Get up, trinity
I don't do enough self reflection these days. Oh plenty of self loathing,
but no real reflection. In part because I seem to be limited by how fast I can
type into emacs*, and how long I can concentrate (which isn't long M-t C-t re
C-t, C-w M-t...). But in part I just haven't. Plenty of reflection on other
things, but not enough on myself.
Roto was musing earlier this week, among other things, about how he was
worried that he might be seen as a overreacting neuron. Similar in a
sense, to how I was worried that my worrying and whining about my
social condition might be flooding my friends, and that if I really
needed help it might not be there.
One of the things to come out of this is the idea of people as limits in a way
that complicates both positive and negative views of rights in general. This
alone is insightful and really calls into question the very foundations of
most of our social institutions(pretty much anywhere where 'freedom' is used
in regards to people). But the second point here is that people can thus
be seen as self-expanding limits.
Enter the radiolab podcast first was not to my taste; It started with athletes; I can
smell the overconfidence of athletes and find it distasteful on a deep level.
I don't trust them, don't trust their perceptions of themselves or their world.
Anyway, it's all about limits, physical, mental, neurological. It quickly
got interesting.
Two examples were brought up -- one during a race where persistence and
something extra kicked in and the runner finished an endurance race, another
where the runner stopped during a race, he met his personal limit, and then
stopped. The question was which one should we respect more? The athlete
who was capable of the race and did it? Or the athlete who wasn't, yet
nevertheless pushed himself to what he knew what his personal limit?
The first athlete was capable of more yet didn't persist to that limit.
Much like that recent olympic 100m runner who recently took the world
record, yet did so in such a way to look as though he wasn't even trying.
The podcast talked about a governor system in the brain, a system "designed"
to keep an emergency stash of energy away from the conscious mind, and only
really unlock it in emergencies, and even then, not all of it.
The rhythm is the key as we open up the door. Madness is the name of that key.
Science and education is a key to one side of the brain, but this is a different
door.
The governor system can be convinced that it really is an emergency.
When you have truly lost your perception of reality you can fool your governor
circuit, you can fool your own mind. You can make yourself do the impossible.
You can use hallucinations as fuel to trigger even more ability than you ever
thought you had. Because insight is self-reinforcing, being able to
throw your mind off might make you seriously smarter, even so much as to
overcome the amount of unreality you had to force into it to begin with.
A little while back I broke down and rewatched the matrix. I hadn't seen it
in quite awhile and had access to it across the network from my roommate's
share. There are a couple places it's really inspirational, like the
neo-vs-smith, smith,smith,et al in #2, and the "get up trinity" in #1.
In general, it is a very inspirational series, all about running into new
types of limits, and overcoming them. And knowing yourself, understanding
your own limits, and subverting them. Doing the impossible. I know it's
fake, it's MPAA mind poison. But still.
Am I near my limit? Could I push myself further?
I think I am in some ways at a limit -- but in others I am not. Partially
because I am not at the limits that I am used to being at, I have been so
distraught at the whole thing. I have different limits at different places.
The past week has been spent thinking of all the reasons why, in some ways
rationalizing, in some ways just to avoid in the future and in other ways
just to grapple with the reasons why I have failed this semester.
It's not over yet but I know I will.
The obvious reason is that I spent hours and hours walking, running and working
at a wage just barely at the sustinance level. The same kind of sustinance
that I worked at as a first year that wasn't enough to make university work
then, and isn't enough now.
Another reason that I lost is the requiem for a dream type stuff -- the small
decisions, here and there doomed me. I actually did have enough time for
a class, maybe even two, but it was sliced so thinly that at the margins, it
made sense to do other things. Laundry here, hanging out with friends there
(and it seems to me there was not nearly enough of that -- I have become a
recluse lately). I managed my time decently, but not enough. I was too
greedy and ambitous and it got the better of me.
But that isn't the whole truth. Some of it is motivational. I have been
depressed, on average since at least the point where I broke up with meirionwen. Almost every day has had at least a few points where I had to convince myself not to simply walk up to the north end and jump in front of a semi.
It is not enough that I have a very 'low' self image/esteem, my will to live
really just evaporated this past year or so. My ambition along with it
more recently.
In outlook I was also approaching both a physical and a motivational limit.
D&E poisoned my morale in some ways near the end of the summer, and in general
I was slipping. I was also not in control. While I like to be in control,
in some ways I'm capable of more when I'm not in control, and struggle to
regain control.
The brain uses static, and in its basic processing. We now know that we can
similarly use delusion for other purposes; priming the regulator circuit as
above in order to acheive more is only one example. The basic idea is to
do something locally wrong, that has higher level progress associated with it.
DNA encodes all sorts of behaviour into us that might seem like a bad idea for
us, but increases the odds that our DNA continues. Women staying in abusive
relationships is an example of this.
People are expanding limits. But once you know this you can start to
understand the limits, and bend them. To bend ourselves. In some ways we
do this naturally, but we can choose to do it, too. We can envision many
ways to change and allow to be changed the nature of those limits. We can
understand the greater context. We can understand the pattern of limits.
Are they a random walk? Or, are they biased? If they are biased, in which
direction are they biased?
If we are built to limit others, are we biased? What can we do to reduce
our limiting of others, short of suicide?
One of my main insights today is that the one of the best ways of motivating
me in a deep way seems always to come in the form of women(shock!). Angels,
kind of. Robin was really THE cause of my getting into music at all. And
although confirmation bias and correlation vs. causation concerns are
certainly present I think I can trace everything interesting about me
to someone unlocking something in me. Unlike a trained buddhist, I am incapable
of unlocking the limitless potential of the now myself, I require them to
unlock my predetermined limits. I was built this way.
It isn't sex. Sex might be what the DNA was aiming for when it developed
this sort of thing, and sex does have an impact on motivation(and motivation
on sex). But there's something else here.
I can't be the only one like this.
If you could turn this sort of thing on like a tap, a 'womentoinspireyou.com'
you could do wonders.
Another counterintuitive result from the podcast: that the tools which give
us the most ability to work efficiently, are the very same that give us the
most pain. The bicycle is capable of inflicting more pain on me than any bully
ever did. This is directly related to what we're talking about though; we are
controlled, and may control systems, but in doing so we risk hooking pain
receptors to those systems. Beware.
Soundtrack to this post:
Radiolab podcast above
Pink floyd - Run Like hell
Infected Mushroom - Break on Through (Infected Mushroom Guitar Mix)
Yann Tiersen - Rue des Cascades
morally sound - stressed
Eckhart Tolle - Chapter 2 - the origin of fear
Start of may 15, 2001, Off the Hook