Friday, July 29, 2016

In memory of shana



I asked myself earlier whether or not Shana would be proud of me.  She was always so honest and had such confidence in her standards for behavior and her intolerance for betrayal that I often found my own pride in myself through her eyes.  Although the most beautiful thing about this aspect of Shana is that she liked me more and favored me more the more I took pride in myself, and for that reason. She did not believe in wallowing in sadness or self pity.  While she had a hard time acknowledging her own pain, as we grew up we helped eachother find the place sadness has in self respect over self pity.  In the place where you understand how you can grow from the experience, or possibly avoid it in the future, find the strength in yourself to learn from everything about the woes and beauty of humanity. My own self doubt often plagued or friendship, it would repel her or prevent me from being open to her defiant nature.  When I look back on my question, would she be proud of me, it helps me to remember that she will be proud of me when I have pride in myself.  When I understand why I’m doing the things that I’m doing and I’m proud to be doing them.
It’s unfortunate that I forgot what it felt like to have a friend who so positively reinforced me, made me feel good about being genuine, about being strong.  Most people just compliment me for being care free or cool. Only someone who doesn’t truly understand why I try to love what I see would believe those detatched higherarchical compliments. When shana helped me believe I was genuine, I became more genuine, and that was the source of the strength I had around her.  While she could be intimidating her strength was insidious.  She was a teacher of individuality, how to find your own music, your own movies, your own hair style, your own clothing.  She didn’t want the in she wanted the out, the way to ignore what was in.  While we were all products of an advertising industry to some degree, most of our fascinations were as genuine as our aspirations, our drug usage, and our friendships.  That is why our friendships outlasted our drugs and failed dreams, and that is the only reason any of the advertisements ever even worked.
Her death is a reminder to embrace reality the way I did before I felt damaged and weak and jaded. I was truly a hero with her and Emily in high school. I felt like a learner of life and not a victim of my own propensity to fall on hardships. 
Everyone has a propensity to fall on hardships, what matters is that I learn to live as if I could die tomorrow, and to love as if we will never die, to see as if for the first and last time, to feel as if I could be another, to never imagine the audience the obituary or the statistic, but the human behind every song lyric, every science fiction novel, every magic card, everything.  
p.s. shana took the picture that is the head of my blog and is one of the only people that ever followed what I wrote

Saturday, June 4, 2016

writings from grad school in neuroscience



Criticality. Shortness. Science.
Criticality is instigated by a second messenger cascade that modulates autocrine signaling. As one binds to another, they can be absorbed by the other and poison them from the inside out. Alternatively they may maintain detached on the surface and indirectly imbue the other with self-doubt which reacts with defense mechanisms to form a compensating shell that slowly desensitizes and degrades the receptivity of the cold motionless surface. The main effects are accounted for by the mirrored coding of their actions. Homeokinesis, managing the untidy foldings and structure with the energy of another.  Eventually they will be broken down and reduced to tarnished metaphors of themselves, microscopic, inanimate, diagrams of their souls.
To be cold is to forget heat, to be hot is to forget cold. 
Palindromes.
For approximately fifteen minutes everyday for five days then for 30-45 minutes on subsequent days in a rhythmic lunar cycle until the peak days there is a shield that will lower itself over the eyes. Something about my honesty makes me taste like lipstick and the iron in my blood.
 I am constantly in a state of presentation because I am striving for a presentation. 
Should I be so surprised when I support barely heartedly day after day neuroscience which I love for only two reasons:
I know how it can be improved upon, and it makes me feel like I haven’t been that brain damage in high school because I’m capable of understanding my brain damage in high school.
I do not want to compensate for my dazed flachelent attention span;  self medicated with hallucinogens, masters degrees, and phone numbers.
That leaves me alone, uneducated, and sober.
Motives are what we make them.  This is why LSD is an extremely important drug.
Subjectivity is part of an external reality.  Sweat lodges are a crucial component of realistic and empathetic self reflection.
Self help books are the devil. Because they externalize the struggle.
I am not a self help book. I am not a self help book.  Just chant that three times, and you can truly be yourself. 
I am constantly in a state of presentation because I am striving for a presentation.
The writers mind drifts between the page and her readers, drifts to their awareness of his wonderings, and then finally admits them and falters beneath her own egocentric diologue, holding on to his sanity by the string of assurance that self awareness grants her.
I am striving for being in the being of being.
Seeing everymoment in every other moment. 
People hallucnagens and exploratory journeys through the history of abstraction and molecular wonder.
That’s just not what happens though.  I sit down and look at flash cards and the information slowly siddles into my mind.  I weep. I weep. I weep.
I was happy that time I exercised.
Now my sentencenes just keep getting shorter.
The I me my more numerous.
The melancholy satire more convoluted and reflective of a generation that could find the middle of nowhere on their GPS.
Hypocracy is inevitable.

Monday, January 11, 2016

In Memorial of David Bowie




In Memorial of David Bowie
David Bowie has passed, but he was larger than life.  He created myths and fantasies that he could live out his creations through, that he could reach people through.  The name David Bowie has become a being that can’t die because he is embedded in us, not just in the vinyl we own or the posters on our wall, but in the more colorful and eccentric world we live in because he existed. He does not need tall buildings or statues or large falices to be memorialized.  I remember his successes and his mistakes as proof that we are all aliens in our own way and that only makes us more human.  Our alien nature only makes it more possible for us to be who we want to be.  It will never stop us from being more fabulous than we’d ever imagined.  Without ever saying a word to me, David Bowie makes me feel like I’m beautiful, like I can dress the way I want to, have the friends and lovers I want to, and to be proud of everything that makes me different.  He taught me to embrace change, and that entering new worlds or ideas or spaces can be sincere, and there’s no need to be afraid or to feel like a poser.  It just means I get to experiment with my hair do.  He taught me that you can be a bad ass, you can push the limits while being sentimental in a room full of muppets.  So much of who I am today, and of who so many people are, is shaped by David Bowie and the excellent musicians and artists he brought together. The world will never forget its new found comfort, self esteem, and spectacular environment he helped give it permission to create with his confidence and talent.  His devotion to art was never simply about getting paid or being loved, it was about bringing everyone together and telling them to “give me your hands, because you’re wonderful.” 
If anyone would like to help me figure out how to get to the memorial concert at Carnegie hall, or arrange our own memorial concert and/or a memorial film marathon in New Orleans please let me know.  I know a lot of people who feel the word 'fan' is understatement when it comes to Bowie and I know this isn’t easy for any of us.