Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Of Trygve’s Fire

This Eerie Green Flame represents the hardening, resistance, the respect for pain and suffering as a mean for engrandment of the soul. It’s the desire to not let even pain to be untasted, and to be able to not give up at the sight of pain ahead. The music that represents Trygve are the ones that sound bitter to my heart. They are heavy and disturbing, and mostly in metal form, and yet, there they light up my spirit. Bring ‘Em Alive by Audioslave, Thorn Clown by Pain of Salvation, Orgasmatron by Motörhead are some of my hymns to Trygve.

As a character, this is a man with wild, scarred eyes. The sorrow that fuels his pain isn’t to be used lightly and it’s dangerous to go around desiring it, but he’s able not to fear it, so to transform it into a motivational force that twists the suicidal despair.

It’s the beatings of the world that forced me to summon this energy, as to show my face and dare it to hit me harder. It’s the sense of realism I can’t ignore, all the suffering and pain, all the broken and rotting things. It’s the crest of pain that makes me realize we’re just flesh that can be opened and torn apart and accept it, as Áine is there working against him to prevent me from being a cynical and hopeless human being.

He shares Zhu Rong’s courage and determination, and seems to be under influence of Vesta, as an agent of balance for Áine and Hephaestus, though he also had influence from them and he protects them in his own way. He shares Hephaestus’ pride and sense of ambition and  accomplishment towards strange answers and solutions for problems, and helps him to stay focused. He also helps Áine to develop her sense of empathy.

Of Primal Fears

When it comes to Crests, I’ve really overexplored the positive ones, the good memories and good feelings I have. However, I’ve always mentioned always too little all these harmful experiences that accumulate inside of me as life passes by, and that seem to be the in the cellar of my mind leaking corrosion.

It’s really amazing to make introspective inspection in my mind and to see how experiences still reverberate around my mind. There I can unearth great memories, but also traumas and things that I guilt myself for.

It’s a violent part of my mind, the way these things are bashing and smashing everything. These cobwebbed crests suddenly make me feel terrible, as emotionally potent as they are. There I could find myself guilty of all sorts of things… it’s amazing to think I’ve been letting those fears living there for so long, sometimes these self-accusations had been past their validation date. And yet there they are, and opening the door to this cellar they haunt me even harder, accusations of being such a terrible human being, so selfish, arrogant, ungrateful bastard.

Of fear and desire

One of the most important things I’ve been realizing lately is how the simple desire doesn’t move people. Things have to be menaced somehow, they have to feel the fear to lose something in order to act. Maybe it’s pain that moves the world, instead of love, and that’s the reason we don’t make so much effort to spread love. Maybe it’s Trygve who motivates Hephaestus and Zhu Rong, not Áine.

Of Sacrificial Fire

When my philantropical desires are getting just too strong, I’ve noticed I’ve grown to have a burning feeling inside me to make sacrifices. It’s not simply giving others benefits before me, but rather the very sacrifice of my life for others.

It’s a weird thought to have. I live my little life here and hardly I see lives being menaced around me, and I think that I would hardly have the courage to make such a step right there at the heat of the moment, or maybe I could, I don’t know.

In the end it seems to me that this intense, almost ridiculous desire to do good could simply be a way for me to unguilt myself. Maybe these are proportional forces, the more guilt I feel, the stronger is my desire to step up for redemption.

Of philanthropy

This world has got so many ways to pull us down, but there’s something that I can do to feel better about myself, mainly when feeling too guilty, is to know I can do some big gesture of generosity, and to know I’m helping people in some way, instead of draggin to world back to all the suffering already existing.

Sometimes I have such a passionate desire to help the others I feel it’s just fair to donate things I have for others. It’s not like I’m this amazing person who holds no interest for material things, I enjoy a simple lifestyle but I do like me some fringe benefits. However, it feels to me my main reason to desire richness is simply to I could donate just an obscene amount of money and change thousands of lives.

Of things that make me cry

It’s weird, but hardly I cry out of sorrow. It’s something I’d desire to do more frequently as to light my chest sometimes, but in the end it seems I cry more because of hate, or for tears of joy, and the latter had been getting strangely common.

It seems to be a matter of attained nuclearity, the way I’ve met a spot inside me and changed things and suddenly certain events become emotionally potent for me. It was totally unexpected for me to find myself being touched by all the gestures of generosity.

It’s become something suddenly so strong I have to control it sometimes, the way I’m on the bus and see a father talking kindly to his son, or people suddenly making sudden acts of nobility, and I feel my eyes suddenly get moisten.

It doesn’t happen all this time with this potency, of course, but whenever I see some act of politeness I feel myself so much better about the world. It’s a little relieving to know that in this world we haven’t got this many despicable people as some like us to believe, but that there’s people out there who don’t have the ambition to harm others, but simply live their lives by good manners. Most people want a quiet life, out of trouble. How many times I’ve stumbled on a stranger and we both apologized to each other?

Of Áine’s Fire

This Violet Flame represents the passion, generosity, sensibility, hope and love. It’s the the desire to do good, to help and to leave this world in a better situation than before. The music that represents Áine leave me in a good mood and smell of flowers, as they easily help me create soundtracked mindscapes when surrounded by nature. They’re in general traditional songs or music that feature pianos, violins and female vocalists. Shrinking Violet, by Mostly Autumn and Lelita Saftita by Anton Pann are two of my hymns to Áine.

As a character, this is a beautiful and delicate woman who dresses the colors of nature. She is patient and peaceful, though all others obey her, as she can have respectful power.

The beautifulness of the delicate and the attractiveness of the diversity is one of the ways that this energy is born from, seeing all the colors and shades and tones, all the shapes and forms, though it’s certain attitudes from other people that make this flame truly burns.

This is clearly my unrepressed feminine side, maybe even my developed anima. When unleashing her power, I’ve noticed I had a taste for colorful flowers like I never thought I’d ever have. It’s interesting how this isn’t at all disconnected to my love for the female form, but pretty much on the contrary.

She shares Hephaestus’ wide interest towards the world and she prevents Trygve’s fury from being damageful. In fact, both Trygve and Zhu Rong are opposites to her. Trygve is the dark to her light, and Zhu Rong is the masculinity to her feminity. With Vesta, Áine borrows temperance to her forgiveness.

Of the pain that we spread

Looking back at our history, one of the main themes we can see is how much people suffered. It’s simply everywhere people dying and starving, all because of poverty and war. But not only that, we’re cruel beings that know people can suffer and make the best of us to make them feel pain.

It’s really amazing to study around torture devices and see how creative we are when it comes to thinking of ways to make them feel the worst pain conceivable. It’s almot unbelievable the amount of effort one can dedicate to the single purpose of making others suffer the worst of things, with the care of trying not to let them escape to death in the process.

What could possibly trigger this? How is that love isn’t more valuable than hate? Why do we despise gay love? What harm are they doing to us? Shouldn’t we actually despise those who make wars instead of badging them with honors?

And here is where I beg myself and everybody to please, stop spreading it. Mankind does terrible things, but being cynical about it all the time isn’t helping things out. It’s what I’ve once meant a long time ago with a post about acceptance. The world is full of shit, but if we don’t surrender to it, to all this generalized hate and despise, I think it’s one of the best things we can do in our lives.

Of unoriginal and unique

One of the most amazing things about the huge amount of things happening right now in this world is that we’re still not conceiving the idea that the same person thinks and does millions of things in their lives, and all the things we’ve all (throughout the millenniums) thought…

It’s impossible to think someone has ever had any thought that was never thought of before. But, at the same time, no one has ever been in the context we are in. So even though two friends might be having a conversation that’s been talked exactly the same somewhere in the past, it had never happened the way it has happened now, the date, the surrounding events and background of those two having the conversation.

Of equality

Sometimes I’m air-riffing some song, and sometimes I pay attention to the soundlessness of my strummings and wonder what someone unaware of the music I’m listening to would guess the kind of music it is. I think that is quite hard… it seems in the end it’s all just music.

Of trees

As I’ve been using my planner’s eye and the layered method on trees to try practicing drawing them whilst not being able to actually draw them, I’ve been starting to nurture a certain passion for these little pieces of life. It’s really amazing for me all the different ways plants have evolved and developed.

I love all those trees that are really majestic, and also those, in contrast, that look shy-looking, just trying not to call attention. Some grow tall, so tall, others so short, they want to keep it close to the ground. Some are so young, and others so bitter in their leaflessness. Some grow thorns to prevent you from touching them, while others have this smooth, almost slippery bark. Some are so ominous looking while their eerie silhouette hides the moon, while others are found of growing vivid green leaves. Some like it dark, some compete about their floweriness…

Of inspiring nature

When people say that their biggest inspiration is nature, I always had it in my mind like they are inspired by the green of trees and some birds singing and whatever my limited mind could conceive the concept of nature.

However, now I can grasp better this idea of what it truly means to be inspired by nature, all the shapes and colors and forces… All the different kinds of gemstones, all different kinds of minerals, all the different kinds of landscapes. All the different ways things can be arranged in a way there are just too many novelties for us to witness…

Of refreshment

There’s this one sylvan quintessence I’ve been trying to tame lately, and it’s being quite difficult for me to find one name to cage the quintessence in, but in essence it’s a very simple idea, the way my mind strives for novelties.

I truly, sincerely enjoy seeing how life can adapt itself and evolve in so many different ways, in how many ways nature can deliver and develop something, like it’s trying all the different paths and changing every little detail, every vortice that can be changed only so to see what could happen…

Of stories we can’t witness

For reasons we can’t be blamed of, we’re really self-centered beings. It’s just illogical to pretend some alternative, and yet, it’s always an awkward realization when we think of how much is going on around the world, how many things are happening, how many things are happening and we couldn’t even suspect of them.

It’s weird to think that there are things forever lost for us, all things we desire and yet we’re too far to witness. It seems our mind has some kind of blocking mechanism to prevent us from realizing ultimately how tiny we are, and how many things we’re losing.

Of people and their paths

There’s a point where the amount of hugeness don’t even matter as we’re already behind in our ability to conceive the perspective of things. For instance, what’s seven billions when we can’t even imagine what’s to have one thousand people together, one thousand minds, one thousand lives and histories.

Sometimes I keep watching the people here around my city and… I hardly need to go that far, let’s take only just some my immediate surroundings, and I keep thinking of how weird it is that there’s so many people to know in a lifetime without even needing to move out of my city.

And I keep watching those people passing by, and I keep thinking of their minds, histories, their experiences and memories, their crests… and goddamit, there’s just so much new things yet to know about this world.

Of places I suddenly find myself in

One of things that I usually do involuntarily is to stop whatever I’m doing and have a sudden attack of awareness of the place where I am. How did I come to end up here?

Right now I’m walking mindlessly around a harbor-like area with rusting containers and huge cranes and bridge pillars. It’s a cloudy night and I somehow think of soviet docks…

Right now it’s raining and I’m looking through the window to these marshlands near the shopping mall, and I see these little birds walking around that river… and there wild life is, no place where could possibly be dry, no animal has shelter like we are so spoiled to have, I find myself thinking while I’m in this comfortable place.

Right now I’m on the rooftops after I’ve seen the sky was unbelievably starry. The song in my ears is some kind of ethereal ambient and it helps me connect with the diamond dust above me. (Right now my grandfather has forbidden me to climb on to the rooftops again, I find it amazing it has happened only last month).

Right now it’s a Sunday afternoon and all family is eating together. There’s a circus in town, and I agree to go. Right now I’m outside and the sunny Sunday streets are empty and I’m having a mindscape as somehow I feel I’m in the 50’s (and I recall crests from some books I used to read as a child).

Right now I’m going to work and I see a bus passing by. Somehow the angle of sunlight on the tires gives me a mindscape, and it makes me recall a crest and… right now it’s one of those early Saturday mornings as a child, while my mother washes clothes. I can feel the smell of washing soap, the smell of wet grass. My cousin in the neighboring house is probably still sleeping, though my aunt is drinking coffee in her window. There’s some cartoons on tv but I’ve decided to ride my bike around the old forsaken sawmill. Will I have the courage to enter that little hidden trail they say leads to an old witch’s house? Nine o’clock, another day at the job had just begun.

Of seven billion people

One of my main hobbies is to suddenly stop whatever I’m doing during the day and think… what might be happening throughout the world right now? How many people are dying? How many people are hitting the bottom of their lives? How many couples are just engaging in their first magic kiss?

There’s just so, so many people in the world that my mind can’t even conceive the idea that all sorts of things are happening right now. Right now: hundreds, thousand, maybe a million people are falling from a ladder. Right now: maybe thousand ones just had their lifetime realization. Right now: around the world, two people are meeting again, in tears, after years departed. Right now: millions were almost scared to death. Right now: someone from around the world is reading this lonely blog on the corners of the internet.

Of real possibilities

Knowing that reality can show us things that even in fiction we’d find far-fetched is a thought that really inspires me. Indeed, studying history is to me an activity that triggers my imagination much more than all the wildest pieces of fantasy
For instance, it’s weird to think that in this world that we live in someone can steal your room and lose it somewhere like it’s a wallet. Isn’t that how the Russian Amber Room goes more or less like? Or maybe to know you can make use of the religiosity of your enemy who deitify cats, so you can draw them on your shields and release some of the animals along your soldiers, so the enemy won’t dare to attack you

And to think that wars have been fought in so many ways even unimaginable… For instance, how can two nations come to fight because of a tree? How can one dead man win over a whole army of living men? It’s amazing those things could happen in the real world given to the curious context that can lead to these weird-ass happenings.

It even amuses me to think that whatever I can think it has actually happened before, that’s a challenge to my imagination.

Of disposable journeys

Weird how sometimes reality can be so much more appealing to me than fiction. It’s not the matter of being down-to-earth, but the idea of studying History and knowing all those things actually happened has much more impact on me.

Sometimes when studying through some timelines I have the strange feeling of giving those things new life. I mean, reading about how Hitler took power, and how all the holocaust was going to happen, and to know I was going to read about all the suffering again, I don’t know, it sometimes feel a little disturbing to me.

The weird thing is that it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve already studied that piece of history, it seems I can reexperience it again and again. It even seems that the more I’ve experienced that journey, the better tasted it is going to be the next time.

It makes me think that maybe journeys aren’t necessarily disposable after the first experience, but with the right modeling the re-experimentation can even increase…

Monday, January 30, 2012

Of Layered Method

The good thing about practicing the Planner's Eye is that I don't need papers and pencils with me. All I need is to watch things everywhere and try to feel the Prime Vertices for my Triangulation. So sometimes I find something that looks really hard to find any vertices, like clouds in the sky, or a chain of mountains, or a forest. They're too asymmetrical and broken and there's to much little details to be captured.

The best approach I got to it was to understand the most basic shapes, the most protuberant ones, and slowly filling in minor details. For instance, when I'm analyzing a chain of mountains, I always try defining an outline, and then adding the most relevant changes in said outline. As a braudelian concept, the Layered Method means going from the the third, structural level towards the first, more factual level.

This is something that I've been finding to work really well for learning. I've been noticing it since I started studying History a little more seriously. Any empire I'm interested in, I like studying it starting from the a really vague overview (such as it's timespan), and then filling the gaps in the timeline. 

Usually some major periods are some building blocks inside the timeline, then followed by dynasties and emperors and as minor details as are desired. Experts are, of course, those who know minor details about the civilization. It works for every timeline, indeed. A war usually has a timeline with periods within, decisive battles and things like that. And each battle also has minor descriptions, if available.

The reason I like this method isn't only because I can measure the level of knowledge I have and need to have towards something, but also it makes the learning process much easier for me. It happens so because I know where every detail goes, where it belongs to. It makes my knowledge solid, unlike when I start devouring all this minor information at once, and then it feels really loose, worringly prone to be forgotten.

Of Planner’s Skills


It once puzzled me how all the effort I was putting in my drawing skills wasn't bringing me near as much result as one single session with my guitar. It seemed there was, after all, a nuclear technique I was doing that made me easily connected with music.

It's air riffing. But in here it can be known as Planner's Ear, as I am paying attention to the sounds I hear and so I can understand the gross proportion of the melody. Now I have the Planner's Eye being developed, I know I am much more easily connected with my drawings, as I can practice it everywhere. In fact, when I get home my mind is aching to try scratching the surface of the paper with all the lines I've been seeing in trees, cars, buildings and what-not.

These techniques seem to develop my Triangulation skills as it trains my sensibility towards the proportion and the overall identity of the things I see and hear. The more developed they are, the more experienced I'll be, and I'll be able to understand vortexes with more ease than those I couldn't even perceive before.
All in all, this set of skills requires a certain ammount of awareness, which can always be increased by refreshing the world by trying something different before-hand.

Of Triangulation

Number-guessing games are really entertaining for me. I really like the challenge that is to try to find the number with the fewest guesses. And the best technique I came up with is to constrict the area by diving it always by the middle. For instance, if I have to guess a number from 1 to 1000, I will go with 500. If it’s above it, I’ll go with 750. If below, 625 and so on.  

This is nothing but simply the most logical approach to the problem, but such mathematical technique seems to have become incredibly useful for me when pinpointing musical notes or lines and angles. I’m making the best of it for my drawings as it’s priority, but it’s also really more complicated for music as I don’t have the ear really developed for that yet (though once I’ve noticed the first note of Godfather’s theme when car’s alarm went on, I just don’t remember what goddamned note that one was). 

When using triangulation for my drawings, I always try the basics of the technique adapted for the drawing, that is, to use the vaguest shape for the main proportions and slowly filling in the minor details.

Of undercurrents and photographical vortexes


Out of all motifs that aren’t necessarily artistic, I’ve been most surprised that the dual concept of undercurrents and vortexes would make themselves so useful for my artistical wonderings, since I’ve only crafted them for my observations of life.

The idea of undercurrent fits my artistical purposes as it serves as the vessel for the quintessence, and the vortexes are the concret manifestation that would help me translate the quintessence.For instance, a line on the paper would have to be displayed in a way that it matches the desired quintessence, the same way the combination of musical notes would also have to. Each element added to the piece would have to be studied as to be placed in a way it materializes the quintessence properly.

But it’s in the taking of photographs that I realized them materialized undercurrents end up being more independent from quintessences, as we pictures are always more meaningful the better they are at symbolizing something. For instance, a great picture would be in a Christmas night (or morning), where we could find the father more entertained with the toy than his own kid. Such undercurrent would be shown in the picture if we could get the kid looking elsewhere while the grown-up is on his knees, enthusiastically looking for the missing arm piece to make the robot complete.

Of art and life


Whenever there’s that old question whether art imitates life or the opposite, it always was quite clear to me that art is a natural consequence of our lives. Art would be nothing without life, without our joys and our griefs, of kisses and departures.

But then again, it goes more complex than that, as it seems to me each complements the other one. It’s almost as if it was something unstratified, as if they were one thing only…

Of Slingshotting

When opposite sides of the whole are shown, I think  that their use can be used to build up a catharsis. Exploring the guilt and redemption can bring a cathartical release if the the guilt is attached to the character throughout the whole journey. I’ve been calling such literary technique Slingshotting (a palliative name as I haven’t yet found it’s official name).

It’s interesting how the best example of Slingshotting I can remember is from playing Ocarina of Time. After you’ve played through the first three dungeons as a child (and they’re quite harmless, though I admit the Redeads pissand they’re in their own rights, quite harmless and easy-solving), you grow up and things start to get real awry, starting with going straight to the graveyard and then to that marvelously eerie forest temple. A while after we have to go back to being a child where the world wasn’t still corrupted (though only the destroyed market place and some slight changes on the rest of the world  vortexed to that), and we have to go to that well and, god I loved that wooden shield. 

Though not being really disturbed by that dungeon, as Silent Hill games trained me well, after exploring through these skull-filled sewers and redeads floating out of coffins and having those decaying arms flailing around attempting to hold Link by his head, it was incredibly relieving to climb my way back to the village and see that pretty blue sky up there, the cackling of the chicken and the relaxing Kakariko Village theme soaring again.

Of main themes

It seems to me a wise choice to use those super major crests to create the formulated template that will give me a solid structure that will also be attractive to others, who will identify themselves with such major crests because all humans know these crests. 

These main crests are, after all, the main themes we yearn for. It’s the reason why Love and Loss can be so widely appealing, they reach to all of us.  Tthey’re what actually holds us there paralyzed when enjoying a piece of work, though these major crests must be worked carefully to still be perceived as slightly as possible to create the Gusto Effect.

My tactic would be to develop layers over the base line with my personal elements as a spice, to give audiences new quintessences to taste. And these vertical layers would also be able to add new qualities to the work, making it become the original unstratified piece.

Of stratification of activities

There’s this quintessence I feel when doing my doings that I’m yet to tame under a name, but I think that, although almost overwhelmingly pretentious, they feature, roughly in essence, at least the basic desire to attain philosophical and artistical and maybe even scientific qualities (though hardly the rigorous academic one). 

And as it also entertains me and even gives me some spiritual relief, maybe it can even serve me as my religion (I’ve even got my fiery deities to pray for!). The maintenance of this development blog and mental strategy ends up being quite a fulfilling activity now I've got past most dreary insecurities.


In the end, it makes me think how and why we ended up separating all those human activities in separate categories (in a way it sounds ambitious to just gather them all together again). That’d be an interesting research to do, since my Fire Ensemble is basically a vortex to that undercurrent: a quintessence separated in whole different archetypes.

Of equalized duality

It appeals to me when changes of pace suddenly occur when suddenly I enter in a highspeed avenue, or when a symmetric rhythm of the song is summoned up in a previously unstructured rhythm. 

This journey through opposite sides can render interesting effects. For instance, one can blend them into one. One can taste the bittersweetness that is to meet the brightness of Áine’s skies and the deepest realms of Trygve’s hidings just at once.

It also sounds pertinent to me to use Shakesperean Verticality in this equalization, as I could use Major Crests for the Base Line (such as Love and Death) and minor ones for spices (like the Swamp Night, Train Sounds and Manure).

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Checkpoint #9

December is over and so is 2011. What a breathtaking year that one was.

As the final month, I've achieved so much in my personal life. I'm overtly content with the overall direction of my life - those previous tormenting months were worth it, I've got myself some dreams I've been aiming for, plus I'm better at finding my inspirations and avoiding bad thoughts (though in a way sometimes I miss some bitterness). What I'm saying is that, although feeling undeveloped, at least now I'm having an easier time maintaining inpiration and hope.

As a year it's been when I've started working hard on my dreams, and I think I've made up for having started so late. I just have to work my mind to keep working this hard. If that can be held safe, I'm happy to say things in this blog are going to keep prospering. I'd think december would be a bland month, but I'm so glad to find the idea of Spells, which is definitely one of the great discoveries I've had in the year, I can't wait to try improving it until it actually proves its wondrous potential. But I can try the Spell of Guilt already as I procrastinated all the way until the last moments of the year with my promise to try cleaning my head off of some of these ideas lingering in mind since, I don't know, July or even before (hell there are some five-year old little cobweb'd ideas that I should get back to).

Although I'm still missing pretty much four remaining flames in this chained madness, and that I'm not even over with Hephaestus yet, I'm quite satisfied I've managed to write and get rid of some over 20 posts in one day. There'll be time to get to Vesta until the end of the month and probably there'll be more new motifs of the month (hopefully with a cleaned mind I can develop more these trodden ideas), and even time to charge some of the december's quintessences of motifs I am still trying to comprehend (though I've been trying for the whole month I'm counting on writing them down for them to feel more solid). Also there was the promise of a new kind of posts, so hopefully I can feel comfortable to try these new Excerpts.

But I don't want to push myself too much, at least not right now. After all I have to get back at drawing and it's been a whole month I don't get the feeling of the pencil scratching the paper, but hopefully my use of the Planner Skills are helping me to decrease the rusting speed of these skills. I don't want to push myself too much as I want to take a little break now in January now I'm safe in shore to improve my reading speed (it's the nuclear strategy as it will increase the ammount of gained knowledge in relation with time). I've been reading just too little this past year, and I know that the sole activity of reading will increase my writing skills, vocabulary and all.

Anyway, welcome 2012, let's see how ready I am to deal with you.