Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Of increased sensibility

The most vital part for this whole project is to have enough sensibility to perceive things. Apparently I'm managing to discover new things because of it, but it's something that has to be charged, pretty much like any skill must be warmed-up.

It's something that wears off quite easily, the sensibility. It takes a certain reconnection with my thoughts and feelings for me to enter back in this world of weird mental happenings, interesting ideas and overall unexploed mysteriousness that both scares and appeals me. Fortunately, I'm learning my way to regain it within the fewest steps and time as possible.

Maybe the depression I suffer from is by losing contact with myself, though it also has to do with some social injuries. But this lack of sensibility isn't exactly the same thing as the Blackouts as they're are the apathetic, numb emptiness, not the emptiness that somehow fill and corrodes my insides. But perhaps it is the cure for both, as it connects me with somethng, and can distract the emptiness with a healthy enthusiasm that can only do me good.

Of wide-awake dreams

Mindwalking still is the most frequent phenomenon that I still can't understand, but it seems several new weird things are starting to happen. It seems I'm going so deep in my mind, and dealing with its nuclearities, so that explains how some things seem to be changing there. One of the most recent things I've experinced were feeling like I had dreams while awake.

It sounds weird to say I actually experience dreams while awake, but rather I seem to rather perceivea experience that would go unnoticed until it would appear in my dreams. I seem to have gained that ability with this whole obsession about surveillance over my emotional responses, and understanding the undertone vortexes, and how they trigger the undertones in my mind.

It appears that sometimes my sensibility towards some vortexes, I can unearth several different undertones. The fact that some undertones are sometimes unrelated existing in the same vortex can give my mind the feeling of surreal combination of things when I perceive them, something that I can only remember having experienced in dreams. Sometimes the undertones unearthed from vortexes are strong ones, and sometimes they can be negative, so the feeling of surreality I experience is pretty much like a sudden feeling of nightmares.

Of lightspeed scanning

As results are always a sign of a nuclearity nearby, it seems I am around one for the development of my self-control. It's indeed interesting to see things that I remember always having made me feel bad now being much more harmless under my strict surveillance.

And this surveillance is increasing my awareness to a level where sometimes something that call my attention negatively, my mind seems to resolve it a matter of one or two seconds. The interesting part of it is how it barely surface to my expressions. Sometimes I'm eating and that negative vortex happen and there's this lightspeed scanning that seems to instant resolve the business before I even get the food in my mouth.Or also it happens when I'm talking, and these vortexes don't really distract me from what I'm talking about.

The best thing of this new mental phenomenon is that it seems that as they are resolved, they don't seem to add to the accumulating mass of unfinished business that haunt my mind. It seems that, if I can develop this instant resolve thing, there'll be no more new negative undertones, and the existing ones can be held back from growing to become fears and negative feelings too dangerous to unearth (or invading waves too strong for this surveillance to hold back).

Of songs my heart sings

Loneliness is a trick business. I have a conflict over wheter I want it or not. Sometimes it hurts me real hard, so in the end, maybe being forced to stay up in the surface reality makes me some good by not letting it take over me. Still, in the end I still have to face my bed every night and the loneliness along with it.

Although it puts me in contact with my mental troubles, there's the good thing that is how it made me recall some habits I had forgotten I used to have, such as images and songs developing themselves in my head, like a digestion of artistic information. If only I could recall that facing this danger i could trigger the ever-enthusiastic Hephaestus, and I can feel a little more at ease again.

However, one of those days something different happened. I was rolling in bed as if a comfortable position would ease my mental troubles, and when I gave up on that and then I stayed still, it seemed the troubles had a easier time aiming at me. In the middle of the whole thing, having those avoided feelings finally reaching me, I felt a song. It wasn't easily recognizable, not really like the digested kind of song mentioned earlier. It wasn't dancing in my mind, but was rather a motion in my chest that suddenly started, and lasted for a few seconds. If only that had been alive for a little more time, I could have understood it better.

The only thing I can remember of that quintessence is that maybe it could be translated as some distorted guitars, and a certain feeling of melancholy along with the bitterness. I am not sure now, but it seems that I could only vaguely recall of an album which feature that feeling. Maybe it was a reminder from my heart trying to listen to songs like this to ease the troubles, but the best thing of it all is how it suddenly shifted my thoughts towards this incredible new happening.

Of times when strength is needed

It's sinking in the meaning of being 23 and not yet having accomplished anything meaningful in my life. So here comes one dead-end again, this feeling that every distant star I want to touch are never going to get any closer than those billions light-years always so far. But I can't head to my bed and curl in depression. If there's one time I need to prove my strenght, it is now. And it's what I will do, even though I seem to be on the verge of breaking down and the sole effort to stay up is demanding enough.

Fortunately I've got my own tricks up my sleeve. It seems that the Fire Ensemble turns out to fill most gaps that led me to try to develop the Inner Constitution. They are guiding me well, my flames. I just need to do whatever I can to summon Zhu Rong present inside my soul, so I can keep the steady march forward with a firm grip, even when every muscle from my body is begging me to give up.

My mind also begs me to give up, but I will not allow my own depression and this unforsaken feeling of meaninglessness to stand in my way and spread pain and feelings of threat around me, because I can't betray Áine's will. I will not surrender to the thoughts of segregation and superiority and silly irritability I keep seeing all around me. I will portray a smile because you all deserve it. Even if I feel always so isolated and underestimated, my pain is mine, and I will absorb it with Trygve, and make good use of it, as fear is what better fuels the scarce courageous strength.

This world sometimes seem to wish me to let go of my dreams, by being forced to stay away from it. But nothing will make me forget my mission, even if it's what is making me go through this hell in the first place. Also, even if I meet the dead-ends and aftergoal disillusions as I usually see that my dedication rarely brings me any reward, maybe I should have a little more of Vesta and listen to her advices. Maybe I'm not aiming for the nuclearity of my problems, I just need Zhu Rong to face the fears even Trygve can't control.

At the end of day, the absent fire being missed the most is Hephaestus, and the enthusiasm he always used to bring with the bright-red appearances of his. But this loneliness that usually brings me to him sometimes lead my dark forces, and make me think of giving up. However, somehow I'm still always finding some small drops of renewed courage to face each new day.

So, whatever it takes, despite what happens, I will not be brought down.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Of days of defeat

Never before have I felt such aversion against meeting my birthday and getting older. It strikes me as a judgement day when I ponder on how I'm living my life, and I always think I'm not living it to the fullest, and guilt fills my soul (and it works like a growing maleficent undertone).

My fear is of time hammering on. It's not the fear of the lost youth, because in some ways I feel so old and weary already. Neither it is the fear of facing death and leaving this world - somehow it really doesn't bother me as I'd expect it to. No, it's just the fear that I'm running out of time to do all I want to do, and I think I can't really explain why it doesn't really have much to do with the denied alternatives.

But then again, this mad quest has just started and in less than one year I've learned more than I dreamed I ever could, so I can only hope each year that is yet to come will bring me as much knowledge as my 22nd one alone did. Hopefully one day I can reach the height of my ambitions.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Of renewal

One of the pleasures I value is homecoming. The feeling of returning to the familiar, to what belongs to me. It's the best thing about tasting a new world, the way my own seems to be feeling fresh to be felt again.

The things I wasn't aware before now suddenly call my attention again, all the things that compose my identity. Of course, the previously visited world is already an addition to my identity as well, but the twist in perspective made me aware of things I was too overloaded with to notice them, and now they can be seen and my own life seems renewed.

So this is all a reinforcement to my quest for different mindscapes and new feelings. Novelties will broaden my subjective horizon, but it will also help me value my own identity. It's like wondering about how would it feel to have my archetype called Wayland and the way this revives the feeling I have about having it called Hephaestus.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Mindscapes #6

I'm currently experiencing a mindscape that is having a certain impact me. Since I've understood how mindscapes and undertones and generations work, it's the first truly amazing sensorial feeling I'm experiencing this generation (more specifially a Novelty one), so I'm doing my best to taste it the better can before generations change, and then I'll long to relive it as my future generations (the december me) will recall these days, and so maybe it could be reinforced along the generations and could become a Prime Undertone.

So, there's this band called Lúnasa, which plays irish folk tunes. I've always enjoyed them, but it was when paying attention to the name of the songs of the album Otherworld that the whole thing really struck me. Simply put, it gives me summer feelings. It makes me think of living a peaceful life and having adventures in a tranquil irish village.

The songs have a lighthearted feeling to them (it's already my Safe Port in this generation), but sometimes some songs have a feeling of tension to them, such as the pipework at the beginning of the song Lafferty's..., which makes me picture irish kids having some adrenaline, probably jumping fences, running from dogs. Screaming and then recovering breath as they laugh in relief and talk about how, say, Trevor almost didn't make it.

The name of the songs make me think of stories the characters lived, such "The Floating Crowbar" and "Stolen Apples" (maybe Lafferty's?). The name of the songs also refer to people, such as Dr. Gilbert, Miss Goodavich, Laura Lynn. It really makes me think of some lads having good times and the people that composed that experience's identity. Maybe it's the memories of childhood and teen years (hence "Otherworld"), which gives me a great feeling.

It makes me think of the Hobbiton, and there's something about it that reminds me Zelda games when you go around the town engaging in carefree quests to help the villagers with their businesses, exploring the place. But the best thing was that I was looking at pictures on tumblr, and then I saw fireworks, it was a really amazing mindscape (epiphanic, soundtracked, combined, harmonic). These songs also seem to be really amazing to play and listen to when camping with friends.

Finally, I'd like to say these songs are creating a quintessence in me (it'd be amazing if these songs were indeed shared memories, it'd confirm my "transfered quintessence" theory, as it makes me think of a childhood and early-adulthood experience different from mine). It's already somewhere among my all-time favorite albums, as it gives me the feeling of carefree adventure, friendship, summer, green trees and laughter altogether.

Of composed identity

Some quintessences that are hard to be put in words, and they always need time to spring into a developed concept. This is one of these charging posts, and with it I'll slowly develop my mind on this idea of forming and learning the identity of things.

Our identity is, apparently, formed by more than our personality and appearance (and name). It seems to go beyond the the metaphorical roads we choose and grounds we tread, but also the literal ones. All the physical world that surrounds us seem to build our own identity. Here we go about the mindscapes only people who live in the same city can experience, therefore creating unique undertones unique to those people, and so, the chance to develop a unique cultural identity. It's one of those things I like to think, about how geographicalities influence culture, such as the drastic contrast between the dryness of the desert and the fertility on the borders of the Nilo river made the ancient egyptians develop a highly dualistic culture about life and death.

All the things that surround me are part of my identity. For instance, the actors of the movies I like somehow seem to be part of my identity, like Harrison Ford. Or maybe that guy who makes the best hollywood posters, Drew Struzan. Or maybe that person who plays that beautifully eerie fiddle in the first Otyg album (I don't know for sure if it's Cia Hedmark). Also the trees my neighbour has chosen also end up being part of my identity, as I see them in a daily basis. It's ecause even things that aren't really a choice or action of my own are still in me. And that's a disturbing thought, from a certain point of view, as I think of all the disgusting things my father does and that I have to live with.

So let's go on about the sense of place again. All the little things help create it, the vegetation, climate, architecture, the people that live around here (and their origins), society's mentality and even the name of that little grocery store, they all are what compose the place's identity (it's a symptomatic vortex of the Genius Loci). As it goes with the Unseen Mindscape, we slowly grow unable to recognize and feel the world and life around us (and our own identity along with it), so one can always feel it again by playing something I've already mentioned before, the Cardinal Twist.

With the help of a mirroring surface, we can really see the world with reverse cardinal points (a little bit of closed eyes and imagination does the trick too). There we feel attracted to our world in reverse inside that mirrorland, where the sun sets and shadows strech along towards the other side of the world. It calls our attention as it makes us aware of things we are long too numb to notice about the identity of our own world and self.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Of alphabetical impressions

Although this whole addiction to find new ideas everyday is quite recent, I think I always had this thing for analyzing things. In my teen years I had one or another theories, but when I think about it, even as a kid I had these strange obsessions and curiosities.

I quite underestimate my past selves, but in the end I always had this curious side. I remember when I was aged 6 or something and I used to have speech and language problems, so my mother took me to a phonoaudiologist and after some months of speech therapy I was talking like a normal kid. But then I remember that because of that I was paying attention to the sound of words and the letters. It's funny how I already had a category for things even back then: there were fat letters and thin letters, and they were pairs of dualities (of cooourse a 6-year-old knew what a duality was). For instance, B was a fat letter, P was a thin one; T was a thin letter, D was the fat one. It was all in portuguese, but even in english this differentiation happens to some extent.

And recently I've been thinking of letters again, and how I have one different emotional response from each one. I've always noticed how "V" and "Z" sound really technological and modern. Maybe because of words like Vector and Zeta. "A" is definitely a feminine letter (but maybe that's because in portuguese, though "O" doesn't really sound masculine). I haven't payed attention to how each letter works for me (and I already have too many quests, I can't start any kind of Alphabetical Impressions mission now), but that's a matter of paying attention to my reaction to words and why they make me feel the way I do ("reaction" deserves to be analyzed).

If one day I manage to understand how I react to letters and words it would help me improving my word-tasting habits, and also'd help me creating names for characters (I'm dead-sure JK Rowling made this exercise herself). But the best of all, maybe I could also understand why the name Wayland really makes me think of deep purple (the color), even though I can't be considered a synesthetic person.

Of familiarization

This whole idea of accepting names and getting used to them really reminds me of how we get used to all other things in life, such as moving to a new home, or meeting new people and new places.

There's one quite prime example to this, which is when we start having classes with new people, and they all look weird, or sometimes too normal. Towards the end of the year we look at how familiarized we are with them, and we remember the first impression we had toward them and it triggers this whole feeling.

It seems the mind seems to slowly understand these new identities and personalities, and then, with time, an emotional response start to be created from those people, also from their names. I find it amazing how people and their names always get fused in an incredible way. It's even more amazing how two completely different people with the same name still make you find their identities to be completely fused with their names, even if the two girls are called Ana.

The matter of familiarization also includes the places and feelings we get from them. Any backyard, street, building seem to have their own identity. We develop a more solid emotional responses as we learn more about them (as they work as a quick way of recognizing important things). It's something about the sense of place, the so-called Genius Loci I mention here once in a while.

Of acceptance of names

There's one interesting thing that happens when I name things, even if they don't capture the original quintessence. It's curious how things materialized can have an identity of its own with time.

Sometimes I wonder how would it feel if I was in an alternate reality and, instead of chosing the greek Hephaestus as my artist archetype, I had chosen the norse/germanic blacksmith Wayland. For one it wouldn't have its glowing red feeling I'm used to feel when referring to the greek god. It seems I'd feel a certain dark purple that somehow is the color of the emotional response I have from the norse god.

And the same goes for the rest of the names for the Fire Ensemble characters, as I wasn't quite satisfied with most of them. But as it turns out, as I keep using them, my mind gets used to it. Even if Trygve is a weird name (and quite a fail, since it comes from no mythological source), I start to feel intimate to use those letters to identify to that archetype. The same thing happened to Zhu Rong, and the interesting thing is that it becomes a quintessence of its own, as I start associating it with its symbol, the campfire, and as I attribute to him my adventurous nature. And by doing that, the Indiana Jones in me is revived again with maybe even more passion. That's truly one of the weirdest things about the Creator's Paradox.

Of too many names

Lately I've been noticing how certain names seem to work better. Some last through generations, while others go dormant and are forgotten. It appears that certain names that last seem to capture the inner quintessence. As I've learned there's basically two ways I name my ideas, and maybe I can get closer to the answer.

First of them is having a quintessence of an idea, and then finding a word that describes it. This is the Traditional Naming. The second one is finding a word that looks interesting, a novelty vortex, and its undercurrent meaning appeals me as new idea, a new motif. I call this Reverse Naming.

For some reason, I've been finding that Reverse Names are to be questioned, because, really, every little word calls my attention, and I want to create motifs from them. This makes it easy to create new ideas (sometimes really fresh new ones), but it is dangerous, because of them dreary Synonyms. Then something happen, something I don't fully understand yet, that is a quintessence being born from these words, instead of using them to name the already existing quintessence inside me, and then something like... twin motifs are born.

It also happens when going for traditional when trying to find names to describe an existing idea or feeling, there's the overload vortex too, as too many words and names would fit the idea. What if, instead of Hephaestus, had I chosen Wayland? And also its variations sound appealing to me: Weiland, Völundr,Velentr, Wielant. If I go around the internet searching for names of gods of fire I feel so tempted to create a character for each one of them. God, I feel so sorry I couldn't use the hindu god of fire, Agni, that's such a badass name. It would sound too close to Áine, though.

So the problem is pretty much, Reverse Naming. Maybe I should stop and control myself against creating things from the outside. Strange, but that sentence called my attention. It sounds really meaningful to me, somehow.

Also, Jesus, this blog was supposed to help me unload my ideas, not to give me a thousand new things to think about.

Of Creator's Paradox

Weeks have passed since I started charging my thoughts on how any idea written or drawn or composed or materialized in any way always turn out to be something quite original on it's own, but never completely true to the original intent. It's as if there always was some kind of wall that separated the piece of art from its quintessence.

I can feel it very well with the Fire Ensemble. All those five different fires are much more connected than it seems, because the materialization of these feelings as characters forced me to break them apart in separate beings. But in the end Hephaestus has too much of Aine in it, in a way I could have made him to be her son. Or maybe Zhu Rong could be Hephaestus' brother, or Trygve's son. Aine could be Vesta's mother, or the very opposite.

But it doesn't seem to be a really impossible task. It seems to be more a certain matter of skill, as experienced artists can seem to craft a soul in their works, so notes become music, two-dimensional lines create the tridimensional world they imagined, or a text becomes something more than an accumulation of sequential words and his ideas are clear to the reader (the quintessence is transferred). The emet element seems to happen when there's a successful materialization of the quintessence.

Also, maybe those perennial motifs are those in which names captured successfully the quintessences that are the emotional responses...

Of Quintessence

Sometimes things call so much my attention it seeds an idea in my mind. Sometimes they create sparkles of ideas, but sometimes these sparkles grow to be so thick that they seem to have become something like a mass with a gravitational force of its own. As it's an interesthing phenomena, it needs one really cool name for it. I'm calling them Quintessences.

Although it can usually happen through personal experiences (such as mindscapes), and from watching other people, sometimes it can happen when I'm watching a picture or listening to a song or some piece of art (that usually contains the Emet Element), and it  strikes me  in a way that an intimate connection seems to be created. When I have such a connection with a song, for instance, usually the sounds I hear create diverse imagery in my mind, and all sorts of ideas are born from it. It's as if that piece of art radiated the original feeling or idea the artist had on the other side. Sometimes it seem like it's more my reading of it, though sometimes lyrics or the titles indicate the it indeed was the intention of the artist for us to feel that. It satisfies me to think that art is this transference of quintessences.

The quintessences born in my mind could very well be recycled mindtraps. That is, misinterpretations of the world, misinterpretations of other people's essences, things that are wrong but can be used as creative material. As mindscapes can sometimes be intense experiences that leave an imprint in my mind, they usually become undertones. And as they grow in essence to become a Prime Undertone, these can be quintessences as well.


Those quintessences are basically concentrated emotional responses. They're shapeless ideas that concentrate everything into this one instantaneous thing. So my mind is basically one huge, ethereal quintessence I'm always trying  to decipher. The problem, though, is that quintessences don't let themselves be materialized this easily. Writing about them never seems to do them justice. Neither does naming them, which is apparently the reason why they are forgotten and then I keep finding new names for the same quintessences.

Of Emet Element

Some debut albums, or first installment of franchises sometimes seem to feel to me like they have a more solid identity than the following works. It seems they seem to have a spirit of their own, a unique soul in them the artists managed to capture.

Sometimes I think what I need for the notes on the guitar to become music, or what is needed in my strokes for the image to look real, it's what is needed for the thing to feel real, for them to feel alive, to have this soul, and not be just a bland clay statue. I'm calling this the Emet Element (as the Hebrew word that is said to have given life to the legendary Golem of Prague).

This is one of the aims I want to achieve in my arts, as I think it's what is needed to reach to the other side of the uncanny valley. With it Z-Lines are possible, and it's the element that apparently seems to create the Gusto Effect.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Of Vortex Classification

There was a flaw in this vortex and undercurrents thing that has been bothering me for a while. The issue I've found is that while merging vortexes and diving events I mostly forgot the original meaning I had for vortexes, so it all became a huge snowball, for these grounds that I rushed into are unexpectedly boggy. Maybe the best thing to do is to start again.

A vortex is, as I first thought, anything that calls my attention. They give me ideas, and there's always something to be thought about them, because they're concrete manifestation of an undercurrent, so every little thing can be a vortex. The issue arised when the symptomatic quality of the updated vortex didn't fit with the original one which also featured vortexes as things that seeded thoughts and ideas in my head. So here I'll have to separate them in categories. The way I categorized Mindscapes seemed to work fine to me, as each experience could be several of each definition.

The first one is the Symptomatic Vortex, the concrete manifestation of an undercurrent, or the first braudelian level, facts, being hint to the unseen third level, structure. For instance, coins and money bills are vortexes to the capitalism. These outdoors and signs that make me realize I live in one of the southern states of Brazil (which I mention on the post about Unseen Things), are also symptomatic vortexes.

They call our attention because of our desire and curiosity to learn the meaning, force, story or technique behind it. For instance, my dogs always call my attention, and I end up thinking of all that is life because of them (sometimes the adaptativity of life, domestication, offspring variation, but it usually calls my attention their curiosity and how they seem to think - at least in an emotive, intuitive way, like emotional responses).

We all enjoy a pretty view, right?
And although the way Symptomatic Vortexes are pretty simple and straight-forward, so far I could identify some peculiarities about them.

Repetition Vortex: it's when some event or fact repeats itself, it calls our attention as we start creating patterns. If a symptomatic vortex can make us create an opinion and argument, the repeated vortex fortifies the opinion.

Obvious Vortex: when something calls our attention because it's a glaring and undeniably obvious proof, example, fact. It's easy for everybody to see. Can also be called Watermelon-on-your-head Vortex.

Experienced Vortex: It's the case of the vortex that's only noticeable by experienced persona. The example here are diseases that are diagnosed by experienced doctor, or engineering flaws the layman can't notice. It's the opposite of the watermelon vortex.

And then, I start to notice sometimes things call our attention for other reasons, other than analytical curiosity. Sometimes I simply find myself attracted to certain things in an emotional way, and these are the Desire Vortexes (they're still symptomatic, but they're only symptoms of my desires).

Undertone Vortex: Sometimes thing call our attention because they remind me of things that appeal me. It's a symptom of a Prime Undertone. For instance, violets  represent the Fuchsian Flowers, a pine reminds me of Eerie and Rustic (also, they're symptoms of Áine and Trygve).

Also a Prime Undertone: Fogginess (or is it Rainy?)
Spice Vortex: These are the spicy details that enhance the experience. Flowery trees easily stand out in a landscape for me, because they add some flavor to the view with its colors.

Fused Vortex: something that calls our attention because it reminds us of something or someone else. When in love everything that reminds us of our love call our attention.

Obsession Vortex: When nothing but a certain kind of things call our attention. When too much in love, nothing but Fused Vortexes call our attention.

Distracting Vortex: It's when things call our attention when they shouldn't. Sometimes I have to focus on my studies and the sky outside keeps attracting my attention. It overlaps with Obssession Vortexes.

Vortex Overload: It's when everything calls so much your attention you can't focus on anything. It's the matter of being too interested or too inspired. Everything will be a distracting vortex. It always happen to me when reading about a new subject that gives me too many names. Or when I'm in class and every sentence makes me wonder beyond the world about the very subject - and that's the thing, it's distracting even though we're not thinking about something else.

Novelty Vortex: Unlike undertone vortex which things call our attention because they remind us of something we already like, the novelties are things that call our attention because they're new and fresh. When find unexplored material, every part of it will bring about a vortex overload.

Sparkle Vortex: Sometimes something or someone will call so much my attention that it basically creates an idea in my mind. It's the case of the guitar melody that is Ana's leitmotif, or the violins in that Yann Tiersen song that makes me think of flowers.

Mindscape Vortex: Something that wouldn't call our attention if it wasn't for a mindscape. Let's say we're waiting for the bus, and suddenly the solo that has just started matches for some reason with the tree across the street (which never called your attention before this Soundtracked Mindscape). As it calls your attention now, it can spring to be a novelty vortex, and possibly even a sparkle one.

And I think this is pretty much it for now. While I haven't been able to analyze every thing that calls my attention and there's a lot to be explored yet (such as people being vortexs, and the desire and fear of myself being a vortex to other people). This motif is a ground that needs a lot of improvement, but these will do the trick for now. But as a note to myself: improve your vocabulary, it called the attention how much that expression was overused.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Of notes to myself

My past self has always been seen by myself as one too stupid and careless, and also I'm always afraid the future self will betray me. But fortunately I'm starting to realize how arrogant the present self is (I am). And it's because generations have taught me that the past has things to teach me, and if the evil, heartless future will forget something, the present me is already doing it right now. So that's the best thing about generations, the way it seems to have resolved some of my petty realizations towards my other selves.

So while I haven't got my Inner Constitution ready to stablish a common language for the different generations, I'll have to play some paliativities. Hopefully writing down some notes to my present and future selves will help important dormant thoughts to be revived.

Don't let awareness against unconscious movements decrease
("it's pretty much the idea of unruled intuition being a flawed cog ruining the efficiency of the machine. i have to dissect it and reconfigure it, so when it's back in place, it'll wok properly. I just have to be able to see when a cog is being the one responsible for my problems, though it's complicated because there's always a unconscious force pulling the strings of everything")

Pay attention to the undercurrent meanings and forces
("'the unseen movement of water underneath the surface; its tug and motion are only perceptible upon submersion'")

Don't understimate mermaidian words, thoughts and feelings
("They trick you to believe they're accurate. They're not really convincing, but you're not following logic, you could be acting mostly through emotional responses, or being under influence of some unconscious forces")

Practice sensibility towards emotional responses.
("That explains how easy it is for me to make analogies and metaphors and allegories, as I can easily make connections between those ideas I feel." / "Emotions travel around the brain much faster than logic. But also reason can protect me from mindtraps that are bound to be originated in an emotional mind")

Don't sit still, make some adrenaline pump in, summon Zhu Rong to defeat his archenemy, Procrastinator ("Cross the line of hesitation and unleash the confident movement while thinking 'I'm doing it'")

Keep pushing the comfort zone outwards
("As the matter of comfort zones goes, (there's) the process of development by settling for the harder mode, which is to gain experience in a more risky area, which seems to develop the skill faster")

Of trodden, maintained and improved grounds

Sometimes I like watching the grounds I've trodden. Sometimes it seems to have become an obsession, to find new grounds to tread. Sometimes I find some motifs and I explore them a little and then go on to find new ones. And sometimes I forget there's much more to that than simply finding new things.

The problem with this kind of expansion is that a collapse always ensues. When I realized I was losing some motifs to dormancy, I noticed they've been forsaken because I can only find new grounds to tread, but I can't maintain them. It's the whole issue of the Clash Of Generations, things being forgotten, ideas falling off my grip. This leads to the issue between Dormant and Perennial motifs.

It feels like in the end I'm just playing around, not taking it all too seriously. Even if I manage to tread new grounds and maintain them all together under this single empire without many rebellions, still there's the issue of improving them. And here I have the Jack Of All Trades mindtrap, the mindtrap that makes me want to have it all, but failing to do it all properly (it's one of the enemies of Vesta). Some ideas I have are really, really underdeveloped, she keeps reporting.

Of toying with ideas

The change of mood in my mind also make the mental matters to feel even more hard to be held in place. It changes from mythological to historical and psychological to gamified. They seem to be shape-shifters. So even if emotional responses make ideas more real, these changes make them feel different as generations change. After all, the Fire Ensemble sometimes seem to be a reincarnation of the Three Departments, but maybe Vesta can make these both stay.

Maybe Vesta is the patron of the Development Department, while Hephaestus is the patron of the Resources Department, and Trygve is the patron of the Law Department. Zhu Rong oversees Law and Development, while Áine oversees the Resources and Development.

But these are more creative exercises, and I don't really mind if these creative endeavours change too much throughout generations. But then again, although most things in here end up being really good to practice creativity, sometimes it seems I'm only toying with ideas, and not dedicating myself to resolve them fully.

Of frequency, abstraction and aptness

Apparently there are several reasons to explain why some ideas are forgotten and why some are not. I don't know how relevant each reason is, or which one is more important to define a perennial or a dormant motif, or even if there are much more reasons other than the ones I've identified, but anyway, it helps me clear my mind if I start with the first steps.

One of them seems to be strength of a motif that will help it survive in the stormed surface of the conscious mind. So it's a matter of frequency. Perennial motifs happen to be everywhere. Ideas that I use all the time and which are undercurrents for everything around me are less likely to wither into dormant state.

The second is abstraction. Although Nuclearity is frequent, sometimes I forget about it because of the Overloaded Blindfold. It's a semi-perennial motif, it seems. It's influential, but it still requires some kind of awareness the blindfold denies me. But it seems that mental concepts are the most prone to go dormant, as they're in this annoying ethereal state. The emotional responses are useful because they make ideas less ethereal, but there's this whole mess involving names and emotional responses that confuses my mind.

Third one is aptness. Ideas that are against my natural talent are harder to be tamed. For instance, Vesta and Zhu Rong are the most absent because temperance and courage aren't my strength (though I feel them in some outbursts). It's something about those slaves skills (now, becoming more frequent, the motif seemed to be easily revived), things that require much more effort to be tamed.

Finally, it seems I'm having things more clear now. I'll need to charge and season my thoughts some more, but I'm surprised at how fast I'm getting to a possible solution or diagnostic. Maybe I'm doing it, my mind is getting developed a little more. Or maybe I'm just overworking a simple issue.

Of losing focus

Sometimes when I'm concentrated in my room and I have one huge and important realization, I noticed I unvoluntarily will rush out as to breath some fresh air, as if that would help me swallow the idea. And although sometimes it's a key element that wraps things together, it opens a new world to tread, a new world to fit with the already existing one.

It becomes then like a matter of being too inspired, having too many of thoughts at once. It's when I have no focus that I start walking around the place pointlessly, until I have the courage to come back to the writing station. And by writing here my mind calms down, like a little toy for the hyperactive to distracts himself.

This is all about Generations being a braudelian concept, and the surface generations, those thousands of little waves of individual thoughts (nudging around those even more instantaneous emotional responses leaving me even more unfocused), are the worst ones. Sometimes a good idea appears in the ocean of thoughts trying to decpher the codes, but it is overwhelmed, runned over by the mass of agitated thoughts trying to get attention. And there the poor guy disappears, becomes one more unfinished business weighing in my mind.

But maybe I should be glad the spin happened, and then it would be a matter of the spin happening again, and then charging it until it would be strong enough to bear a name, and then becoming a motif, so a little harder to be erased from my mind again.

Hm, maybe that could mean something. Maybe the strength of the motif in the crazy stormed mind is what indicates the potential for it to become Perennial...

Of Revival

The dormancy is also equivalent to a skill that rusts. After all, I know that every skill requires some kind of sensibility to feel connected to them, and with time, without practice, this connection withers, so I have to warm it up for it to feel prime again.

Also, the taming of a motif requires sensibility, and the one I had towards certain motifs when in the golden, enthusiastic age of their discovery seems to weaken if I'm not practicing them. After all, for reasons still unknown, not all motifs are born perennial, so they will lie dormant, lost in time, and I have to drag them back to my consciousness by reviving my sensibility towards them.

One of the reasons why motifs I find on this blog that are dormant and don't do their job that is to stir my emotional response is because I forget names are supposed to be only some form of a vessel for the motif. That is, they help me be aware of the motif's existance, though the motif is not supposed to be the name itself. It's hard to explain, but it feels like opening a bottle and letting the shapeless fragrance fill the room.

It seems that if I concentrate myself enough, dedicate myself enough on feeling the nameless emotional response that is the motif, and then reattaining my sensibility towards it, it can be revived again. So while I can't find the answer for making dormant motifs become perennial, this will be a paliative trick to help me for my current needs.

Of Perennial and Dormant Motifs

Although I keep recordind my ideas on this blog, some of them didn't really stay in my mind as generations change. It always requires some effort to bring them back, like the awareness against the dangers of the unconscious forces and mermaid words and other mindtraps caused by them. On the other hand, other ideas do stay without much or any effort, like the desire to learn logistics, for instance. I wish I knew why some stay and why some are forgotten.

These ideas that travel through generations are what I'm calling Perennial Motifs. Some principles of mine, like Solidity also are perennial because I don't really need to worry about them, it's as unconscious and influential as it can get, no chance of being dethroned by some other unconscious force. The important thing here is that I don't need to worry about perennial motifs being forgotten - they're firmly installed in my mind.

Those other ideas that I have to keep recalling are the Dormant motifs. And it requires some effort from me to keep them active, they're like what I once called slave skills (I had forgotten about that). The idea of dormancy also can be applied to forces within me, as the members of the Fire Ensemble aren't always here (Vesta and Zhu Rong are the most absent ones). Fortunately, the forces they fight, such as fears and other negative impulses (which I'll call the Dark Army) also lay dormant sometimes.

The problem with dormant motifs is that they're the reason why in every other generation their apparent absence make me be once again aware of them, spend some effort giving them another name, and as the new employed motif goes to his room, he finds it already occupied by a lazy motif who sleeps all day and doesn't do his bloody duty. It's kinda awkward, because Vesta can't let them both stay. She gets really mad at Hephaestus, because he's the one who loves creating those little names, and she has too deal with the consequences of hits hypercreativity (is that even a thing?).

Anyway, in one of those twisted metaexamples, as Perennial and Dormant Motifs are motifs on their own, I wonder if I'll remember them. That is, this idea that I'm having right now, will I remember it afterwards, will it sink into the influential part of unconscious and become perennial, or will they go to maze-like part of the unconscious in which things are apparently powerless?

But as unresolved as it still is, at least with those two kind of motifs identified, i'll be able to handle the issue with a little more efficiency. So now I am able to rise the question: is there any way Dormant Motifs can become Perennial? Is there a way to make the forces of the Fire Ensemble ever awake, protecting me from the negative forces?

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Of new exigencies

For one I know I develop myself only under pressure. So i'll start the month by settling down for some more exigencies I feel guilty for not having followed so far. Thanks to Vesta's Fire, I self-persuaded myself enough to try obeying them in order to make the texts be improved a little more.

One of them exigencies will be practiced with the Framing Rule. It basically feels like Edging in drawing and playing music. It'll involve reviving the HK-47 Protocol, and working with Undercurrents and to stablish a better sequentiality of words.

The second one is the Revisionist Rule. Because I'm tired of seeing so many stupid mistakes in my texts (unfinished sentences and unnecessary grammar mistakes such as "builded"). I rarely have the the guts to read what I've written, so this will help me with the Framing Rule too. To revise my texts I'll need some determination and courage, so I'll need Zhu Rong's Fire to reinstall Seasoning, so I can unload the Overloaded Blindfold.

Third one is Planning Rule, which will make me develop my chaining abilities. After all, I'm feeling it's the skill I'm feeling most pleasure to develop, connecting leitmotifs. It sure will help me develop my sequential writing abilities, both for future stories and, if I still have time left for that, songs.

These exigencies are to be practiced from this post onward. If it all goes as planned, it'll demand more time from me, but the sincere dedication will increase quality immensely. And I'll feel less guilty about the work i've been doing here. That is, until I meet Aftergoal Disillusion and chase more exigencies.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Checkpoint #7

October was an interesting month. It was the most unbelievably prolific period I had so far, so many important ideas I've tamed here. But the best thing of it all is that some loose ideas finally seemed to be less messed up and now I know how to deal with them. Apparently I'm starting to get the grip of how motif mining works, though Vesta's Fire is telling me there is a whole damn lot left to be discovered and, mostly, corrected (such as one big issue I've noticed with the updated vortexes).

However, the main thing that called my attention was the sudden turn of events when I had the strong will to focus my mind entirely on drawing skills. It was an interesting phenomena I want to replicate, because in only one or two weeks I've made such a huge jump in my skill. I'll surely try that again some other time, mainly with writing. I could use some improvement with this skill. That feeling from Edging is being missed in my texts.

As with improvement, new issues also arise, it's how aftergoal rolls on. Along with the ever present feeling of unfulfillment from all I've built here, the Blackouts started this month, and it's a huge concern of mine. But I'm working with how it can be controlled. If I find a way to keep this enthusiasm rolling on, or, more precisely, find a way to make it always be fired up when I need it, then I'll have one less worry.

Now, each month is bringing at least one shiny treasure, and it's spoiling me, so i'm expecting to see what November will bring. That is, besides those dozens of ideas already pushed off October's range. God, I haven't realized until now how much productive I've been.