at its mercy, especially when someone else is using it when you aren't (i.e. cultural engineering and organized religions, liars and cheats, stage magic, movie magic, etc.). Or, as Carl Jung put it, don't you want to "taste the waters of the soul's own essence?" Many famous artists and mathematicians employed this method to help their work, too, from Archimedes to Einstein and in all forms. It's taught in many entrepreneur and psychology schools today and is utilized by many intellectuals in many ways to assist their work and their overall well-being. It's directly linked to greater creativity and willpower, better problem solving and social skills, and overall a healthier and broader outlook on life. It is a powerful method to help overcome trauma, bad habits, and obsessions as well, as Jung's methods were developed to treat.

Overall, Active Imagination stands as an extremely effective tool to tap into your brain's potential - often unconsciously locked up in those traumas and bad habits as Jung realized. This is why it is vital to train your Active Imagination, it affects every other aspect of your life down to the very light you see things in. Given slow and cautious understanding, you may find yourself opening up to the vast realities out there, or the infinite as some philosophies call it, but with a way that immerses you in it conscientiously and realistically. The Buddha himself lamented the original ideas behind mental training like this would be lost to time and exploitation and, well, he was right. I'm pretty sure he sat under a tree and worked on his method for 20 years just so no one else would have to, and we could all just get to the point of life instead. Who wants to go mad today? Oh, and it only takes 10-15 minutes of practice a day to do.

Active Imagination and Hypnagogia - What
Active Imagination and Hypnagogia - How

The Image-Making Capacity of the Soul - Depth Psychology Alliance

The Science Behind Magic and the Occult

Zen Economics, On Contact with Chris Hedges Episode 11

What is the Stream of Consciousness? - School of Life

Dan Siegel's Wheel of Awareness (a newer, very effective Active Imagination-type exercise): Soundcloud link

Here's the entrepreneur's version:
Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain (2009 google talk)
Sample Session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVkhEWgSBTI 

"A man has free will only to the extent that he knows who he is."
"Your ego has about as much control over what goes on as a child sitting next to his father in a car with a plastic steering wheel... most of the goings on in you, around you - the circumstances of life have nothing to do with your ego at all. And you don't even know why you make up your mind to do certain things." - Alan Watts
Let Go of Attachment

Compiled Documentaries and Readings

List of documentary films and reading you probably haven't heard of, to open people's minds. Everything is freely available following the links I provided, though the links don't always last forever so they might not work. Just search the titles otherwise. Everything is essential to know about in my opinion, with a few bits of entertainment spread in. I recommend everything not listed here from the highlighted series in bold.

DOCUMENTARIES, MOVIES, INTERVIEWS, AND PODCASTS

My top 3 most important:

12/09/2016. John Pilger. “The Coming War on China” RT

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDYa0jzM-SQ>, alt. <https://rtd.rt.com/films/the-coming-war-on-china/> ---- Probably the most urgent on this list

2002. Adam Curtis. “The Century of the Self” BBC.

<https://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/bbc-the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-season-1-episode-1> ---- 4 parts.

2007. Adam Curtis. “The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom.” BBC

<https://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/bbc-the-trap-what-happened-to-our-dream-of-freedom-f-k-you-buddy-episode-1> ---- 3 parts. Watch Century of the Self first. Be sure to watch both.

On Contact

11/26/2016. Chris Hedges. “Standing Rock Resistance (On Contact special episode)” RT America.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRO7arI1KNo>

11/20/2016. Chris Hedges. “On Contact: The Reality of Prostitution with Rachel Moran” RT America.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S2pE-Uoh6I>

10/02/2016. Chris Hedges. “On Contact: Political Persistence with Ecuador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Guillaume Long” RT America.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAWNZVY8iy4>

08/22/2016. Chris Hedges. “ON CONTACT: Inside the capitalist labyrinth with Rob Urie” RT America.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0bp8L7YHWE>

08/08/2016. Chris Hedges “Behind Bars with Walter Fortson and Boris Franklin” RT America.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EqgNKs_aI8>

The Empire Files

9/11/2016. Abby Martin. “The Empire Files: Chevron vs. the Amazon - Inside the Killzone” teleSUR English.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB7hrQUgIcw&t=1075s>

9/28/2016. Abby Martin. “The Empire Files: How Palestine Became Colonized” teleSUR English. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT5L4YU_Fl4>

05/18/2016. Abby Martin. “The Empire Files: Understanding Marxism and Socialism with Richard Wolff” teleSUR English.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yEiv1fIhyE>

01/15/2016. Abby Martin. “The Empire Files: The Tyranny of Big Oil” teleSUR English.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQL-TAT5Oj8>

Days of Revolt

11/03/2015. Chris Hedges. “Days of Revolt: The Corporate Coup d'etat with Ralph Nader” teleSUR English.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yePIn0zwGCc>

04/25/2016. Chris Hedges. “Days of Revolt: Coping with Reality.” teleSUR English.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nmy2uVb39I>

06/04/2016. Chris Hedges. “Days of Revolt: The Assault of the Animal Agriculture Industry” The Real News Network.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tjFE8VIdfI>

Dungey State University

11/01/2016. Nicholas Dungey. “Answering the Big Questions: What can be done? Where will we be in Ten Years? Will Wikileaks' Revelations Lead to Political Transformation?” Dungey State University.

<http://traffic.libsyn.com/urdsu/Answering_the_Big_Questions.mp3>

10/14/2016. Nicholas Dungey. “JS Mill's Philosophy of Anxiety and its Role in Personal and Political Transformation” Dungey State University.

<http://traffic.libsyn.com/urdsu/Anxiety.mp3>

08/17/2016. Nicholas Dungey. “From Liberal Democracy to Authoritarian Democracy” Dungey State University.

<http://traffic.libsyn.com/urdsu/From_Liberal_Democracy_to_Authoritarian_Democracy.mp3>

Laura Flanders Show

09/22/2016. Laura Flanders. “Laura Flanders Show - Beyond Bernie: Kshama Sawant and Ioannis Margaris” teleSUR English

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gym6aPTUzNs&t=649s&list=PLNAlnQ4hvLtTzqGCJfvPdEJe0plC4gZjH&index=3>

////////Standing Rock////////

11/18/2016. Rod Webber. “Whistleblower John Bolenbaugh tears up explaining Standing Rock's importance”

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVPKKNLb1N8&t=612s>

05/16/2013. The Lakota Sioux. “Red Cry | 2013 | Official Release” Red Cry Film.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfvAqCHpXgA> ---- Search Canupa Gluha Mani for condensed versions of this story. Very important!

/////////////////////////////////////

//////// Psychology ////////

11/28/2016. David Van Nuys. “Shrink Rap Radio Interview with Dan Siegel MD on his new book, Mind” Shrink Rap Radio.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di0qQpsmOHE&t=1s>

06/17/2016. David Van Nuys. “Full video of #507 with Jungian Mary Harrell Phd” Shrink Rap Radio.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIIWAJbYth4&t=4s>

09/05/2012. Yoram Yovell. “Neuro-Psychoanalysis – Where Mind Meets Brain” U of Halifax.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ4HsiavUCg>

1995. John Ralston Saul. “The Unconscious Civilization” CBC Massey Lectures.

<http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1995-cbc-massey-lectures-the-unconscious-civilization-1.2946856> ----- 5 parts.

///////////////////////////////////

//////// Various ///////

1975. Orson Welles. “F is for Fake” Criterion Collection.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIVgUjj6RxU>

05/24/2016. Lee Camp. “Half Hour With Peter Joseph, Creator Of The Zeitgeist Movement, Talks With Lee Camp [ep 5]” RT America.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4blM4nS_0q8>

1992. Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick. “Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky and the Media” Zeitgeist Video.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHa6NflkW3Y>

2014. Tonje Hessen Schei. “Drone” Flimmer Film.

<http://putlockers.ch/watch-drone-online-free-putlocker.html>

11/22/2013. Bill Moyers. “Segment: Henry Giroux on Zombie Politics” Moyers & Company.

<http://billmoyers.com/segment/henry-giroux-on-zombie-politics/>

08/27/2013. Tyrel Ventura. “Abby Martin on Breaking The Set and Her Work at RT” The Lip TV.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSOVIKi-RgI&t=1460s>

12/02/2015. Chris Hedges. “After Words with Alain de Botton” BOOKTV.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XivXmrnBpf8&t=2s>

2011. Ron Fricke. “Samsara”

<http://putlockers.ch/watch-samsara-online-free-putlocker.html>

01/25/2016. Psycho Sorcerer. “The Science Behind Magick and the Occult.” <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UovujD0EUxY&t=516s>

11/15/2016. Watching the Hawks. “A Century of War” RT America.

Part 1: Prometheus' Gift <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcx_NZh2MEw>

Part 2: Collapse at Home, Devastation Abroad <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0bRq-262S4>

Part 3: Harnessing Technology for What Ends? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhrx8qG5EjQ>

Part 4: Looking to the Stars & Ending the Century of War <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI5Kry5qu3M>

2013. Jeremy Scahill and Richard Rowley. “Dirty Wars”

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN4Sn5u_pK0>

1986. Georgiy Daneliya. “Kin Dza Dza!” Sovexportfilm.

<http://sovietmoviesonline.com/en/fantastic/5-kin-dza-dza.html>

////////////////////////////

You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

06/16/2014. Pete Holmes. “You Made It Weird #216: Gentry Lee” The Nerdist.

<http://nerdist.com/you-made-it-weird-216-gentry-lee/>

05/07/2014. Pete Holmes. “You Made It Weird #206: Brian Greene” The Nerdist.

<http://nerdist.com/you-made-it-weird-206-brian-greene-theoretical-physicist/>

05/17 2013. Pete Holmes. “You Made It Weird #152: Rob Bell” The Nerdist.

<http://nerdist.com/you-made-it-weird-152-rob-bell/>

Channel Criswell

12/09/2016. Lewis Criswell. “Editing in Storytelling.” Channel Criswell.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnXEIlCrEgA&t=2s>

03/07/2016. Lewis Criswell. “Her – Needs & Desires” Channel Criswell.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RISgjGPkA0>

01/22/2016. Lewis Criswell. “Composition in Storytelling” Channel Criswell.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvLQJReDhic>

READINGS

2006. Dan McAdams. “The role of narrative in personality psychology today” Northwestern U.

<https://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/docs/publications/1049432884490a09930cdc3.pdf>

1997. Rod Swenson. “Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Behavior” The Encyclopedia of Comparative Psychology. Garland Publishers.

<http://www.sonoran-institute-for-epistemic-studies.org/images/HndbkComPsych.PDF>

1990. Colin Ross. “The Dissociated Executive Self and the Cultural Dissociation Barrier.” U of Oregon.

<https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/1760/Diss_4_1_9_OCR_rev.pdf>

1984. Roland Barthes. “Myth Today”

<http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Barthes-Mythologies-MythToday.pdf>

1956. Albert Camus “The Rebel. An Essay on Man in Revolt” Vintage Books. <http://www.studyplace.org/wiki/images/9/96/Camus-1991-1-The-Rebel-1956-Intro.pdf>

1921. Yevgeny Zamyatin. We LeeCworkshops version.

<https://leecworkshops.wikispaces.com/file/view/yevgeny-zamyatin-we.pdf>

1980. Howard Zinn. A People's History of the United States History is a Weapon.

<http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html>

1916. Rabindranath Tagore. “The Spirit of Japan”

<http://www.online-literature.com/tagore-rabindranath/4393/>

Audiobook: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lujV8rg_Y4>

1887. Friedrich Nietzsche. “On the Genealogy of Morality” Cambridge.

<http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Political_Thought/GeneologyofMorals.pdf>

Audiobook: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr0zjQ2vGuI>

523. Boethius. “The Consolation of Philosophy” ExClassics.

<http://www.exclassics.com/consol/consol.pdf>

<200 AD. Hermes Trismegistus. “The Corpus Hermeticum”

<http://gnosis.org/library/hermet.htm> ---- Hermeticism, in parallel with Christian Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, inspired much of the scientific tradition, Newtonian physics, psychology, and so many more physical, political and social theories through the ages. Many modern intellectual traditions are still Hermetic at their core if you trace their authors' influences. Let your imagination run wild while you read it for the full effect. Also imagine the speaker is making fun of his contemporaries in the same breath, because Greeks.

2002. Ken Amis. “Toward a New Theory of Gravity” Lock Haven University.

<https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cutting/grav.htm>

1994. Karen Armstrong. “A History of God: The 4000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”

<http://www.metaphysicspirit.com/books/A%20History%20of%20God.pdf>

1988. Jean Baudrillard. “Simulacra and Simulations” Stanford U. Press
<https://nbrokaw.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/baudrillardsimulacraandsimulations.pdf>

1988. E.T. Jaynes. “How Does the Brain do Plausible Reasoning?” Kluwer Academic Publishers.

<http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/brain.pdf> ---- Math heavy! This is a very readable example of a successful attempt to systematize human reasoning.

1996. Carl Sagan. “The Demon-Haunted World” Headline Book Publishing.

<http://www.metaphysicspirit.com/books/The%20Demon-Haunted%20World.pdf>

1999. Richard Feynman. “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out” Perseus Books.

<http://www.sitpor.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Helix-Books-Richard-P.-Feynman-The-Pleasure-of-Finding-Things-Out_-The-Best-Short-Works-of-Richard-Feynman-Perseus-Publishing-Company-1999.pdf>

1973. Kurt Vonnegut. “Mother Night” Panther Publishing.

<http://schoolsites.schoolworld.com/schools/Cheltenham/webpages/rwilman/files/kurt%20vonnegut%20-%20mother%20night.pdf>

1963. Hannah Arendt. “Eichmann in Germany. A Report on the Banality of Evil.” Viking Press. <http://platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/arendt_eichmanninjerusalem.pdf

1955. Milton Mayer. “But Then It Was Too Late” U of Chicago Press.

<http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html>

1898. Mark Twain. “The Mysterious Stranger” Project Gutenberg.

<http://www.gutenberg.org/zipcat2.php/3186/3186-h/3186-h.htm>

1890. Oscar Wilde. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” University of Alberta.

<https://sites.ualberta.ca/~gifford/dorian/dorian.pdf>

The complete works of HP Lovecraft.

<http://www.lovecraft-stories.com/>

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_dUmDBfp6k>

OLD LIST, SOME DUPLICATES


What was that thing I read about that one time? This doesn't include everything I've linked because that's a lot of things, just stuff I need to come back to.

Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World
http://www.boerenlandvogels.nl/sites/default/files/demonhauntedworld.pdf

Vonnegut - Mother Night
http://schoolsites.schoolworld.com/schools/Cheltenham/webpages/rwilman/files/kurt%20vonnegut%20-%20mother%20night.pdf

Philosophy Since the Enlightenment
http://www.philosopher.org.uk/

John Ralston Saul - The Unconscious Civilization (5 part audio)
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1995-cbc-massey-lectures-the-unconscious-civilization-1.2946856

Levinas - Entre Nous; On Thinking-of-the-Other
http://www.ebook-3000.com/download/150621-emmanuel-levinas-entre-nous-on-thinking-of-the-other.html

Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morals
http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Political_Thought/GeneologyofMorals.pdf

Barthes - Myth Today
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Barthes-Mythologies-MythToday.pdf

Einstein for Everyone
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/index.html

Feynman Lectures
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

Gödel Escher Bach - The Eternal Golden Braid
http://www.physixfan.com/wp-content/files/GEBen.pdf

Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page -  Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Quote: "Who governs? Who really rules?"
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

Dan McAdams - The role of narrative in personality psychology today
http://www.redemptiveself.northwestern.edu/docs/publications/1049432884490a09930cdc3.pdf 

The Cognitive Neurosciences (textbook)
https://www.hse.ru/data/2011/06/28/1216307711/Gazzaniga.%20The%20Cognitive%20Neurosciences.pdf

Stephen Grossberg - A Massively Parallel Architecture for a Self-Organizing Neural Pattern Recognition Machine (1986)
http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg/CarGro1987CVGIP.pdf

Grossberg's Adaptive Resonance Theory
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Adaptive_resonance_theory

Recurrent Neural Networks
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Recurrent_neural_networks

ET Jaynes - How Does the Brain do Plausible Reasoning? (1988) - so fucking interesting
http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/brain.pdf

A pairwise maximum entropy model accurately describes resting-state human brain networks (2012)
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n1/full/ncomms2388.html

Quantal Transmission at Neuromuscular Synapses (2001)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11028/

Fast and robust fixed-point algorithms for independent component analysis (1999)
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.297.8229

MENT: A Maximum Entropy algorithm (extended) - this fits with my unarticulated ocean wave reflection idea that I cannot allow myself to forget.
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=80970

Dana Ballard - Brain Computation as Hierarchical Abstraction (2015)
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/brain-computation-hierarchical-abstraction

Stochastic Dynamical Systems
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Stochastic_dynamical_systems

Fishhead

Fishhead documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gg7fyYH0e8
   
I still freak out whenever I hear the statistics on antidepressant use, for the countless millions on them they can't all nearly be lifesaving. The problems around us are far more endemic and coercive than we can fathom. It's hard to argue against what makes people happy, especially in this time, but I think we're largely missing a reality here in that our very conception of and importance attributed to things like happiness or identity or lifestyles could be a lot different, and that this truly is what's isolating us and destroying the planet. Personally, dogmatic or material systems are far more empty and nihilistic to me than living without the kinds of needs or assumptions those systems bring, not to mention all the egoism (and destroying the damn planet). I'm more present now with people and everything is a wonderful mystery for me all the time and that feeling just grows on me the more I read and experience. It's really trippy stuff to say the least and I feel more ignorant to it now than ever, yet empowered beyond anything I could have imagined in high school.
 
Real talk now:
I would never have attempted health care work unless I had expanded my mind, and now I've seen first-hand how desperately lacking we are in not just professionals, but compassionate ones who can connect with patients and make projects out of improving their quality of life. I look up to my mom a lot in that way. Mental health is the most ignored by far, and I watch friends go untreated while their good habits rot and their personalities disappear, unable to open up for fear of their destructive side or of upsetting some unspoken status-quo, or for want for isolation (which can be a good thing sometimes) or worse, because there is no help. 

I had a very dear elderly friend who couldn't get the care he needed in a nursing home because it was both understaffed and under-serving their patients. His wife swallowed her neuropathy and bad back to get him in and out of bed and around the house so he could have some quality of life. While I visited them in Vermont last fall I helped their neighbor who fell out of his chair and he and his wife told me a similar story. Apparently there's multiple days a week where he just has to lay there until neighbors get off work because there's no outside help. Imagine how lonely that is for them and you will understand a very important aspect of everyone's problems, not just in health, but in their total experience of life. 

This doc winds itself up very well: "Networks tend to magnify themselves with whatever they are seeded with." Simple but not trivial stuff, and this rabbit hole is so very dark for so many of us, but a lot of us also have a choice to do something about it. Love you all, now go do some kindness. And don't be a patronizing bastard either, we're all people. And don't destroy the damn planet, I need it... to take over the world.

9/29/2016 update: My elderly friend passed away late August. I got to see him once about a year ago, and he was in terrible shape but still the jolly fellow who taught me a lot about gardening and board games as a kid.

Story time 1

I'm gonna start telling stories on here, maybe daily. I figure I should start putting these somewhere for shits and giggles.
  
So, first story. I'll try to make it a good one.
  
Let's talk about Venice Beach. Listen to this song while you read it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ridFNolAOcg
  
I went there during my NASA internship with a bunch of then-stranger fellow interns and had a blast. We first checked out the science museum in LA where they hold the Endeavor. After that we headed for the beach. It's concentrated California there. You drive through rows and rows of million dollar summer homes and palm trees at the edge of LA to the dumpy classic shore houses by the beach. All up and down the beach are shops, an outdoor gym, a very famous skate park, lots of sculptures and palm trees, and finally that awesome theme park pier. Let's call this the promenade. Every 4 shops is a green building with a giant weed symbol and a giant price between 25 and 45 dollars to get a green card. One was a building as wide as the doorway with a window and a dude with colorful sunglasses and a lab coat. Every 8 or so shops was a dispensary. The rest were what you'd expect.
  
Let's see, first I think we played volleyball. We were short one person so this drunk homeless guy (we could barely understand him) joined in. I found a giant mushroom cap (yes, the fun kind) in the sand there, didn't keep it tho. After that we all enjoyed the beach and ended up in a game of ultimate frisbee with these competitive Cali dudebros who were "Vine famous" and apparently were in a band (duh). We played right next to a huge drum circle that played the same beat the whole time we were there. The leader of the Vine group was the most famous of course and he bragged about the numbers he was getting. They were nice people, but total brojobs. After the game they walked off and were somehow recognized by all these teenagers and college-age girls. I almost wonder if they advertised that they were out there and these weirdos came looking. In the ten minutes between the end of the game and the time it took for us to gather our things and say goodbye, they had already walked back to the promenade, were being crowded, and had something like 13 more numbers. I find that shit creepy.
  
As I decided to go my separate way from my new friends, a guy who was face down in the sand and grass mumbles something at me from behind. I turn and crouch down, a little concerned, and he kinda turns his face up and asks "are you my friend?" He mumbled so I asked him to repeat himself a few times. Once I understand I reply, curiously, "sure!" Then he asks if I'd give him some cash so he could buy us weed since I was obviously from out of town, haha. I politely declined and he turned his face back into the dirt... I was already good on that anyway. On my walk back a guy gave me this incense stick I had in my car for a few years. He was covered in Rasta and weed related trinkets and, to top it off, had a clay pot covered in weed symbols on his head, a true pothead. He was dancing and selling incense. There was also a freak show and a whole lot of obvious drug dealers. Traffic was a nightmare.
  
And that was my day at Venice Beach, Los Angeles! Oh man and this tiny lady came up to me on the beach with a giant bag of mango slices for 5 bucks and it was heaven.

Here's what I drew today: