The World is Beautiful and Terrible! @ooo-cn - Tumblr Blog

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This blog is pretty ineffective.

thoughts from yesterday morning

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO? WHAT CAN YOU DO? WHAT ARE YOU GOOD AT? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE GOOD AT?

WHAT’S YOUR NAME, MAN?

DUDE WHY IS THIS FLIPPING STORY SO EXCITING???

Here’s this story about somebody who found a way to make a difference. Am I overly influenced by the seeming greater value that we put on people who take the depth over breadth approach? At least, it seems like our mentors, the people we look up to, were consistent and focused on one or two things. I can’t think of any glorifying stories about people like Jordan.

Those who are glorified are those who appear to transcend the reactivity of existence. It’s so unlikely that somebody will make a flipping musical about me in a few hundred years. Basically, I’m striving to be something that I don’t trust I’ll actually be. Maybe that’s the difference between me and the people who do end up being mythologized. I’m not (currently) passionate enough about any particular thing to focus only on that. But that’s what would be necessary for me to become someone like Hamilton, or Joanna- somebody who is inspiring or at least obviously influential on way more people than I can ever know.

I suppose an implication of that is that I won’t ever know, if I make that my goal, if I ever reached it.

I’m still confident that passion in depth is how to “make a difference”.

How do I act knowing that? Is that worth pursuing?

AAAAHHHHHHH

For the group:

Action without consistent technique is no longer sufficient!

I need to be more confident in my actions (consistently), and for that, I feel as if I need a greater understanding of how my actions will be received, and to do that, I need to have a greater understanding of SOMETHING.

I need to be willing to confront, and I need to be willing to experiment in other ways. I need to sit down with everybody and ask them how willing they are to invest in this goal. Ideally, everybody would have this as their primary goal. That seems pretty unlikely, so I at least need to see how willing everybody is to calibrate how I should proceed, and also to force everybody to either make a decision or confront their goals vs. their actions.

I want a goal network. I want to be able to see how our goals are overlapping and where we could most easily get to know each other by collaborating on particular goals.

I want everybody to know where everybody else is. Maybe I do want some kind of group meeting, or maybe a group message where everybody (at least at first) just writes about how they feel about the other three on a weekly or bi-weekly basis would give us WAY more information about how to improve our relationships through potentially getting feedback that we haven’t been getting.

For the individual(ish):

I need to start having some kind of class for myself. What should be the basis for the class? Should it be as simple as cultivating the above? Or should it also include outside research on social networks?

(it should definitely be the latter)

I haven’t been devoting as much energy to this as I could have. Adding other media to learn about it through besides the three and besides conversation will make it less tedious to constantly work on, but it’ll also provide contrast/a more rounded understanding of both ALJ and social networks and how they work in general.

Apathy is Unappealing Part IX

This is exactly the feeling that I’m hoping to avoid. That my goal is supposed to help overcome. That any goal I have is supposed to overcome. I’m directionless. I value little. I’m tired, uninspired to do anything in particular, although I still hear the nag inside my head.

“what are you doing with your life? You’re gonna die soon and you don’t have enough to show for it. You’re gonna die and you’re just going to regret, but have no other feelings about it”

My tea is oversteeped. My body hurts. I miss Luke, but I have little confidence in the fact that I have any justification for missing him. I have little confidence in any of my actions, now. That’s the whole problem.

I don’t know. I talked with Ana a bit just now. I found value in that. I find value in complexity. I find value in connecting with LuJana.

I mean, basically, I just need to go back to my mantra. Action leads to value. Come on, Cina! Get yourself together! You just feel shitty today, but you can still be excited about acting in the future. You can still enjoy yourself. You can still revel in the complexity of the universe, and be inspired to explore it!!!

Ah, it’s so exciting and inspiring to be reminded that normal people can have an insanely big influence on the world!

#animeiscool

What are the best ways to learn to be more considerate?

(practice by spending time with people?) (that’s certainly not satisfactory)

What arts to I want to spend more time working on?

What people do I want to spend the most time on???? Do I want more contrast???

I should learn enough HTML to make my ideal tumblr page

I wish there was a better way to post... unfinished thoughts? sketches? Gah, and I hoped tumblr would be the solution to this...

WAIT, am I actually also worried about investing/being vulnerable with ANYBODY??? What???? THIS IS STILL A PROBLEM?????????

Okay Cina, first things first: Can you overcome the potential mental rip of being willing to invest in Jordan (or at least not rejecting his ideals) and also invest in Luke as much as you’d like to?

(is it really possible that the answer has been obvious, but you just haven’t seen it??)

So why would such a mental incompatibility occur?

Break-

Skip a few steps:

YES THE ANSWER WAS SO OBVIOUS THANK YOU

If I am not a chameleon, if I synthesize rather than mirror, then I can invest in any group of people that I desire to without rejecting any group merely because I invest in a separate group.

If I mirror, then I reject anything that the person I mirror rejects.

However, I’M AN IDIOT BECAUSE OF COURSE I DON’T HAVE TO MIRROR OTHERS AND I DON’T EVEN WANT TO MIRROR OTHERS SO DUH CINA YOU WANT TO BE A SYNTHETIC BEING INSTEAD OF A CHAMELION ANYWAYS SO JUST WORK TOWARDS THAT.

SO: I’m back to the same question that I was at before. How am I consistently synthetic, rather than merely imitative?

Specifically, why is this helpful in this instance?

Because if I invest in one person over another, then I MAY end up rejecting one. But if I do, it will be because I feel that I am incompatible with them and therefore, wouldn’t want to invest in them, instead of wanting to invest in multiple people, but having to choose one over the other. Is this really flipping obvious? Why are these connections so difficult to make?

JORDAN WHY HAVEN’T YOU MESSAGED ME BACK YET???

new thought:

I WANT TO BE INSPIRED! I WANT TO FEEL URGENCY, NOT BECAUSE OF IMPENDING DEATH, BUT DUE TO THE ANTICIPATED JOY OF MAKING BEAUTIFUL ART.

I think focusing on the fear of death too much will likely lead me to fear too much- to pick actions based on low risk quantitative works that I can put into the world. Perhaps this is the end of my desire to learn how to code…

#chameleonism #inspiration #relationshipprobs

Anonymous and Art

I just watched the first forty minutes or so of a documentary on the Anonymous hacker group. It was certainly interesting becoming aware of how I was affected just a little by that culture (Tory certainly was aware of that culture and embraced aspects of it), and how flipping aesthetically unappealing it seemed.

I don’t agree with the angry, destructive approach apparently taken by a lot of hackers. None of the hackers that were interviewed in the first forty minutes looked like people who I would want to be friends with, and some even implied philosophies that I think are irritatingly inconsistent and self-hurting, but

I found the artistry of what these groups of people were doing to be obvious.

And that was really refreshing, and actually kind of surprising.

I’ve begun to habitually equate “idealism” and “importance” and even “fulfillment” with fine art, or other things that are generally considered beautiful or romantic.

BUT THAT’S MISSING TONS OF BEAUTIFUL, IDEALISTIC, WORTHWHILE THINGS.

I think. Honestly, I’m not particularly confident about what idealism actually is, or where idealism turns into realism.

ANYWAYS

I’ve been struggling with how to integrate value into what I invest in, or how I should pick what to invest in. And I’ve been worried that if I pick something that isn’t liberal artsey, or fine arty, or aesthetically pleasing, or whatever, then I won’t be able to find value in it, even when I’m aware of counter examples in my life.

I don’t want to be a fine artist. I don’t think that the perceived rewards of that are great enough for me to find value in that life. I don’t think it’s possible for me to change my perception of the world to the point that I again gain more happiness from making ceramic sculpture than I do having a conversation or anything else that I believe will directly positively impact someone. The more conventional necessity of the kind of person I may become doesn’t make my decision any less my own. I can’t totally change my emotions! And that’s okay! I can still live a fulfilled, artistic, WORTHWHILE life manipulating the the internet, or people, or the environment- THE WORLD- without fine art.

Of course, I still don’t know that much more about what I actually want to devote my life to, but hopefully how I feel now will develop and I’ll be able to at least narrow down my options. What it is narrowed down to is fairly unimportant, I just really need to start culling out options before I get too depressed about all the opportunities I have, and how little drive I have to do any of them.

Onward! To picking passions!

#anonymous #idealism

So I guess I am perceived as a robot.

Am I actually robotic?

I suppose I do worry that I’m perceived as such, or as psychopathic, frequently enough to be confident that I am occasionally perceived that way.

That’s not how I see it at all, though!

Robotic shouldn’t be a synonym for analytical, or one track minded. Those are both traits that can be beneficial to human life, as I think they improve mine (when I actually act in those ways).

I wonder if that actually significantly negatively impacts any of my important relationships. If it does, it would most likely directly make Luke less likely to find me attractive as a friend candidate, or Ana. Jordan shares in my “robotic” tendencies and Jarred seems (at least currently) unphased by any of my quirks. Or, instead, impressed.

I want to be perceived as analytical, because I think it’s more likely to make me trustworthy to other people, IF they also are aware that my rationality is a slave to my emotions- that I only am analytical because of what I want to achieve as a human being. And what I want to achieve is betterment of the world. How I end up doing that is subject to evolution.

Don’t waste your time (reading this post)

It’s difficult to actually write anything on here. I am so easily distracted.

I feel as if I wasted a lot of today. The urgency I feel about improving makes this even more depressing. I spent an hour talking to Rhet, the old man who works in the Winthrop greenhouses, and another two hours driving around Charlotte. Plus I just didn’t do much productive stuff. I didn’t get any lab work done. I didn’t figure out anything about my FAFSA or finding a house or figuring out how to learn about coding. I did have a few brief, fulfilling social interactions, but overall I’m unimpressed with how today went.

The goal I spent the most time thinking about today was probably the goal of finding some attractive and comfortable clothes to work in. And this goal seems so insignificant compared to goals like improving my most important social relationships, or starting to learn how to code, etc.

I certainly enjoyed shopping. I’m excited that I have clothes that I think make me look both attractive and confident (and fairly androgynous). Perhaps I’m just irritated that my confidence is so dependent on my fashion.

Not necessarily because I don’t think visual appearance should matter, but because there aren’t very many options. I think visual appearance matters a lot. And I still try to find a style that does the best job possible of displaying the type of person I desire to be. This person keeps getting more and more professionally dressed in my head.

Ana said that I looked like a mom today. And that really depressed me. Because she was correct. I can’t afford to have that little style. I need to put forth enough effort to be cool.

I’m tired.

Perhaps tomorrow will be more satisfying.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

I VOW TO WRITE SOMETHING HERE EVERY DAY THIS WEEK.

NOW, WE SHALL SEE IF THE ADDED HOPE AND WORRY OVER THE EXISTENCE OF FUTURE READERS WILL BE ENOUGH, IN TANDEM WITH A DESIRE TO MORE EFFICIENTLY DOCUMENT MY PHILOSOPHIES, TO GET ME TO ACTUALLY FOLLOW THROUGH.

#announcement

Cina tries to explain fun and apparently fails, at least to her first reader. Perhaps you’ll understand.

R: I just want to make art. But it all needs to be on my terms. Directing needs people to act, though.

7:20PM

C: That's the type of art you want to make?

Yeah. Actually directing sounds awesome. But it sounds awesome to me because you are working with other people in really obvious ways.

Nothing is fun for me unless it's with or for other people. Or both. Actually it always needs to be for other people, at least indirectly.

R: ReallY? You never do anything fun for yourself by yourself>

10:59PM

C: I find joy in doing things that will be appreciated by others. Or things that will be noticed by others, and appreciated because they improve their lives in some way. Therefore, fun things are always for myself because doing things with others in mind leads to the most funthat sounds unfulfilling."realness" is only affirmed for me through other people.

Which would make it imperative for "fun" or anything else that included feeling as if I have any control over the situation and am impacting it in any way to include other people

what makes it sound unfulfilliing?

R: well I think art (which is what I call things done for fun) should ultimately be done for your own pleasure.So to do EVERYTHING for others seems to be missing the point

C: I'm not doing it while sacrificing my own goals.I'm saying that because the epistemic basis for what I find value in is dependent on other people, i'm only going to find fun in things that include other people.

That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm only having fun when I'm with other people.I could be having fun when doing solo activities like reading or expressing myself through fine art, or dancing to music by myself, or creating a tool, but I would enjoy that only because I would assume that I could use the knowledge or the work put into something to impact the world.

Because I think one must feel active in order to have fun

Because I agree that art is fun, although I wouldn't use those words synonymously

because I think everything anybody ever does is art (as in: a mixture of critical thought and emotion)

Anyways, if I have to feel as if I'm impacting something to have fun, and the only real way I feel as if I have an impact is through other people perceiving the impact I have on the physical world, then it's not missing the point.

If I were to say that I only have fun when I do things that include sex, then you may think I'm unhealthy, but I assume you'd understand what I mean

R: But you don't have to impact something to have fun, unless you believe you're always impacting something, in which case you don't need other people

C: Only having fun when considering other people is the same as saying that I only have fun with any other caveat, like I only have fun when not working at Starbucks or I only have fun around things I like.

Of course I always am impacting something

but

Humans are emotional creatures. We think in emotions, and our rationalities have evolved so that we can have a better chance of making ourselves happy, or having fun.

SoI have to feel emotional connections to others in order to feel like anything valuable is being done

Which is why I also need other people

it wouldn't be any fun to do anything without other people to experience it

and to affirm that I had caused emotional changes in them

pure perception is only "rationality"

ehh, I don't think that's right

R: When chopping wood, I have fun. Not because I'm chopping wood for other people's fires, but just because I'm chopping wood. It's the simple act of chopping wood that's fun.

C: Personally, that sounds boring as flip, but I think I understand what you mean. Chopping wood is fun because it's like running, or weightlifting. It's moving your body

which is fun because it produces endorphins?

R: sure, but that has nothing to do with other people.

A simpler example: I doodle because it's fun. My doodles aren't for other people. They're just things I do because they're fun. Same with video games, or watching TV, or reading a book.

There are plenty of things that one can do that are fun, but otherwise do not require socializing

C: Yeah I realized that I needed to create a tier system for fun

Okay your doodle example is just circular reasoning. They aren't for others, but they're fun. Because they're fun.

Humans are biologically programmed to be social

(so,) The most fun things that I do include other people.

I can get satisfaction from working out, or from eating, or from sleeping well, or any other biological function that is necessary for me to be healthy

But I think greater satisfaction is born from greater ability to have a particular style- from having the ability to choose from more choices to fulfill one's particular desire.

(and I think the greatest amount of choices are presented via social interaction. There can be way more nuance in how I type to you than there can be in what I decide to eat, or how I healthily exercise. so it makes sense that I’d have the most fun when being social in some sense than from fulfilling any other biological need)

R: No that's not my logic for doodling. I doodle. That's fun. That's not for others. Therefore fun needs not have other peopleand social actions have way more choice involved than "how to sleep" or "how/what to eat".

C: are you just trying to explain that you think doodling is fun? or are you trying to make a point that you haven't already made?

R: No I was giving an example of thing's that are fun that don't require people, and that was all, but you've gone and made it into a big thing

C: I'm just trying to understand your argument

You still haven't explained what makes something fun for you

that's where our disagreement lies

R: My argument is against your saying that "fun" requires people.

Well who are you to say that what I call fun isn't fun?

So your disagreement is a stupid one

C: oh my fucking god I'm just asking you to tell me

what the fuck you think fun is

why the fuck did you bother talking to me if you didn't want to explain what fun is to me?

R: I was talking to you about directing and my qualms with that! you brought up "define fun"

C: you didn't have to continue talking to me

I'll rephrase.

Why would you bother to only invest a little in me? If you're going to talk to me, then I demand that you are willing to listen to what I have to say and consider that what I want to talk about will at the very least help us better know each other, but it will also probably help me to better understand what you want to tell me.

I won't talk to you if you're going to half ass conversation with me

you're wasting my time if you do that

you're wasting both of our time

I guess that's good night

I was hoping that would instead incite you to actually consider what I said

I’m documenting this conversation on my tumblr.

Chat Conversation End

#messages to a young artist #raleigh #fun #facebook message #social relationship

I’m bad at titles.

I want to have a “job” or a life’s work that does combine the important and the urgent! And I don’t think that doing that would be terribly difficult to do with all the opportunities that I have, and all the people I have around me who I think would be willing to work with me.

As I’ve already become aware of, I need to figure out what skill I should invest in that can be used to best produce a good company/working space.

Coding?

Management?

Honestly one of those two things seem like the best choices. Helping “urgent” problems likely mean that I’ll need to be able to invest money or time in other organizations besides my “important” and ideally profitable work, so I need to find something that combines fulfilling work with making a lot of money.

Unfortunately, I don’t live in a time where everybody has the opportunities that they want, and so part of my ideal niche is improving everybody’s opportunities, and improving the general quality of life for humanity seems like the best way to improve my own opportunities down the line.

I want to write a book on my philosophies, or, perhaps better, or in conjunction with a book, I’d like to create a series of lectures/videos that could be more widely disseminated. I find this worth mentioning because just because the reader can’t respond to this post, or likely won’t, it’s likely that they won’t understand everything that I write about but I’m unwilling to explain my entire philosophy in order to explain myself each post.

Gripes, but I feel free

All art is some measure of accessibility and change. So, perhaps it’s not inconsistent to do a job primarily because I believe it needs to be done, not because I want to do it. Even though holy will would be ideal here.

For example, going to school to learn how to work with computers and give myself a well paying job/career market, and more importantly give myself a wide pool of opportunities to work in a new field of human innovation and one that holds so much promise for humanitarian goals.

But I do need to narrow down my focus from “coding stuff”, and even that may be too narrowly focused for what I would be willing to do anyways. Good thing it’s summer, so I have plenty of time to research!

I am (as I frequently seem to be) again worried that Jordan and I aren’t actually compatible enough. I don’t understand his reasoning well enough to know how “idealistic” he is, or what idealism even flipping is. Perhaps I’m just unwilling to accept that I’m too much of a realist for compatibility with him.

Freedom certainly presents itself most when I limit my options, or my options are limited, by value claims. Feeling like I could find value in a computer stuff whatever job (see, so specific, right?) has given me a sense of direction and I feel less hesitant to risk spending energy on a task, because I have some idea about how that task could improve the world (like a computerey whatever task, that is).

Having a conversation with Jordan a day or two ago also has led me to feel more free with my social relationships, because I have more certainty in my relationship with him. Ah, he hasn’t been annoyed/actively avoiding me! (or, well, he has been avoiding asking me to hang out, but he doesn’t seem antagonistic, which is what I had started building his actions into in my head) And if I have one person I feel more confident and comfortable talking to, I seem to have an easier time opening up to other people as well.

This is all pretty vague, but I’m mostly writing down ideas just as documentation, not even much as an explanation or as a way to better understand my own perspectives.

Hopefully I’ll see you soon, Ana.

Feeling left out

I hung out with both Ana and Jordan and Jarred and Luke today, and noticed that I felt like I was missing out on something in both groups. Which, understandably, was a little upsetting. But it shouldn’t have to be!

Feeling excluded (hopefully, at least in the cases when I felt excluded today) happened because I don’t trust any of the people I was with enough to invest in me enough. So being aware that they were doing something with someone else, whether it be talking about music or their past shared experiences, or talking about playing computer games together, or whatever, makes me feel excluded instead of making me more confident that my friendships are blossoming because my friends are also friends with each other.

(Ideally, I’d not feel excluded, and I’d be happy that they had goals that didn’t include me, because all of our goals are slightly different, although I do want to have a lot of overlap between goals.)

Maybe I want total overlap in my goals with my friends.

Flip. I can’t wait until I get my life together and figure out exactly what I want my goals to be and also get myself in a position to work towards those goals. (I say that because I’m typing this while listening to Sara and Cera bicker about a party that neither I nor Sara want to happen, but that’s happening tomorrow night, and I’m really ready to just live with Ana instead.)

Also, on my way back from Jarred’s house tonight, I listened to another Andrew Bird album (Armchair Apocrypha). I’m not sure if I find Andrew Bird melancholy because I’ve been melancholy when I listen to it, or because I associate it with Luke, since he recommended I listen to it, or if it is actually because that was Andrew Bird’s intent.

Anyways, I also saw someone driving in a car wearing an anonymous mask. It was surprising, which led it to be even more surreal. Somebody was wearing a mask while driving at 11pm. Why were they doing it?????

(Perhaps just in the hopes that they would be noticed, but that seems unlikely to me)

It’s also the case that I’m interested in some things (notably music and computer programming) because of my relationships with these people. And I’ve already decided that I won’t continue to spend my time learning about music theory. I don’t think it’s the best use of my time. It seems like computer programming and gaming may end up being fleeting interests as well. GAH but my interest only leaves when I stop hanging out with the people who are interested in it! Which means I need to be better friends with them! But the easiest way to be better friends is by sharing activities and interests. WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!?

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