An Incomplete wholeness.
Our missing pieces are anchors through time,
Tying us to the yet to be.
Moving forward means leaving a piece of us to chance.
Where we cannot come close to it in time, feeling, or certainty.
Progress requires an empty space,
A hole,
Where the gasses of anticipation and anxiety settle.
The need to see forward,
Takes a piece of us
And throws it in front of our eyes and out of our reach.
Striving perpetually in forward motion.
Treading threads of hopes and fears,
Hoping to bring the space between you and it to a close.
This incomplete self stretched out through time feels fragmented,
Yet unaware of its true wholeness.
Masked by the pains of running the game of progression,
A true nature remains veiled to ensure the proper pace is kept.
We march to this beat for the sake of itself.
A wholeness unseen.
A wholeness unfelt.
Nevertheless, a true wholeness.
A w-HOLE-ness incomplete.
Monday, May 27, 2013
You don’t need psychedelics for…?
What are unique about the subjective effects psychedelic drugs?
Some people say they these effects or states of mind can be reached without the use of them. They point to techniques like meditation, fasting, sensory deprivation, pain ordeal, and others as being sufficient.
I ask, what exactly is being reached in these states for us to say that the drug’s effects aren’t unique? I like to think that these drugs have unique effects which cannot be achieved otherwise. The most obvious unique effect is the sensory distortion. I can’t think of any other state of mind which processes sense data in the same way. Another unique effect is the way one handles thought. The mental chatter and imagery we normally experience is altered in a way that none of the claimed “substitutes” can achieve. An additional unique effect is the reliability of repeating the experience with different people. The other techniques may or may not produce any effect; but with the psychedelic, one is guaranteed of having an effect be felt. It’s clear how psychedelics should be understood to be in their own class of effects because of the intensity and repeatability of the experience compared to the alternative given.
All of the previous mentioned techniques do alter consciousness in general, but they are usually in much less of a degree. For example, a person attempting sleep deprivation may see very mild sensory alteration like colors or halos of light after a few days. But a person who has dosed some LSD will not only see extra or heightened colors, but geometric shapes, lattices, patterning, breathing textures, flowing grains, magnified details, etc. Or consider a meditator who experiences a change in the way they understand person identity. After a while they reach a state of mind where he or she feels to have lost their sense of self against a backdrop of pure emptiness or void. An individual who has taken some psilocybin mushrooms may also feel like their sense of self has dissolved into the world, merging with it; but they are able to be awake and interact with the world, thereby adding much more to the experience by not being tether to the same mediation position. Without a doubt, the alternatives offered do not come close to match the immediacy of the effects of psychedelic compounds, because that sense of urgency is not common to them.
These intensified effects do have their price. Psychedelic drugs are notorious for being very mentally abrasive, with negative effects leaving an imprint long after the metabolism of the drug has finished. However, the opposite scenario is also true: a person may experience long lasting positive effects. Another drawback to their use is the fact the effects are temporary, with only pieces remaining to help foster insight. In much the same way like everything else, psychedelics do have their less then helpful features.
Saying these drugs effects are unique does not give them a flawless potential for use. They have problems like anything else, but they are also unique in their own right. So when it comes to psychedelics, things like meditation, fasting or sensory deprivation may seem like substitutes, but they are not. The effects may overlap, but it must be treated in its own class distinct from other non drug ways of altering consciousness.
Some people say they these effects or states of mind can be reached without the use of them. They point to techniques like meditation, fasting, sensory deprivation, pain ordeal, and others as being sufficient.
I ask, what exactly is being reached in these states for us to say that the drug’s effects aren’t unique? I like to think that these drugs have unique effects which cannot be achieved otherwise. The most obvious unique effect is the sensory distortion. I can’t think of any other state of mind which processes sense data in the same way. Another unique effect is the way one handles thought. The mental chatter and imagery we normally experience is altered in a way that none of the claimed “substitutes” can achieve. An additional unique effect is the reliability of repeating the experience with different people. The other techniques may or may not produce any effect; but with the psychedelic, one is guaranteed of having an effect be felt. It’s clear how psychedelics should be understood to be in their own class of effects because of the intensity and repeatability of the experience compared to the alternative given.
All of the previous mentioned techniques do alter consciousness in general, but they are usually in much less of a degree. For example, a person attempting sleep deprivation may see very mild sensory alteration like colors or halos of light after a few days. But a person who has dosed some LSD will not only see extra or heightened colors, but geometric shapes, lattices, patterning, breathing textures, flowing grains, magnified details, etc. Or consider a meditator who experiences a change in the way they understand person identity. After a while they reach a state of mind where he or she feels to have lost their sense of self against a backdrop of pure emptiness or void. An individual who has taken some psilocybin mushrooms may also feel like their sense of self has dissolved into the world, merging with it; but they are able to be awake and interact with the world, thereby adding much more to the experience by not being tether to the same mediation position. Without a doubt, the alternatives offered do not come close to match the immediacy of the effects of psychedelic compounds, because that sense of urgency is not common to them.
These intensified effects do have their price. Psychedelic drugs are notorious for being very mentally abrasive, with negative effects leaving an imprint long after the metabolism of the drug has finished. However, the opposite scenario is also true: a person may experience long lasting positive effects. Another drawback to their use is the fact the effects are temporary, with only pieces remaining to help foster insight. In much the same way like everything else, psychedelics do have their less then helpful features.
Saying these drugs effects are unique does not give them a flawless potential for use. They have problems like anything else, but they are also unique in their own right. So when it comes to psychedelics, things like meditation, fasting or sensory deprivation may seem like substitutes, but they are not. The effects may overlap, but it must be treated in its own class distinct from other non drug ways of altering consciousness.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Why I listen to noise music
It’s the postmodern era
All our feelings are fake
They are Social constructions which perpetuate themselves though our behaviors and feelings
They’re the selfish memes: creators of normality
Noise
Noise is not music
Music is this
Not that
Acquired tastes, what’s with that?
Darwin, how do olives, beer, Noon Chai and weird art fit in your scheme?
We are controlled, this is music
Not that
Social engineers behind the curtain dictate
Made of memes devoid of personhood
I listen to noise
It sounds like music to me
The normative bias assures us what the signal to noise ratio should be
This makes us programmed
Popular culture: the cul-de-sac of creativity
I know you cant market this
And for that…..
I know my feelings are real
I know they are unique
I know They are not a product of your creation
Of your propagation
They are real, not your fabrication
My tastes are independent of the market machine
This is what I discover in noise music
This is why I listen to noise music
Noise Music
Thank you for validating my taste by showing me its not tethered to market economics
To the social engineers, to the machine
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Confessions of a Drug Enthusiast: Picturing a Recreational Pharmacology Industry (BETA)
This is the introduction to an essay I have in the works. I'm putting it up because I feel it efficiently summarizes my main points for the subject, although each point isn't fleshed out or exhausted to a degree which I would think decent for an actual persuasive essay.
Confessions of a Drug Enthusiast: Picturing a Recreational Pharmacology Industry
Some wise fool said once that life is all sensation. Seeing that we are humans with the capability to consciously alter our experiences and in turn our life, it would be natural or inevitable for us to develop ways of altering, optimizing, or enhancing our sensations. Not surprisingly, much of human behavior aside from basic survival (which most people in this society don’t worry about) deals with this endeavor. Some may see it as reducing boredom or making a moment more interesting. Unfortunately, with the numerous ways of altering our sensations/perceptions, some happen to be against the law; these are the illegal drugs, for which all nations around the world (in some form) are waging a war on their own populations. These wars a fought in the vein of stopping a perceived threat to humanity as a whole: drug abuse. I’d like to show how this kind of reasoning, making drugs illegal because of the possibility of abuse, would be like making sex illegal because of the possibility of disease, or food illegal because of diabetes/obesity; it is impractical and immoral in a society based on individual civil liberties. Moreover, I’d like to show how in a drug tolerant society, a recreational pharmacological industry could be established and integrated into the economic system as a whole, ultimately benefiting society by allowing for the research of these substances for their most effective uses.
Confessions of a Drug Enthusiast: Picturing a Recreational Pharmacology Industry
Some wise fool said once that life is all sensation. Seeing that we are humans with the capability to consciously alter our experiences and in turn our life, it would be natural or inevitable for us to develop ways of altering, optimizing, or enhancing our sensations. Not surprisingly, much of human behavior aside from basic survival (which most people in this society don’t worry about) deals with this endeavor. Some may see it as reducing boredom or making a moment more interesting. Unfortunately, with the numerous ways of altering our sensations/perceptions, some happen to be against the law; these are the illegal drugs, for which all nations around the world (in some form) are waging a war on their own populations. These wars a fought in the vein of stopping a perceived threat to humanity as a whole: drug abuse. I’d like to show how this kind of reasoning, making drugs illegal because of the possibility of abuse, would be like making sex illegal because of the possibility of disease, or food illegal because of diabetes/obesity; it is impractical and immoral in a society based on individual civil liberties. Moreover, I’d like to show how in a drug tolerant society, a recreational pharmacological industry could be established and integrated into the economic system as a whole, ultimately benefiting society by allowing for the research of these substances for their most effective uses.
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