Insomnia poem

  

A poem, and I ask

What is the word for the waiting?

What is a name for the longing,

that sits molten and warm within me,

when sunlight fades, 

and when minutes elongate into hungry uncertainty?

 

I will my body and mind to wait,

to hold, to pause

Because of the rhythm of worries 

Yet while my mind obeys, 

my body forges ahead.

 

Desire and intrigue, when I bring the image to mind

conjured intensity and tenderness matched

like we are both near blind.

We get as close as the mingling of sand and sea,

the rhythm of our heartbeats resound like waves

crashing all over me. 

And though I loathe to admit such fervent energy

At any given moment of any day,

my stomach overturns to remind me.

 

Sociopaths #1

Our brains hold many secrets and clues to our behaviour:

A brain area called the ventral striatum — a region tied to evaluating the value of immediate rewards — was overly active in participants deemed highly sociopathic. Sociopaths typically lack empathy and only do things that benefit themselves. 

How do sociopaths fit into our society now? How do you have a relationship (friendship or otherwise) with a sociopath when you know you ultimately cannot rely on them for any form of unconditional love or altruistic action? 

I think it’s possible to have the view that relationships are expendable if not beneficial but not have strongly sociopathic tendencies. We are all expendable. It does hurt a part of me to let people go that hinder my progress or growth, but I am capable of it. Ultimately its up to each of us to interact and benefit or move on to make other connections – and that is largely what we all do. Being ruthless is easier for sociopaths, and hence they probably have a place in our evolution as they make ruthless decisions easier and can achieve things that are difficult without the guilt or emotions that arise when making decisions that increase their survival probability. Sociopaths are limited as they cannot reap the benefits of true empathy in the path of cognitive growth and imaginative thinking. The classification of a sociopath actually helps if you choose to have a relationship with one because it sets up boundaries and it makes sure you adjust your expectations. 

I have met a sociopath who was violent when he didn't get what he wanted. This is the most dangerous form of sociopath because the empathy (or conscience) that would normally provide a measure safety to the victim isn't there. In fact, the sociopath would more likely blame the victim for their very own lack of control. 

 

 

The evolution of self-awareness: how it confers upon the individual a survival advantage

If the entire process of consciousness is epiphenomenal, then we still have to explain why evolution expended so much effort into evolving it. If it doesn’t affect anything, other than providing us with a subjective experience, why do we have it at all? 

What is the evolutionary advantage of self-awareness?
The answer may be the interplay between imagination, memories and prediction and our ability to do complex things because of it and thus survive and prosper.

Socially
When we became social animals, the ability to anticipate the behaviour of others around us — particularly members of our own tribes — became increasingly important. The ability to read the intentions of others (are they friendly or are they about to attack?) was critical to the survival of our ancestors. In order to be able to judge and predict someone else’s behaviour, it was helpful to be able to compare it to our own feelings — to be able to empathize with them. In order to adequately relate to what another member was feeling and anticipate their actions, we required the ability to assess and compare our observations to our own feelings and thoughts. In order to understand that our opponent is angry, we need to consult with our own prior experience of feeling angry. By comparing new observations of a subject (facial expressions, language, body language, etc) to our own experience of how we’ve felt in the past in similar situations (memories are critical here, and the brains way of generalising), we can do a pretty good job of predicting how the subject might behave. Out of this core social necessity — the ability to assess our own internal state evolved. This proved to be successful in helping us make predictions, and in turn helping us to survive. The ability to reflect upon our own actions as well as others provided us with powerful tools for adapting to changing environments. As we continued to exploit this mechanism, even more powerful capabilities evolved as we eventually developed language, social structure, education, etc.

Mechanistically 
When we started using tools, the ability to anticipate the outcome of using a certain tool became increasingly important. The ability to predict its impact and use, and test that imaginatively as well as literally was critical to the survival of our ancestors. 

Philosophically - TBC.

Calvin and Hobbes quote

 “Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”

― Bill Watterson

Stone carving project #1

On a walk along the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, I found a dolerite 'dinosaur' egg with a weathering rind that I am going to carve. 

I plan to carve a female human. The purpose would be to persuade the viewer to consider this women's plight to take up an examined, open-minded, enlightened way of life; but encompass the struggles that this entails. The egg shell (rind) will represent structures (such as societal rules or people who attempt to control her) that must be treated with careful consideration. 

I was thinking a full naked female human form with hands ~0.5cm peeling the edges of the first layer off. 

I also think it might be more affronting (and communicative) to see a female face peering out of the egg. The egg would actually be her head, and the cracking of the shell would symbolise the breaking of barrier's to thought; and the birth of ideas. 

Maybe I’m not taking the analogy with art far enough, perhaps it needs to be more graphic or bloody or visceral too. Perhaps I could glue on a ruby red tear....my grandfather made me some in his lab which are chemically identical to real rubies and they look like tears. He offered them to me for earrings but I haven't done anything with them. I think he would like this idea more. 

To be continued...

Text

The windows are open and the curtains are blown about by the breeze. The delicate and silver waxing crescent moon shimmers light through the window, bordered by a cloister of darkness in which her eyes wander to the chair nearby.

There lies a text. It's cold… steam rises off the towel now strewn on the chair. She picks up the text, her fingertips pressing lightly against the spine. She holds it open, looking inside at the notes along the spine. She can't shake the feeling of being possessed; likened to standing on the precipice of something. Her heart beats are steady, her mind calm, but also aware of the heightened state of being that is aroused by reading such a text. She searches in the half-dark on the nearby desk for a pencil, finding it in the moonlight, to resume her note taking of thoughts arising as if from out of nowhere.