There's a phenomenon going on right now (at least to me). Everything is speeding up. Even the process of speeding up is speeding up. That video I posted said something about how information is doubling every two years or whatever. That's pretty ridiculous. The baller method of transportation used to be a carriage back in the day. Now it's common for people to fly from one continent to another. Even at an individual level, more is demanded out of people than ever before. So why is everything speeding up?

I think in high school I learned something about how when anything heats up, the molecules or whatever start moving faster. When you turn the oven on, the oven gains energy but it can't go anywhere. The energy density increases and you get a hot oven. In our world, the earth is our oven. We can send shit out into our atmosphere and beyond, but we still have our entire world population stuck on earth. Earth is starting to get hot right now, and unless we find a way to vent out stuff, shit is going to start melting. It does seem ridiculous spending billions of tax money just to send some people out to space, but maybe an absolute necessity when the survival of mankind is of any interest.

I just ran into this video on digg and the only real thought running through my mind while watching this was "uggggggggggggggh". I don't really know what that means. Apparently some educated people are calling this the information age, and I guess I can see why. Us monkeys have inhabited this world for a while now. From our birthplace in Africa (or whatever) we expanded out to every inhabitable peace of land on this planet and conquered every other creature on this earth. Now, overcoming this distance barrier through technology, nations from every corner of this planet are converging together. Our world has expanded so much within the past generation. There's some quote out there that says every single person will have 15 minutes of fame or something, but I disagree. Thinking relative to the individual mind is becoming outdated. The big picture is that the cumulative whole of every single person on earth is becoming an entity in and of itself.

My phone is a handy gadget that keeps me connected. Err, excuse me. By phone I meant iPhone. You see, my "phone" is much greater than your phone because not only can I use it to call people, I can use it for web browsing, e-mail, text messaging, task manager, and a virtual shotgun. I need to stay connected to get stuff done. I need to get stuff done because....ugggggggggggggggh. Fuck. I don't really know what that means. Anyways, my iPhone serves a greater purpose than my own. Even a greater purpose than the people on my contact list. We are driven to cast ropes across to one another. We are driven to cast them as far off as we can. Once that connection is made, we reinforce it and we secure it. While all of this is happening, we are all constantly moving in varying directions. Yet because we are now connected to one another, when one individual moves, so do the people connected to that individual. Thus gradually we begin to move more in unison as our ropes gain depth and breath. This has been going on since the beginning of time. Communities are formed through communication, the obvious difference is that now I can communicate with someone at the other side of the world almost instantaneously with one phone call. It's the basics of teamwork but on such a humongous scale that the implications are irrelevant and indistinguishable to our every day lives.

Not that I read a lot of biographies, but The Autobiography of Malcolm X just has to be one of the best books around. Like anyone who's story is worth knowing, Malcolm X comes in from far left not just in the environment he was raised in, but in the way he perceived the world around him. At one point he was convinced that all white people were the devil in disguise. Even those that were kind towards him acted in that way to disguise this truth. Imagine that. He doesn't use the word devil figuratively. He honestly believed that every single white person was actually the devil in disguise, and their only purpose is to oppress each and every single black person into submission. He may have been crazy, but he was still very perceptive and far from dumb. Imagine that. I wonder how it would feel for a white American living in Malcolm X's time to read this book.

Anyways, I think biographies are a nice change-up to most fiction. When the biography is sufficiently accurate, the main "character" shows the full range of complexity that exists in any single person. Fictional characters are cool too, but sometimes stray so far away from reality that their existence becomes implausible. If you want to make a story that's really shitty just create a bunch of unrealistic characters in an unrealistic plot line. If you do it well enough you might come out with a hilarious story. It's like a magic show. Magicians convince the audience that although it's impossible by the laws of physics for the bunny rabbit to disappear into the top hat and jump out from the magician's hand, the bunny rabbit did indeed disappear into the top hat and jump out from the magician's hand. The bunny rabbit ignored Newton's law of Physics and transported from one location to another instantaneously! Magic! The power of illusion lies within ourselves, in the way that we were created. The desire to unbind ourselves from the laws of the universe. It's another tool we use to reach greater heights.

Unfortunately, there are some things we simply can not ignore. We create aircraft that can counteract gravity, not by ignoring gravity. Food gets placed on the table only through work, and civilizations rise only through War not Peace.

War & Peace

Is war as old as gravity?

If I love peace do I have to love trees?

Are there animals that like peace and animals that like war?

Is peace quiet?

Is making war an instinct we inherited from our hunting or farming ancestors?

Were farmers the first warriors?

Do we love without thinking?

Do we do the right thing without thinking?

When children fight with their brothers and sisters are they learning how to make war?

How do we test the limit of our bodies without war?

Why do they compare war to a man and peace to a woman?

Peace is unpredictable.

Why is war so exciting?

War is the best game and the worst life.

Is peace the hardest work?

Is peace a time of tension?

What are the different kinds of victory, in a war, in a race?

Is despair a solution?

Why is it dangerous to say "never forget"?

But I digress with all of this music stuff. What I'm trying to say is that the highest form of art (for me) isn't realism but escapism. I lose myself in a feeble angry mind when I listen to Nine Inch Nails, not the other way around. I enjoy it because during that time all the problems and worries of this world disappear, and the world becomes simple again. I hate worthless talk and these worthless thoughts that cloud my mind. To me simple always seems "the best". The days when nap times were scheduled in school seemed "the best". A child-like heart would be "the best".

Genuine change is genuinely hard. Analogies and proverbs are clever and stick to the mind but seldom to the heart. You can fool yourself but you can't fool me...and when our meek expectations fail us, we fluff and forget.

"You complain for the life you're supposed to have
But when you try to make plans God is known to laugh"

I'll just stay thankful and be "the best".





P.S. I'd like to know what people think of this blog so far. I had an idea of what this blog would look like and I feel like I completely missed my mark. Gimme some feedback! Thanks

Kid Cudi

I listen to rap music mostly because there's just so much of it out there. To be honest I don't connect with 99% of the artists in the rap industry because 1) I'm not black 2) My values usually don't align with theirs. Nevertheless there's still a good amount of talented rappers and producers out there and I enjoy a lot of the music out there.

Kid Cudi, on the other hand, hit me at a completely different level. This dude's the fucking shit and I can only hope that other people can enjoy his music as much as I do. In fact if you are reading this I highly recommend that you download his mixtape.

http://www.zshare.net/download/1549107772aa93ea/

The video up top is a cover for Day N Nite that I thought was pretty good. The original song has an upbeat dance tempo even though the actual song is pretty depressing. This cover version brings out the true flavor of this song in all its emo glory. Despite all the praise I just gave him, truth be told the only real material he has is this one mixtape. However, never underestimate the power of 17 low sound quality tracks because this mixtape landed him a spot on Kanye's Good Music label and more attention than this goofy Cleveland native may be able to handle. I just hope that he'll be able to carry whatever new burdens may fall upon him.






There seems to be a new wave of rap music on the rise running along a similar thread as Kid Cudi...I am excited.

Born in New York City and raised by parents rooted in the Japanese music industry, Utada Hikaru always had talent for music. At age 16 her Japanese debut album "First Love" sold over 2 million albums during her first week alone and is still the best selling album in Japanese music history. Since she began writing her own music at the age of 12, she has always led the direction of all the music she produced. Sure she's a talented singer/songerwriter but to me she represents more than just that.

Whether we see it directly or indirectly, faith and philosophy has always embedded itself into our culture to shape the way we see the world around us. This rule encompasses everyone regardless of whether or not we embrace or reject what we see around us. I suppose that's one explanation to why I connect with her so well. The language of her lyrics are Japanese, but the language of her music isn't. In her music she makes plenty of references to faith and prayer but she clearly isn't religious. Although an iconic pop star in Japan, she says that she can never be Japanese...nor American. She has neither sold out nor has she become irrelevant, and her music continues to evolve as well as her themes.

I was always the black (yellow?) sheep; moving from city to city, school to school, crowd to crowd. Secretly I hated my parents for leaving Japan and raising me here. Back then I would've gladly exchanged whatever I had here just to be a normal student in Japan. I wish I could tell you how everything has changed since then. I wish everyone spoke Japanese so that everyone could hear what I hear when I listen to this song because no translation could ever come close to what this song has to offer. I wish I could explain why I don't need your love. I wish I could explain why I don't need to belong anywhere and that all I need is my own identity and this little thing called "faith". I wish I could explain why there's no more fear, no more loneliness, even at the darkest hour of the night. Unfortunately I can't, which is why I created this blog. It's not my intention to dramatize but it's just the way I am.

神道

Our economy's fucked up. It's so fucked up that a charismatic, energetic new President alone won't be able to fix it. You can place the blame on whomever you may like but this current situation was never any one person's responsibility. If the problem can be created by one person or one group, than it can just as easily be solved. Everyone contributes to the shape and direction of our economy, and in turn everyone is affected by it. No single mind can dictate how it moves and there lies it's strength, beauty, and danger. It sounds like one of those science fiction movies (think "I, Robot") in which the supercomputer does something no one predicted while still following the laws that govern it, and fucks everyone up.

In the beginning the difference between machines and humans were crystal clear. Computers were horribly inflexible because they were limited by simple algorithms due to insufficient technology. Deep Blue, the chess supercomputer that defeated world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997 was confused as an achievement in AI but it was only an achievement in computational power. Chess masters were better than average players not because they can predict more moves ahead, but because they can see the chess board at a higher level. Deep Blue won only because it had the ability to compute millions of moves per second, but in terms of software there was nothing remarkable. Computer science was always thought to have this element of "soul-lessness" that seperated it from humans. Now this difference is becoming grayer and grayer as collaboration, a large depository of library code, and higher level programming languages are becoming available. Like the economy, we are beginning to create code that is more powerful, complicated, and unpredictable. Sooner or later we're going to see software which will pass the Turing Test and shift the way in which we think of ourselves as this issue that has always existed yet repeatedly ignored will be forced into the faces of the most stubborn. Ideally. Unfortunately, passing judgment has never been our strong suite.

The Sphex wasp will sting a prey such as a cricket only enough so that it will be paralyzed. The wasp will then carry the prey to her nest, leave the paralyzed prey at the entrance of her burrow and check to make sure that all is well inside the burrow. Then she drags the prey into the nest and leave her eggs with the paralyzed prey never to come back again. When the eggs hatch, the newborn baby wasps will have the still alive and fresh (but paralyzed) prey to consume.

Through observation the wasp appears to have an unusually high level of intelligence, but upon further inspection it becomes obvious that this routine is rigidly programmed. If the paralyzed cricket is moved back when the wasp checks inside the nest, the wasp will drag the cricket back to the entrance and recheck inside the nest. On one recorded occasion this happened forty times with the exact same result.

When a dog sees it's owner throw it's favorite bone over a fence, the dog may see the bone on the other side of the fence and bark in frustration. The dog may see that there is a hole in the fence a good distance off but won't realize that by running to the hole and crawling through the hole, the dog can get to the delicious bone. In the problem space that the dog perceives, running to the hole = running away from the bone while in an abstracted problem space running to the hole = running towards the bone.

Both examples use creatures without the same level of intelligence as humans but the idea still applies to us all. We make the same mistakes over and over again because we don't notice the sameness of the repetitions. We can't get to our goal because we can't remap the problem space. We are at the highest echelon amongst creatures of this planet, but the further back we pull our perceptions and the higher up we raise our consciousness, our actions and thoughts may also seem rigid, mechanical, and just plain stupid.