No Mind. No matter.

"All things must end. Work hard for your own enlightenment" ~ The Buddha's final words.

When you look at a picture of the Earth at night, and a picture of the Human neural pathways, do you see a visual pattern? I do. I don't think it's a coincidence that they look similar. Both are showing the connection points of energy running on a logic system. The only difference is scale. Each day, as the earth spins on it's axis, one side receives sunlight, while the other rests in darkness. This spinning ensures an even distribution of energy at all times like clockwork and yields for us, circadian rhythm. But lately, since humans have banded together and shared their knowledge in the daylight hours, the Earth has begun to dream at night. Don't take my word for it. Just look.

As a result, pull back to reveal Earth spinning effortlessly around the Sun - keep this stationary image in your head and watch as the face of Earth darkens without sunlight, the electrical grid of metropolitan areas light up a rough perimeter to loosely outline their respective continents. This visual electric network of streetlights, buildings and cars, are lighting up the earth like a flickering filament in an old vacuum tube. Do you see the extended analogy? The illuminated neural network of a Human mind and the illuminated global network of an Earth mind? You have to step outside your own first, in order to really see the bigger one. But how?

Sit down. Cross your legs. Close your eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Concentrate on your breath and watch your mind. Be still. Feel. You'll find the right questions if you have patience and determination. Just like Jesus. And Buddha. And Neo. But seriously? No way. That shit is just made up bullshit. It doesn't compute with today's standards of success. Oh boy - hold on to your butts!

I was never very good at math. I could follow the lesson on the chalkboard, I could watch the steps and agree with each line of the equation, I would see the end result and conclude that the formula was successful. But then I would be given a problem on my own, and I would be at a loss for where to start. This was in part due to my lack of practice, however, my lack of practice was in part due to my lack of understanding the overall point. Each year, we would go through a painfully long term of basic mathematical concepts like calculus, algebra, trig, finite, whatever. It seemed endless. Where was it all going? Why???!!!! And then, at the end of the year, a teacher would spend the last week summarizing each part of the year, in a synthesis of conceptual understanding. They would say, "There. Look. THIS is what we are now able to describe, or explain, using all these little equations", and it would be quite a revelation. Then, I would take the course again the next year, and understand with each step, why I was doing what I was doing. I still didn't care, but at least I was able to pass math. That's a shitty way to go through life but it's what we often do. You may just not recognize the pattern.

This was an excellent lesson very early on: I learn best when the underlying concept is explained FIRST. Then, once I know the practical application, I can reason on my own why each step is important in it's own right, how each connects together, and to reason abstractly how to fill a void, without blindly copying the smart Asian kid next to me. And so the education system is adequate, but it fails to instill an extremely profound, albeit simple, concept from the very beginning stages: that we are all made of the same thing; energy. That would have really helped me if it were rammed down my throat in every subject I took. It wasn't, so now I'm ramming it down my own throat - that sounds dirty. So lets move on.

Nowhere in my education, was it ever stated, that there was a point to life outside of all the info crunching and ladder-climbing. Perhaps that was where Church was supposed to take over? Well, that wasn't for me and I didn't go. No worries, just wanted to state it outright. The point I'm trying to make, is that each person is uniquely responsible for his or her own education, ultimately, and if you are not satisfied with the questions you are told to ask, then fuck off and start asking your own. Simple.

A while back I made a quiet decision in the back of my mind that perfect happiness (or no suffering) is in fact an attainable function of every human being and so I systematically started down the path to figure out how. Very quickly meditation arose in several different areas as a recommended starting point. I had always heard this in the background, but now it seemed like a much more viable option. After only a few weeks of practice, I have started to see why. You see, religion has prayer, philosophy has dialogue, science has research, math has calculation; all are a point of focusing on our given reality with the intent of understanding it ever more precisely. However, they are all the same thing, or more accurately, they are all different variations of the same method, only labeled by words to be viewed as separate. This realization of uniting so many seemingly different pursuits into a broader channel of thought has been the first practical achievement of meditation for me, personally. It is organizing my wildly unkempt mind into a simplified, basic conceptual understanding of how all things work together. The consequence of which has brought me an amazing sense of inner peace. I LOVED using a pen to connect the dots as a kid. So gratifying.

I now look at my mind less as an unknowable variable of infinite complexity and more like an isolated human body. Think of when you go to the gym and work out, how at first you are weak, soft and small. A single bicep-curl on the first day will effectively do little for you, UNLESS you continue this practice every day. And everyone has probably had this experience, after a long period of physical latency, and you’re three weeks into a new gym routine and you can suddenly FEEL your body again. You twist a little further, you walk up steps a little faster, and you feel cool, healthy, firm and alive. This is the inherent benefit of the beginning stages of physical fitness. Over years of this practice, you will undoubtedly have the physique and health levels of the very best. The mind is the same. OH TWIST.

I never really thought of the mind as something that could literally choose a transformative process for itself, until just recently. The practice of mediation on a daily basis causes you to repeatedly take time out of your day (literally), and relax, ponder, concentrate and focus - on what? Doesn't matter. Focus is the key. Focus is the exercise. Each breath is a repetition. Essentially, the more you focus, the easier it becomes, and the more often you can apply it to the most random, boring daily activities, which in turn transform the quality of your immediate experience. So just like building muscle tissue, you can't bench 300lbs in your first week at the gym and you're not going to find Nirvana either. But the ability to focus is important because it affords you the ability to filter out all the melodrama, runaway threads, endless cyclical thought patterns that make the mind appear insurmountable to grasp. It's really this little stock-tickertape reader that gets energized the more you look at it. Stop looking at it and it stops ticking.

There seem to be many different meditative techniques, but they all roam in the same circles. The act of going deep inside yourself, spreading a conscious awareness of the life inside each imaginable part of your body, and just letting that arise within, is the best body buzz I've ever encountered. I have a feeling it is through this gateway, that you enter into that infinite realm of total peace and joy. According to some very old, tried, tested and true sources, this shit is like sustainable heroin, and so by definition, it's actually good for you. Now, just like flexing a muscle, I can contract my mind to a greater point of focus, at will. With time, the power of this contraction appears to be limitless. Enlightenment is the complete focus on right now, on energy as a whole without label or identity. Haha. It's a large pill to swallow. Inadvertently, I'm beginning to see why drugs are no good. On my very own too, without a public safety message to scare me.

I've already had a profound realization in a very short span of time. I've begun to see the illusion of sound and image (created by my eyes and ears), and the vastness that lies beneath all material form. I've renewed my appreciation for life and the outdoors by FOCUSing on my immediate present reality. I see the incredible beauty of Nature in parallel with the primitive human design all merged together as one. And it's getting easier. I can see planet Earth with more precise objectivity and that renders my ego into less and less. I see myself as an information-processing unit, temporary, fallible, human - but just to be aware of this allows me the chance to accept it. Apparently you don't need to be anything more. I've imagined the outlines of my body dematerializing and gone outside myself in a wave of stillness. I sat in the sun and felt it permeate my whole body in this different realm. I came out of it and was shocked. Sometimes it has been scary, but I can't stop myself from going back. The peace I'm gaining in my regular social life is ridiculous. I have shed all major external problems and that feels great. The deeper fears of my mortal existence, my temporary-ness, the pain of human tissue, these fears are rising up and I am happy to meet them. One by one, they are systematically being defused into conscious presence. I'm so happy and inspired by this turn of events. It's the first real feeling of freedom I've had since early childhood when I didn't have a name for everything and it all just fused together as one.

Words, labels, thought pictures, concepts, they are all just the mind firing away on default. When you begin to strip away all that you see, hear and think, and reduce it to a single point of focus, you create the opportunity for awareness of mind. By seeing the core of yourself as just awareness, your mind ceases to have weight. Meditation is like cleaning out your head (and by extension, your body), filtering out the unnecessary crap, and letting your very being open up to complete a circuit. By completing the circuit, you illuminate your mind with consciousness - this leads you as an individual unit to express itself as being ON.

The human brain is responsible for the Earth's Nite-Lite. I've said this before that each human brain is like a single unit of knowledge, or information. The idea of meditation is effectively screwing each human being slightly to the right, in the place where they stand, and watching the head suddenly illuminate, like a light bulb. Again, it is each individual's right to choose this for themselves, but you would only do so if you thought there was a tangible benefit. So, unless you first understand why you should illuminate yourself, you won't see the purpose of sitting still and emptying your mind.

Here's why: On a long enough timeframe, as each human chooses to illuminate their own mind, the Earth will appear to get brighter and brighter in the absence of sunlight. There is almost a direct correlation with the intensity and amplitude of the light emitted from each town or city, in proportion to the collective understanding of what we all are made of, energy. The more we understand our similarity, the more we work together, the more we share our knowledge for a common purpose, the faster civilization advances, the more people and energy are harnessed, the brighter the Earth will be - both literally and figuratively. Looked at another way, prehistoric Earth was pitch black at night. There was not yet a conscious presence, and so there was no agreement in order, and there was no way to achieve the harvesting of energy to be released at nighttime. Our Nite-Lite pattern reflects the human collective unconscious that is slowly coming to a point of self-actualization. Look at Congo. Look at Rome. The major difference is war or, lack of peace. No flow of positive energy. No flow of electricity.

THESIS: As your mind figuratively illuminates itself from within, this intrinsic change will manifest itself outwardly as visible light harnessed and projected by our collective species.

ANTITHESIS: So tomorrow may be today if it were really yesterday, but semantic gymnastics aside, it’s always right now. And I've surely been in the incubation stages for quite sometime now to accept all this so openly. But when you get to your wits end, or just plain tired of the "rat race", and you can't figure on what to do next, just remember you’re a light bulb. What do you think Bob Marley was wailing on about?

SYNTHESIS: I am not all the way screwed in. Or, in the most simplified way, I am usually turned OFF. I possess the switch to turn myself ON; you just have to look inside rather than masturbate. Once you are turned ON, you literally change the frequency of your energy field and you illuminate a different reality. I realize that sounds like cliché, mystical blather, but having begun the process of meditation sheerly out of a logical deduction from my limited options as a living being, there seems to be a lot of weight behind that blather.

If for no other reason, try it for the body buzz. I'll still love you all the same.

Thanks for reading. D.

Books To Read

Text: The Fountainhead

Author: Ayn Rand

Year: 1943

Today's selection is one of my all-time favorites. There aren't many books I've read twice, this however, is one of them. My particular copy condenses this behemoth into a mere 704 pages. Good luck. It made more than a few trips to the porcelain pony with me.

Rand makes the case for capitalism as the ultimate economic system, selfishness as the ultimate virtue and the individual who reigns supreme over the collective masses. I don't agree with every detail, but her ideas are extremely thought provoking. If nothing else, it taught me an appreciation for the human creative spirit. It explains why we're important.

Despite being 60+ years old, it is surprisingly relevant for today's YUPPIES. It's kind of like a blueprint for how to make decisions regarding your work, and ultimately, your life. It's also just a great story about an uncompromising young architect.

I implore you to go read it. D.

Read First Pages: Here

My Friend Money

Money is a valuable part of my life and I intend to illuminate the major reasons why. But don't be so quick to judge, there's more here than meets the eye.

Of the countless humans I have encountered, all come with a certain degree of deficiency. Nobody's perfect. I am aware of this, and here I choose not to dwell on the things they could improve upon, but rather on the things they have taught me to improve about myself. So while many of my friends are not without their own flaws, part of our friendship is founded on the acceptance of such limitations. The best part, the most rewarding, is simultaneously observing each other learn, discover and sometimes even surprise ourselves with abilities and actions we never knew existed. My closest friends have one thing in common: they refuse to settle for mediocrity. Each in their own unique way, is a winner. I expect nothing less of them.

My friend Money slides to the farthest end of the scale to the point where he's almost falling off. He does not request the best life has to offer. He demands it with a saucy attitude; animated and precise. He functions by a code of his own, often indecipherable even to those who know him best. He can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. Luckily, Money isn't the Joker. He's just misjudged for his boundless social deformation. He's a misunderstood genius.

If you showed him an apple and an orange and told him to pick just one, he would ask you pointedly why a banana was not included as a third option. Why a banana? It doesn't matter, Money will now hound you for a fucking banana. He will make you feel like a jerk for not including one in the first place. When you finally offer him a banana, he will immediately select the orange as the obvious and logical choice, just to prove his point. But then he will tell you the orange is delicious with an inflection of genuine sincerity, just to add his own stylistic touch. A byproduct of his eccentric behavior is that he comes off as a real asshole sometimes. I suspect it has something to do with his intrinsic sense of play that follows him around everywhere he goes. If you can't see why making this kind of arbitrary point is his way of having a good time, he enjoys it all the more. My friend Money is razor sharp - you would be wise not to underestimate him. At the very least, don't tell him what to do.

He has chutzpah, moxie, grit, spunk & sass; all the attributes of a glowering charisma that would never cease, even in the face of bitter annihilation. But Money never fails. Oddly enough, he will be the first to tell you he has no natural talent at anything worthwhile. I respectfully disagree however. He takes people as his canvas, and their preconceived notions about EVERYTHING as his paint. His audacious and intransigent demeanor creates hilarious snapshot moments of speechless human reactions. Money is a social artist, if such a term exists. And by this point, if you've ever met him, you should already recognize the signature. People can't get enough.

• At 16 he had the fastest and prettiest car I'd ever seen. We would joy-ride at 200km/h for an extended lunch break. We sauntered back into class like we owned the place. We were total idiots.
• At 17 we smoked cigars and went to comedy clubs. Money would sit in the front row and provoke the comedians so they would lambaste us on purpose. "It's a better bang for my buck", he said slapping his knee with a stupid grin.
• At 18 he once shit his pants by accident. That was maybe my favorite moment of his life. (I will remind you of this until you die). The details, however, will forever remain under lock and key.

I call him Money because he respects it so much better than I do. Once upon a time, very long ago, we had to buy his Old Man some hair gel and found the exact brand in the first salon we entered. Money then insisted we go to the other side of the mall to compare prices from another salon. I asked him why it mattered? I reminded him that it was his Old Man's money, not his. He just looked at me and said, "That's exactly the reason why I'm going to check". The best lessons are learned in practice.

I had a big dirty crush on this new girl in school but I couldn't muster the courage to talk to her. Money broke up with his girlfriend, for two weeks, to date the new girl. He did this strictly to prove a point: any girl can be wooed with the right degree of confidence and assertiveness; to put them on a pedestal becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or so the theory stands. He dumped her ass to the curb and went right back to his girlfriend. It was seamless. I was left standing with my thumb up my ass wondering how he possessed such magical powers. I've since come to realize that's a shitty thing to do, but whatever, I just chalked it up to him being a talented "asshole". Still, you've got to admire the stones required for that type of move. He called every shot along the way without so much as a whimper of self-doubt. Something like that was just Money stretching his wings. And I myself was not immune to the bitterness caught in his wake.

For trivial reasons not worth stating, he's the only mortal I ever fought. More accurately, he punched me in the face and I told the principal. Teenagers. As a member of Student Council, I rationalized pacifism to keep from being suspended. In all honesty, I just didn't know how to fight. I don't remember much from that day, except for his apology in the office after the tempers had cooled. He told me he loved me and gave me a hug. We've been great friends ever since. We were way ahead of Ari Gold and Vinny Chase, anyway. And in the end, he was suspended and I was not. Alas, those were the good old days of high school when people like him actually got punished. Not anymore.

And this is the strange attractive force Money expels in the presence of everyone he encounters. Like a flamboyant Keyser Soze, he is always prepared to go further than the other guy, grinning like an idiot until the bitter end. When people meet him for the first time, their reaction is always the same: dumbfounded innocence. I can see it on their faces, they don't want to believe a person like this can actually exist. They deny it at first, but in the end, everyone comes back to Money. High-five.

Part of our friendship involves the gap between us. It's a mutual appreciation of how the other side works. And even when we agree on the same outcome, the paths taken are often diametrically opposed. I argue for the journey, and he, sometimes more for the destination. So while his material success is a victory, and my freedom of shit is mine, we both get to see what our different path may have been. That is my favorite part.

They say, a best friend is someone who gives you the freedom to be exactly the person who you are. Money encourages it. But the reality is, a best friend teaches you their strengths when you are deficient. Part of becoming your true self is embracing the parts of your character donated to you by your friends. That's the other side of the deal. Money's got a, "well, fuck you too", attitude that lets him get away with absolute bloody murder. I was not born with the same congenital disposition so he has taught me the trade, to some degree.

Most recently, Money was informed by his now ex-boss that he could expect to make 150K a year if he stayed the course. Money however, in his frank and brutally honest way, quietly confided that he would be happy if that figure were doubled. Anything less was unacceptable. No apologies. It's just not the kind of thing you say at that particular moment. Or is it? He now works for himself and is thriving. He's setting records. The kid is a worker.

Case in point: A rebel who breaks the rules by following them to a T. An artist who paints faces of incomprehension and awe. A confident man who knows how to live. All in the same dude.

When I first met him, he introduced me to a world of sexy cars, fast women, golf and Cuban cigars. He was like a country club member at 15. Actually, I think he did belong to one by that point. But those became emblematic of his deeper value in the years to follow: pride of ownership, confidence, good sportsmanship, and a reverence for the finer things in life. And above all, his shining most glorious trait, unsurpassed by all the rest, Money is the most loyal sonofabitch out there. He grew up to become the man you count on.

Actual Quote: "Dude, you know I'd take a bullet." Me: "Prove it."

I keep asking him who's trying to kill me? But if I were ever in real trouble, if the rules were somehow gone, if the referee wasn't looking and it was down to you or the other guy, pray you have a friend like Money on your side; he'll make all the difference in the world. So thanks, Money. You're alright.

In conclusion, who needs dollars & cents when you got a friend like Money? Not this guy.

Thanks for reading. D.

A Star Trek Review... Of Sorts.

November 16th, 1974. Dr. Frank Drake and Carl Sagan et. al., release the Arecibo Message (pictured) into the cosmos on the pretense that intelligent civilizations may one day receive, decode and respond to it. While it's problematic for humans to picture invisible radio waves traveling through space in single file, we much more quickly grasp the point when such a message is transformed into a pretty picture. More accurately, as humans are keen visual learners, this colored pictogram is merely an abstract visual expression of their simple radio frequency released into intergalactic space. But what does it say I wonder?

Take a good long look at this picture.

It's a metaphor of our collective human brain. It represents in every fundamental way, that which is provable human knowledge. As a species, we have just barely ascertained that math is the language of the Universe, and this, our first word into the cosmos, is effectively saying, "Me".

Can you read it? I'll give you a clue: it's written in binary code.

Let's get stupid simple real quick. You can't begin to appreciate the value of a mathematical equation, {10 > 2}, unless you first learn the basic ten digit system {0, 1, 2...8, 9}. It is only when you first describe the individual building blocks, that it becomes possible to show your work; proof that a qualitative judgment is rationally correct. So, like, what? How does this factor into a Star Trek review? I will show you if you would please bear with me.

The Arecibo message has been able to summarize the complete and total understanding of our collective human knowledge within 1697 repetitions of two characters: 1 and 0. Each colored square is "on". Each black square is "off". This is as simple as it gets. It will take 25 thousand years to reach its destination and twice that length for us to receive a response, if at all. Instinctively, this gesture then appears to be more symbolic than prudent from its very inception. Regardless, the message is a fascinating way to look at ourselves from an outside perspective. Like a brightly lit computer icon, made to be double-clicked, it opens a vortex of organized logic. By it's design alone, it represents the deeper meaning of rational thought. However, where the code ends, so too do we. Allow me to explain.

Here's a quick breakdown of its symbolism from the top down:

1. In WHITE: The numbers 1 to 10 in binary code. This is like the decoder key.

2. In PURPLE: The atomic numbers for DNA. Hydrogen = 1, Carbon = 6, Nitrogen = 7, Oxygen = 8, Phosphorous = 15.

3. In GREEN: The molecular formula for nucleotides. This describes the chemical compounds for sugars and bases in nucleotides.

4. In WHITE & BLUE: The number of nucleotides and the double helix structure of DNA. This number is actually incorrect, but it makes the point symbolically nevertheless.

5. In RED: A picture of a Human with the numbers for average height and global population. We recognize ourselves as the intelligence processor.

6. In YELLOW: Our solar system. Earth is elevated to denote the message's origin.

7. In PURPLE: The Arecibo radio wave telescope to denote the method of transmission.

That’s it.

Do you see its significance? The human stick figure stands on the pixel meant to denote Earth; his head opens into the strand of DNA. Do you see how this picture summarizes the most fundamental components of our physical understanding, in the simplest way we know how? I repeat, this picture is a snapshot of our rationally descriptive knowledge. It is US.

Similarly, Star Trek is very much a cultural attempt at the Arecibo code. It breaks itself down into the basic parts, only to rebuild itself before our very eyes. It shows us the best of us, working together, to accomplish a goal of meaning. The analogy may sound stretched, but I believe they are one and the same; two sides to the same coin, if you will.

I'm going to boldly go where no movie review has gone before. But stay with me, there's a worthwhile point.

Most of our science fiction assumes each planet will have it's own intelligent ambassador species: Vulcan, Wookie, Robot, etc. and they will SPEAK a language similar to that of our own. This is an unlikely and subjective window into the future. In actuality however, if we are to communicate with another civilization in any meaningful way, the narrow scope of razor sharp mathematical expression will be our only tool. So for instance, an alien race would attempt to describe themselves as simply as they could to their level of understanding (just like we have with the Arecibo message), and we would inevitably learn from their sophistication of the mathematical language, how much further advanced they were from us. Simple.

From an omniscient perspective however, you would not see a group of "humans" talking to a group of "aliens". You would only see one blue planet projecting its logical thought pattern out towards another planet very, very far away. If the language of the Universe is math, then a planet speaks with radio waves, and we the humans are merely assimilated into the Earth's thinking architectural structure. From a cosmic perspective, we are so small that we cease to have units for measuring; we become an integral part of the wholeness of Earth's attempt to project logic into space. As Star Trek would have you believe, once an alien civilization is discovered it will be all chitchat. In one way, the primitive use of telegraphing logical code through space using simple binary digits is an amazing achievement of life, but in another, it is just an otherwise infinitesimal step on a journey across the expansive universe. Regardless of how you choose to view this attempt at speech, what else could we say about ourselves? How else could we do it? As it stands, this picture is the best thing we've got. So far.

Imagine a baby trying to utter her first phonemes in stark contrast to the incredible syntactic complexity she will attain as an adult human. Think of this picture of the Arecibo message as that first sound. This is language: to take some simple markings and line them up a bunch of times over. Both literally and figuratively, the coded radio wave message is Earth's first attempt at intelligent speech. To copy ourselves in some meaningful and organized way. Hmm, what does that remind me of?

I'm inclined to draw a comparison between that of primitive cave drawings and this message. We understand primitive drawings instantly, because they are so perfectly representative of the basic building blocks of our own knowledge. Cave drawings are a mirrored reflection of their documenter's self-awareness. We also see their limitation, and in so doing, obtain a sense of history of how our knowledge has progressed over time to become more and more complex. We can infer what they lacked, for example, by the absence of their ability to depict three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. We've learned to describe depth and perspective from our human painters, and this in turn has added to the incremental complexity of our self-description. So how does our "space message" fall into the category of primitive cave drawings?

The Arecibo message lacks three-dimensional depth, so to speak. It is flat. And despite our vast specialized knowledge found throughout our daily existence, this amounts to all we can actually express outwardly. We don't have mathematical formulas for the expression of philosophical concepts, intimate to the human perspective. You could argue that with each successive step in refining an art, you refine a form of communication to be ever more precise. In which case, early cave drawings capture, abstractly, that particular time period's peak achievement in expressible thought. It was the best way they knew how to describe themselves at the time. And so following the analogy forward in time, this colorized code reveals our limitations on a cosmic scale, of just how far our self-descriptive language has to go. Earth is just a baby.

Just out of curiosity, how would you communicate an abstract thought through binary code? With all the poets of history, we can barely articulate the true nature of "love" to ourselves, much less through the formulation of mathematical abstraction. That is not to say such a description is impossible, just that we don’t possess the knowledge to do so right now. Therefore, we are defined equally by our lack.

Perhaps including a picture of us as individual, and separate from the earth is an inadvertent signifier of our lesser understanding. Based on the notion that we are separate from the Earth, perhaps an advanced race could extrapolate from their own history, at what stage of development we are currently in. Or, they may be surprised to find out just how irrational we can be considering the message we sent was purely rational. Math in its narrow window of focus, does not allow us to express many of the things we consider to be most human. In stark contrast to our current methods, an advanced species would be forced to express themselves purely through mathematics in order to be understood by the rest of the universe. Until then, this pretty Nintendo picture will do just fine.

Finally, the basic premise of Star Trek has and always will be successful for no other reason than it exemplifies a primal message about our strongest impulse: curiosity. By this factor alone, it was an intelligent franchise to reboot. In the wake of Batman Begins, Star Trek has boldly chosen to back up, rewind, clear the slate, and start from the beginning and breakdown the essence of its theme into the most basic parts. In so doing, you may then come to understand it's greater purpose, and this idea of showing your work as proof, is at its most basic level, a sign of respect for the audience. So you know what J.J. Abrams? Thank you.

Thank you for showing me each character the moment BEFORE they became assimilated into the U.S.S. Enterprise. Thank you for showing me what each character brought to the table by their own talent, intellect, specialized knowledge, whatever. It is only in understanding the delicate ballet of dynamic human interaction, that you can then pull away to reveal the sleek spaceship as a symbol for something more complex and purposeful. Hmm, that sounds like the Earth. I had never looked at it this way until seeing this movie. Essentially, the Enterprise is nothing more than a beautiful machine made by humans; it can do no better then they can. However, the heart of the machine is found only in its human center; the control bridge where decisions are made, probabilities weighed, and warp-speed engaged. The ship is only made valuable by understanding first, the complex interactions that must take place on a human level in order to function as a whole. In this way, Star Trek's narrative strategy succeeds.

Thematically speaking, what I take from the movie is a celebration of our pioneering spirit into new lands and ideas, AND the collective strength we require to do it. To borrow from a friend, “strong communities yield strong individuals, and strong individuals make up strong communities”. If we're going to go exploring, we may as well do it together, because it tips the scales in favor of our statistical success. Discovering the New World was once our greatest ambition as a species and today it has expanded to a galactic scale. If nothing else, Star Trek highlights our forward-thinking, goal-seeking future existence: To boldly go where no ONE has gone before. That much I knew already, but this movie explains HOW we will get there: US! The type of people they are, some serious, some with sense of play, how they reason, the rules they choose to follow or break, whatever. Of all things, that reaffirms my hope in humankind. I feel good now. Check please.

In terms of actual film specifics, the only comment I will make is a suspicion that Apple had a hand in designing the revamped bridge. If you don't think that's the cleverest, intentionally ambiguous product placement idea since the two-hour FedEx commercial that is Cast Away, I hasten to remind you, the only food Kirk is ever seen eating.... an apple. In the bridge. Done. Congrats you sneaky bastards. Anyway.

Arecibo Code. Star Trek. They are both a symbolic message to us as a tribe of learning animals. They are both a cosmic projection of what we understand ourselves to be. A call to arms. A celebration of life and its expansive property. While one message is codified in precise, calculated math and literally sent out to space, the other is codified in analogy, metaphor and ideals, projected on a screen in front of us. I asked above how we could describe an abstract concept to another civilization. Well, movies like Star Trek are the building blocks to that goal. We must first be able to describe our goals, and how we are to achieve them abstractly, to OURSELVES, before we can reason out the way of proving it. In so doing, we can prove who and what we are to anyone else listening. While Star Trek seeks to project an outward image of our inevitable future, the Arecibo message stands as a more sobering example of how far we have actually come. It's not nearly as impressive as we may like to think, but I say it's good to know where we stand. The verdict is in: We are fucking primitive.

So go see the damn movie and learn something about yourself.

Thanks for reading. D.

Day N Night

KillerSong

TighterVid

Taking the night off.

(Video by So_Me)

Fight Fire With... Fire?

"...as he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him..." Shit.

June 11, 1963. Saigon. Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, sets fire to his body in the middle of a busy intersection in front of the Cambodian embassy. He volunteers, using his seniority within the Buddhist community, to lead a protest against President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration for persecution of Buddhists in South Vietnam. He burns for 10 minutes, slowly falling apart into charred ash. Only his heart remains somewhat in tact. Well, I'm not sure what to make of that exactly.

Three areas fascinate me about this act:

1. A tangible, concrete example of the phenomenal power of the human mind in action.

2. A tangible, concrete example of civil disobedience expressed in it's most extreme, and perhaps perfect, form.

3. The profound humility and respect which fell upon the witnesses in immediate response to this act of self-immolation; they fell to their knees, almost on reflex, bowing their heads to the ground in complete reverence, sadness and awe. It's as if they saw an act of God, or Buddha, or David Fincher.

First, think about your bio-evolutionary reflex to avoid pain at all costs. When you touch something white hot, you're hand pulls away before you realize it's hot. The pain only registers after. I've often thought burning would be the worst kind of death imaginable... maybe an axe murdering would be worse, but brief, whatever. I've heard of studies showing the mind control of Buddhist monks, 60 years of meditation on their resume, and it's as if they've unplugged the hardline from mind to body. Nothing phases these guys. I guess that's the only way you could pull off something this excruciatingly difficult. Anyone can light themselves on fire but not many can sit there like they're waiting for a bus. This fundamentally interests me for no other reason than to demonstrate the power of mediation. Tonight I meditate after yoga.

Second, in our global climate of warring tribal nations, offensive strikes are believed to be the best moral choice in order to stop worse atrocities from happening. While I can't argue that the Canadian occupation of Afghanistan isn't helping women and children from the shackles of misogynist tyranny, I've thought for a while now that no country should make war with another, unless certain basic criteria have been met in their homeland first. For instance, universal healthcare and a land free of homeless children would be a great start. The USA definitely would not have been able to go to Iraq if that were the case. My point here, is that I question by what right does one country have to tell another what to do, how to be, if they themselves are not fully actualized? I understand that is incredibly ideological, and probably horrendously impractical to expect, but that's why I am so impressed with Thich Quang Duc's statement. Even in the most extreme cases of persecution, the enlightened man or woman, will still see that violence is a short term gain, at best, and more than likely a total loss. Put another way, violence is a waste of human energy. So, I guess this burning monk is saying it is better to die by your own hand, if the quality of your life has become so unbearably poor, than to strike the hand that harms you. Hmmmm.... this is a grey area still, but wholly important I suspect.

Third and finally, the surrounding civilians just fell to the ground. The gesture of self-sacrifice, or compassion, was so powerful, it must have triggered some fundamental principle in the human psyche that said: revere this, it is special, important, an example of human perfection. To choose this, and to own it as he did, it must have been a remarkable experience to watch. I can't be sure how I would react here. I'd like to think I would understand it, but that's gotta be a really hard thing to watch. There's something about how these people collapsed as if unable to help themselves that puzzles me. Like some underlying cable that moves through all of us was pulled and the ones closest just dropped. I don't know.

Thích Quảng Đức was thought to be enlightened.

Tonight I finish with more questions than from whence I began.

Thanks for reading. D.