I have been active with my photography, this is the last stretch of my program, so with that, my photos will have to come after. Hopefully I will be able to get some new/oldies up soon! Stay tuned! For the sake of producing art, here are some writings I have been working on. (Special thanks to Angel and Luna for helping on the Apocalypse vs. Collapse paper)
Apocalypse vs. Collapse
There is a distinction to be made between an apocalypse and a collapse. Initially, there were frequent disagreements about whether the associations evoked by the word “apocalypse” might impede our progress. The strongest argument against the use of the word apocalypse is that it elicits a programmed response. It was argued that the countless depictions of social and environmental collapse have quietly indoctrinated to respond in a misguided/inappropriate response in the consumers of such media. “Apocalypse” is an entirely cultural ideal that is primarily based off an image that has been enculturated into media, in the situation of that countless movies depicting social or environmental catastrophe (see 2012 or insert zombie movie name here) or through the Abrahamic religions via the Bible and other texts (see the Book of Revelations or any giant flood myth). There is an evolutionary purpose for such cultural programs to exist, which is an entirely different argument and does not apply to the syntax of such words. One of the definitions (“apocalypse”) pertains to environmental factors, uncontrollable--a dictum descended from a higher power, and the instilled negative connotations enculturated into our society take us away from looking at what collapse is. A collapse can happen to any living/nonliving system, for it is only a degradation of its structure and thus its failure. This could look like an apocalypse, yet there is doubt that the trilobites of the Cambrian-Ordovician mass extinction looked around and claimed “apocalypse.” If we continue to use the word “apocalypse” rather than “collapse,” we will miss the mark, looking for the signs of the End of Days rather than the predicament of a collapsing system that looks nothing like a Hollywood Blockbuster film and more like environmental change, population shifts, constant warfare, and the degradation of the intertwined systems that makes up our entire society. Because of its extreme biases, the word “apocalypse” will cause people to give up, stirring imagery of an impending outbreak of a lethal plague or widespread cannibalism, it implies the End of Days, rather address the actuality of the impending event.
Peace At Twilight
My thoughts like a new story each time, unfold in ways allowing me to read into to them as if I have no clue to the plot arch, yet as I have grown older those plots seem redundant and I begin to pick apart the nuances of my archetypal existence. I’ve found the specific memes of an emotional landscape equivalent to a mountainous expanse, filled with many valleys and deserts surrounding them protecting the beauty from ever escaping. Some times it hurts to see what you know is others thoughts and their stories, their landscapes. Being so adept at traversing across the most difficult emotional landscapes, that is my own; I’ve found I walk through emotions with ease and a way that connects me immediately to the perceiver of those feelings. I believe it to be plague of insight, a crude adaptation for a species no longer living in their ancestral landscape. Its just noise at this point yet it is then easy for me to see what people think, what they feel, and most importantly judge how they will act in the future. It can be misleading and filled with dynamic shifts constantly fluxing within the moment, which of course causes me to slip and fall, but each failed experiment is a new thought, a new story, thus my book grows and it is less and less I slip. But this is what puzzles me: Why is my perception tuned into others? I hear their voices speak through eyes filled pain, bewildered at the causality of day-to-day life. Where does this come from and why does it affect me in ways that there are only so few I can speak to?
As I look out into space I ponder if there are others out there who see the moon in the same way I see it right now. The small cadences of a pocketed earth-remnant orb floating precariously in the sky perfectly lit with shades of yellow and orange, always alone, never ceasing its rotation around earth. It is always an emotional experience looking upon that beauty as it waxes and wanes like the ebb and flow of an ocean tide. And it’s the waxing and waning of the emotional landscape that is the hallmark of our species and what I am constantly bombarded with in each moment. And so I think: are you out there? Can you see what I see? Hear what I hear? But most importantly can you hear me? Does my voice, these words, reach your ear in a way that the story I am telling reaches the dark recesses of you body, in ways just like when I hear everyone’s story? If I find you will I be able to tell if you actually can hear and see, for my expectations are higher than most and notably wrong. I fall into traps in my mind, places where the story itself has began to evolve and shift, just as any creature does as it reaches its sustainable capacity. In this system will I ever find a place to stay warm and dry, free from those stories, and my own evolution? Will you be there?
Apocalypse vs. Collapse
There is a distinction to be made between an apocalypse and a collapse. Initially, there were frequent disagreements about whether the associations evoked by the word “apocalypse” might impede our progress. The strongest argument against the use of the word apocalypse is that it elicits a programmed response. It was argued that the countless depictions of social and environmental collapse have quietly indoctrinated to respond in a misguided/inappropriate response in the consumers of such media. “Apocalypse” is an entirely cultural ideal that is primarily based off an image that has been enculturated into media, in the situation of that countless movies depicting social or environmental catastrophe (see 2012 or insert zombie movie name here) or through the Abrahamic religions via the Bible and other texts (see the Book of Revelations or any giant flood myth). There is an evolutionary purpose for such cultural programs to exist, which is an entirely different argument and does not apply to the syntax of such words. One of the definitions (“apocalypse”) pertains to environmental factors, uncontrollable--a dictum descended from a higher power, and the instilled negative connotations enculturated into our society take us away from looking at what collapse is. A collapse can happen to any living/nonliving system, for it is only a degradation of its structure and thus its failure. This could look like an apocalypse, yet there is doubt that the trilobites of the Cambrian-Ordovician mass extinction looked around and claimed “apocalypse.” If we continue to use the word “apocalypse” rather than “collapse,” we will miss the mark, looking for the signs of the End of Days rather than the predicament of a collapsing system that looks nothing like a Hollywood Blockbuster film and more like environmental change, population shifts, constant warfare, and the degradation of the intertwined systems that makes up our entire society. Because of its extreme biases, the word “apocalypse” will cause people to give up, stirring imagery of an impending outbreak of a lethal plague or widespread cannibalism, it implies the End of Days, rather address the actuality of the impending event.
Peace At Twilight
My thoughts like a new story each time, unfold in ways allowing me to read into to them as if I have no clue to the plot arch, yet as I have grown older those plots seem redundant and I begin to pick apart the nuances of my archetypal existence. I’ve found the specific memes of an emotional landscape equivalent to a mountainous expanse, filled with many valleys and deserts surrounding them protecting the beauty from ever escaping. Some times it hurts to see what you know is others thoughts and their stories, their landscapes. Being so adept at traversing across the most difficult emotional landscapes, that is my own; I’ve found I walk through emotions with ease and a way that connects me immediately to the perceiver of those feelings. I believe it to be plague of insight, a crude adaptation for a species no longer living in their ancestral landscape. Its just noise at this point yet it is then easy for me to see what people think, what they feel, and most importantly judge how they will act in the future. It can be misleading and filled with dynamic shifts constantly fluxing within the moment, which of course causes me to slip and fall, but each failed experiment is a new thought, a new story, thus my book grows and it is less and less I slip. But this is what puzzles me: Why is my perception tuned into others? I hear their voices speak through eyes filled pain, bewildered at the causality of day-to-day life. Where does this come from and why does it affect me in ways that there are only so few I can speak to?
As I look out into space I ponder if there are others out there who see the moon in the same way I see it right now. The small cadences of a pocketed earth-remnant orb floating precariously in the sky perfectly lit with shades of yellow and orange, always alone, never ceasing its rotation around earth. It is always an emotional experience looking upon that beauty as it waxes and wanes like the ebb and flow of an ocean tide. And it’s the waxing and waning of the emotional landscape that is the hallmark of our species and what I am constantly bombarded with in each moment. And so I think: are you out there? Can you see what I see? Hear what I hear? But most importantly can you hear me? Does my voice, these words, reach your ear in a way that the story I am telling reaches the dark recesses of you body, in ways just like when I hear everyone’s story? If I find you will I be able to tell if you actually can hear and see, for my expectations are higher than most and notably wrong. I fall into traps in my mind, places where the story itself has began to evolve and shift, just as any creature does as it reaches its sustainable capacity. In this system will I ever find a place to stay warm and dry, free from those stories, and my own evolution? Will you be there?