But I don't hardly make no sense at all! I am basically an insane person!

jarick @ 2009-12-18T09:00:00

2009-12-18T15:00:45Z

Terrible thing: somehow convincing oneself that a final was one day when it was in fact another.

Makey-up-for-it-thing: getting an 8-page paper to write instead! At least I will be able to research/rant on something I do like.

jarick @ 2009-12-09T09:48:00

2009-12-09T15:48:53Z

In the process of considering a haircut (which I do about every few weeks, nowadays), it has occurred to me that rather than chop the whole thing off, I could have a trim and then get BANGS.

It's more an amusing thought than a probability, but anyhow...

jarick @ 2009-11-27T23:51:00

2009-11-28T05:51:48Z

Fuck you, Antivirus Pro! I know how to beat you now. NO MATCH FOR THA MASTAH.

jarick @ 2009-11-01T23:28:00

2009-11-02T06:36:56Z

Four sevens is a good number. It is the Aristotelian elements, brought into divine harmony; it is a series of deaths that has been brought to fulfillment. I predict an opening of the way, brought by a great alignment of factors long pending.

Generally: good times.

jarick @ 2009-10-22T10:51:00

2009-10-22T16:49:31Z

Of course. If this meat and this state of mind is transitory, so it must be for all meat and all states of mind. Precious and beautiful, things whose essence I cannot hurt in the handling because there is no essence to hurt.

There is nothing lasting that we can see. Nothing we see we can reduce to its form, its true nature. Nothing we can see means anything. I mistook that for the cause to celebrate-- that if there is nothing that means anything, then that means can decide upon whatever meaning we wish-- but the heart of the revelation is that nothing we can see means anything-- AND THAT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING EITHER.

It's clicked SO HARD. I like it. Let's see where I go.

jarick @ 2009-10-19T08:19:00

2009-10-19T14:40:05Z

So: no more fast food for me for a while. Saturday's Arby's has spoiled me pretty hard on it, what with the near-projectile vomiting that ensued about twelve hours later and had me wanting to just plain old not move at all for the day thereafter. I will give it credit, though, for perhaps inspiring a dream:

It was a warm, very-nearly hot summer day; I happened to be in transit between places, riding a bike. A good day in general. Somewhere along the line something cut me above the eye-- I bled enough for it to get in my eyes and keep me from riding safely, so I ditched the bike somewhere I knew it would be safe and started walking. The path took me up a hill; somewhere along the line I tripped and found that my legs weren't working. Then, it started to rain!

And I started giggling, because it was SO FUNNY. Someone came over, asking me what was wrong, and I explained that nothing was wrong that wouldn't be over and done with soon anyway. Soon as I remembered how one particular set of muscles functioned I would be on my way again. No, I didn't mind the rain-- it was /nice/ today. She watched from a pink raincoat, and between my fits of giggles, she asked me, "Is this how you feel all the time?"

I had no answer for her but a smile. Finally, I remembered which way I had to flex my legs in order for them to support my weight. The rain had abated, and I realized just how far up I was this hill-- and how steep it was. A thirty, forty-five degree angle upward. I asked her if it had always been this way, and she gave me a look that suggested I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going but wishing me well just the same.

"Drill through the heavens" indeed.

jarick @ 2009-10-13T10:44:00

2009-10-13T16:05:01Z

/facepalm

I knew this sort of thing happened. I have evidence that it does happen. I just didn't think I'd ever actually -see- it happen.

(No, I won't talk about it right now; no, it's not something relevant to most people here; no, it doesn't involve me. But man: if I didn't know/like the people involved on general principles, this would be far more entertaining.)

jarick @ 2009-10-04T00:04:00

2009-10-04T05:07:59Z

Terrible (GREAT) thematic game idea:

So I've been on this Exalted kick of late and I think I'm going to be able to get to act on it in the next week or so with running it. And then I was listening to some smile.Dk, and I hit on a particular song that has been linked to Sailor Moon inextricably by a stylish AMV, and then all of a sudden I'm thinking of a magical girl-style Sidereal game about kids who've just been given the task of defending a world that's forgotten them from terrible, terrible threats that will eat everything. Play down the faction politics at start, but ramp things up and then sic a world changing that was supposed to be stable, and hee hee hee.

Earmarked for some distant, potential future.

jarick @ 2009-09-24T13:53:00

2009-09-24T19:32:53Z

So, nonviolence.

One of the stories that sticks in the back of my mind from Legend of the Five Rings (samurai fantasy in a similar way that D&D is medieval fantasy) comes from the Way of the Phoenix book. The Phoenix Clan is a cloister of spiritual seekers, children of one of the founding religious traditions and practices in the Empire; as a result of commitment to their faith, many of them are avowedly pacifistic, even to the point of letting attackers injure or kill them in lieu of committing harm against the world. They are also evangelistic about their preference for peace and the pursuit of knowledge, and that preaching has the Clan as a whole looked down for their unwillingness to use force under any circumstances. The Phoenix armies (for they do have armies) do occasionally march, but they never do so lightly.

There are a few tales of Phoenixes paying the ultimate price for their philosophy, but the most remembered one is the story of one of their Clan Champions, who was disgusted by the bloodthirsty wars and battles fought between her neighbors to the north. Both of these other Clans, Lion and Crane, are bastions of honor and looked to as examples of what is noble, glorious, and worth preserving in the Empire; their traditions also pit them against one another in blood rivalries going back generations to the very dawn of history. The Phoenix Clan Champion saw this latest surge of bloodshed-- deemed a matter of honor by the participants, but viewed as gratuitous even by those only peripherally involved in the affair-- and chose to do something about it. Leading one of her legions down from the forests of her home, she positioned her forces between two of the greatest armies that had yet been assembled in the Empire, and sent messages to both daimyo leading the armies, beseeching them to put down their weapons and consider peace.

The messengers are rebuffed, sent packing; both generals want this fight too much, have staked so much on its happening, to consider putting down arms acceptable. The Champion then sends a second messenger to both camps, a warning: they will have to cut down every Phoenix in this army before they will be allowed to fight. The day of the battle dawns, and both armies surge forward to meet one another, eager to burn through Phoenix resistance and kill their hated enemies... except there is no Phoenix resistance. The samurai on the field stand solid, not defending themselves, allowing the other armies to cut them down where they stand. The Phoenix legion is killed to the last soul, including the Champion.

But by the end of it, the generals call off the attack-- an easy thing, as even their own forces have been sickened by their own violence. Each side retreats. The armies disband. One general commits seppuku; the other shaves his head and becomes a monk. It is cited as one of the shining examples of Phoenix virtue, and the fact that it worked bewildered me until I examined the reasons why it did.

The Phoenix did not come to tire enemy soldiers before battle could be joined. They came to cut not at military shifts and shapes, but at the resolve of the generals. Both sides believed their intentions to be justified, not just by the needs of the mortal world but by the laws set down by Heaven, by the heart of duty-- and by bushido. But bushido in the Emerald Empire is not just service; it is respect, courtesy, esteem, and compassion as samurai might make it. Both the Crane and the Lion value the tenets of bushido perhaps more highly and idealistically than any other Clan. Thus, when they revealed themselves as mere murderers and killers in their actions, their thoughts were turned against themselves-- and the generals find themselves following the only logical path that they can see this act concluding in.

The proposition, then: nonviolent means are attacks just as surely as raising a hand or weapon. They simply aim beyond the flesh and blood of their enemies. Is this the case in reality? I would say so.

Mahatma Ghandi, held as one of the innovators of nonviolent resistance. In that time, India was a colony of the British Empire-- a nation that kept colonies for one very specific reason, the same reason that Jamestown and other colonies were created: economics. Client colonies harvest raw materials (cotton, wood, iron, foodstuffs, tobacco, etc); the patron nation sends back manufactured products, and makes sure with military force that the colony does not develop manufacturing capabilities for itself. The colony has little option but to buy from the patron (taxes, military force, etc), and ideally the people who own the factories gain a new market that must be obedient to them or lose any chance at certain sorts of very necessary goods.

Such it was with India. Before the resistance, it was patently apparent that any attempt at armed resistance (as had worked for the proto-Usans, the Mexicans, so forth) was pretty much doomed to failure. Indians didn't have weapons to match the British, they didn't have infrastructure to support an army, and the British would be more than happy to put down uppity bloodthirsty savages. Physical force would not rule the day-- but as Ghandi observed, physical force was not necessary to be victorious.

Sure, the goal can be "win independence for India." To win, though, is to put it in terms of a contest or confrontation, which may well not be one that works. Is the goal also not "render the British army unable or unwilling to invest in the holding of this ground?" For that would get rid of them just as effectively...

Why does Britan want India? Economic reasons. They don't want to live here, by and large-- they just want its resources, which includes its markets. Britan -needs- those markets-- without control of those markets, how can it profit off of the resources it's importing?

Enter the khadi movement in textiles. Khadi is a simple homespun cloth-- not necessarily a fancy thing, but most definitely something that can be done on a lower scale with a lesser investment of resources. The population generally knew how to do it already. Why not scale that upwards, so that there is no money going back to Britan's clothiers?

But the British will see our work, and they will break it up! -- Then rebuild, and continue, and do not allow them to provoke you into violence. If you use violence, the soldiers will use violence, and the British people will see it as justified. But these people, so ready to rationalize the use of return force to protect their interests, believe themselves 'better' than using force to get their way. If they hear that their people are having to use violence to keep their coffers full, they will doubt themselves-- and they will have to make a decision they do not want to make.

It worked. Eventually, the British left-- not because their ability to hold the place was thwarted, but because it was unprofitable to sink money into the harvesting of raw materials for goods that they could not sell.

The Civil Rights Movement followed similar lines, though their target and intent was different. Maltreatment and disenfranchisement of blacks was a cultural rather than an economic system in the South-- a place that even today nurses a grudge for its losses-- but it was only one part of a larger system. Usan whites, especially those in the North and those in power, esteemed themselves on being ethical, sane, and reasonable. After all, they were the vanguard against terrible Communist forces, which subjugate and enslave men to an impassive state. Imagine their shock, then, when they found that parts of the nation were capable of and willing to do such things to their own countrymen...

Cognitive dissonance is a wonderful, terrible tool. It compels all sorts of readjustments in one's thinking. Sometimes, these readjustments are even for the better.

That's what the thought is (was?) right now. Grounded? Half-grounded. But that's the thought.

jarick @ 2009-08-31T23:40:00

2009-09-01T05:12:05Z

A stabbing of a thumb at paper: HERE.

I heard of the Buddha that at one point in time, one of the people studying under him named Malunkya came across a bunch of questions about the universe that the Enlightened One had simply not answered in the course of his teachings. Is the universe eternal? Is the universe not eternal? Is the universe finite? Is the universe infinite? Are body and soul two entities? Are body and soul the same entity? In death, does an Enlightened One exist? Not exist? Both exist and not exist? Neither exist nor not exist? Malunkya thought about this, and got a bug in his ear-- he needed these questions answered, darnit, and he needed those answers -now-. So, one day, he goes to the Buddha, and proclaims, "If you can't answer me these questions, then I'm going to give up the study of enlightenment entirely."

"Malunkya, did I say when you came to me, 'Practice the spiritual life with me, and I will answer these questions for you?"

"No, Lord," he had to admit.

"Anyone who renounces the spiritual life until I answer these questions will surely die without my having answered them. Such a person is akin to a man who has been struck in the night by a poisoned arrow that refuses treatment until he learns the identity of his attacker. He who says 'I will not be healed until I know if it was a priest, a prince, a farmer, or a slave who shot me' is likely to go to his grave without knowing."

Is it possible the Buddha knew the answers to those questions? Sure. That he didn't know? Also sure. But more importantly, he chose not to answer because knowing the answers to those questions, answers certified-stamped by the Enlightened One, would not advance the state of the seeker in his self-cleansing.

Nibbana/nirvana is not such a thing that we can define it. Defining it provokes issues, problems, irrelevant concerns-- things anathema to understanding the nature, cause, cessation of suffering. Ghafla distractions, all. When asking a question of this nature, one must be aware of why one asks it in the first place.

That's that moment: free, wild, a first-spear in one hand and a painted shield on the other...

jarick @ 2009-08-28T12:59:00

2009-08-28T19:31:13Z

Someday, remind me to put down things I've thought/observed/decided about the delightful utilitarian nature of non-violence as a weapon. :3

jarick @ 2009-08-28T12:10:00

2009-08-28T17:11:28Z

Also, this is what a molecule looks like.

jarick @ 2009-08-27T23:27:00

2009-08-28T07:24:57Z

Funny-- I've found a WoW blog that started off with how to make a crap-ton of in-game currency (and has since moved to explaining, among other things, why giving work-free and guilt-free handouts to people is a terrible idea, as they will not learn gratitude or the skills to do the same for others and will likely piss it away at the earliest available opportunity), and suddenly I've realized something substantial about my intentions for the game:

One, I'm there for the PVE. The people are nice, awesome even, but I am forced to admit that I honestly would rather keep that fifteen dollars a month in the bank rather than spend it on a very pretty IRC interface.

Two, I'm not actually pursuing the PVE that interests me when I play.

This needs to change. Why exert energy in something that does not get me something I want? Time to examine options.

jarick @ 2009-08-24T20:11:00

2009-08-25T02:31:47Z

The image of the hungry ghost is that of a soul bound to this existence, unable pass on, always seeking to consume something but never satiated by it no matter how much of it they eat (blood, food, sex, emotion, wealth, excretia, etc). A small mouth, a long neck, and a massive stomach. These are people who were overtaken by their desires in life, and one part (but only one part) of the lesson is that you are what you do in life as well as what you don't do and why you do (not) do those things.

But another lesson is that you do not always actually want what you think you want.

While I was running the Mythos game for m'sister's group, our hosts had a small stash of popsicles in the fridge. I whittled away at this stash with their permission, as they did not take much from it themselves and it occupied freezer space; when they observed as such, I was then brought to wonder why I enjoyed them as much as I did, and was answered with the idea that they taste like childhood. The gent who brought it up was right, I thought-- the popsicles themselves were little more than frozen flavored sugar water, but my memories of eating them were tinged with a more innocent delight associated with being young and summer succulence. Thus: did I want sugar water, or did I want to conjure that memory of boyhood?

The nature of the brain is that of an associative structure. We have known this for effective fact since near the beginning of the last century (and believed bits and pieces of it long beforehand); we cannot view an advertisement without being plucked at and played to by societal knowledge of these facts, and we cannot attend a well-executed sermon of any sort without rhetorical expertise tugging at us. Told to buy this or believe this because of that, how often do we actually get the thing promised when we agree to the first? And how often do we believe we gain that promised thing when we actually don't?

Desire is an untrustworthy thing. Be careful of what energy you give to it, for your desire does not always serve your own interests-- not even the transient ones.

jarick @ 2009-08-19T12:29:00

2009-08-19T17:30:08Z

The BBC on Powerpoint presentations.

jarick @ 2009-08-16T02:11:00

2009-08-16T07:13:32Z

Man. I am getting those particular muscles worked OUT.

Adaptation, revision, intersection. Seems to be working out. Just keep remembering to hold nothing as inherently a priori, and flux can continue from there.

jarick @ 2009-08-05T04:24:00

2009-08-05T21:49:42Z

Possible Meme I Engineered Yesterday:

Life is a school with many classes, and only some of them are held between four walls in a school. Forget the Chemistry, the History, the Ethics of Profession-- what are three classes did you take in YOUR undergrad years (or age 18-24 if you didn't hit school then)?

1) SLK 2432 - Optimizing Doing Nothing
2) SOCI 3135 - Weaponized Innocence
3) GLBTF 2371 - Attracting Your Own Gender

jarick @ 2009-07-27T17:29:00

2009-07-27T22:41:36Z

I am going to be preparing two index cards. On one, it will say: I am taking a vow of silence, July 29-August 06. The flip side will say: "Why? Ask me in a week. ^_^" The other will be something similarly snappy.

I will not be seeing or meeting with people until about Wednesday of next week. This means that I will not be running any games this coming weekend. Additionally, I will be turning my computer off and leaving it off for the aforementioned time period, beginning no later than this Wednesday and continuing for seven days, with perhaps one exception on Saturday that will not have me turning on IMs.

Granted: for many of you reading this now, this will not be a significant change; I'm sparse with updates here as it is, and the absence of telephone/IM communication is not a shift in the status quo. LJ updates from me are always spotty at best. However, this notice does hit some blanket others to whom this is addressed.

jarick @ 2009-07-25T21:32:00

2009-07-26T02:39:04Z

Of COURSE. How could I be so foolish?

It's -silence- I need. Proper silence, not the hum of an air conditioner and fans and computer and television and chatter from a dozen sources in the background.

That's what I wasn't getting. It's what I need more of.

Hopefully, in putting it down now, I will remember of my own volition. It's amazing how much a difference it makes.

jarick @ 2009-07-21T00:49:00

2009-07-21T05:52:23Z

Sometimes it takes repurposing the intent of a thing to make it wholesome to those of us already inured to inanity.

jarick @ 2009-07-10T16:43:00

2009-07-10T21:52:53Z

The revelation that follows.

The reality, already understood as a result from some earlier comprehension but not-yet-realized-ramifications until of late: the voice in my head that shouts at me to mind my business know that your actions echo YOU HAVE INFLUENCE YOU MUST USE IT WISELY YOU MUST MIND IT VERY MUCH? It is not the mandate of without that compels me to obsessively self-monitor. It is the mandate of within. As such, it is my own voice that I shout myself down with. Subsequently I may instead swallow that shout within one more pleasing to the heart.

Permission to break, bend, or violate internal rules is a dangerous thing, because those actions implicitly acknowledge and recognize the presence of that internal rule. You have to seek the way around the proscription every time you wish to act against it, appeasing the internal monitor on every occasion.

The block is of your own creation. Its strength is your strength: useful when you are uncertain of your understanding or your motives, but counter-intuitive when you trust your general instincts in these matters. Why dominate yourself needlessly, and waste energy that could be put into better places?

That's the answer for now.

jarick @ 2009-06-26T00:42:00

2009-06-26T06:58:33Z

Some days ago, there was a discussion about how or why we choose the words we do in face-to-face conversation. When asked, I said that I chose my words based not on the way they feel to say, but rather to narrow down a point-- connotations and contexts, a step against misinterpretation and an attempt to convey intentionality.

The assessment in answer was that my verbal use of language seemed based around a defensive tactic. That thought struck me fairly strongly, leaving me to consider the how and why that such a method and means would come into being, and what repercussions it might have for the rest of my life.

When I sit here at the machine, trying to think of how to verbally express the sentiment, I pause and begin writing and find that it comes much more naturally through hand and finger and nonverbal congress. Spoken sentences trail off halfway through as I'm speaking them; the thought must be wrestled, and expressed anew with a slightly different wording or phrasing. Revision comes as a mandatory part of speaking-- thus the pauses, thus the hesitations when I feel it necessary to have to be as clear as I can, or if I think someone else will take a personal spin I feel should not be taken from it.

That last bit, though, is what brings me to think: is that a concern which is grounded in reality? Is it something I've concocted to fill in the blanks, something to make the universe (or myself) more regular, defined, understandable? Is it based in the former but expanded into the latter? Or is it simply something else entirely?

...conscious thought is slow. Thinking about speaking makes it slower. Why do I think so much about speaking? Training? Neurology? Topics? Circumstances? People? Perception of the inquiry's intended direction? Silence is animated by a presence of conscious thought, making it palpable; it's also animated by trying to nail down a train of thought in the forebrain. Apparently, pencil/pen/keyboard don't have to filter through that clog in the highway, that very, very slow relay-- or it doesn't have to filter through it nearly as often as the topics that emerge in direct interpersonal conversation do. Frequency? Direction? Dealing ALSO with the reams of data that also spool outwards from nonverbal aspects of communication?

There's this JAM in my head. Something flips, communication suddenly gets routed through that junction, stays there forever in a holding pattern while I have to pick out individual words to build a ramp out of it. I don't think it's exclusively spoken communication that gets routed into this jam-- not anymore-- but the trigger eludes me. It's not just the one thing. It's never just the one thing.

And I wonder, in the same breath, if this has anything to do with other evaluations. If accurate, I don't see how they aren't connected. Knowing the answer, though-- will it help? Will I be satisfied with a concrete pronouncement? Do I WANT to be satisfied with a concrete pronouncement? Or do I need to dig further, looking for that series of tubes below the surface that will gain me access to a great deal more?

...yeah. That's what's been on my mind the past while. Ever chasing...

jarick @ 2009-06-20T18:06:00

2009-06-20T23:16:50Z

It is a terrible thing to live long enough to see everything you had worked for fall apart.

...it was many years ago I brought my wife here, away from the taint of the East. I thought I could begin anew, free from the degenerates whose roots were set there long before there was a nation on this soil, and even now drink deeply of the blood and pain of their lessers. I thought I could do it right. Set an example for generations to come, entrenched in true power that will shine until the dark days come again.

If you have returned here, you have proven me wrong.

I can only guess how it all went wrong, now. The world has been changing too quickly for me to follow, moving faster than my aging eyes could see, shrinking faster than any of us had predicted. The old world is close now. Its closeness has corrupted my children and my children's children. Perhaps it was inevitable that the power I sought to forge would turn against me, do exactly as I had wished to the contrary, and perhaps it was inevitable that I leave this message for you listening to it.

I tell you this: Carcosa is dying, and only you can save it from a doom slouching closer with every hour. It pains me to ask this of you, who have chosen outside lives of my design, but I have little choice in the matter, and soon enough you all will have very little yourself. Perhaps you have already caught a glimpse of the secrets the Rossi have stood brooding over for these generations; know that if you choose to leave now, these horrors -will- infest this town. Perhaps they will seek you out as well, in time.

If you would refuse my request once again, then I release you from your obligation to stay. Return to your home, and pray to whatever facade of a God you worship that the sins of the father do not follow on your heels. If you would honor the request of a dead King to save his dying city, then stay this night longer. The path will open for you. Perhaps it will not damn you as it has damned so many others.

Perhaps not.

jarick @ 2009-06-19T18:48:00

2009-06-19T23:50:24Z

Apparently, if you take one can of condensed tomato soup (fluffed up with milk) and mix in two packs of crunched-up smashed-up pulverized ramen noodles (no seasoning packet), you get homemade spaghetti-o's.

Who'd have thought?

Meanwhile, OH GAWD WHERE ARE MY KEYS.

jarick @ 2009-06-17T15:24:00

2009-06-17T20:24:44Z

Hey guys: this.