Itunes is the worst thing ever. It just spontaneously decided to rewrite my library files with blanks, so I have nothing that I once had. Nothing at all. Every single playlist is gone, except for what is serendipitously on my Ipod.
I guess this is the impetus I needed to shift to a new music player. I'll try out a bunch, I guess, and see what the best is. Should be a titanic waste of time.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Increasing Emotions
I need to do things.
For a long time, now, I've been just doing school, rarely doing any work that required me to make new ideas or concepts or images, or really anything that wasn't recompilation of material that I'd learned. And I believe adamantly that learning is worth the effort. But at the same time, I believe that a large part of what was missing from my life was the act of creation.
I've been writing occasionally, making mixes, and singing in the Rutgers University Glee Club (of which I was recently elected president!!!). That's all great stuff, and I think it's been filling part of a very large void in me. However, there is something missing in these activities, which could be fairly relabeled as expressing the thoughts that are already on my mind, rearranging other people's works, and stylistically conveying the feelings of composers.
None of these activities actually involve me inventing things that had not before existed. And to this end, I have come to the conclusion that I need to get engaged in art and creative writing. Fiction.
Another thing that I've been missing is exercise. I'm going to be running with one of my best friends in the hopes that I can get those endorphins rushing around, giving me that boost of natural antidepressants I need to get through the rest of my, well, time on this planet.
In addition, I'm going to stop religiously trying to finish all of my academic readings, because that particular structure wasn't working for my mental and emotional health. Many of them are completely useless at this point in time, and if I have the books in my library, I can and will go back to them when I need to.
I'm going to start skipping classes that I don't find valuable as either a means to getting an A or as a way to learn really awesome things. This will give me more time to do the things that I need to to get to a better place.
I'm going to spend more time with the people I care about.
This is all based on the conclusion that I am not stoic or strong enough to support myself in the lifestyle that I'd been entertaining for months. My lack of happiness and, recently, serious depression, tangibly interfere with me doing the things I need to.
I believe emotions are valuable to animals, but not to people. The distinction between animals and people is not a dichotomy, but a duality I use to put things in perspective, and which I'll have to explain later and in more detail. I long ago decided that I would be a martyr for the [currently nonexistent] animal language movement, which means my feelings are not as important as the things I want to do. Unfortunately, I, the person, live in me, the animal, and satisfactory emotional health is absolutely imperative to being proficient at accomplishing the tasks befitting a person.
I tried out the whole cloister thing this year, but I don't think I'm in an environment where that can work. I may try it again in a place where I can naturally feel at peace, where I have fewer reasons to be discontent, but at this point in time, in this place, around this combination of people, I have to actively seek out things that make me happy to maintain my well-being. I'm not saying I don't like it here, but there are certain, specific things that I need in a living situation but cannot find here. In my current circumstance, zen is not the status quo, so I have to do things that bring me up to the level of simple functionality and inner peace. Hopefully the things I've identified so far will be enough to keep me going until the time I have more reasons to feel content.
For a long time, now, I've been just doing school, rarely doing any work that required me to make new ideas or concepts or images, or really anything that wasn't recompilation of material that I'd learned. And I believe adamantly that learning is worth the effort. But at the same time, I believe that a large part of what was missing from my life was the act of creation.
I've been writing occasionally, making mixes, and singing in the Rutgers University Glee Club (of which I was recently elected president!!!). That's all great stuff, and I think it's been filling part of a very large void in me. However, there is something missing in these activities, which could be fairly relabeled as expressing the thoughts that are already on my mind, rearranging other people's works, and stylistically conveying the feelings of composers.
None of these activities actually involve me inventing things that had not before existed. And to this end, I have come to the conclusion that I need to get engaged in art and creative writing. Fiction.
Another thing that I've been missing is exercise. I'm going to be running with one of my best friends in the hopes that I can get those endorphins rushing around, giving me that boost of natural antidepressants I need to get through the rest of my, well, time on this planet.
In addition, I'm going to stop religiously trying to finish all of my academic readings, because that particular structure wasn't working for my mental and emotional health. Many of them are completely useless at this point in time, and if I have the books in my library, I can and will go back to them when I need to.
I'm going to start skipping classes that I don't find valuable as either a means to getting an A or as a way to learn really awesome things. This will give me more time to do the things that I need to to get to a better place.
I'm going to spend more time with the people I care about.
This is all based on the conclusion that I am not stoic or strong enough to support myself in the lifestyle that I'd been entertaining for months. My lack of happiness and, recently, serious depression, tangibly interfere with me doing the things I need to.
I believe emotions are valuable to animals, but not to people. The distinction between animals and people is not a dichotomy, but a duality I use to put things in perspective, and which I'll have to explain later and in more detail. I long ago decided that I would be a martyr for the [currently nonexistent] animal language movement, which means my feelings are not as important as the things I want to do. Unfortunately, I, the person, live in me, the animal, and satisfactory emotional health is absolutely imperative to being proficient at accomplishing the tasks befitting a person.
I tried out the whole cloister thing this year, but I don't think I'm in an environment where that can work. I may try it again in a place where I can naturally feel at peace, where I have fewer reasons to be discontent, but at this point in time, in this place, around this combination of people, I have to actively seek out things that make me happy to maintain my well-being. I'm not saying I don't like it here, but there are certain, specific things that I need in a living situation but cannot find here. In my current circumstance, zen is not the status quo, so I have to do things that bring me up to the level of simple functionality and inner peace. Hopefully the things I've identified so far will be enough to keep me going until the time I have more reasons to feel content.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Rap, Surprisingly
I've found something that I was never expecting to come across: rap that I really like.
Thank you Azealia Banks for being amazing. You have a really, really nice sound.
My mind is now open.
Thank you Azealia Banks for being amazing. You have a really, really nice sound.
My mind is now open.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Funding
So now I ponder the question of which is the better model: NSF or SU2C?
My instinctive answer is that neither is better. They both accomplish different things. When people talk about doing research, they must envision it as a bunch of scientists working in laboratories like Francis, Crick, and Franklin. A bunch of celebrities thinking about these big questions and doing specific experiments to find the answers that others haven't already determined.
Although this is a necessary part of research, and to me the most appealing, it's absurd to think that this is all there is to it. Science is a field that relies on data. Without evidence and proof, the theories and individual experiments mean nothing. I may have been surprised when I initially started looking around for labs to work in, because none of them were really able to do the broad, overarching research of which I had romantically dreamed.
What people see in the news is things like SU2C, which is certainly an incredible kind of thing: have a bunch of rich people, affected by an important issue and with connections in high society, to bring together the brightest minds to come up with research that addresses such broad concerns as "cancer". And this is good! It means people get a more positive image of science, and encourages the dreamers in 3rd grade to pursue science as other engaged young people pursue music and sports fame. Celebrities in science augment the public image of science and gradually supplants the religious fervor against science, spurred by loonies stuck in the 15th century.
But let's not get too hasty. Although it's FANTASTIC when people with an insanely unfair proportion of society's resources decide to [somewhat] altruistically give back to that society, it's unreasonable for anybody to expect that to happen. Relying on chance for things to happen is not scientific. Relying on spontaneous flux and circumstance for events to occur is inefficient. Especially in the case of science, where the work that these bigwig medical researchers are doing is utterly pointless without being based in a century of research on carcinogens and unrestricted cell growth. And on the flip side, that methodical structure is agitatingly slow without individuals with passion, intuition, and the capacity to write great grant proposals.
That, I think, covers the foundation of my answer to the initial question. What needs to happen is that society should rationally conclude what the most worthy scientific pursuits are, and pour our shared resources--taxpayer money and other governmental revenue--into funding for all of the little labs that do data acquisition and test mini-hypotheses. Those all come together to form a more thorough image of the contemporary questions and the respective answers. That utterly important research can then be guided by the sometimes eccentric ambitions of the mad scientists and Nobel laureates, and sped up at certain loci by celebrity donors.
The two business models are both valuable. So how, we should ask ourselves, should our government allocate money? Assuming we want to have success in science, what do we do? The only logical answer is the following:
By virtue of the government being our collective power and an entity that complements culture as the stabilizing backbone of society, we should ask our government to do what we can, with supporting sound evidence, expect will work. Within that set of possible actions, we should do what has the greatest potential for the greatest success. So what can we expect? We can expect that data acquisition on a large scale (the kind where we get our funding from the highly structured organizations headed by the government, like NSF) gives theoretical scientists something to analyze. That organized groundwork allows theoretical scientists to draw hypotheses and support conclusions. We can expect that wealthy individuals will only donate to scientific research when there's promise that it can achieve something they really want, such as the cure to a disease that is slowly killing them or their loved ones. In other words, we can expect that the wealthy will not donate to things that are more menial and that are important in an unexciting way.
So, if you believe in the power of science, vote for people who support increased government spending on research, because entities like the NSF have the most power to get the ultra-valuable boring stuff done. And if you know rich people, convince them that it's a really good idea to donate to mad scientists; for instance, persuade them that it's totally awesome in a million ways to make out a huge check to a small, elite research team researching the neurogenetic development of language in the hopes of finding the ideal method for genetically engineering a talking animal.
My instinctive answer is that neither is better. They both accomplish different things. When people talk about doing research, they must envision it as a bunch of scientists working in laboratories like Francis, Crick, and Franklin. A bunch of celebrities thinking about these big questions and doing specific experiments to find the answers that others haven't already determined.
Although this is a necessary part of research, and to me the most appealing, it's absurd to think that this is all there is to it. Science is a field that relies on data. Without evidence and proof, the theories and individual experiments mean nothing. I may have been surprised when I initially started looking around for labs to work in, because none of them were really able to do the broad, overarching research of which I had romantically dreamed.
What people see in the news is things like SU2C, which is certainly an incredible kind of thing: have a bunch of rich people, affected by an important issue and with connections in high society, to bring together the brightest minds to come up with research that addresses such broad concerns as "cancer". And this is good! It means people get a more positive image of science, and encourages the dreamers in 3rd grade to pursue science as other engaged young people pursue music and sports fame. Celebrities in science augment the public image of science and gradually supplants the religious fervor against science, spurred by loonies stuck in the 15th century.
But let's not get too hasty. Although it's FANTASTIC when people with an insanely unfair proportion of society's resources decide to [somewhat] altruistically give back to that society, it's unreasonable for anybody to expect that to happen. Relying on chance for things to happen is not scientific. Relying on spontaneous flux and circumstance for events to occur is inefficient. Especially in the case of science, where the work that these bigwig medical researchers are doing is utterly pointless without being based in a century of research on carcinogens and unrestricted cell growth. And on the flip side, that methodical structure is agitatingly slow without individuals with passion, intuition, and the capacity to write great grant proposals.
That, I think, covers the foundation of my answer to the initial question. What needs to happen is that society should rationally conclude what the most worthy scientific pursuits are, and pour our shared resources--taxpayer money and other governmental revenue--into funding for all of the little labs that do data acquisition and test mini-hypotheses. Those all come together to form a more thorough image of the contemporary questions and the respective answers. That utterly important research can then be guided by the sometimes eccentric ambitions of the mad scientists and Nobel laureates, and sped up at certain loci by celebrity donors.
The two business models are both valuable. So how, we should ask ourselves, should our government allocate money? Assuming we want to have success in science, what do we do? The only logical answer is the following:
By virtue of the government being our collective power and an entity that complements culture as the stabilizing backbone of society, we should ask our government to do what we can, with supporting sound evidence, expect will work. Within that set of possible actions, we should do what has the greatest potential for the greatest success. So what can we expect? We can expect that data acquisition on a large scale (the kind where we get our funding from the highly structured organizations headed by the government, like NSF) gives theoretical scientists something to analyze. That organized groundwork allows theoretical scientists to draw hypotheses and support conclusions. We can expect that wealthy individuals will only donate to scientific research when there's promise that it can achieve something they really want, such as the cure to a disease that is slowly killing them or their loved ones. In other words, we can expect that the wealthy will not donate to things that are more menial and that are important in an unexciting way.
So, if you believe in the power of science, vote for people who support increased government spending on research, because entities like the NSF have the most power to get the ultra-valuable boring stuff done. And if you know rich people, convince them that it's a really good idea to donate to mad scientists; for instance, persuade them that it's totally awesome in a million ways to make out a huge check to a small, elite research team researching the neurogenetic development of language in the hopes of finding the ideal method for genetically engineering a talking animal.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Maybe a Good Step
I did something a bit spontaneous today... after coming to the conclusion that there were more important things to do with my time than making small talk and looking at funny pictures, I deactivated my facebook.
I really hope I don't accidentally log on out of habit, because it's a bad one that I want to get rid of. Even talking to people over facebook is a detriment. I've gotten used to communicating anything important through the carefully constructed written mode. So used to it, that I have lost the ability to speak about things that are emotional for me through speaking. Since I'm already beginning to lose myself in my elaborate Platonic conception, I decided it's best to do whatever I can to make myself more genuine. Cut the fluff, stop mincing manners, be a little easier on myself when it comes to social things. Give myself more time to reach for the one thing that matters.
I'll hope I can come up with some more substantive steps towards those ends. Getting off facebook is only a topical answer to one piece of the problem.
In other news, I did a few useful things today. First, I deposited a bunch of bonds from 20 years ago. It totaled... a lot of money. I felt obligated to go and spend a bit of it on some things I really, really needed: a scanner/printer, headphones, and a memory card for my camera. I also used that scanner to upload a drawing to my gallery.
Well. Nothing to do now but learn neuroscience and organic chemistry.
I really hope I don't accidentally log on out of habit, because it's a bad one that I want to get rid of. Even talking to people over facebook is a detriment. I've gotten used to communicating anything important through the carefully constructed written mode. So used to it, that I have lost the ability to speak about things that are emotional for me through speaking. Since I'm already beginning to lose myself in my elaborate Platonic conception, I decided it's best to do whatever I can to make myself more genuine. Cut the fluff, stop mincing manners, be a little easier on myself when it comes to social things. Give myself more time to reach for the one thing that matters.
I'll hope I can come up with some more substantive steps towards those ends. Getting off facebook is only a topical answer to one piece of the problem.
In other news, I did a few useful things today. First, I deposited a bunch of bonds from 20 years ago. It totaled... a lot of money. I felt obligated to go and spend a bit of it on some things I really, really needed: a scanner/printer, headphones, and a memory card for my camera. I also used that scanner to upload a drawing to my gallery.
Well. Nothing to do now but learn neuroscience and organic chemistry.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Some Little Lists of Consequence
So, let's see how long I can go from now without sleeping. I think I'll be able to hold out for quite a while, even if for no purpose other than the fact that I have a lot of work to catch up on. It's just... I have this strange compulsion to accomplish something today, and I haven't yet done so. And I haven't been able to actually do much this weekend because I was busy reading things.
But how did I spend the last 8 hours, again? Oh... renovating some playlists on iTunes. Wow. I guess I did spend 2 or 3 of those actually reading. Honestly, though, how can people do things without the perfect set of songs to listen to? I've been itching to fix a bunch of outdated, hastily constructed mixes for a while, but I just hadn't sat down to actually bang out the necessary changes until today. So I did it, and now I'll be happy for a while. I think I'm getting to figuring out the sets of music I need for different moods.
Playlists changed:
But how did I spend the last 8 hours, again? Oh... renovating some playlists on iTunes. Wow. I guess I did spend 2 or 3 of those actually reading. Honestly, though, how can people do things without the perfect set of songs to listen to? I've been itching to fix a bunch of outdated, hastily constructed mixes for a while, but I just hadn't sat down to actually bang out the necessary changes until today. So I did it, and now I'll be happy for a while. I think I'm getting to figuring out the sets of music I need for different moods.
Playlists changed:
- Diabolical
- Death
- Existential
- Spring
- Dry Haze
- Ethereal
- Growling
- Industrial
These changes are simply to make all of my work more efficient and put myself in a better place to move forward with my quest of knowing every damn thing there is to know.
Things I've recently learned something about:
- Contemporary theories of syntax acquisition in children
- Broad understanding of morphogen-induced development in Aradopsis and animals
- Headphone anatomy (...largely unintentional)
- Organic chemistry stuff
- Dolphins give each other names
Coming soon:
- Refinement of my understanding in neuroanatomy
- 3 midterms this week
- Presidential election in the Glee Club, and the writing of a speech for said position
- Learning more orgo stuff
Goals identified for the summer:
- Finish the half of readings that I know I won't have finished by the end of the year
- Get up to speed with the contemporary body of scientific research on dolphins and language genetics. Find out who's doing what and where. This is important because I need to find out where to apply to graduate school.
- Make money
- Finish the basement of the house I'm leasing for the year
Totes feeling good about things!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Silence
The other night I spent some time alone to meditate. It was dark. It was quiet. I was alone. I feel better now. I need to find more quiet places where I can be in solitude, to speak my inner feelings and thoughts aloud, to listen to the silence,
to listen to the silence.
to listen to the silence.
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