I couldn't resist. I stopped for about 5 minutes, and I can only think about the meta-topics of the last post and the comments or thoughts that could result from it.
1. Blogger posts, one at a time, not like story.
2. Personal reference, not exactly understandable.
3. Is this book or blog?
Those are the meta-topics, in their keyword form; in the form where I can short-summarize them and give you a vague idea as to what I'm going to talk about.
1. I'm writing this as blog posts. Do I revise them? Do I note the changes? Would that make reading the post cumbersome? Should I just repost it? But wouldn't that make my blog look messy? And how can I write a book like this, supposing that that's what it's going to turn out to be, while also talking about how it is that I'm going to write it? Isn't that boring? (lol Because, of course, seeing the struggle is extremely boring and isn't the basis of many novels and movies.) I guess not. What I'm worried about is that I'll want to revise the wording, and that will mess everything up. Well... better to write something about worry about editing it, than to not write and not even have that option, I suppose.
2. I used a lot of personal references that people might not recognize or understand, and I skipped a lot around the subjects; I didn't transition as well as I'd've liked to. How do I revise that without wiping the post clean and starting again, and how does that not make for writing being impossible? Where do I add the transition? Using brackets ("[" and "]")? [If I want to add something, should I add this sort of note, and then include the date at the top or bottom? Or would that be unnecessarily confusing? (10-30-11) No, it would just be annoying. But I like having those date references... I just don't want them displayed so prominently? Maybe I could change the font and such to make them less annoying and less noticeable. 10-30-11. Yeah, that looks good. I might just do that.]
... But what if I want to get rid of some text? What do I do for that? If it's deleted... it's sort of gone. And if there's a lot of text I delete... Maybe I could make it smaller, like the date, so it would both not take up as much room, and still be there. [Like this. 10-30-11.] (The date is included so you and I know when I considered it obsolete.) Yeah. That might work. But what if it's a long string of text? An entire section that I want to delete? I'll copy and paste this paragraph and experiment with it:
[... But what if I want to get rid of some text? What do I do for that? If it's deleted... it's sort of gone. And if there's a lot of text I delete... Maybe I could make it smaller, like the date, so it would both not take up as much room, and still be there. Like this. Yeah. That might work. But what if it's a long string of text? An entire section that I want to delete? I'll copy and paste this paragraph and experiment with it. 10-30-11.] Hm. I guess that'll do.
3. "Is this a book or a blog?"
By this I mean, how exactly can I be writing a book through blogging it? Is it that I take out the "book" parts when I'm finished, and string those together? I guess that's indeed what it would be. Let's try it! (This applies to both "books" - the genius and creativity one, and the dystopia one.)
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creativity. Show all posts
Sunday, October 30, 2011
It's Time: Genius and Creativity
It's time. I've meant to do this, I've been meaning to do this, but there's no better way to do it... than to do it! Do what? This is what: start a blog about genius and creativity. I figure I might as well start my juices flowing on the blog where I am essentially writing nothing. And guess why I'm writing nothing: because I think that genius and creativity are something too lofty for me to talk about! And that's why I haven't really written anything here recently: because the very route to more writing (writing about creativity and genius) has been the very thing that I've shunned.
So, this first post is me overtly talking about that block, and although it's mainly for myself here, perhaps it will benefit you as well. I really don't know, but I need to do this anyway, for my own sake and sanity. And really... no one is reading this anyway, so it's the least risky spot to experiment on. I'm free to try out whatever!
So: why the hell do I want to write about genius and creativity? My life has been fairly consumed with the question of what makes someone creative or a genius. The reason? The world didn't look like too much fun, didn't look like it was doing well... so I asked myself,
"Who or what would be the best way to solve for this?" And then a thought occurred to me:
"Hey, if anyone can solve this stuff, wouldn't it be the geniuses?" So started this now approximately 10-year journey.
I devoured books, even before I was researching genius. One of the first big impressions I got was that of Plato and Socrates. I think someone on a plane recommended that I read "The Apologia" - I forget why they thought I'd like it - and so I got it and read it. Loved the hell out of it, adopted the method, used it on myself ruthlessly, and had a blast! When I started researching genius and creativity, I had the advantage of my local library having an online catalog. On more than one occasion did I frustrate the librarians, and that's because I was going through books on genius and creativity like they were candy... Ok, I kid. They WERE candy! And HEALTHY candy, too! Right? Am I right? Yeah? No? Poo on you.
After all these years, the book that still is prominent in my mind when I think about this is "Touched With Fire" by Kay Redfield Jamison, and you can see the Amazon link below:
I'm not sure I could point to a single best book on the subject. I can certainly recommend, as I just have with one example above, books that I found enjoyable or enlightening, but ultimately, I maintain, this is my personal perspective on the matter. I'm very picky with what books I read; I generally only read those that are what I consider "good enough" to be read the whole way through, and your tastes may differ from mine. As well, even though I keep copious records of all books that I read in full, I didn't read all of the books that I've researched for genius in full, so I would have to refer to my personal notebooks (because I would associate based on the books and try to figure stuff out, so the better books are referenced in them). I have over 30 journals. That's a lot of work. I suppose I should just start going through them, and I may just do that. After all, I've started this blog - and this part of the blog - so why not go the next step and start building?
I owe some thanks to both G+ and Debbie Lattuga:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102287555349832013091/posts/cTikrTVV1Li
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g
So I'm starting now, no funding needed. If people enjoy these writings, and if I enjoy writing them, then we have a nice little relationship going, and possibly a business. What partially amuses me about this is that I've always written for passion, and now here I am, writing for both passion and possibly money. But you don't write for money. You write for passion, and then the money comes. The reason for this is that others share or enjoy your passion. And people want to see passion. Well, I don't necessarily know; that's just what people keep telling me. I guess talking about this stuff will show to me if they're right or not.
So... I'm noticing that I keep starting my sentences with "So"... so I'm going to note that and vary them up. Why? Because I'm also a writer, unofficially. That is, I love writing. Which means that I'm picky as hell about grammar, syntax, repetition, and so forth. Some have called me a grammar nazi. Sometimes I call myself that. Either way, I love words, whether they be from books that others have written, posts and comments, or my own writing. And, as I said up above, I've written a damn lot: at least 30 journals. I say at least for two reasons:
1. I've lost count (although, I'd say I'm at 35 at this point?).
2. I've transitioned to making videos more often than I write.
What does writing have to do with genius and creativity? Look back on that question again. Hello? Read the question to yourself. Do you see the problem with the question? OK, let's see, then:
-Shakespeare
-Wordsmith
-Abraham Lincoln (Gettysburg Address)
-The Founding Fathers
-and many more
I've always dreamed of having made a book. Literally. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to have a book out there that was written by me. I've tried several times to start writing a book, and they've all marvelously failed. Recently, I've come to realize that, I think, what I've been critically missing is that a good story requires a model. By this I mean that you need to create a world. What you then do, is give a tour of that world with writing. Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Atlas Shrugged, and so forth - all these great novels or movies are based on having a model of the reality already present, and we're given a tour of that reality.
It is interesting that there are specific formats that we recognize in relation to creativity:
Sculpting, painting, writing, speaking, modeling.
What is common to all of those is outward expression. A personal journal is not an outward expression until the person is dead and the journal is looked at. An idea that sprouts in your mind that you don't write down, paint into being, or talk about with others, remains but an idea. You need to start somewhere, like I am here, writing this post. What kept me from starting this (assuming it'll go somewhere, which, of course, is an investment risk, although I need to do this anyway, so the risk is not very substantial) was the thought that I needed to put it all up right away. And since I consider what I have right now to be a work-in-progress, would I publish something that I have not yet finished? Of course not! And so... I've never started putting the ideas together in the written format. Well, I have, but not in a cohesive way, which is the way I meant.
And so, where I'm starting, is that I'm writing a book. Perhaps two. One of those books (that I'm hopefully going to finish with this new technique) is going to be a dystopian novel centered around sexuality. The other... might be the text that you are reading. Yeah, that would sure be nice if that happened. I have no idea if it would or will.
By definition, much of what I write here is stolen material (ah yes, the creative person's motto), material which I read from somewhere else and have, unfortunately, forgotten the source of (because I've waited so long to start), though I may express the ideas in my own way. I source whenever I can, not because I don't want to be sued or something stupid like that, but because having the original source and being able to see it in relation to the others sources, as well as the combination of the ideas, means that cohesive and coherent discussion regarding the ideas - since we have the referents - can be had. How can understanding be had or science be done otherwise?
In July of 2006, Wired posted an article called "What Kind of Genius Are You?", starring David Galenson:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html
The key thought of the article is that there are experimentalist geniuses, and conceptual geniuses. Experimentalist geniuses peak later in life, and conceptuals, early. Regardless of when the peak it, however, both of them made works that are considered valuable:
"For some artists, the curve hit an early peak followed by a gradual decline. People in this group created their most valuable works in their youth – Andy Warhol at 33, Frank Stella at 24, Jasper Johns at 27. Nothing they made later ever reached those prices. For others, the curve was more of a steady rise with a peak near the end. Artists in this group produced their most valuable pieces later in their careers – Willem de Kooning at 43, Mark Rothko at 54, Robert Motherwell at 72. But their early work wasn’t worth much."
I've found myself going more and more towards video. At first, this was a delight, because it meant that I could, from afar, learn social stuff, conversation, cohesion, and the like. Then it became a sort of addiction, and I figured that I'd eventually come back to reading and writing more. Not so. Now, I come here, nostalgically, wishful, and longing to do again what I used to do every day in my journals. And it appears that I'm finally starting to do just that. And boy, is it a welcome change! I'm not saying here that video is something to be avoided. I'm saying that I've (and probably many people) put myself out of balance, in a sense... becoming Twitterized, and it's been a very slow process to going back to a slower pace, something necessary for creativity and deep thought, in my opinion.
I want to write more, but I should also take something of a rest. It's part of the my new understanding of the necessity of resting a bit before you feel the need to rest, plus that of making a model of the reality, and then letting yourself tour the model when some day-dreaming of a way to express the idea happens. And it will, if you're enjoying yourself. And how can you enjoy yourself if you're not taking time to rest once in a while?
Thus, the more accurate way of putting it would be: I want to write more, so I'm going to take a rest. It's the principle that I've used in junction with the dystopian novel. Right now I'm focusing on creating the model. Then I'm going to take the day-dream parts that I've gotten so far, and string them together. That way I don't feel the pressure to write the whole damn thing in one sitting, or have it be linear. Perhaps I could write a linear novel in a non-linear way? I have no idea - I've never even written a linear one!
So, this first post is me overtly talking about that block, and although it's mainly for myself here, perhaps it will benefit you as well. I really don't know, but I need to do this anyway, for my own sake and sanity. And really... no one is reading this anyway, so it's the least risky spot to experiment on. I'm free to try out whatever!
So: why the hell do I want to write about genius and creativity? My life has been fairly consumed with the question of what makes someone creative or a genius. The reason? The world didn't look like too much fun, didn't look like it was doing well... so I asked myself,
"Who or what would be the best way to solve for this?" And then a thought occurred to me:
"Hey, if anyone can solve this stuff, wouldn't it be the geniuses?" So started this now approximately 10-year journey.
I devoured books, even before I was researching genius. One of the first big impressions I got was that of Plato and Socrates. I think someone on a plane recommended that I read "The Apologia" - I forget why they thought I'd like it - and so I got it and read it. Loved the hell out of it, adopted the method, used it on myself ruthlessly, and had a blast! When I started researching genius and creativity, I had the advantage of my local library having an online catalog. On more than one occasion did I frustrate the librarians, and that's because I was going through books on genius and creativity like they were candy... Ok, I kid. They WERE candy! And HEALTHY candy, too! Right? Am I right? Yeah? No? Poo on you.
After all these years, the book that still is prominent in my mind when I think about this is "Touched With Fire" by Kay Redfield Jamison, and you can see the Amazon link below:
I'm not sure I could point to a single best book on the subject. I can certainly recommend, as I just have with one example above, books that I found enjoyable or enlightening, but ultimately, I maintain, this is my personal perspective on the matter. I'm very picky with what books I read; I generally only read those that are what I consider "good enough" to be read the whole way through, and your tastes may differ from mine. As well, even though I keep copious records of all books that I read in full, I didn't read all of the books that I've researched for genius in full, so I would have to refer to my personal notebooks (because I would associate based on the books and try to figure stuff out, so the better books are referenced in them). I have over 30 journals. That's a lot of work. I suppose I should just start going through them, and I may just do that. After all, I've started this blog - and this part of the blog - so why not go the next step and start building?
I owe some thanks to both G+ and Debbie Lattuga:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102287555349832013091/posts/cTikrTVV1Li
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g
So I'm starting now, no funding needed. If people enjoy these writings, and if I enjoy writing them, then we have a nice little relationship going, and possibly a business. What partially amuses me about this is that I've always written for passion, and now here I am, writing for both passion and possibly money. But you don't write for money. You write for passion, and then the money comes. The reason for this is that others share or enjoy your passion. And people want to see passion. Well, I don't necessarily know; that's just what people keep telling me. I guess talking about this stuff will show to me if they're right or not.
So... I'm noticing that I keep starting my sentences with "So"... so I'm going to note that and vary them up. Why? Because I'm also a writer, unofficially. That is, I love writing. Which means that I'm picky as hell about grammar, syntax, repetition, and so forth. Some have called me a grammar nazi. Sometimes I call myself that. Either way, I love words, whether they be from books that others have written, posts and comments, or my own writing. And, as I said up above, I've written a damn lot: at least 30 journals. I say at least for two reasons:
1. I've lost count (although, I'd say I'm at 35 at this point?).
2. I've transitioned to making videos more often than I write.
What does writing have to do with genius and creativity? Look back on that question again. Hello? Read the question to yourself. Do you see the problem with the question? OK, let's see, then:
-Shakespeare
-Wordsmith
-Abraham Lincoln (Gettysburg Address)
-The Founding Fathers
-and many more
I've always dreamed of having made a book. Literally. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to have a book out there that was written by me. I've tried several times to start writing a book, and they've all marvelously failed. Recently, I've come to realize that, I think, what I've been critically missing is that a good story requires a model. By this I mean that you need to create a world. What you then do, is give a tour of that world with writing. Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Atlas Shrugged, and so forth - all these great novels or movies are based on having a model of the reality already present, and we're given a tour of that reality.
It is interesting that there are specific formats that we recognize in relation to creativity:
Sculpting, painting, writing, speaking, modeling.
What is common to all of those is outward expression. A personal journal is not an outward expression until the person is dead and the journal is looked at. An idea that sprouts in your mind that you don't write down, paint into being, or talk about with others, remains but an idea. You need to start somewhere, like I am here, writing this post. What kept me from starting this (assuming it'll go somewhere, which, of course, is an investment risk, although I need to do this anyway, so the risk is not very substantial) was the thought that I needed to put it all up right away. And since I consider what I have right now to be a work-in-progress, would I publish something that I have not yet finished? Of course not! And so... I've never started putting the ideas together in the written format. Well, I have, but not in a cohesive way, which is the way I meant.
And so, where I'm starting, is that I'm writing a book. Perhaps two. One of those books (that I'm hopefully going to finish with this new technique) is going to be a dystopian novel centered around sexuality. The other... might be the text that you are reading. Yeah, that would sure be nice if that happened. I have no idea if it would or will.
By definition, much of what I write here is stolen material (ah yes, the creative person's motto), material which I read from somewhere else and have, unfortunately, forgotten the source of (because I've waited so long to start), though I may express the ideas in my own way. I source whenever I can, not because I don't want to be sued or something stupid like that, but because having the original source and being able to see it in relation to the others sources, as well as the combination of the ideas, means that cohesive and coherent discussion regarding the ideas - since we have the referents - can be had. How can understanding be had or science be done otherwise?
In July of 2006, Wired posted an article called "What Kind of Genius Are You?", starring David Galenson:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html
The key thought of the article is that there are experimentalist geniuses, and conceptual geniuses. Experimentalist geniuses peak later in life, and conceptuals, early. Regardless of when the peak it, however, both of them made works that are considered valuable:
"For some artists, the curve hit an early peak followed by a gradual decline. People in this group created their most valuable works in their youth – Andy Warhol at 33, Frank Stella at 24, Jasper Johns at 27. Nothing they made later ever reached those prices. For others, the curve was more of a steady rise with a peak near the end. Artists in this group produced their most valuable pieces later in their careers – Willem de Kooning at 43, Mark Rothko at 54, Robert Motherwell at 72. But their early work wasn’t worth much."
I've found myself going more and more towards video. At first, this was a delight, because it meant that I could, from afar, learn social stuff, conversation, cohesion, and the like. Then it became a sort of addiction, and I figured that I'd eventually come back to reading and writing more. Not so. Now, I come here, nostalgically, wishful, and longing to do again what I used to do every day in my journals. And it appears that I'm finally starting to do just that. And boy, is it a welcome change! I'm not saying here that video is something to be avoided. I'm saying that I've (and probably many people) put myself out of balance, in a sense... becoming Twitterized, and it's been a very slow process to going back to a slower pace, something necessary for creativity and deep thought, in my opinion.
I want to write more, but I should also take something of a rest. It's part of the my new understanding of the necessity of resting a bit before you feel the need to rest, plus that of making a model of the reality, and then letting yourself tour the model when some day-dreaming of a way to express the idea happens. And it will, if you're enjoying yourself. And how can you enjoy yourself if you're not taking time to rest once in a while?
Thus, the more accurate way of putting it would be: I want to write more, so I'm going to take a rest. It's the principle that I've used in junction with the dystopian novel. Right now I'm focusing on creating the model. Then I'm going to take the day-dream parts that I've gotten so far, and string them together. That way I don't feel the pressure to write the whole damn thing in one sitting, or have it be linear. Perhaps I could write a linear novel in a non-linear way? I have no idea - I've never even written a linear one!
Monday, August 31, 2009
I'm in denial? Nu-uh! Well, maybe a little...
It is not exactly preferable to be in denial if you are in pursuit of truth and reality, which I am. To be honest, I do admit that I am slightly in denial. So I will explain the ideal that I intend to exude with this.
I wish that I did not have a body with needs for food and drink. I also wish that I did not require shelter. In the state of things of the USA, you are born into a virtual slavery (in my opinion). To live is to either leech off of other people, or to be in debt to something called "the government" by way of owning property; or you could rent, which has the same essential feature (in my opinion). You could, of course, just live outside in the cold and be rained on, but I do not prefer this, as I'm sure many others don't.
Having used "(in my opinion)" twice and possibly annoying someone who might read this - well, having annoyed myself - I give an explanation of what that sentiment means: this requires more explanation which I currently don't want to bother explaining.
It might do well to explain how I've gotten to this way of approaching life. I was raised a Christian, and one of my questions regarding God was, "Why does God love us?" I pursued this question and never got what I thought was a satisfactory answer. It usually boiled down to something like, "Well, why does the artist make a painting?" or "Why does the artist love his painting?" But... God does not require anything. Which would then be counter-acted with, "God's love pours out." Yet, it still did not explain anything. Why did God love us, and why was his love pouring out?
I used to imagine what the afterlife would be like, after the earth would be gone. It was much like C.S. Lewis' "cold place" version that he wrote of in one of his books, and like the vision of Narnia; it could also be compared to the planet that Mr. Manhattan went to when he was pissed at the reporters. A cold place, desolate from all human activity but my own, on a small planet that wasn't exactly big, but not exactly small, perhaps like the planet that the prince from My Little Prince inhabited, and I would be sitting on it, the rest of the planet utterly dark (more of just a loss of focus from it), and I would watch earth, with all of its destruction and drama. And I would feel at peace.
For a long time, I wondered if I had autism; or perhaps its lesser counterpart, Asperger's. I used to write in my journal/diary everyday, not quite religiously, just voluminously and vigorously. My ideal was to capture all of my thoughts, and analyze them, each and every one, and see what I could find, and if I was consistent in my thoughts. This part of it happened more-or-less after someone recommended Plato to me and I read his Apology. I loved the Socratic method and adopted it.
What I think now was probably the case, and still is the case, is that I might have some mild form of autism/Aspergers, but only as relates to what every other shy person has. That is, I'm suggesting that there is, perhaps, a link between shyness and autism. Well, not really suggesting it, but I am trying to see what the similarities or links might be. Perhaps I'm a combination of the two, as it were, a "very high functioning autistic". Perhaps "shy" could be interchanged with that.
These are the types of discussions I would have with myself in my diary. I would take a possibility, and then try and demolish it, while retaining it enough that the battle of affirming and disproving could never be over; or, if one possibility became more apparent, I would simply travel further down the list of possibilities, and then also, make another outrageous statement or connection, and then go about trying to figure that one out, too. And then I'd tie them together. Put simply, I loved using the written word as a means of exploring reality. Reading books, writing my thoughts, and exploring ideals.
About the time that I started asking why god loved us, I noticed that I saw patterns. In later reading some of Anne Frank's diary, I'm wondering if that was about when she noticed colors. It was, then, very "male" of me to notice that I saw patterns. She noted that she saw all sorts of colors. Me, I saw all sorts of patterns. And then I soon found a type of mind that might help me with my question: geniuses.
Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Franklin (and so on)... I googled "genius, creativity" and many other things daily in attempt to wield more information from the internet. I browsed the online library and checked out books on genius, creativity, madness, and all combinations thereof. Soon I found autism, idiot savants, and Asperger's, too. I wanted to find the extremes, since nature reveals its properties soonest when working with extremes.
I wanted as much time as I could possibly get to study the world and think about it. Since I have/had only about 80 or so years of life, I focused on thinking as often as I could (which wasn't too hard), and more importantly, speeding up my perception of time so that 1 second would seem like 10 seconds, 100 seconds, an hour, or longer. Longer was preferable. I couldn't and haven't figured out a way to do it, though. The main possibility seems to be either training for it, or a rush of adrenaline. Thing with the rush of adrenaline is, the probability of focusing on problems with paranoid vigor. I'm not sure if that's a detriment to thinking, or an advantage.
I guess I'm sort of writing a mini-autobiography. That's kind of how it is when you're explaining part of your life to someone, I guess. I wonder what the verbal/visual format of it will be called. We have YouTube now, after all. A mini-autobiography is what it's going to be until I "catch you up" to the current times, which I kind of intend in doing with just one broad stroke, though this might not happen. And then this'll be more like a... blog? Diary? I don't know. I'm playing it by ear and trying to find out if I'm OK with this.
I've always been slightly introspective. It was increased after an event. In October of 2001, a man named Andrew Pudewa held a writing conference. My mother got word of it by newpaper, and knowing of my interest in bettering my writing, suggested the event. I was enthusiastic about it and went. The event was (and I wish I had a better word for it, but still after 8 years, I don't) spiritual for me. I couldn't attend the speech he gave, so my mom got a copy of it on CD. I listened to it 7 times right away. It has also been is uploaded to YouTube. Andrew Pudewa also gave reference to someone else, John Taylor Gatto and his book (which can be read for free online), The Underground History of American Education.
I loved his vision of how learning should be done. My mom was homeschooling me (having taken me from public school because my sister and I were having problems there; a girl was teasing me and my sister was being a bully and threw a kid in a garbage can); I stopped doing the curriculum, instead focusing on research on genius, creativity, madness, and autism. This caused problems, since I didn't have a job. I was, essentially, leeching off of my mum and dad. This didn't settle too well with me, but neither did I want a job. I'd read about the tyranny and discomfort of having a job (How to Be Idle [Amazon link] by Tom Hodgkinson) and didn't want to get one.
This went on for about a year. Finally, my mother couldn't take it any longer, and took me to a counseling place to get me evaluated. I saw it as a chance to show her, officially, that I was depressed, instead of telling her myself, since I was trying to avoid her. I was diagnosed with Mild Depression, and my mother cried over it. Mostly, I was surprised that I wasn't diagnosed with severe depression.
During one of the last visits to the place (they tried to help me with psychiatric care and it just didn't mix), she suggested a private Christian school. At this point, the word Christian had begun to have a bad taste in my mouth. But I was tempted to see what Andrew Pudewa was talking about in regard to the corruption of schools. So, I agreed and went.
It was a good year. For the most part, I liked it. I even passed out CDs about the Andrew Pudewa stuff to a teacher or two, and we tried the system. It didn't last for that long (and later the school closed), but from a recall point of years later, it was probably the best time and most stimulating time I had when doing a school assignment.
The school year ended, and I expected to go back to my research on genius, creativity, and so forth. Instead, I fell into a deep depression, and found YouTube. Thereat, I searched around and listened to people, and soon found TAA (or, TheAmazingAtheist). This was back before when TAA's videos were a lot better. I concurrently started at his first video, and listened to all of his videos. I also went looking for long (2+ hour) debates on religion.
About 5 or 6 months later, I started calling myself an atheist; first, abashedly (since many of the atheists were also anti-theistic and rude), and then, more comfortably (I made another category of anti-theist/YouTube atheist, both of which have the first meaning of being against the Christian religion and thinking that it's memetic destruction will benefit the human race, with the second meaning being an atheist that might have a tendency to be an asshole to Christians). The main definition used by the atheist community is: the lack of belief in god(s). As opposed to having unbelief, or, disbelieving (or something of that elk). In which case, the Christian then claims that the atheist "has even more faith than the Christian!"
Then came college. As it saw it, since I would be, essentially, kicked out if I didn't get a job soon, my two options were live on the street somehow, or attend college. Since I was curious about what college would be like, and if it was true that college is corrupt, and since I couldn't think of a way that I would be able to live on the streets, I went with the college option, to increase the amount of time before the inevitable crash. I looked at a lot of them and visited a few. My favorites were St. John's, Cornell, and a lower costing college.
And then there were costs to consider. Since I didn't want to take out extravagant loans (I hate owing people money; I would rather people owe me money and give them a lenient time to pay it back with interest), the lower costing college became the only viable option. It still wasn't attractive, but it was college, or bum; I didn't want to be a bum, and I was, as I said before, curious about college.
The first semester went beautifully. Stimulating and full of stuff to observe. However, what happened at the second semester was unexpected. It seems that I had absorbed what I needed to absorb about how college worked. With my interest having declined, I had an issue with homework. It wasn't the work aspect that I had trouble with, it was someone else telling me what to do when in regard to what I thought about. I guard my intellectual focus with a passion, and homework was a direct intrusion upon it. Why didn't I have an issue with it before? Because it was part of the investigation.
I started missing homework assignments, and soon simply skipped class. And because I was also talking about the subject of suicide in my videos, concerned teachers had me admitted to a psych ward. I at first went willingly. Upon discovering that I was actually locked in, I spent the next three days in paranoid rebellion. The night of the second day they called my parents; they asked if I wanted to drop out and go home. I did. Home I went with a 4k bill from the hospital and a determination not to pay it off since it was, basically, imposed on me. Not that I had money to pay it off...
At about the time that I was about to be submitted to the psych ward, I was trying to get laid. From craigslist. I had an interesting experience with an older man, and then I met a girl who was "experienced with helping virgins." She also had a husband, a kid, and something she put up her vagina that prevented pregnancy. I went back home, and when we visited our grandparent's house (that's where she lived), I took the opportunity to arrange with her an night to fuck. And we did.
Having the Christian mystique taken away from sex, I could now better evaluate it and incorporate the experience into other things, like what books said about it. It seemed over-glamorized. And the jealousy that was attached to it I found confusing. Why couldn't people fuck who they wanted to? Why were people jealous of other people fucking "their" girlfreind? I could only relate it to my first love when I was a Christian, and my scathing jealousy at the thought of someone else fucking her. The next question, then, was whether jealousy was a theistic concept, or, if jealousy had similar elements that theism had. Or what sort of animal it was that I was dealing with. As it was, I preferred (and prefer) sluts and polyamory.
After the vacation at the grandparents was over, I left with the family back to home. However, I now wanted to live with the woman I'd met, instead of my family. After some talk, and a few weeks, we had some time of goodbyes and I left to back to where she was. The situation wasn't great, I wasn't technically supposed to be there, so I slept in the garage for much of it. Since I didn't have a job, I tried out a daily labor place that paid you at the end of each day.
After doing a few jobs for the place, one being heavy-work, the other a long time standing in one place, I realized that I could not handle hard physical labor jobs. I lived off and on in a homeless shelter. The place had an overall feel of tyranny to it. It wasn't overtly tyrannical, but it had Christian overtones and annoying schedules. The place was somewhere you didn't want to be if you could help it. Which, I suppose, was a positive, since that encouraged people to leave.
As it was, and is, I was trying to get a job for a place - any place - and never getting one. Consequently, I focused my efforts on online methods (specifically PTCs) as a means of making money. Unfortunately, the current PTC that I'm hoping pans out, I didn't discover until the last month or so. Apparently, the renting for NeoBux may not be that great. If it's not, then I'm kind of out of options, especially since I seem to be eternally unable to get a job.
I shall explain more later, perhaps.
I wish that I did not have a body with needs for food and drink. I also wish that I did not require shelter. In the state of things of the USA, you are born into a virtual slavery (in my opinion). To live is to either leech off of other people, or to be in debt to something called "the government" by way of owning property; or you could rent, which has the same essential feature (in my opinion). You could, of course, just live outside in the cold and be rained on, but I do not prefer this, as I'm sure many others don't.
Having used "(in my opinion)" twice and possibly annoying someone who might read this - well, having annoyed myself - I give an explanation of what that sentiment means: this requires more explanation which I currently don't want to bother explaining.
It might do well to explain how I've gotten to this way of approaching life. I was raised a Christian, and one of my questions regarding God was, "Why does God love us?" I pursued this question and never got what I thought was a satisfactory answer. It usually boiled down to something like, "Well, why does the artist make a painting?" or "Why does the artist love his painting?" But... God does not require anything. Which would then be counter-acted with, "God's love pours out." Yet, it still did not explain anything. Why did God love us, and why was his love pouring out?
I used to imagine what the afterlife would be like, after the earth would be gone. It was much like C.S. Lewis' "cold place" version that he wrote of in one of his books, and like the vision of Narnia; it could also be compared to the planet that Mr. Manhattan went to when he was pissed at the reporters. A cold place, desolate from all human activity but my own, on a small planet that wasn't exactly big, but not exactly small, perhaps like the planet that the prince from My Little Prince inhabited, and I would be sitting on it, the rest of the planet utterly dark (more of just a loss of focus from it), and I would watch earth, with all of its destruction and drama. And I would feel at peace.
For a long time, I wondered if I had autism; or perhaps its lesser counterpart, Asperger's. I used to write in my journal/diary everyday, not quite religiously, just voluminously and vigorously. My ideal was to capture all of my thoughts, and analyze them, each and every one, and see what I could find, and if I was consistent in my thoughts. This part of it happened more-or-less after someone recommended Plato to me and I read his Apology. I loved the Socratic method and adopted it.
What I think now was probably the case, and still is the case, is that I might have some mild form of autism/Aspergers, but only as relates to what every other shy person has. That is, I'm suggesting that there is, perhaps, a link between shyness and autism. Well, not really suggesting it, but I am trying to see what the similarities or links might be. Perhaps I'm a combination of the two, as it were, a "very high functioning autistic". Perhaps "shy" could be interchanged with that.
These are the types of discussions I would have with myself in my diary. I would take a possibility, and then try and demolish it, while retaining it enough that the battle of affirming and disproving could never be over; or, if one possibility became more apparent, I would simply travel further down the list of possibilities, and then also, make another outrageous statement or connection, and then go about trying to figure that one out, too. And then I'd tie them together. Put simply, I loved using the written word as a means of exploring reality. Reading books, writing my thoughts, and exploring ideals.
About the time that I started asking why god loved us, I noticed that I saw patterns. In later reading some of Anne Frank's diary, I'm wondering if that was about when she noticed colors. It was, then, very "male" of me to notice that I saw patterns. She noted that she saw all sorts of colors. Me, I saw all sorts of patterns. And then I soon found a type of mind that might help me with my question: geniuses.
Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Franklin (and so on)... I googled "genius, creativity" and many other things daily in attempt to wield more information from the internet. I browsed the online library and checked out books on genius, creativity, madness, and all combinations thereof. Soon I found autism, idiot savants, and Asperger's, too. I wanted to find the extremes, since nature reveals its properties soonest when working with extremes.
I wanted as much time as I could possibly get to study the world and think about it. Since I have/had only about 80 or so years of life, I focused on thinking as often as I could (which wasn't too hard), and more importantly, speeding up my perception of time so that 1 second would seem like 10 seconds, 100 seconds, an hour, or longer. Longer was preferable. I couldn't and haven't figured out a way to do it, though. The main possibility seems to be either training for it, or a rush of adrenaline. Thing with the rush of adrenaline is, the probability of focusing on problems with paranoid vigor. I'm not sure if that's a detriment to thinking, or an advantage.
I guess I'm sort of writing a mini-autobiography. That's kind of how it is when you're explaining part of your life to someone, I guess. I wonder what the verbal/visual format of it will be called. We have YouTube now, after all. A mini-autobiography is what it's going to be until I "catch you up" to the current times, which I kind of intend in doing with just one broad stroke, though this might not happen. And then this'll be more like a... blog? Diary? I don't know. I'm playing it by ear and trying to find out if I'm OK with this.
I've always been slightly introspective. It was increased after an event. In October of 2001, a man named Andrew Pudewa held a writing conference. My mother got word of it by newpaper, and knowing of my interest in bettering my writing, suggested the event. I was enthusiastic about it and went. The event was (and I wish I had a better word for it, but still after 8 years, I don't) spiritual for me. I couldn't attend the speech he gave, so my mom got a copy of it on CD. I listened to it 7 times right away. It has also been is uploaded to YouTube. Andrew Pudewa also gave reference to someone else, John Taylor Gatto and his book (which can be read for free online), The Underground History of American Education.
I loved his vision of how learning should be done. My mom was homeschooling me (having taken me from public school because my sister and I were having problems there; a girl was teasing me and my sister was being a bully and threw a kid in a garbage can); I stopped doing the curriculum, instead focusing on research on genius, creativity, madness, and autism. This caused problems, since I didn't have a job. I was, essentially, leeching off of my mum and dad. This didn't settle too well with me, but neither did I want a job. I'd read about the tyranny and discomfort of having a job (How to Be Idle [Amazon link] by Tom Hodgkinson) and didn't want to get one.
This went on for about a year. Finally, my mother couldn't take it any longer, and took me to a counseling place to get me evaluated. I saw it as a chance to show her, officially, that I was depressed, instead of telling her myself, since I was trying to avoid her. I was diagnosed with Mild Depression, and my mother cried over it. Mostly, I was surprised that I wasn't diagnosed with severe depression.
During one of the last visits to the place (they tried to help me with psychiatric care and it just didn't mix), she suggested a private Christian school. At this point, the word Christian had begun to have a bad taste in my mouth. But I was tempted to see what Andrew Pudewa was talking about in regard to the corruption of schools. So, I agreed and went.
It was a good year. For the most part, I liked it. I even passed out CDs about the Andrew Pudewa stuff to a teacher or two, and we tried the system. It didn't last for that long (and later the school closed), but from a recall point of years later, it was probably the best time and most stimulating time I had when doing a school assignment.
The school year ended, and I expected to go back to my research on genius, creativity, and so forth. Instead, I fell into a deep depression, and found YouTube. Thereat, I searched around and listened to people, and soon found TAA (or, TheAmazingAtheist). This was back before when TAA's videos were a lot better. I concurrently started at his first video, and listened to all of his videos. I also went looking for long (2+ hour) debates on religion.
About 5 or 6 months later, I started calling myself an atheist; first, abashedly (since many of the atheists were also anti-theistic and rude), and then, more comfortably (I made another category of anti-theist/YouTube atheist, both of which have the first meaning of being against the Christian religion and thinking that it's memetic destruction will benefit the human race, with the second meaning being an atheist that might have a tendency to be an asshole to Christians). The main definition used by the atheist community is: the lack of belief in god(s). As opposed to having unbelief, or, disbelieving (or something of that elk). In which case, the Christian then claims that the atheist "has even more faith than the Christian!"
Then came college. As it saw it, since I would be, essentially, kicked out if I didn't get a job soon, my two options were live on the street somehow, or attend college. Since I was curious about what college would be like, and if it was true that college is corrupt, and since I couldn't think of a way that I would be able to live on the streets, I went with the college option, to increase the amount of time before the inevitable crash. I looked at a lot of them and visited a few. My favorites were St. John's, Cornell, and a lower costing college.
And then there were costs to consider. Since I didn't want to take out extravagant loans (I hate owing people money; I would rather people owe me money and give them a lenient time to pay it back with interest), the lower costing college became the only viable option. It still wasn't attractive, but it was college, or bum; I didn't want to be a bum, and I was, as I said before, curious about college.
The first semester went beautifully. Stimulating and full of stuff to observe. However, what happened at the second semester was unexpected. It seems that I had absorbed what I needed to absorb about how college worked. With my interest having declined, I had an issue with homework. It wasn't the work aspect that I had trouble with, it was someone else telling me what to do when in regard to what I thought about. I guard my intellectual focus with a passion, and homework was a direct intrusion upon it. Why didn't I have an issue with it before? Because it was part of the investigation.
I started missing homework assignments, and soon simply skipped class. And because I was also talking about the subject of suicide in my videos, concerned teachers had me admitted to a psych ward. I at first went willingly. Upon discovering that I was actually locked in, I spent the next three days in paranoid rebellion. The night of the second day they called my parents; they asked if I wanted to drop out and go home. I did. Home I went with a 4k bill from the hospital and a determination not to pay it off since it was, basically, imposed on me. Not that I had money to pay it off...
At about the time that I was about to be submitted to the psych ward, I was trying to get laid. From craigslist. I had an interesting experience with an older man, and then I met a girl who was "experienced with helping virgins." She also had a husband, a kid, and something she put up her vagina that prevented pregnancy. I went back home, and when we visited our grandparent's house (that's where she lived), I took the opportunity to arrange with her an night to fuck. And we did.
Having the Christian mystique taken away from sex, I could now better evaluate it and incorporate the experience into other things, like what books said about it. It seemed over-glamorized. And the jealousy that was attached to it I found confusing. Why couldn't people fuck who they wanted to? Why were people jealous of other people fucking "their" girlfreind? I could only relate it to my first love when I was a Christian, and my scathing jealousy at the thought of someone else fucking her. The next question, then, was whether jealousy was a theistic concept, or, if jealousy had similar elements that theism had. Or what sort of animal it was that I was dealing with. As it was, I preferred (and prefer) sluts and polyamory.
After the vacation at the grandparents was over, I left with the family back to home. However, I now wanted to live with the woman I'd met, instead of my family. After some talk, and a few weeks, we had some time of goodbyes and I left to back to where she was. The situation wasn't great, I wasn't technically supposed to be there, so I slept in the garage for much of it. Since I didn't have a job, I tried out a daily labor place that paid you at the end of each day.
After doing a few jobs for the place, one being heavy-work, the other a long time standing in one place, I realized that I could not handle hard physical labor jobs. I lived off and on in a homeless shelter. The place had an overall feel of tyranny to it. It wasn't overtly tyrannical, but it had Christian overtones and annoying schedules. The place was somewhere you didn't want to be if you could help it. Which, I suppose, was a positive, since that encouraged people to leave.
As it was, and is, I was trying to get a job for a place - any place - and never getting one. Consequently, I focused my efforts on online methods (specifically PTCs) as a means of making money. Unfortunately, the current PTC that I'm hoping pans out, I didn't discover until the last month or so. Apparently, the renting for NeoBux may not be that great. If it's not, then I'm kind of out of options, especially since I seem to be eternally unable to get a job.
I shall explain more later, perhaps.
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