>:] circuitBeta

Mass market entertainment penetrating my brain:

• Blades of Glory
• Madonna: American Life: I’m So Stupid, and Love Profusion
• The Corrupter
• DJ Strobe: Re:Made Volume One: Wicked Game
• Jem: Finally Woken: Come On Closer
• The Big Hit
• Benassi Bros.: Phobia: Rocket In The Sky (feat. Nann)

I really dig Madonna. Maybe you don’t and thats cool, we all open ourselves up to different things which in turn may open new doors, close others, burn bridges. They are simple choices but they define the future. What makes my head hurt is wondering about how many of those choices already have answers.

I’m not talking about fate, I do not believe in fate. What I do believe is that as more choices are made you are programming yourself, soon the choices are not so much your own as they are paths you follow. As you grow older you make fewer and fewer new choices. When do you stop making new choices? That day maybe the day you are locked into a world of predictability. Is your mind closed at that point? Or can you make a choice to have an open mind? Would that be the day you lost all your creativity? I guess I won’t know until the future is the past and I can reflect on these words again.

Socrates is going to court and runs into a buddy, Euthyphro, who is known to be knowledgeable about religion. Euthyphro says “What is dear to the gods is holy, and what is not dear to them is unholy” But Gods fight and what is dear to one is not for the other. Socrates suggest that the holy is loved by the gods because it is holy and it is not because they love it that it is holy. They go round in a circle of thought and end the conversation without an answer. Never the less its one of the better dialogs I have read.

More times than not the journey is where the fun is found. It is not where I end up that makes biking fun, its not where I die that is going to make my life worth living. I rather not reach the end, tease it till I’m too tired to push it any farther. Is that what is happening right now? Feeling a bit lazy and tired

Ever had a pain rush through your chest? A sensation that fills you and leaves just as it came? Standing there in the dark wondering why. Sometimes I am amazed at what control the mind has on the body. Observation turned to emotion, emotion turned to physical feeling. It is not unusual, its not what got me to sit down and write these words. I just wondered if there was a match for this that aligns with something good? Am I back to where I was the week before? Is this pain/sensation the very same one used to represent pleasure? Is it all about how I interpret the physical feelings through the emotions playing in my head at the time? It would seem so … It makes me think about how simple some of the systems in our bodies are and how complicated our minds make them seem.

The day before I saw an empty door way and wanted the impossible. Again my head making things complicated, the feeling was not welcome. Strange how your mind works with your wants and fears to play these tricks on itself. Sub-conscience experiments? I cannot say they are of the worse kind, because my greatest pleasures and some of my greatest pains come from the outside. Buttons I never knew were there until someone pressed them, buttons you cannot reach on your own, buttons you may not know exist. How many of these buttons are there for the world to use on me?

The State Patrol area is always pretty fun, we hit it Sunday and then again today.

Not sure where in the area these were taken:

The wind sucked but it was fun, I need more practice. Judah schooled us on one hill, Sean schooled us on another, I got schooled two times over

The first image is the top of Thmpson hill. The second shows one of the many fast ways down from the top. The thrid image is a hill going back up. Biking is so fun I could have done it for a couple more hours easy :PLocations of the Pictures:

I was made to think about how I think. I thought about some of the things I have read, stared at the obvious, and its always those things on the outside that interest me. It happens sometimes when I am talking to someone, or reading, it happens most when I am listening to the words coming out of my own head. I may not be interested in what is said or written as I am interested in the inspiration gained from the words. The spark that gives the kick which puts life into motion.

Once that is done it too becomes the obvious and may then be reinvented into something else. Its how the web of thought is made. Maybe you think the same way, but probably I am just thinking too much. I see it as my undoing. Ominous? I rather be overtaken by dance than paralysis, by joy than sadness, by love than hate, by thought than emptiness. The latter is the opposite that balances my life.

. . . .If everyday I push this a little farther will there soon be a day when I stand here naked? Will the people I know stare at me wondering who I am when before they thought they knew all they needed too? Maybe I should close my mouth before you see me write something unforgettable, regrettable, irreversible.

I want to do more riding this year and so far buddy Sean and I are off to a good start. We were able to jam out after work and do a little riding, I took a few pictures this time.

Locations of the Pictures:

I bought another Plato book to replace the one I lost, this one was half the cost and way better.

Introduction
This introduction was a lot more informative than the other book. Filled with facts about Plato and others, it was worth the time it took to read.

Apology
This dialog takes place in an Athens court room at the hearing of Socrates. Its the only one I have read so far that has a reference to Plato, he is in the court room observing the proceedings. Socrates tells his story/defense, it involves speaking to the gods through an oracle, Pythian Prophetess, of Delphi. They say he is the wisest man. He didn’t think it was true, and began a quest to find a man who is wiser so that he may logically refute what was said. In the process he makes enemies with politicians, poets, and artisans. He calls out those who claim to be wise and are not. He sees this to be the reason he has ended up in court. He then proceeds to say that wisdom is knowing that your wisdom is worthless and only god is wise. I am disappointed in the words, maybe I am not reading them the way I should, but its the message I see. Read the rest of this entry »

I received this book from a friend. In short it is about a young man, Christopher McCandless, who wants to live his life traveling but in the end his travels take him to an early demise. Unless maybe you believe in fate, then he died just when he was supposed too.

The book offered a view as to why different people may do some of the things McCandless did. Particularly interesting was the authors own account of climbing the Devil’s Thumb, a peak east of Petersberg Alaska. He does this climb alone and writes about how going solo brings higher highs and lower lows. Its easy to realate too, when in the company of others many things end up muffled.

At one point in the book McCandless encourages a friend to leave his sedentary life and live on the road. I began to think about how many people in this world I will never meet. Based on a few facts (income, residence, etc.) you could create a pretty good idea of who those people are and the places you may never go, how predictably sad. I need a shirt that I could wear on travel, something that says “Odds of Seeing Me Today: 1 in a Million” my way of making everyone else feel special. Of course I see myself every day. I need to sell the shirts so I can feel the good vibes.

I have never taken a class in Philosophy, nor read a book about the subject. I have my own ideas on how to live life and when it ends, but mashing those together with ideas from 2,500 years ago seems as though it would entertaining.

The book is not what I expected. I thought it would be like a text book, stating believed fact one after the other. Plato’s writings are in a format similar to a play, in that you read dialog between actors, and each dialog is short like an act.

Introduction
The book starts off with the editors introduction, which I found boring and as soon as the author suggest to stop reading the introduction and begin reading the dialogs I do so.

Protagoras
I begin with the first dialog which is named after one of the principal ‘actors’, Protagoras. It begins slow but then Socrates gets a groove on and weaves a logical net of relationships between virtues, emotions, and similar concepts. My head starts thinking about how it would be cool to map/model this into software for the purpose of viewing these relations and poking at them in a simulated environment. I will have to do that at a later time though. Read the rest of this entry »