080818 This is a good test of the emergency attentional-focal system, because lib and cel are being obnoxious with each other, i’m right in the middle of trying not to freak out about how much work I’ve made for myself by the way I decided to do this stupid AVID class, and I just totally don’t want to sit here and do this utterly pointless, ephemeral, meaningless, symbolic, hyper-abstract “thing” that isn’t even a thing. It’s like a GAME of life... We look at the blips that give the illusion to our eyes of travelling across the screen or forming shapes or progressions of some sort, and we give our having seen and mentally recorded those patterns names, like “spaceship” or “worm” or whatever. Then we talk about those names as if they were common nouns, “real” objects that interact with the rest of the universe according to physical laws. We Pretend that we are doing physical things with them; flying them, nurturing them, watching them, etc. We pretend that our work is work. Is there any way to actually measure mental energy? Do like MRA’s and whatever actually do that? Is there some quantifiable electrical charge that your brain gives off? Does measuring it have any connection to what kind of “work” the haver of the brain has the sense or perception of “doing?” Why do I get the feeling anything besides building a brick wall is essentially— But then, isn’t the brick wall just as illusory as the spaceship or the worm? Isn’t it just us telling ourselves narratives about where one “thing” begins and another “thing” ends, and making up pseudo-love stories about the relationships between said “things?” Maybe I should just speak for myself—I don’t feel as though I know how to “write” or “tell” anything besides monkey simulations. How can I basically look at EVERYTHING, and reduce it to terms of copulating primates? Cuz that’s all I really understand. Oh, supernovae? The doppler effect? Dark energy? Quantum computing? Tell me what it has exactly, directly to do with a chimp’s distended genitals rubbing against another one’s, and I’ll let you know what I can contribute to that discussion. Ah shit Ah shit Anything except pure nonsense—as a spell or litany that’s getting a little thin. When you start to look at so many squiggles per day that it ALL seems like nonsense. This is the neocortex eating itself, eh Bly? This is David Gann walking through the woods and not being able to feel the leaves or pebbles because he was obsessing about some thing some dead hippy had got a lot of attention for doing with some pieces of paper. I guess that’s the questions that keeps coming back to me: what is the value of mental work? Does it have to be transferred or translated into some kind of physical work in order to be worth anything? Is there such a thing as a direct mental transfer from one mind to another, and if so, who cares? What does it “do?” Does it matter whether it “does” anything or not? Is the goal to alleviate suffering? To make people feel a certain way? Any way at all? To make people feel less alone? To acquire or guard resources for the survival of the body? Of the clan or nation? Is there a distinction between thoughts and objects? Some of these are lame old questions, but I feel as though somewhere along the line it was just assumed that we were all going to pretend we had answered them satisfactorily, or that they were just pretend questions, like little puzzles made out of bent nails that didn’t “mean” anything, and there were more important things to worry about if you wanted to graduate to the next level. I keep coming back to this the last few days, though: Why am I doing this? It’s such a naive, sophomoric, adolescent question. Hopefully the friction of it can make a pearl or two, eventually, or at least make me possibly be a better teacher? And why do I care about that? Oh god, this isn’t working the usual way. This is a bad trip. It’s supposed to make me calm down and smile and come down into myself, but it’s not working at all today. I’m just going faster and faster, round and round, and getting more and more agitated. FUCK AND I’VE GOT 2 MINUTES LEFT I have to slow it down. I’m sorry Dorothea, but I have to primitive-chimp it down a little bit and just put a few slow words before I mentally puke. dalmation sassafrass sycamore sycamore is one of my little gem words that i keep in my little box in my tent, for times when i can’t figure out what to think or do, or what’s the difference between the two. blackbird ferry oasis calumny frigate perish sluice pert circumnavigate aloha glyph crennelation castellation birkenstock thank god the beep