So I have had a good summer of fire performance and it isn't over.
I had the chance to perform at Faerieworlds in June, and I have done a lot of work with friends. Upcoming I have Faerieworlds Harvest, which we are still deciding what to do, and the big one for me Earthdance Northwest.
EDNW is not bigger than FW nor is it better in any way, but this is the big one for me for several reasons.
1. I am using a character that has been under development for 6 months
2. It is the first festival gig I got without my friend's connections - I got this one on my own
3. I am doing it by myself. I am carpooling up there with strangers, and camping solo. Additionally, there will be way more people there than normal who I don't know (unlike FW where I can't go 20 feet without seeing someone I know)
I am really excited for it, and for everything coming in the near future.
I also had the chance recently to record some of my fire stuff, including my new character, who I will talk about in a bit.
I have videos for the character, fans, and poi. They were all improvised and done without any planning other than "I wanna spin fire tonight." The ones I still have left to film are contact juggling and eating (fire of course).
Anyway, as I am writing this, I am editing the videos for sound so they sound nice, but I am not doing any video editing whatsoever (ok, maybe a little bit) so hopefully by the time I post it, they will be ready to post links.
That was the plan. I still might go through with the plan because it is a good plan.
However, something kinda crazy happened last night. I was working on fire eating/breathing with my friend Braedon, who has been working so hard on all of this, and I am really proud of him. Having an apprentice is fun (we did a fans/breathing duet that I choreographed in like 30 minutes last week, I still remember it, and I hope to get it on film once I do some repair work on my equipment).
I got my lip burned last night. And my stomach. And my arm. Minor burns, just annoyances really - nothing more than I'm used to. They hurt a lot more than I am used to, but I blame that on the fact that I hadn't eaten anything in over 12 hours, so I just wasn't operating on full.
Anyway, I had a thought when I was nursing my burns with some ice: God I am tired of it.
I love fire eating and breathing because they are way cool, and they demonstrate a control that few have. And crowds love it. The reason I work so hard on them is because nobody else will do them. I don't like competition, and working in that field reduces it. I can't compete with the best when it comes to poi, I don't see fans and me becoming best friends and spending hours working together, and I sure as hell don't want to make a habit of doing fire contact juggling a lot. So it was my only option, but now I have this new thing that I do. Nobody does this. Seriously - I've been watching youtube videos of fire performance for years, and I have never seen something like this.
I want this to become my thing. This character will become more sleek, more well oiled, use more props, all in his own unique fashion (which will make sense when you see the video).
I am tired of nursing burns on my chest and arms. I am tired of shaving my arms and chest before every show. I am tired of burns inside my mouth that make me chew on my own lip for a week.
And now I finally have a way to not do that anymore.
So, here's the new plan. I am gonna rip out the best fire eating routine I have ever done in my life. I am gonna do it once. I am going to record it, and then I am gonna put it in the demo video. I want to show that I can, and unless SPECIFICALLY ASKED I will not perform it. Fire eating no longer has a place in the fire jams I go to. It is a purely professional art for me. And I mean that literally. If I am going to burn myself for your entertainment, I am going to get paid.
Alright, video time.
#3 Fire Poi: I did this to "The Voice" by Celtic Woman, which I have actually done before, and have a video of it (on my youtube, and you can see how much I have improved in that time). Anyway, I want to clarify that poi is just something I do for fun. I don't practice more than once a week, and this was completely improvised with next to no warm up. Translation: just for fun, not to be taken seriously as a representation of what I do - poi is just a hobby (but you can be sure the highlights are going in the demo). Oh, and also, I did this blindfolded - just so that is clear.
#2 Fire Fans: I need to explain the music. It is not what I would have chosen, but just before I did this, I gave my friend a challenge and had him use fans to Enya's "Oronico Flow" which, if you've ever heard it, does not lend itself to my style of fans (which is what I have been teaching him). I just wanted to see what he would do. Then I told him he could choose anything he wanted for my set, and he gave me "Cannibal" by Ke$ha, which I actually like as a song, but not my first choice. Anyway, the moment I knew what the music was is the start of the video - true improv this one was (except that I know that song really well)
#1 Fyrieth: So I finally came up with a name for this guy - Fyrieth (FEAR-ee-eth). It is a word taken from Old English, and is actually a third person conjugation of fyrian (Chronicles of Riddick anyone?) which translates to "to supply fire." So this guy's name roughly translates to "supplier of fire" in a very inexact way. I wanted him to be in complete control of fire without reaching into pockets for lighters or flasks - if I couldn't keep it (1) on my body and (2) hidden, I didn't do it. This was the result. Music is "August" by UNK Remix. Enjoy!
So, I have these three videos, and once I record my badass fire eating and contact juggling videos, I will mix them altogether into a fire demo for myself, should be pretty fun. Look for that entry in a week or so.
That's all the facts from the fire front for today, burn it up.
Today's blog has been sponsored by the letter F.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
On Attractiveness of Skill
A preface on the subject. Part of being attracted to someone is their physical attractiveness. This is not all that composes how attracted I am to someone, but it would be foolish to say it didn't matter in the least. This post is STRICTLY about physical attractiveness. If you want to call me shallow for my standards of physical attractiveness, you are full of tautology, because that is just what physical attractiveness standards are: shallow. The important part to remember is that there is more to attraction than this, I am merely not talking about them, because that isn't what I want to spend the next week of my time doing.
Ok, now that we have that out of the way, I want to make clear what I mean by attractive in the physical sense (as every time I use the word attractive will mean from here on out unless otherwise stated). Actually, scratch that, that is bloody hard to do. Put simply, if I am attracted to a person, it means that I think that sex with them is something I would not be opposed to. This is not to say that I am going to take efforts to make sexual activity happen between us. But this is to say that if for some insane reason we ended up in bed together, I would be physically enjoying myself. It's a pretty simple concept, try not to make such a big thing out of it.
One of my goals here is to describe my "type" without using any clichés, which I know is going to be impossible, so just bear with me. No, you know what, that is going to be to hard, so lets try something else.
Lets make a list of possibles, like in the DSM - they don't say "if you have these symptoms, you have the following condition" no, they say if you have a certain number of these traits, it is likely you have the following condition and it would be a wise plan to consult a professional who knows what they are doing to get a better idea - but you never confirm it. Which is why we still have doctors and not computers with statistical analysis engines being the psychiatric diagnosticians. Point being: there is no formula for a type, but there are patterns and generally identifiable characteristics.
I want you all thinking about your own Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Sexual Attraction. It is a worthwhile exercise I have found.
There is a long list, and I have it in my head, and since this is a public blog, I think I'm going to keep it that way. But there is one that I think I can confidently say without offending anyone terribly - it is my personal attraction, and if you look at the people I date, you will see it is true.
I generally like slender people. I don't really know why, but something about slender people is attractive to me. But wait, that isn't really true is it - I might know why. Let's think about this. Thought experiment time! Why is it (for me personally, not for everyone) a trend to be attracted to slender people?
Sexually have I found slender people to be better in bed (meaning that are they a fit for me - nobody is universally good in bed. Sex between people is a relationship just as any other activity between people, and some people are a good fit and some are not) as a general rule? Now that I think about it, no. That isn't true at all, and I can think of a couple counterexamples.
So I am not attracted to them because they are generally better in my experience in bed with me.
Could it be.... actually, that's all I got. Why else could I be more physically attracted to a certain type almost definitely if it has nothing to do with any correlation with sexual ability?
And what do you do when you come to a nonconclusion about a question and don't know what to do? Start doubting your assumptions - perhaps I have defined this question incorrectly?
Yes, I answer myself (since I am recapping my own thought experiment, I already know where this is heading), I made an incorrect assumption. It was actually the first one I made - physical appearance and personality are actually not unrelated. Didn't think about it at first, the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" thing and all, but think about it - if someone has a lot of piercings, there is a pretty good chance their ambition is not to be come a state senator. Not that we could never have a senator with piercings, it's just that people that tend towards political activity and the public forum and being a part of our political system and people who tend towards many many piercings don't have a lot of overlap. And of course there is some as with all categories, but it would not be unreasonable to make this assumption.
So what can we reasonably say about thin people? Erm. They are thin. Shit. dead end.
Welcome to my thought experiment, I ask a lot of questions, and don't answer a lot of them.
What is it not reasonable to say about thin people? Ah ha! What can you reasonably not assume about thin people? What do thin people not do? Nope, still nothin
Ok, maybe I was questioning the wrong assumption - maybe I am not attracted to thin people at all, but possibly a quality that is really highly correlated with thin people. But obviously since I have been with people who I am highly attracted to but who would not be considered as thin as others, this quality is not perfectly correlated with thinness.
Right around this point in my thought experiment, I went off on a huge tangent about qualities that the people I surround myself with have, and things that correlate with thinness, and even went out to questioning that physical attractedness has anything to do with sexual desire whatsoever. I will save us a buttload of time by letting you know that all of these tangents got me absolutely nowhere, so we'll get to the stuff where I actually figured things about myself out. And where did I find it? The same place I always do - back at the beginning. But not my beginning, the first idea about how a species operates on a large scale. Darwin - yeah.
What makes a certain portion of its species go on? Fitness. Reproductive fitness primarily, but other kinds as well. Back long ago, people who couldn't fight off the occasional animal got dead really fast and couldn't go on. Makes sense to me. But obviously, ability to fight off animals isn't important today (there is still a standard attractiveness standard related to this, which is why the rugged mountain man with a gun and an elk head on his wall is still the hottest thing out there to some people - and that's cool, to each his or her own) so there are going to be those who find something else as a marker of reproductive fitness. Reproductive fitness sounds weird - like soley the function of your genitalia determines your fitness. Which we know not to be true. Women who smoke and drink frequently are less capable of carrying healthy offspring. Men who smoke (I don't know about drink) are less likely to be able to impregnate a woman. Obviously, there is more to it than the function of your genitalia. Let's just use the word fitness from now on - just a general fitness in life. To be able to do well in life, whatever that means to you, is your definition of fitness. If it means running a company is doing well, then that is fit for you. And if having children and raising them in the country is to do well, then someone who is very capable of doing that with you is going to be very fit to you. This is how I account for different tastes in people - I think it stems (in part) from your version of what it is to succeed in life.
So what is fitness for me? What do I consider success in my life? Well, I want to join a circus company and spend my life in the air and playing with fire and spreading creativity around and making beautiful art with my body. I also want to write that book about the philosophy of movement, specifically movement as language and means of communication. I want to leave the place I am in constantly and connect with as many people as I can and share with them the creative vision of whoever I am working for. And since we are all kind of narcissistic, we want someone with similar views as us as form of self love, but also that you want someone to fit with you, so it only makes sense that we would want people in our lives who support us in one way or another. So what kind of person fits with that lifestyle of circus and writing?
I don't need someone who can do the exact same thing, but I need someone who can help me, I think.
I think what I need is someone who can keep up with me (and obviously this goes both ways - if (s)he can keep up with my stuff, but (s)he is a religious leader in charge of persecuting the gays, I am not going to be able to keep up, i.e. that we won't be able to connect - when I say that I need, I mean that it is half of what would define a relationship, the other half needs to be there too) and connect with me on those levels.
So I'm kinda lazy, and stereotyping is easy, and we all do it every day, and there is no point denying it. We're all a rittle bit lacist (if you havn't seen Avenue Q you are not allowed to get upset about that). What kind of person can connect with me on that highly physical existence that I have? Oh man... in physically minded people. Oh man... in-shape people.
All in shape people? Psh, no - tons of in shape people whom I don't feel the slightest desire to sleep with.
Frustrating topic for me, you see.
If not just in-shape people, then what? Ok, I've got it - people who do stuff. That's what it is - people who do stuff. It doesn't matter what you do, so matter as you do it. If you swim, you swim your heart out. If you rock climb, you go out and rock climb and kick ass at it. If you climb a rope and do tricks on it, you come train with me and my friends. If you want to kick a ball around a field, you commit yourself to it. Have you ever met a person who was really intensely into honing their body who wasn't thin?
Finally got it.
I am not attracted to a nice body alone, I am attracted to nice bodies that were gained from years of work and perseverance at perfecting the physical discipline intended.
"I don't care what you believe in, just believe it"
~Shepherd Derrial Book, Firefly
I don't know about that, but I do agree when it comes to physicality. I think that in this society of laziness and apathy and technology and way too many ways to fail to take care of yourself mentally and physically it is of the utmost importance, in order to survive, to keep yourself sharp. I think that is success - to keep your mind and body working effectively for a long time, and to do that, you have to work them out.
So swim, do circus, tricks, play soccer, do triathlons, speed skate or whatever. Just do it and kick ass at it. Then in your downtime, do puzzles or crosswords or debate or play scrabble. Or do really lengthy thought experiments and see where you get to. And whatever you decide to do, kick ass at it.
I guess that is really what I am attracted to - people who kick ass in their respective areas of life.
Psh, and I thought I liked thinness...
*Edit* Because I feel like an example is deserved, I am going to use one, and hopefully it won't offend anyone. I was at this party last week in Tucson, just a friend's party, old high school friends and whatnot. Anyone, some non-high school peeps show up, and we get to know each other. We are talking, and the girl in question is pretty cute (there were three people I didn't know, all of them pretty good looking), there is no doubt about it. Also noticed she looked like my friend Madeline, but that is irrelevant. Any way, we finally get to (this is in no way even close to the conversation that happened)
"Gerardo, how do you know these lovely people?"
"Oh, Fenix - I didn't mention that? I play men's roller derby now! This one plays for Jr. Derby, that one on the men's team with me, and she plays for Tucson Roller Derby"
"Oh, I had no idea. Hey She, which team do you play for?"
"Oh, Fenix, how pleasant of you to ask - I play for vice squad, but I also play for the saddletramps [all star team]"
"How interesting, I happened to be at the Saddletramps vs. Tex Pistols [all star team from somewhere in Texas], I don't remember you - who were you"
"Oh, I'm Lindsey Loblow"
"Really? You mean Lindsey Loblow the roller derby skater who was the fastest, most agile jammer on the track that continually confounded the other team's defense and generally kicked ass"
"Yes Fenix, the very same - I am she: Lindsey Lowblo"
"Wow, Lindsey, somewhere in the last 8 sets of quotation marks you just got a lot hotter!"
In case you were wondering, this fake conversation but entirely true story (at least as it occured in my head) is actually the reason I did this whole thought experiment in the first place.
Ok, now that we have that out of the way, I want to make clear what I mean by attractive in the physical sense (as every time I use the word attractive will mean from here on out unless otherwise stated). Actually, scratch that, that is bloody hard to do. Put simply, if I am attracted to a person, it means that I think that sex with them is something I would not be opposed to. This is not to say that I am going to take efforts to make sexual activity happen between us. But this is to say that if for some insane reason we ended up in bed together, I would be physically enjoying myself. It's a pretty simple concept, try not to make such a big thing out of it.
One of my goals here is to describe my "type" without using any clichés, which I know is going to be impossible, so just bear with me. No, you know what, that is going to be to hard, so lets try something else.
Lets make a list of possibles, like in the DSM - they don't say "if you have these symptoms, you have the following condition" no, they say if you have a certain number of these traits, it is likely you have the following condition and it would be a wise plan to consult a professional who knows what they are doing to get a better idea - but you never confirm it. Which is why we still have doctors and not computers with statistical analysis engines being the psychiatric diagnosticians. Point being: there is no formula for a type, but there are patterns and generally identifiable characteristics.
I want you all thinking about your own Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Sexual Attraction. It is a worthwhile exercise I have found.
There is a long list, and I have it in my head, and since this is a public blog, I think I'm going to keep it that way. But there is one that I think I can confidently say without offending anyone terribly - it is my personal attraction, and if you look at the people I date, you will see it is true.
I generally like slender people. I don't really know why, but something about slender people is attractive to me. But wait, that isn't really true is it - I might know why. Let's think about this. Thought experiment time! Why is it (for me personally, not for everyone) a trend to be attracted to slender people?
Sexually have I found slender people to be better in bed (meaning that are they a fit for me - nobody is universally good in bed. Sex between people is a relationship just as any other activity between people, and some people are a good fit and some are not) as a general rule? Now that I think about it, no. That isn't true at all, and I can think of a couple counterexamples.
So I am not attracted to them because they are generally better in my experience in bed with me.
Could it be.... actually, that's all I got. Why else could I be more physically attracted to a certain type almost definitely if it has nothing to do with any correlation with sexual ability?
And what do you do when you come to a nonconclusion about a question and don't know what to do? Start doubting your assumptions - perhaps I have defined this question incorrectly?
Yes, I answer myself (since I am recapping my own thought experiment, I already know where this is heading), I made an incorrect assumption. It was actually the first one I made - physical appearance and personality are actually not unrelated. Didn't think about it at first, the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" thing and all, but think about it - if someone has a lot of piercings, there is a pretty good chance their ambition is not to be come a state senator. Not that we could never have a senator with piercings, it's just that people that tend towards political activity and the public forum and being a part of our political system and people who tend towards many many piercings don't have a lot of overlap. And of course there is some as with all categories, but it would not be unreasonable to make this assumption.
So what can we reasonably say about thin people? Erm. They are thin. Shit. dead end.
Welcome to my thought experiment, I ask a lot of questions, and don't answer a lot of them.
What is it not reasonable to say about thin people? Ah ha! What can you reasonably not assume about thin people? What do thin people not do? Nope, still nothin
Ok, maybe I was questioning the wrong assumption - maybe I am not attracted to thin people at all, but possibly a quality that is really highly correlated with thin people. But obviously since I have been with people who I am highly attracted to but who would not be considered as thin as others, this quality is not perfectly correlated with thinness.
Right around this point in my thought experiment, I went off on a huge tangent about qualities that the people I surround myself with have, and things that correlate with thinness, and even went out to questioning that physical attractedness has anything to do with sexual desire whatsoever. I will save us a buttload of time by letting you know that all of these tangents got me absolutely nowhere, so we'll get to the stuff where I actually figured things about myself out. And where did I find it? The same place I always do - back at the beginning. But not my beginning, the first idea about how a species operates on a large scale. Darwin - yeah.
What makes a certain portion of its species go on? Fitness. Reproductive fitness primarily, but other kinds as well. Back long ago, people who couldn't fight off the occasional animal got dead really fast and couldn't go on. Makes sense to me. But obviously, ability to fight off animals isn't important today (there is still a standard attractiveness standard related to this, which is why the rugged mountain man with a gun and an elk head on his wall is still the hottest thing out there to some people - and that's cool, to each his or her own) so there are going to be those who find something else as a marker of reproductive fitness. Reproductive fitness sounds weird - like soley the function of your genitalia determines your fitness. Which we know not to be true. Women who smoke and drink frequently are less capable of carrying healthy offspring. Men who smoke (I don't know about drink) are less likely to be able to impregnate a woman. Obviously, there is more to it than the function of your genitalia. Let's just use the word fitness from now on - just a general fitness in life. To be able to do well in life, whatever that means to you, is your definition of fitness. If it means running a company is doing well, then that is fit for you. And if having children and raising them in the country is to do well, then someone who is very capable of doing that with you is going to be very fit to you. This is how I account for different tastes in people - I think it stems (in part) from your version of what it is to succeed in life.
So what is fitness for me? What do I consider success in my life? Well, I want to join a circus company and spend my life in the air and playing with fire and spreading creativity around and making beautiful art with my body. I also want to write that book about the philosophy of movement, specifically movement as language and means of communication. I want to leave the place I am in constantly and connect with as many people as I can and share with them the creative vision of whoever I am working for. And since we are all kind of narcissistic, we want someone with similar views as us as form of self love, but also that you want someone to fit with you, so it only makes sense that we would want people in our lives who support us in one way or another. So what kind of person fits with that lifestyle of circus and writing?
I don't need someone who can do the exact same thing, but I need someone who can help me, I think.
I think what I need is someone who can keep up with me (and obviously this goes both ways - if (s)he can keep up with my stuff, but (s)he is a religious leader in charge of persecuting the gays, I am not going to be able to keep up, i.e. that we won't be able to connect - when I say that I need, I mean that it is half of what would define a relationship, the other half needs to be there too) and connect with me on those levels.
So I'm kinda lazy, and stereotyping is easy, and we all do it every day, and there is no point denying it. We're all a rittle bit lacist (if you havn't seen Avenue Q you are not allowed to get upset about that). What kind of person can connect with me on that highly physical existence that I have? Oh man... in physically minded people. Oh man... in-shape people.
All in shape people? Psh, no - tons of in shape people whom I don't feel the slightest desire to sleep with.
Frustrating topic for me, you see.
If not just in-shape people, then what? Ok, I've got it - people who do stuff. That's what it is - people who do stuff. It doesn't matter what you do, so matter as you do it. If you swim, you swim your heart out. If you rock climb, you go out and rock climb and kick ass at it. If you climb a rope and do tricks on it, you come train with me and my friends. If you want to kick a ball around a field, you commit yourself to it. Have you ever met a person who was really intensely into honing their body who wasn't thin?
Finally got it.
I am not attracted to a nice body alone, I am attracted to nice bodies that were gained from years of work and perseverance at perfecting the physical discipline intended.
"I don't care what you believe in, just believe it"
~Shepherd Derrial Book, Firefly
I don't know about that, but I do agree when it comes to physicality. I think that in this society of laziness and apathy and technology and way too many ways to fail to take care of yourself mentally and physically it is of the utmost importance, in order to survive, to keep yourself sharp. I think that is success - to keep your mind and body working effectively for a long time, and to do that, you have to work them out.
So swim, do circus, tricks, play soccer, do triathlons, speed skate or whatever. Just do it and kick ass at it. Then in your downtime, do puzzles or crosswords or debate or play scrabble. Or do really lengthy thought experiments and see where you get to. And whatever you decide to do, kick ass at it.
I guess that is really what I am attracted to - people who kick ass in their respective areas of life.
Psh, and I thought I liked thinness...
*Edit* Because I feel like an example is deserved, I am going to use one, and hopefully it won't offend anyone. I was at this party last week in Tucson, just a friend's party, old high school friends and whatnot. Anyone, some non-high school peeps show up, and we get to know each other. We are talking, and the girl in question is pretty cute (there were three people I didn't know, all of them pretty good looking), there is no doubt about it. Also noticed she looked like my friend Madeline, but that is irrelevant. Any way, we finally get to (this is in no way even close to the conversation that happened)
"Gerardo, how do you know these lovely people?"
"Oh, Fenix - I didn't mention that? I play men's roller derby now! This one plays for Jr. Derby, that one on the men's team with me, and she plays for Tucson Roller Derby"
"Oh, I had no idea. Hey She, which team do you play for?"
"Oh, Fenix, how pleasant of you to ask - I play for vice squad, but I also play for the saddletramps [all star team]"
"How interesting, I happened to be at the Saddletramps vs. Tex Pistols [all star team from somewhere in Texas], I don't remember you - who were you"
"Oh, I'm Lindsey Loblow"
"Really? You mean Lindsey Loblow the roller derby skater who was the fastest, most agile jammer on the track that continually confounded the other team's defense and generally kicked ass"
"Yes Fenix, the very same - I am she: Lindsey Lowblo"
"Wow, Lindsey, somewhere in the last 8 sets of quotation marks you just got a lot hotter!"
 |
| Just for reference |
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Burden Of Proof: On Acceptable Evidence for God
This post is a response to a post on Generation Atheist called Are Proofs Or Evidence For Deities Even Hypothetically Possible and while I highly recommend reading that article, it will not be necessary to understand what I am talking about here.
The entire article is based on two ideas, Occams Razor and Clarke's Third Law
OR: All other things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one, or more accurately, that when discussing hypotheses that are equal in other regards, it is right to select the one that requires you to make the least number of unwarranted assumptions.
CL: Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from magic.
We use OR in our life every day - we assume when we find a suicide note and a guy hanging from the ceiling, we assume that he killed himself. We would not assume that someone forced him to write the note in his own handwriting and then hung the guy for some reason. Unless there is evidence (for example, he was really rich, and then after he died suddenly it was revealed that his will was changed last week to put all of his money into a nameless bank account) of course, we will assume that the simplest answer is correct. This is the reason for the word "unwarranted" because if there were such evidence, the assumption would be completely warranted.
Clarke's Law is less prevalent in our society in an obvious way, but think about A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. A moden man is sent back in time to the middle ages, and with his knowledge of history and electricity, manages to make firearms and an electric fence to defend himself from those who would wish to destroy him. And what is the first word they use for him? Wizard. He was using a concept of electricity to run his camp, charged invisible particles moving energy around - this was so far above the understanding of the people of that time that they couldn't understand it at all, and so it was magic. But we are smarter now, we have this law to reference. So if an alien race ever showed up and shot energy weapons and were capable of moving things large distances in a single instant, we would assume (based on CL and OR) that they were simply very technologically advanced, not magical.
And really - magic is simply the manipulation of the world using techniques unknown to the observer. If I can make a bosy float, and people do not understand it, it is called magic. But I did it using techniques possible and following from the given rules of the universe. If someone were to do something that we perceived as impossible, we would be wrong - it is not impossible, because we just saw it. Then there are two conclusions we can reach: either our understanding of the rules of the universe were incomplete in this regard, or our understanding of what we just saw was incomplete. This is why I say there is no such thing as magic. Because magic is to do the impossible (or at least the illusion of the impossible) which by its definition is not possible. If it is done, it is possible, and therefore there are rules governing its possibility, which puts us back at the two possible conclusions of incorrect knowledge or faulty perception.
So the question this author poses to us is this: hypothetically if someone showed up claiming to be God and showed up amazing things that we were incapable of doing (water into wine, walking on water, etc.) we, the rationalists, would assume that it was simply advanced technology and not magic - so how would a deity prove itself? This is a very good question. I had to think about it for a while, and had to back to the base of the creation myth to answer it.
I am going to assume for the sake of argument that God exists, created the world with natural laws (gravity, radioactive decay, stuff like that) and that we as members of its existence are forced to obey, and that these laws cannot be broken. They can be manipulated - Jesus can walk on water, the sea can part, stuff like that. These are improbable, but do not go against the laws of nature. It is conceivable that the act is a trick based in technology and science. For example, we have invented a vehicle that can travel on land and water without touching either of them directly - we call it a hovercraft. It is simple, a parachute holds the air in place and the force exerted upwards by the air held under the craft is equal to the force of gravity on the craft. But imagine trying to explain that to someone who didn't understand forces or gravity or even air. There was a time when birds were not understood.
So how would a Deity prove itself to exist to us? For me, it would have to violate a rule of this universe that is not violable. For me there, is only one rule that comes to mind - the conservation of matter. Unfortunately, this would be again, very difficult to do even for a Deity, because us skeptics are very skeptical.
So I was thinking how a Deity could prove itself to me beyond all reasonable doubt. Because humans do magic tricks, so a Deity doing something that even remotely looks like a magic trick would merit a response much like the lolcat above. We would raise an eyebrow and say "how did you do that" and God would respond "I am God, I can do what I want - I am master of all creation!" to which we would respond "that was a cool magic trick - now how did you do it?"
So after some thinking, and likely more thinking to come, the only thing that would prove to me that God existed is to do the one thing that it is said that God can do. There is only one thing that God could do to prove his existence to me: destroy the universe. And I don't mean make it all crunch back together - I mean make it disappear. But that would not be enough - because it is conceivable that an alien race with sufficient technology could do that. No, I want God to destroy the universe. Then I want him to take my immortal soul to the afterlife. Then I want to watch him recreate the universe.
In summary, the only thing that would really prove beyond all doubt for me personally that God existed was to watch him do the one thing that God is certainly credited with - the creation of the universe.
The entire article is based on two ideas, Occams Razor and Clarke's Third Law
OR: All other things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one, or more accurately, that when discussing hypotheses that are equal in other regards, it is right to select the one that requires you to make the least number of unwarranted assumptions.
CL: Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from magic.
We use OR in our life every day - we assume when we find a suicide note and a guy hanging from the ceiling, we assume that he killed himself. We would not assume that someone forced him to write the note in his own handwriting and then hung the guy for some reason. Unless there is evidence (for example, he was really rich, and then after he died suddenly it was revealed that his will was changed last week to put all of his money into a nameless bank account) of course, we will assume that the simplest answer is correct. This is the reason for the word "unwarranted" because if there were such evidence, the assumption would be completely warranted.
Clarke's Law is less prevalent in our society in an obvious way, but think about A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. A moden man is sent back in time to the middle ages, and with his knowledge of history and electricity, manages to make firearms and an electric fence to defend himself from those who would wish to destroy him. And what is the first word they use for him? Wizard. He was using a concept of electricity to run his camp, charged invisible particles moving energy around - this was so far above the understanding of the people of that time that they couldn't understand it at all, and so it was magic. But we are smarter now, we have this law to reference. So if an alien race ever showed up and shot energy weapons and were capable of moving things large distances in a single instant, we would assume (based on CL and OR) that they were simply very technologically advanced, not magical.
And really - magic is simply the manipulation of the world using techniques unknown to the observer. If I can make a bosy float, and people do not understand it, it is called magic. But I did it using techniques possible and following from the given rules of the universe. If someone were to do something that we perceived as impossible, we would be wrong - it is not impossible, because we just saw it. Then there are two conclusions we can reach: either our understanding of the rules of the universe were incomplete in this regard, or our understanding of what we just saw was incomplete. This is why I say there is no such thing as magic. Because magic is to do the impossible (or at least the illusion of the impossible) which by its definition is not possible. If it is done, it is possible, and therefore there are rules governing its possibility, which puts us back at the two possible conclusions of incorrect knowledge or faulty perception.
So the question this author poses to us is this: hypothetically if someone showed up claiming to be God and showed up amazing things that we were incapable of doing (water into wine, walking on water, etc.) we, the rationalists, would assume that it was simply advanced technology and not magic - so how would a deity prove itself? This is a very good question. I had to think about it for a while, and had to back to the base of the creation myth to answer it.
I am going to assume for the sake of argument that God exists, created the world with natural laws (gravity, radioactive decay, stuff like that) and that we as members of its existence are forced to obey, and that these laws cannot be broken. They can be manipulated - Jesus can walk on water, the sea can part, stuff like that. These are improbable, but do not go against the laws of nature. It is conceivable that the act is a trick based in technology and science. For example, we have invented a vehicle that can travel on land and water without touching either of them directly - we call it a hovercraft. It is simple, a parachute holds the air in place and the force exerted upwards by the air held under the craft is equal to the force of gravity on the craft. But imagine trying to explain that to someone who didn't understand forces or gravity or even air. There was a time when birds were not understood.
So how would a Deity prove itself to exist to us? For me, it would have to violate a rule of this universe that is not violable. For me there, is only one rule that comes to mind - the conservation of matter. Unfortunately, this would be again, very difficult to do even for a Deity, because us skeptics are very skeptical.
So after some thinking, and likely more thinking to come, the only thing that would prove to me that God existed is to do the one thing that it is said that God can do. There is only one thing that God could do to prove his existence to me: destroy the universe. And I don't mean make it all crunch back together - I mean make it disappear. But that would not be enough - because it is conceivable that an alien race with sufficient technology could do that. No, I want God to destroy the universe. Then I want him to take my immortal soul to the afterlife. Then I want to watch him recreate the universe.
In summary, the only thing that would really prove beyond all doubt for me personally that God existed was to watch him do the one thing that God is certainly credited with - the creation of the universe.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
End of the Year
So my lease is up in two days, and I am almost moved out. Just a desk, a few boxes, and a few bags remain to move until my room is a shell again. On the upside, I traded with Braedon so that I don't have to move my couch to the new house (also, I have no place for it there) so he gave me his CamelBak! So, I've got that taken care of, no more couch, one less thing on the list of "things I need for special fire stuffs." Very exciting there. Additionally, Braedon is getting much better at firebreathing, he took his first blast off of his own hand last night, and we didn't stop there. He took a blast off of my hand (when my hand serves as the pilot light) and closed with a blast off of my dragon breath, which is fire that hovers less than three inches from my face. It was very impressive, I was a proud teacher.
So with move-out so close, I am left with time to reflect on the year.
At the beginning of this year, I was moving into the first space that was to be my own. I was moving in with Evan, my roommate from the dorms and Braedon joined us as a third, because we needed a third, and he needed a house. Evan and I drifted apart as he picked up a second job and was never really home, and Braedon and I grew closer. We declared ourselves "domestic partners" on facebook, which nobody really seemed to get. We decided that being roomies was not enough; we wanted to share more. We shared food, we spent more time together, we relied on each other for emotional support, and talked about our issues. It was basically a relationship without a physical aspect. And we are not living together next year - our partnership will end. It will open the door for new friendships and new partnerships and a whole new year of experiences.
I took a lot of classes this year: Morphology and Syntax, Elementary Analysis, Cultural Diversity, Neurolinguistics, Logic and Argumentation, Love and Sex, Differential Geometry, Modern Dance, Tap Dance, African Dance, Dance Improvisation, and Contact Improvisation.
Next year, I plan on taking Differential Equations and Fourier Analysis, Phonetics, Phonology, Syntax, Human Nature and many other classes as well. Additionally, it has been hinted at that I will be participating in the Spring Show as a tapper!
Coming up on senior year - then the plan is over. Then I have to start making a new plan. So far the plan is this: keep teaching circus, keep choreographing my own works, and audition for every single company I can get my hands on (Cirque, Velocity, Neil Goldberg, 7 Doigts, and a few others) until something takes.
In the meantime, back to Tucson I go - in August, just as my lease is running up.
There are two things wrong with this plan.
1. Packing for a trip when you are packing to move = bad plan
2. Tucson IN AUGUST!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING!
Oh well, I will have fun, eat a lot of Eegees, spend a lot of time at the Epic Cafe, visit The Dojang, Zuzi, and anything else I can think of because I will not be home for Christmas - it will be a whole year before I am home again.
I think that accounts for all the updates to my life for now - see some of you in Tucson, see some of you in two weeks when I get back to the Eug!
Love for all!
So with move-out so close, I am left with time to reflect on the year.
At the beginning of this year, I was moving into the first space that was to be my own. I was moving in with Evan, my roommate from the dorms and Braedon joined us as a third, because we needed a third, and he needed a house. Evan and I drifted apart as he picked up a second job and was never really home, and Braedon and I grew closer. We declared ourselves "domestic partners" on facebook, which nobody really seemed to get. We decided that being roomies was not enough; we wanted to share more. We shared food, we spent more time together, we relied on each other for emotional support, and talked about our issues. It was basically a relationship without a physical aspect. And we are not living together next year - our partnership will end. It will open the door for new friendships and new partnerships and a whole new year of experiences.
I took a lot of classes this year: Morphology and Syntax, Elementary Analysis, Cultural Diversity, Neurolinguistics, Logic and Argumentation, Love and Sex, Differential Geometry, Modern Dance, Tap Dance, African Dance, Dance Improvisation, and Contact Improvisation.
Next year, I plan on taking Differential Equations and Fourier Analysis, Phonetics, Phonology, Syntax, Human Nature and many other classes as well. Additionally, it has been hinted at that I will be participating in the Spring Show as a tapper!
Coming up on senior year - then the plan is over. Then I have to start making a new plan. So far the plan is this: keep teaching circus, keep choreographing my own works, and audition for every single company I can get my hands on (Cirque, Velocity, Neil Goldberg, 7 Doigts, and a few others) until something takes.
In the meantime, back to Tucson I go - in August, just as my lease is running up.
There are two things wrong with this plan.
1. Packing for a trip when you are packing to move = bad plan
2. Tucson IN AUGUST!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING!
Oh well, I will have fun, eat a lot of Eegees, spend a lot of time at the Epic Cafe, visit The Dojang, Zuzi, and anything else I can think of because I will not be home for Christmas - it will be a whole year before I am home again.
I think that accounts for all the updates to my life for now - see some of you in Tucson, see some of you in two weeks when I get back to the Eug!
Love for all!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Just a Blog
It's 6AM ladies and gentlemen, and I am enjoying the glory of summer - where I have the sleep schedule from HELL!!! Because it is simply way more fun just to sleep when you want, and be awake when you want, and lets be honest - the wee hours of the morn are just way awesome to be awake for. It is just so quiet and peaceful - totally conducive to creative thought. Most of us have the problem though that the only ways to get to the early hours of the morn are when we stay up all night, but then we are exhausted and can't get anything done, or we get up early, but then we are exhausted and can't get anything done.
But during the summer - I sleep from 9 to midnight, maybe stay up till 4am, go to sleep, wake up at 6, stay up till 8, and just basically do my entire day based on 2-5 hour naps. And every few days, I do a 12 hour sleep session.
So yeah, that's why I am awake at six in the morning. And I thought, since I don't have anything else I want to do, because I am a procrastinator and don't particularly want to write a poem about growing up and losing your childs view of the world and settling into reality, because that would be challenging, I am going to write a little bit.
So this summer, I planned on working on two projects, a human recreation of Thought Of You, and progress in the form of two new pieces for my Human Identity project, which I think I wrote about before, but to give you a reminder, I am going to explore human self identity through movement and spoken word (including dance, object manipulation, and aerial performance). I have finished the writing for "Passion" as well as most of the choreography, although I finished it just before my injury, so I may have to do it again - we'll see once I find a place to hang my aerial trapeze. I have also finished the writing for the Opening, which is about differentiation - the journey from a blank slate to a human being, which usually happens around when you are born. Babies have personalities, and this is a piece about how I view that working. Anyway, that one is mostly just a spoken word piece, I just need a very large pillowcase to sit in for it to work. So those are done, there are four more to write/choreograph (although the closing piece is just spoken word). I planned on writing the growing up piece (a corde lisse/rope piece set either to Björk or Puff The Magic Dragon, I am not sure yet) and the Cog In The Wheel (about getting a job and having it define your place in the world) which is a juggling/object manipulation piece.
Lots of writing to do, lots of choreography and exploration and object/personal research to do.
That was supposed to be my summer - mostly so far I have been enjoying myself. I figure I have a month and a half once I get back from Tucson, and I will be more than capable of getting all of this done in that time. I will probably get half of it done, and I am OK with that.
Oh, and in other performance art news, I am thinking of ways to step up my performance. I was confronted with a problem recently - I started researching fans (I don't say training, because I am not training - I am not learning tricks or technique, I am exploring the range of a particular object, in this case, fire fans) and realized they lend themselves so perfectly to be a companion of fire breathing. However, fire fans present a somewhat unique problem, unlike with fire torches, which can be manipulated together with one hand, one has to stand still while drinking fuel when using fire fans. There is no way to pass that off and be smooth about it. So I started thinking - how can I solve this problem. Solution: camelbak. Yeah - wear a camelbak full of fire breathing fuel, attach it to my shoulder, and all I have to do to blast flame in the air is take a drag from my little mouthpiece. All it has to do is be small enough to conceal under a robe without being too bulky, have a large enough bag (anything over 10oz is enough, which is all of them) and be easy to clean.
Also, I am working on a method for producing and extinguishing fire in my hand multiple times within a performance. I plan on doing this with a combination of Zip Poi and either Finger Flame or Fire From Palms. I'll give them both a look, since they are sold by a Tucson based company. With the combination of all three of these, I can conceivably produce fire from nothing, and then breath fire without taking a drink using my hands. IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES PEOPLE!!!
So - that is where my performance journey is at - choreographing the largest piece in my life to date, and special effects/hands free fire performance. Should be a good time. Also, hints for birthday presents can be found in the links above - just sayin.
On that note: my birthday is coming up in a few months here. Most people don't start thinking about that so far in advance, but it is the big two-one for me. Yep, I will no longer have to scour every show flyer for "21+ only" or tell my juggling friends "yeah, I know you want to go grab a beer and talk about awesome juggling and circus stuff, but I can't I have to go home and drink orange juice instead" or stay at home to watch Ducks Football - CUZ I WILL BE ABLE TO GO TO BARS! I am excited about the whole alcohol thing too - I like alcohol, it makes my brain fuzzy and makes me walk silly. It makes me more open about my emotions, and it temporarily makes me care less about the shit it my life (or, on rare occasions, it makes me care more - those are not fun days). But alcohol is not going to be the coolest part of being 21 - it will be the ability to go out with my friends to the Oak Street Speakeasy for Karaoke, or perhaps take a mosey over to 80s Night and have some fun there. Being 21 will open up a whole new aspect of society and interaction. Plus, drunk people are hilarious to analyze linguistically.
Also in the cards for me: I am moving! The lease on my house is almost up, and as much as this house has been a great place to live, I simply cannot deal with this noise anymore - when the girls upstairs walk around in heels, it sounds like gunshots - when they move a chair, it sounds like they are dragging their refrigerator. I love the floor heating, and the neighborhood, and the lovely park, and I love my room mates - but if I have to deal with one more year of skipping, one more year of drunken parties, one more year of girls upstairs talking where I can hear them, one more year of ceiling pounding "we just got engaged" sex (ok, that one is kind of over, but soon it will become "we are newlyweds" sex*), I will either put a bullet in my ear, or in the ceiling above my pillow. Srsly.
But yeah - I'm moving to an awesome house with a new friend of mine, gonna be a great place. It's halfway in between work and school and I'm very excited for that, pics to come once we get it set up (perhaps another foray into vlogging is in my future, should I decide to do a video tour again).
*Congratulations to Whitney, my upstairs neighbor, for her engagement to her boyfriend, Ben, who I get along with great - he is a fantastic guy, they are perfect for each other, and I wish them the best of luck.
On a related note, WHY ARE SO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE GETTING MARRIED! I mean, I know you are young and in love (I am not talking about Whitney here) but really? Getting married at 19 in this day and age is just asking for trouble. Sure, 80 years ago, when marriage (and the world) was a much different place, you could get away with that - just ask my grandparents, they have been married since... well, I'm not sure, but it was a long time... and have never been with anyone other than each other, and they are still together. And they never let me forget it. But really - 19 and you met the man/woman who you are going to spend the rest of your life with, and you have a part time job, so you decide that you can follow your heart and marry him/her and live together and be alright? Honestly, if you decide to do this - the best of luck to you both, I would never wish ill on you. But really - back in my grandparents day, back in the WWII times, things were different. You got a job at 20 (assuming you were not enlisted) and that is what you did. There was a greater sense of permanence and stick-with-it back then. Now we have colleges that encourage you to explore and see what you want to do, and once you graduate, they tell us that we have the rest of our lives to figure out what we want to do. That is not how it was. Back then, a 19 year old marriage was a not insane thing to do, because at 19, you actually were expected to be making decisions (or have them made for you) that would stick with you for the rest of your life. But now, we are expected to be making mistakes and "learning about me" for at least another 5 years. Why do we think, in this day and age, that it is acceptable to make decisions about a life partner (note - "life," because it is supposed to be till death do you part) when we know that we are not making decisions about job, lifestyle or anything else. It seems that we are lagging a little bit in this department. We have changed our society (with the advancement of medical technology so that our lives are longer) proportionally so that we take longer to get to an age where what we do is what we do forever, why has marriage not caught up?*
*Note: this was inspired by my Grandpa Bill, with whom I have had discussions about marriage and love and stuff like that, and I was trying to explain how my world is different from the world he grew up in, and while there is nothing wrong with what he and my grandmother did, that what happened there would be next to impossible in my world. However, I could not describe how the world was so different so as to explain why what I do, and what he did, are both reasonable things to do in their respective worlds. This is that explanation at is seems to me, as to why I should not be expected to do what he did in terms of a life partner or life career. I love you Grandpa.
This wasn't supposed to be a blog of little mini-rants, but that is how it is turning out, isn't it?
There are plenty more things I could update you on. I could talk about Faerieworlds, I could talk about my relationships, I could talk about my Blues Dancing adventures (not dancing to blues music, mind you, it is something different - google it), I could talk about... well, that's all I got, actually. However, I feel that this blog has gone on long enough, and I got enough of the "what's going on in my life" and the "what's going on in my head" to satisfy all of my readers, so I'm gonna call this one quits.
Goodnight(morning?) and as usual, if you have any comments (or questions about which brand of camelbak would be the best for my purposes *hint hint*) feel free to leave them in the box or in an e-mail, I always love to hear from people.
Love for you all,
Fenix
But during the summer - I sleep from 9 to midnight, maybe stay up till 4am, go to sleep, wake up at 6, stay up till 8, and just basically do my entire day based on 2-5 hour naps. And every few days, I do a 12 hour sleep session.
So yeah, that's why I am awake at six in the morning. And I thought, since I don't have anything else I want to do, because I am a procrastinator and don't particularly want to write a poem about growing up and losing your childs view of the world and settling into reality, because that would be challenging, I am going to write a little bit.
So this summer, I planned on working on two projects, a human recreation of Thought Of You, and progress in the form of two new pieces for my Human Identity project, which I think I wrote about before, but to give you a reminder, I am going to explore human self identity through movement and spoken word (including dance, object manipulation, and aerial performance). I have finished the writing for "Passion" as well as most of the choreography, although I finished it just before my injury, so I may have to do it again - we'll see once I find a place to hang my aerial trapeze. I have also finished the writing for the Opening, which is about differentiation - the journey from a blank slate to a human being, which usually happens around when you are born. Babies have personalities, and this is a piece about how I view that working. Anyway, that one is mostly just a spoken word piece, I just need a very large pillowcase to sit in for it to work. So those are done, there are four more to write/choreograph (although the closing piece is just spoken word). I planned on writing the growing up piece (a corde lisse/rope piece set either to Björk or Puff The Magic Dragon, I am not sure yet) and the Cog In The Wheel (about getting a job and having it define your place in the world) which is a juggling/object manipulation piece.
Lots of writing to do, lots of choreography and exploration and object/personal research to do.
That was supposed to be my summer - mostly so far I have been enjoying myself. I figure I have a month and a half once I get back from Tucson, and I will be more than capable of getting all of this done in that time. I will probably get half of it done, and I am OK with that.
Oh, and in other performance art news, I am thinking of ways to step up my performance. I was confronted with a problem recently - I started researching fans (I don't say training, because I am not training - I am not learning tricks or technique, I am exploring the range of a particular object, in this case, fire fans) and realized they lend themselves so perfectly to be a companion of fire breathing. However, fire fans present a somewhat unique problem, unlike with fire torches, which can be manipulated together with one hand, one has to stand still while drinking fuel when using fire fans. There is no way to pass that off and be smooth about it. So I started thinking - how can I solve this problem. Solution: camelbak. Yeah - wear a camelbak full of fire breathing fuel, attach it to my shoulder, and all I have to do to blast flame in the air is take a drag from my little mouthpiece. All it has to do is be small enough to conceal under a robe without being too bulky, have a large enough bag (anything over 10oz is enough, which is all of them) and be easy to clean.
Also, I am working on a method for producing and extinguishing fire in my hand multiple times within a performance. I plan on doing this with a combination of Zip Poi and either Finger Flame or Fire From Palms. I'll give them both a look, since they are sold by a Tucson based company. With the combination of all three of these, I can conceivably produce fire from nothing, and then breath fire without taking a drink using my hands. IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES PEOPLE!!!
So - that is where my performance journey is at - choreographing the largest piece in my life to date, and special effects/hands free fire performance. Should be a good time. Also, hints for birthday presents can be found in the links above - just sayin.
On that note: my birthday is coming up in a few months here. Most people don't start thinking about that so far in advance, but it is the big two-one for me. Yep, I will no longer have to scour every show flyer for "21+ only" or tell my juggling friends "yeah, I know you want to go grab a beer and talk about awesome juggling and circus stuff, but I can't I have to go home and drink orange juice instead" or stay at home to watch Ducks Football - CUZ I WILL BE ABLE TO GO TO BARS! I am excited about the whole alcohol thing too - I like alcohol, it makes my brain fuzzy and makes me walk silly. It makes me more open about my emotions, and it temporarily makes me care less about the shit it my life (or, on rare occasions, it makes me care more - those are not fun days). But alcohol is not going to be the coolest part of being 21 - it will be the ability to go out with my friends to the Oak Street Speakeasy for Karaoke, or perhaps take a mosey over to 80s Night and have some fun there. Being 21 will open up a whole new aspect of society and interaction. Plus, drunk people are hilarious to analyze linguistically.
Also in the cards for me: I am moving! The lease on my house is almost up, and as much as this house has been a great place to live, I simply cannot deal with this noise anymore - when the girls upstairs walk around in heels, it sounds like gunshots - when they move a chair, it sounds like they are dragging their refrigerator. I love the floor heating, and the neighborhood, and the lovely park, and I love my room mates - but if I have to deal with one more year of skipping, one more year of drunken parties, one more year of girls upstairs talking where I can hear them, one more year of ceiling pounding "we just got engaged" sex (ok, that one is kind of over, but soon it will become "we are newlyweds" sex*), I will either put a bullet in my ear, or in the ceiling above my pillow. Srsly.
But yeah - I'm moving to an awesome house with a new friend of mine, gonna be a great place. It's halfway in between work and school and I'm very excited for that, pics to come once we get it set up (perhaps another foray into vlogging is in my future, should I decide to do a video tour again).
*Congratulations to Whitney, my upstairs neighbor, for her engagement to her boyfriend, Ben, who I get along with great - he is a fantastic guy, they are perfect for each other, and I wish them the best of luck.
On a related note, WHY ARE SO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE GETTING MARRIED! I mean, I know you are young and in love (I am not talking about Whitney here) but really? Getting married at 19 in this day and age is just asking for trouble. Sure, 80 years ago, when marriage (and the world) was a much different place, you could get away with that - just ask my grandparents, they have been married since... well, I'm not sure, but it was a long time... and have never been with anyone other than each other, and they are still together. And they never let me forget it. But really - 19 and you met the man/woman who you are going to spend the rest of your life with, and you have a part time job, so you decide that you can follow your heart and marry him/her and live together and be alright? Honestly, if you decide to do this - the best of luck to you both, I would never wish ill on you. But really - back in my grandparents day, back in the WWII times, things were different. You got a job at 20 (assuming you were not enlisted) and that is what you did. There was a greater sense of permanence and stick-with-it back then. Now we have colleges that encourage you to explore and see what you want to do, and once you graduate, they tell us that we have the rest of our lives to figure out what we want to do. That is not how it was. Back then, a 19 year old marriage was a not insane thing to do, because at 19, you actually were expected to be making decisions (or have them made for you) that would stick with you for the rest of your life. But now, we are expected to be making mistakes and "learning about me" for at least another 5 years. Why do we think, in this day and age, that it is acceptable to make decisions about a life partner (note - "life," because it is supposed to be till death do you part) when we know that we are not making decisions about job, lifestyle or anything else. It seems that we are lagging a little bit in this department. We have changed our society (with the advancement of medical technology so that our lives are longer) proportionally so that we take longer to get to an age where what we do is what we do forever, why has marriage not caught up?*
*Note: this was inspired by my Grandpa Bill, with whom I have had discussions about marriage and love and stuff like that, and I was trying to explain how my world is different from the world he grew up in, and while there is nothing wrong with what he and my grandmother did, that what happened there would be next to impossible in my world. However, I could not describe how the world was so different so as to explain why what I do, and what he did, are both reasonable things to do in their respective worlds. This is that explanation at is seems to me, as to why I should not be expected to do what he did in terms of a life partner or life career. I love you Grandpa.
This wasn't supposed to be a blog of little mini-rants, but that is how it is turning out, isn't it?
There are plenty more things I could update you on. I could talk about Faerieworlds, I could talk about my relationships, I could talk about my Blues Dancing adventures (not dancing to blues music, mind you, it is something different - google it), I could talk about... well, that's all I got, actually. However, I feel that this blog has gone on long enough, and I got enough of the "what's going on in my life" and the "what's going on in my head" to satisfy all of my readers, so I'm gonna call this one quits.
Goodnight(morning?) and as usual, if you have any comments (or questions about which brand of camelbak would be the best for my purposes *hint hint*) feel free to leave them in the box or in an e-mail, I always love to hear from people.
Love for you all,
Fenix
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
An update on the blog: Family, please read
So some of my readers are my family, and most of them are fairy un-tech savvy, so I made their jobs easier by putting them on the e-mail list, meaning that whenever I publish a blog, it gets sent to their inbox. This has led to some confusion in the past - they think that I wrote the blog for them and anger is usually the result of this miscommunication. SO! I wanted to remind all of my readers for whom this is the case that I am not writing these blogs for you. They are not targeting you. These blogs are about my life and my thoughts on my experiences. I know how this blog began - as a way to keep my family informed on what I was doing in school, my classes, my friends, my relationships whathaveyou. It has morphed into a forum for me to put my philosophical internal debates into words and then share them with all of you. I have found it incredibly therapeudic to put my thoughts in words and present them to my friends and family. I am going to make an effort to balance my philosophy blogs with actual updates as to the physical, rather than the mental, "Wandering" that I am doing in my life, I know some of you have missed that.
However, philosophy and all of that self-discovery crap that people my age go through is not going to go away. I am a very well put together person, but I still have issues, I still have questions, and I still have unresolved emotions. Those will all get put into this blog as they have, and will continue to be, alongside the re-addition of the updates to my life.
So that is the direction this blog is going. The philosophical posts will still be just as controversial, they will be centered around gender, sexuality, society and its effect on me and other people like me, and other things of that nature. There will still be posts like Cracked Glass and the post about the burning piece of paper. I personally think those were two of the most important things I have written since I started this thing, and posts like that are not going to go away. I want to make that perfectly clear.
I am aware that some people in my family are not ready to hear what I have to say. I accept that - it is your choice, and I can't change your mind. If you want me to take you off the "send to" list, I will be happy to do so, and you can always request to be put back on it later if you change your mind - you are always allowed to change your mind. I am going to try to be better about tagging my posts with labels, and say whether it is a philosophy or a life related post, so if you want, you can stay on the list, and ignore the posts you don't want to read. I know my family loves me, and wants to be involved in my life, and to know what is going on, but I know that I have said some pretty out there things that clash with their world view, and that is OK. I will completely understand if you want to stop receiving my posts.
SO! I head back to Tucson in 17 days (AAAHHHH!) and move out of my house. This is terrifying. I am going to be leaving two people who have been significant pieces of my life, and the first space that I really had the liberty to make my own, and I have to leave it behind. But I suppose that's life - I get to move on to a new space and make it my own now. I've been working hard on my circus stuff, more updates on that a little later, and honestly, I am excited for my senior year of college - it seems so recent that I started - but I am ready to get on with my life and start spending my days creating the things I want to create.
I love you all, and thank you for listening to what I have to say.
~Fenix Thomas Cobbledick
However, philosophy and all of that self-discovery crap that people my age go through is not going to go away. I am a very well put together person, but I still have issues, I still have questions, and I still have unresolved emotions. Those will all get put into this blog as they have, and will continue to be, alongside the re-addition of the updates to my life.
So that is the direction this blog is going. The philosophical posts will still be just as controversial, they will be centered around gender, sexuality, society and its effect on me and other people like me, and other things of that nature. There will still be posts like Cracked Glass and the post about the burning piece of paper. I personally think those were two of the most important things I have written since I started this thing, and posts like that are not going to go away. I want to make that perfectly clear.
I am aware that some people in my family are not ready to hear what I have to say. I accept that - it is your choice, and I can't change your mind. If you want me to take you off the "send to" list, I will be happy to do so, and you can always request to be put back on it later if you change your mind - you are always allowed to change your mind. I am going to try to be better about tagging my posts with labels, and say whether it is a philosophy or a life related post, so if you want, you can stay on the list, and ignore the posts you don't want to read. I know my family loves me, and wants to be involved in my life, and to know what is going on, but I know that I have said some pretty out there things that clash with their world view, and that is OK. I will completely understand if you want to stop receiving my posts.
SO! I head back to Tucson in 17 days (AAAHHHH!) and move out of my house. This is terrifying. I am going to be leaving two people who have been significant pieces of my life, and the first space that I really had the liberty to make my own, and I have to leave it behind. But I suppose that's life - I get to move on to a new space and make it my own now. I've been working hard on my circus stuff, more updates on that a little later, and honestly, I am excited for my senior year of college - it seems so recent that I started - but I am ready to get on with my life and start spending my days creating the things I want to create.
I love you all, and thank you for listening to what I have to say.
~Fenix Thomas Cobbledick
Thursday, July 7, 2011
A Linguistic View on Sexuality
So I just read an amazing post by a transman (although he is much more than that, believe me) on what queerness means to him, and several words popped up that made me think.
The first is the word queer itself, the second is the word pansexual. I want to talk about both of these words, and why I only use one of them to talk about myself.
Queer, according to dictionary.com means "strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; singular" or "Slang: Disparaging and Offensive . a homosexual, especially a male homosexual."
There are many more definitions than these, but these are the two significant ones. The word queer comes from Scottish, and originally from the Proto-Indo European word twerk* meaning "to turn, twist, wind" related to the modern english word "thwart." And yes, I realize that nobody cares about that but me, but it is relevant.
Queer is a word that is usually used for homosexual males, but that is a very narrow definition. Queer means strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint, and it was applied to sexuality in 1922 back before questions of gender were significant topics of conversation. But let's go back to the meaning of the word - it basically means "other." Let's apply it to gender, sexuality, love and sex (the verbs), and anything else we can think of. Let's make queer a word to describe something that is outside of conventional structure.
As Asher says, "Queer doesn’t mean 'don’t label me,' it means 'I am naming myself.'" Queer is the space one exists in if one is anything other than conventional. If you think that being gay is being non-conventional, then you might identify as queer. If you think that being a woman in a man's body is unconventional, you might identify as queer. But if you do not identify as queer, then nobody has the right to tell you otherwise (though it might be a little bit confusing for them). The word "queer" to me is about establishing a non-conformity of identity, and does not mean any one thing.
I think that is all I want to talk about there.
On to the more important (to this entry) word: pansexual.
I am not going to use the dictionary or etymology on this one because they are wrong. The definition of pansexual actually has nothing to do with the way that pansexual is used in reference to sexual identity.
Pansexuality essentially means that sexual identity is not restricted by sex, gender, or pretty much anything else you can think of. If you were to apply this definition to me, you would see that it fits. But I do not identify as pansexual - I identify as bisexual. But the queer community says "but why, Fenix? Bisexuality enforces the gender binary, which is something as a genderqueer that you by your very existence and identity defy!"
And they are partially right - very partially.
I know what I am and who I like, and I can point to the people I am sexually attracted to, the people I am emotionally attracted to, and the people I am romantically attracted to. I could make a list - and that list is not restricted by sex or gender or anything.
The reason for my identification goes back to my root belief about language. Language is meant for communication - it is meant to convey a meaning from one person to another so that they may understand my meaning.
I would venture a guess that nobody outside of the queer community knows what pansexual means.
I feel no need to define myself by a word, but we have a word for "blue" because it identifies a class of wavelengths that appear to us in a certain way, and we have a word for it so that we may communicate about it. A word is no good unless it is understood by both parties.
True, I could say I am pansexual, and then explain it every.single.time. And then I would have to explain the concept of a gender spectrum, rather than a gender binary. And let's be honest - at a party with a really hot man or woman or whatever, explaining gender theory is not what you want to do. The word "bisexual" allows me to communicate quickly and efficiently (which is the purpose of language in my worldview) that I am attracted to both men and women, to any particular man or woman I might meet.
I identify as bisexual, and for the nitpickers out there, I will define it for myself - because we are allowed to define our own identity.
The gender spectrum exists, I move around on it. But there are clear points on that spectrum when I feel more male or more female (and don't give me that "society defines where these points are" crap - I know what I am, and if I am allowed to define myself, then don't be a hypocrite), and so while it is a spectrum, and not a binary, there are two halves.
There is the male half, where the majority of the male population resides, there are more hypermasculine men, and there are feminine men, but they are still men. They are on that side of the spectrum, and the inverse is true of women. But there are two halves, and of course, there is a midpoint known as androgyny (translated from the greek "man woman" which is inaccurate, but we all understand it). So, when I say that I am bisexual, I am saying that I am attracted to both sides of the spectrum. Because nobody (well, I don't want to say nobody, but very few) is attracted to a single point. Heterosexual women are attracted to men, all kinds of men. True, they may have a "type" but different men have differing gender on the spectrum - some are more masculine than others.
That is what hetero, homo, and bisexual mean to me - which side of the spectrum you are attracted to.
Basically, I assume a gender binary, and then define sexuality based on that.
Yeah, I know this was confusing, and I think this was meant more for me than for you - but I needed to get it out. And of course, as usual, questions and comments are welcome.
The first is the word queer itself, the second is the word pansexual. I want to talk about both of these words, and why I only use one of them to talk about myself.
Queer, according to dictionary.com means "strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; singular" or "Slang: Disparaging and Offensive . a homosexual, especially a male homosexual."
There are many more definitions than these, but these are the two significant ones. The word queer comes from Scottish, and originally from the Proto-Indo European word twerk* meaning "to turn, twist, wind" related to the modern english word "thwart." And yes, I realize that nobody cares about that but me, but it is relevant.
Queer is a word that is usually used for homosexual males, but that is a very narrow definition. Queer means strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint, and it was applied to sexuality in 1922 back before questions of gender were significant topics of conversation. But let's go back to the meaning of the word - it basically means "other." Let's apply it to gender, sexuality, love and sex (the verbs), and anything else we can think of. Let's make queer a word to describe something that is outside of conventional structure.
As Asher says, "Queer doesn’t mean 'don’t label me,' it means 'I am naming myself.'" Queer is the space one exists in if one is anything other than conventional. If you think that being gay is being non-conventional, then you might identify as queer. If you think that being a woman in a man's body is unconventional, you might identify as queer. But if you do not identify as queer, then nobody has the right to tell you otherwise (though it might be a little bit confusing for them). The word "queer" to me is about establishing a non-conformity of identity, and does not mean any one thing.
I think that is all I want to talk about there.
On to the more important (to this entry) word: pansexual.
I am not going to use the dictionary or etymology on this one because they are wrong. The definition of pansexual actually has nothing to do with the way that pansexual is used in reference to sexual identity.
Pansexuality essentially means that sexual identity is not restricted by sex, gender, or pretty much anything else you can think of. If you were to apply this definition to me, you would see that it fits. But I do not identify as pansexual - I identify as bisexual. But the queer community says "but why, Fenix? Bisexuality enforces the gender binary, which is something as a genderqueer that you by your very existence and identity defy!"
And they are partially right - very partially.
I know what I am and who I like, and I can point to the people I am sexually attracted to, the people I am emotionally attracted to, and the people I am romantically attracted to. I could make a list - and that list is not restricted by sex or gender or anything.
The reason for my identification goes back to my root belief about language. Language is meant for communication - it is meant to convey a meaning from one person to another so that they may understand my meaning.
I would venture a guess that nobody outside of the queer community knows what pansexual means.
I feel no need to define myself by a word, but we have a word for "blue" because it identifies a class of wavelengths that appear to us in a certain way, and we have a word for it so that we may communicate about it. A word is no good unless it is understood by both parties.
True, I could say I am pansexual, and then explain it every.single.time. And then I would have to explain the concept of a gender spectrum, rather than a gender binary. And let's be honest - at a party with a really hot man or woman or whatever, explaining gender theory is not what you want to do. The word "bisexual" allows me to communicate quickly and efficiently (which is the purpose of language in my worldview) that I am attracted to both men and women, to any particular man or woman I might meet.
I identify as bisexual, and for the nitpickers out there, I will define it for myself - because we are allowed to define our own identity.
The gender spectrum exists, I move around on it. But there are clear points on that spectrum when I feel more male or more female (and don't give me that "society defines where these points are" crap - I know what I am, and if I am allowed to define myself, then don't be a hypocrite), and so while it is a spectrum, and not a binary, there are two halves.
There is the male half, where the majority of the male population resides, there are more hypermasculine men, and there are feminine men, but they are still men. They are on that side of the spectrum, and the inverse is true of women. But there are two halves, and of course, there is a midpoint known as androgyny (translated from the greek "man woman" which is inaccurate, but we all understand it). So, when I say that I am bisexual, I am saying that I am attracted to both sides of the spectrum. Because nobody (well, I don't want to say nobody, but very few) is attracted to a single point. Heterosexual women are attracted to men, all kinds of men. True, they may have a "type" but different men have differing gender on the spectrum - some are more masculine than others.
That is what hetero, homo, and bisexual mean to me - which side of the spectrum you are attracted to.
Basically, I assume a gender binary, and then define sexuality based on that.
Yeah, I know this was confusing, and I think this was meant more for me than for you - but I needed to get it out. And of course, as usual, questions and comments are welcome.
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