Stochastic Life

This is a blog by a Western Buddhist. I also talk about digital culture and it's relationship to modern spirituality, specifically (but not limited to) modern Western Buddhism. I post about music too, I can't help it. I favor hasitly written original content. I always accept questions and comments. I am also a writer of no consequence, and I co-founded a company to pursue creative interests. We have a lot of projects going on, I'll try to make it easy to check on those specific projects.. Formatted to be iPad/etc friendly, just in case you needed something enlightening to read while your on the can. Follow @StochasticLife !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Last.FM

[literategamer]

Stitcher Link

The Podcast has been approved for Stitcher, you can grab it at:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/octopus-park/literate-gamer

Episode 1 - [Dark Souls] is already up. Episode 2 - [Mass Effect] is in the queue and scheduled to hit August 1st. 

iTunes is expected to be released soon.

[literategamer]

Submissions to iTunes and Stitcher

We’ve submitted the feed to both iTunes and Stitcher, and now we quietly await approval. 

Direct link in the mean time:

http://octopuspark.libsyn.com/rss

[literategamer]

Trialing new stream formats

So, the first Literate Gamer stream kicked off last night and was mired in mediocrity. We encountered some timing issues (late to broadcast), technical problems (lack of audio), and other errors we’re ironing out as we reconsider our formats going forward. 

In the coming weeks we’ll be trialing a couple of new format ideas while we hammer down our process. 

The next formal broadcast is being scheduled for next Tuesday, August 18th, at 8:15 PM (EST).

[stochasticlife]

New things in the works over at Literate Gamer.

For the time being, we’ll be doing all streams in Dark Souls 2 - Scholar of the First Sin edition. Bloodborne is also on the map for a later date.

[literategamer]

Twitch Stream - Dork Souls

I am resurrecting Literate Gamer with a weekly Twitch Stream internally referred to as Dork Souls. The focus, for now, will be on the ‘Souls franchise (Specifically Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin and Bloodborne). 

DoomCow (published author and scholar of the absurd Jonathan Small) will be riding shot-gun as my co-host, straight man, and constant foil in this endeavor.

Inaugural episode will be airing tomorrow night at 8:15 pm EST. As this is more of a formal test than anything else, we’ll be referring to it as Episode 0. 

My personal Twitch Stream is here : I stream under SinisterOctopus

The Literate Gamer stream is here but there’s nothing to see at the moment. 

The stream will likely be from my own account, because really- who’s going to see it?

As always, you can find me on Twitter 

Specifics and developments will be posted here. 

[stochasticlife]

Absence

I've been away from Tumblr so long...they've changed lots of stuff. 

This has been a public service announcement. 

[stochasticlife]

The Only Monster Hunter Blog You'll Ever Need

Gaijin Hunter runs one of the best Monster Hunter blogs out there. 

Now that 4 has been released in the US you may want to brush up on your Monster Hunter knowledge. His YouTube Channel also comes highly recommended, I found his tutorial on the Insect Glaive to be especially educational. 

[stochasticlife]

Going Forth By Day - Chapter 3.3

As they made their way up the valley’s precarious hill, John realized that he had spent the majority of his time in the past two days sodden, damp, or simply drenched. He squinted, casting an eye brimming with the irksome ichor of a prolonged discomfort.

“Does it always rain?” The once languid drizzle had swollen into a formal cascade. His poncho was now stuck to himself like a thick skin of carpeting. He questioned the utility of wearing an outer garment so absorbent in inclement weather; but he conceded to himself, internally as he imagined the debate, he did feel warmer for it. To that end, he had to presume that it was working as intended, as quickly discovered in the heat of his imaginative debate, he knew astonishingly little about nature of pre-modern clothing, particularly as it pertained to appropriateness of specific garments to a variety of weather conditions.

The idea of ‘pre-modern’ in his internal dialogue vaulted right over his awareness only to catch him from behind with the profoundity that only an accidental epiphany can even approach. He stopped walking, mid-stride as his mind disconnected itself from his feet in an attempt to further analyze this new morsel of insight and attempted to recalculate the math.

After a brief, but bittersweet, respite from what had become the constant drone of cognitive dissonance since his journey began, the word ‘Modern’ echoed behind his eyes again like a gong.

Modern.

What is ‘modern. He found himself wondering.

“What’s with you?” Tahuti asked, having ambled past him and noticing less the hesitation playing across John’s face than the abrupt end of his marching.

John held up a lone finger, tentatively; “Shhh…” he mustered. “I’m…I think…I think I’m thinking” was all he could manage, awkwardly engaging only enough motor control to stumble around a communique. He closed his mouth and considered re-articulating his intent, but decided better of it and instead opted to refuel the boiler on his train of thought.

Modern. This poncho is not modern.

Cowboys aren't modern.

The word itself, modern, had blossomed, having planted itself so stubbornly in his mind that It had ceased being a word and had instead become a mantra; almost a spell he could conjure from within himself in order to dispel these contradictory notions of existential conflict that had been troubling him all this time.

That house wasn't modern. He continued, a smile exploding across his face fueling the dim ember of awareness behind his eyes. He was starting to feel like a wizard, and the sensation of power he had claimed from the murky depths of confusion hit him with the intoxication of knowledge.

From outside of his own head, John was only liminally aware that the others were beginning to witness the miracle of his thought process.

“Is he okay?” only the sound of Ben’s inquiry pierced the depths of John’s reverie as he elected to follow this rabbit hole to where ever it lead.

“I don’t know that anyone could ever accuse our compatriot of ever being ‘okay.” Tahuti replied as he settled himself on a rocky perch shrouded from the downpour by a thick swath of foliage above it. “But I suggest you try to find somewhere dry, this could take awhile.”

“But…what is he doing?”

“I have no idea, but I’m quite certain he hasn’t the faintest idea either.” Tahuti retorted with his face buried in his satchel, as he dug for his pipe.

John’s mantra continued in intensity. Modern Modern Modern.

Talking baboons aren’t modern. Night time sky monsters aren’t modern.

What is modern?

The unassuming innocence of that question quickly turned sinister and disarming when no immediate answer presented itself to him.

John gaped, his mouth opened and closed in a mute reflection of his inner turmoil.

In the Stygian mess of coiled thoughts, knotted up side of John’s head, he could sense a single glowing thread, buried there deep in the brambles of forbidden thoughts. John gathered his wits and courage about him like armor and reached deep into his own head to try and grasp that one sliver of incandescent hope. He coiled his fingers around it and pulled it, feeling within himself a physiological twinge as he did, in the pit of his stomach, as if that tiny, symbolic, thread was in fact knitted into himself, up and down him, stitched to his guts.

Weather.

What was it about weather? He asked himself.

Pull.

The cord in his stomach pulled against the knot again. He was loosing his orientation. He opened his eyes again, in attempt to right himself, his lids slammed open and he drank in the light, the rain, and the clouds in the sky, exasperatedly. He drank them in, searching for a spring of splendor in this desert of drizzle. Frantic, afraid that his query was about to elude him yet again -What is it I am searching for - he hammered his eyes closed and bolted them to eye sockets with a determined consternation. This turned his mind to the tactile; the oppressive sodden weight of the wet poncho, the cooling drizzle against the skin of his hands. The feeling of his hands reverberated through him, echoing- taking him back through his journey thus far. Dry and mild, inside the Oracle’s hut…dirty and sore as they wandered through the forest…hot and gritty in the desert.

Hot.

Cold.

His thoughts kept turning, translating the secret memories of his skin into words and concepts he could understand.

Hot and cold. Wet and desiccated. Extremes. The band of comfort his skin registered, and recalled, and longed for an idyllic standard of normal.

The answer did not hit him so much as it very abruptly stopped eluding him, so abruptly, he, metaphorically, ran right into it.

“Air conditioning?” John said tentatively, an uncertain air in his voice betrayed his fear that speaking the word would spoil the magic he had so fervently hoped that it contained.

“What?” Ben asked, his confusion genuine as he was quite certain he had been paying rapt attention and yet he had so utterly and abjectly misunderstood the secret John had seemed so set upon retriving from what ever dark places in his mind he had dared to go.

Tahuti’s mouth opened, still carefully balancing his lit pipe. His own astonishment was obviously rooted in incredulity. “Air. Conditioning.” He repeated with a decisive gravity, his mouth contorting around the words as they spat from his mouth along the stem of his pipe.

“Air conditioning.” John stated flatly.

“What about it?” Tahuti’s eyes narrowed as he scowled at John.

“It…exists?” As he spoke, John realized that his delivery was less than convincing.

“Does it now?” Tahuti’s response had an audible sense of a baited barb inside of it.

“Yes.” John was determined to stand his ground, convinced he had settled upon something.

Tahuti puckered his lips in a simian way and drew a long languid drag from his pipe.

“What are the two of you talking about?” Ben piped up again, discomforted by his inability to understand the conversation.

“And why, precisely, is that important?” Tahuti failed to acknowledge Ben or his question.

“It’s…modern, or at least, more modern”, John accentuated his emphasis with his hands, “than anything else around here. It’s not just that either…electricity, television, computers…the internet!” he recited each object as if rediscovering them for the first time.

“I don’t see any of those things here John.” The monkey sounded dour, almost sad, as he took the pipe out of his mouth and rested it against his knee.

“But…why?” panic began to creep into John’s voice, clawing it’s way up his gullet from behind his teeth.

“The simple answer is…they don’t belong here.”

“Kansas?” Thinking back to his thoughts at the Oracle’s hut, John added another entry to the list.

Tahuti only shook his head.

John shifted his weight from one foot to the other, he felt drenched through, as if even his bones were being washed away.

“Then…why do I belong here? Or do I,” he asked, “Belong here?”

Tahuti nodded as he banged the bowl of his pipe against the rock to clean it out. “That is, I think, a better question, and one more suited to the tasks at hand.”

John crossed his arms and waited for an answer expectantly. When none was forth coming, he added, “Well?”

“In due time, like I told you before. You’d do well to remember to take things as they are, and as they come. Truth is a spectrum, and one dependent on context. You are trying to evade the here and the now by filling up these holes with where’s and when’s.”

Wep, who had been conspicuously absent during their interlude, poked his head out from the underbrush and licked John’s boots. His deep canine eyes reflected a sincere expression of compassion, but John was at a loss as to whether it originated from Wep himself, or if it was only his own and he had unwittingly cast the dog in a role in John’s own personal drama, betraying even the dog’s sense of self-determination.

[stochasticlife]

Writing a novel in 48 Hours: or How I learn to stop lying and love the process.

I haven't been very active with this blog for a long time, and for good reason: I haven't been writing.

As a writer, I tend to be highly ritualistic. I frequently claim this is due to an underlying sense of perfectionism, but in all honesty it is simply a justification for not writing. Assuming I am dependent on these nebulous factors or circumstances feels like it absolves me of fault.

This is obviously a lie.

At times I absolutely love the process of writing, but often it feels like a relentless, infuriating chore. I have discovered that the trait most strongly correlated to enjoyment is freedom; a freedom from distraction, tasks, chores, timetables, etc.

Starting tomorrow, at noon, I'll be hermiting myself in a rural cabin for 48 hours. My ideal goal would be 50,000 words, but I'll consider anything over 30,000 a success. The project I've elected to work on during this time (I'me notworking on several) is at about 20,000 words currently.

I use to take small, intense, 'writing retreats' all the time, but this was years ago. My life has become much more complicated, which is an undeniable part of modern adulthood. My emphasis on ritualizing writing developed, in part, because simply dropping everything to go write in the woods by myself for several days didn't seem like a convenient option.

But for me, it's what works.

I may, in fact, be a lunatic. I am the one that recommends burning your first novel[1] . Failure, as I have defined above by expected word counts, is in fact a very real possibility- but only by that definition. The truth is, I'm shaking myself from my inertia and getting my head back in the game, so in that sense, I can't really fail.

I do not recommend that everyone, or even anyone, seal themselves away in a remote cabin to engage in a writing frenzy. My point instead is: Find out what, specifically, 'works' for you; and I don't mean what gets you word counts- I mean what gets you enthusiastic about the process. If you don't love the process, then you are probably more interested in being a writer than actually writing.

As for my hermitage, I had considered live-streaming1 my experiment on Twitch but I figured that watching someone write for 48 hours is quite possibly the most boring thing you could possibly stream; it really isn't much of a spectacle. I will be tweeting[2] updates, on occasion, as to my progress in my experiment, and one can reasonably expect a follow up post later this week regarding any lessons learned. I may even post some of the material composed, if there is any interest in seeing what 48 hour rough draft looks like.

Suggestions, comments (constructive or otherwise), advice, recommendations, amusing anecdotes?

1 While I won't have cellular signal at the cabin in question, I will have WIFI access, which I find both irritating and oddly comforting at the same time.

[stochasticlife]

Breaking Radio Silence

I will be breaking my prolonged 'social media' radio silence this week. 

Details to follow 

[stochasticlife]

Triceratops!

[stochasticlife]

Had an excellent afternoon with friends and family to observe Vesak.

[stochasticlife]

Updates

I haven't been in the habit of posting regularly for quiet some time now. My personal life has experienced some setbacks, but I am doing my utmost to utlizie that time was well as I can.

My radio silence has largely resulted in a dramatic increase in productivity. I am currently working on two novels, and I hope to have one of them released by August of this year. Please note that the following titles are working title designations only and are by no means indicative of the work's eventual title. 

Project Clockwork: A new fantasy IP (The Black Sand Sagas) that involves drugs that give you magical powers and a murder mystery with political overtones. 

Project Denial (also tagged as 'GfbD': Ostensibly a fantasy piece, but more akin to a modern fairy tale than swords and sorcery (more Gaiman than DnD). The piece is a critic  and reflection of the mythic cycle, specifically the hero's journey from a quasi-realism perspective. It has a cowboy, a dog that is a demigod, and a talking baboon. Trust me, it works better than it sounds. 

I intend to return to more regularity in posting in the coming weeks, including samples from the aforementioned works. 

Other projects, including Delphi and Damascus have been shelved. I'm outlining a third novel, Project Dream as we speak and may actually shop that around before the two above (Denial is...odd, I don't have a lot of faith in finding a receptive publisher on that and intend to self-publish that later). 

We are also plan to begin work on a new table-top game set in the Black Sand saga IP as well, but serious work won't begin on that project for several months. 

[stochasticlife]

Closing a door

John could here the distant sound of shouting and fighting begin as they settled the plank into position, barring the door. Guilt washed through John’s emotions eroding the edifices of resolve that had been carved from his character by adrenaline over the course of the evening. He felt the somber weight of uncertainty settle into the gullies after the culpability for his place in the men’s sacrificed flowed through him and resigned himself to a dubious and inexplicable fate regarding his role in a pilgrimage he neither understood nor feel adequate to undertake.

[stochasticlife]

E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy

The game is $1.99 today on Steam.

Buy this game, seriously. It's one of the most unique video games I've ever experienced. It's Cyberpunk mixed with Kabbalah. Utterly fascinating. 

Also, it has multi-player. 

[stochasticlife]

Oki Dub Ainu band, performing Utari*. 

This is amazing. This is my favorite musical discovery in a long time.

*Utari means 'fellow man in the Ainu language

[stochasticlife]

On Power*

I am literally typing this by fire light. 

Our power has gone out. Utterly and completely. If I had to guess, I'd say that I would expect the power to be out for quite awhile. There's a transformer(?) on a pole in our backyard (because, to me, this house is in such a rural area we don't have alleyways) that has, quite literally exploded.

I saw the sparks. 

From behind me.

I, a digital wretch, am marooned; coasting on the meager resources of power left in my laptop batteries. Thankfully, I bought a Sony. The chemistry in their batteries tends to be far better than the competitions. However, I did splurge for the 15" touchscreen with the backlit keyboard.

Is this what it felt like to be a pioneer?

Anyway, my backyard exploded, or at least something in it, and now I find myself, sitting here, in the actual dark, typing this. 

I happened upon an interesting anecdote by random chance today too. You see my health drove me to seek medical services. My physician is still based in the town my mother now lives. So, I stop in as it is in fact in the way of my drive through town. As if in passing, she mentions, at the end of our conversation that my grandmother may have cancer; in her face. 

The actuality of that suddenly stuck me here, in the dark. It's not unreasonable, seeing as how I've tripped over the same toy aircraft carrier no less than 3 times in the past 20 minutes.

It is fucking dark. Like 19th Century dark. 

I actually live inside Indianapolis and I feel like I live, instead, in some kind of Tolkien fantasy world ruled over by inexplicably relevant Elves. 

Needless to say, street lighting isn't doing a whole lot. 

Existentially,  digitally, I am quiet inextricably lost. 

*My first title had fun random words in it. My track pad causes my cursor to wander.

[stochasticlife]

White Sea (@WhiteSeaMusic)'s latest They Don't Know

Video includes info on free download for the single. It's Morgan Kibby (also known for The Romanov's, and M83), so you should put this in your ear hole.