Monthly Archives: February 2024

Long Walks, Late Night

I find long walks in the dark of the night to be just the thing to sort out the events of the day. To think about, reflect on and situate this or that thing. There’s something about the still dark that creates the perfect environment for meditation on the day’s occurrences. Maybe I’m working out some idea or problem, considering the various ways it could happen or I should act. Or maybe even walking with a friend. But I can think of few better things to end the day with but myself and the quiet stillness of the late hours.

Nerdy Nerd Nerd

I am firmly in nerd territory, but one of the nerdier things about me is that I enjoy financial/markets news. It often says a lot about what’s going on in the world and who has influence and power. Right now, many of the conversations have been focused on tech giant Nvidia who’s been making sizable profits related to their AI chips, which relate a lot to where the economy and our world in general is going.

Moreover, what’s additionally interesting about this is that the chips are predominantly made in China, which adds a geopolitical wrinkle to the situation given the US’s fraught relationship with China’s CCP. My preferred news outlet is the Wall Street Journal, which has some great tech/financial news, and they have some great daily podcasts as well.

On Inspiration

Some say inspiration springs from random illuminating bursts, unpredictable and uncontrollable. I am not this kind of person. I like my lists, my plans and my budgets. And I think inspiration comes as much from regular trying, putting regular effort into a task. And these illuminating bursts come from the regular work finally giving way to progress. Even if I can’t think of an idea, I may still try to write. Even if, at the end of the day, I feel sapped of all of my energy, with the overtime I have been doing. Or my thoughts wander to school. If I have some energy, I read and, if I have more energy, I write a little. I am no novelist, but I like reflecting on the thoughts that occur to me, putting them into some concrete form. The chaos of inspiration must meet the order of work and expression to take real form in the world.

Mondrian, “Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Gray and Blue” 1921

Danse Manatee, Some Thoughts

I’ve been listening to some of the earlier Animal Collective albums, as I’ve never explored them more fully. I’m enjoying this one, Danse Manatee, although it borders more on melodic sound or noise rather than song or music. Some of the tracks involve different noises that sometimes collide, other times interact and synchronize. I can’t say it’s always pleasant to listen to though, if thats what you’re in the mood for. “The Living Toys” involves barely audible vocals that seem mostly disconnected with the instrumentals but somehow still seem to guide the song along. “Bad Crumb” involves a kind of warbled vocalization which is cool, along with an off beat dissonance. There is a kind of sparseness to this album in general: even with the more song-like songs, there’s a minimalist interest in individual sounds as they interact with or distract from one another, often with only the most basic semblance of a beat or melody.

Hanna, Being Funny

My cat has some pretty strangeways

Mad at me because I was gone all day

Thoroughly enjoying her long weekend

And finding the perfect perch that is level with my arms so as to maximize the likelihood that I pet her as I walk by

Unlocking the Captive

I was having a conversation with a co-worker about reading and the feeling of being captivated by something being read, as this person talked about being engrossed in a book.

It is funny, this notion of being captivated, which is weirdly connected to the notion of being held-captive, as if our attention is somehow a willing prisoner to the media being consumed (music, film, reading, etc). But this relation itself interests me: why are we captivated? What about a song or book does the captivating? And why, so much of the time, are we not captivated at all?

I think part of this relation has something to do with us as beings-in-the-world. We exist in a world and in and through our actions; on Heidegger’s view, we take a stand on our being: put another way, we act and live each day with some implicit in-order-to, like a sense of who we are in the world as it relates to our purpose. And our actions somehow get us closer to or further from that purpose (teacher, paraprofessional, scientist, social worker, mother, brother). Although we don’t everyday think about it like this: most days we are just living, or being.

Perhaps when we are captivated, we are engaging with a film or a book that speaks to our sense of being, our sense of who we are at a given moment: our perception of our identity. Maybe we are captivated because an object (a book, a film, etc) speaks to something we are experiencing or have experienced or are curious about. It is like a sharing, someone else sharing their experience with us through the medium of a song or a book, and our level of captivity is somehow connected with its level of relevance to us as beings or some personal struggle we are working through or some issue or problem we are focused on that a book or song speaks to or illuminates.

Or, to use a different metaphor, perhaps the text we are talking about (the book, the song, the work of art or film) unlocks something in us that was forgotten and compels us to think on it again. Maybe, in this, sense, we aren’t held captive at all but freed to understand ourselves more deeply or in a different way. And the unlocking that frees us is so compelling that we can’t help but be fascinated by it.

I can definitely think of encountering a quote or a song or a book that, even unexpectedly, drew and held captive my attention, and I wanted to engage again and again with that thing until I extracted from it whatever meaning I sought. It unlocked something in me that I was seeking but had not yet found.

The funny thing about the feeling is that it doesn’t always last: something will grab or hold our attention for a bit, but something happens, at some point, it loses us, or we lose interest in it. Perhaps at this point, we are approaching getting from it what we sought in our exploration of our selves and our identity. Even though, sometimes, we like to re-approach a thing, a text, again and again sometimes.

One of the things I enjoyed about college was freeing myself up a bit to pursue topics that interested me, to investigate that which gave me perspective on my place in the broader context of the world and history: Who am I? What is genesis of the society and the world of which I am a part? Who else in history has been interested in the same thoughts I found myself interested in? I kept pretty busy overall, but it didn’t stop me from exploring the depths of the ‘main stacks’ library as they called them.

So in this sense, maybe that which captivates us in some sense also unlocks and frees us: it is a kind of key to something locked up inside ourselves that we didn’t even know was there. A book, a film, or a song then becomes then a kind of path to a better understanding, a kind of clearer appreciation for the depth of our self as it relates to the world.

What holds you captive? What captivates you? What unlocks in you a better sense of your identity? Why do you think we have this kind of phenomenological (having to do with our experience and consciousness) engagement with the world?

And tomorrow, another topic to be explored…

Locksmith, Paul Klee

Blue on Blue

On the one hand, some modern art seems kind of dumb, but on the other, I enjoy the fully-immersive sensation of being absorbed into the raw feeling of a painting. The respite from thinking and the invitation just to feel a color or an image.

This one by Mark Rothko is entitled Blue Divided by Blue. Rothko has a few paintings like this one, which focus more on the color of the paint and how it appears on a canvas rather than the creation of a particular form (for example, a person). Apparently, this one was made during a period of depression.

At the SFMOMA another appears that is much larger and which gives you some sense of how big some of his paintings are.

Images on a phone don’t do Rothko justice, as the color is mediated by pixels, but the feeling of coolness of the blue above and warmth of the orangish-red below: it’s easy to get lost in it, and there’s a marked difference in how they make us feel.

Why do we feel this way I wonder?

On Returning

Returning to work is always a challenge. We get used to our own space, our own way of doing things. Relative autonomy and the ability to slack off and not owe anyone anything without consequence at home.

But it’s also nice to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Help another in the work context, say, if you do care work or care for another. It means a lot to them that you do.

It sounds funny, but I actually kind of like work, even if I like my time at home and elsewhere.

But even if having to get up early sucks, deal with the commute and other people, finishing a long day of work can also feel good, too: the satisfaction of contributing (Sounds ridiculous I know).

So here’s me trying to be grateful on a day of returning from a nice long weekend (while others returned from an even longer break).

Have a good day, don’t work yourself too hard, enjoy in seeing work friends and pat yourself on the back once it’s all said and done and you can go home and feel good about what you’ve accomplished!