N&N - Something for the Laborious

It recorded kinda quiet. ~10 minutes

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Topics:

Nietzsche:

That the history of love, avarice, etc, is unrecorded and unexamined.

That we assume these things are constant throughout history.

Nick:

Assumptions about my present and future based upon a poorly understood past.

The feel of your own mind, and how it has changed over time.

Should you keep a diary?

Question for the readers: What exactly is he referencing with the phrase "cyclopic structures"?

Future Topic: Secrets, A Closer Examining of My Past

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Listen, then read:

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So, I haven't been doing the dairy thingy, but I have been trying to keep track of my emotional state throughout the day and what events surround it. I'm doing Bad Science right now because I'm not paying enough attention to data and too much attention to the theory, but so far I've held pretty true to the overall pattern that being around people = good, and not being around people = bad. And/or, mornings = bad and evenings = good, but, all my mornings are lonely and my evening's really aren't.

I do want to try the micro dairy thing, but I'll have to figure out my means before it can really catch. Although I do know that the data I'll be paying attention to are major activities and corresponding / apparently caused emotional states.

Thanks for listening!

-N

N&N - Loss of Dignity

This is actually the first one I recorded. It's a short passage.

~10 min.

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Topics:

Nietzsche:

Meditation & Multitasking

Nick:

Thinking in your Idle / Waiting time.

[Humanist Scifi Short Story on Badly Realized Wishes] (I'll find the title for this... more on the todo list...)

Haste vs Speed

Future Topic Note:

I use the phrase "hurry up and get to the end", and it's reminding me of some thinking I've got that I'm not sure how to phrase succinctly without giving it away badly. Well, I think I can say; it's with regards to hopes versus expectations, and how I approach love and relationships.

Er..

I realized that I said something pretty goddamn arrogant in one of these, about Kate and I and where we both are on the road to "adult hood", whatever that is. If I remember it correctly, it was a pretty staggeringly arrogant thing to say. I'm gonna find some time to hunt it down, (not sure whether to hope it's in the posted ones or not...), and... Well, some form of redaction is in order, but I'm not certain enough of what I said, the context, or why I said it to really say what kind of redaction, and what goes along side (like, apologies). But I had to come and mention it, or I'd be brooding about it all night. Anyway. Yeah. Sometimes I'm an idiot?

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Found it. N&N 2, at about 8 minutes. The synopsis bit is: "I think that's part of what this single period is going to do for her - bump her over the cusp into womanhood. "

So. Doesn't bother me anymore; it may be arrogant, to think that I know when that transition to "adult hood" occurs, but I can't shake the feeling that it's true. I guess the right way to phrase it mostly just drops the words that carry those heavy connotations; it's not "on the cusp of woman hood" (or, since I was making the same judgement on myself, "man hood"), it's "on the cusp of the next you." The next milestone in personal growth.

But even then, who am I to pass judgement on another like that? Well; answer's pretty simple; I'm a somebody. It's an opinion, like thinking a soup is to salty or a stew to sweet.

The actual arrogance comes from thinking that I know where she should be going - and to a lesser extent, that I know where I should be going - but I also can't shake the feeling that her personality is changing to a new perspective. Then again, as this break up has shown me, I didn't really get to know her all that well, so maybe I just didn't see this part.

Anyway. I guess the take away for me is that I need to watch out more when I think I know what other people need, and look for ways I might be wrong.

The take-away for you is that people who say they know what you should do aren't necessarily right.

N&N 5: Unconditional Duties

Okay, edited (not that there's much editing that I do..). Also, sorry about the fan in the background for the first part. It was reaaally hot that day.

~20 min

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KF6C0AZ2

http://rapidshare.com/files/409270265/Nietzsche5.mp3

Topics:

Nietzsche:

Philosophies of Morality

Categorical Morality

Nick:

Ubermensch

Acting for Yourself vs Another

Three Worlds Collide

Future Possible Topics:

Finding What You Look For / Bias in your Sampling

Diversity of Existence and Death / My Post-Singularity Humanity

Shoulds (and expectations, etc, etc...)

N&N 4 - That which Preserves the Species

Topics:

His:

The Value of "Bad" Men

Expedient Vs Inexpedient as a Morality

Mine:

Your Evil Instincts

Taoist's Biker's Big Horned Beast

http://rapidshare.com/files/407865830/Nietzsche-4.mp3

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q8X53454

7/17/2010

I don't have a title for this entry yet, and I'm not sure I ever will.

It more or less started with one thought: "I claim to be a deliberate individual, but am I? Am I really?"

This thought is coming on the curtails of reading, of all things, a fanfic. Well. Technically a fanfic. I'd term it more along the lines of a self-insertion replay, but anyway, here's the linky:

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

This is, I'm told, by the very same author of my much-lauded favorite, Three Worlds Collide, and it's very, very much living up the promise of that excellent work.

Anyway. This Harry Potter, this hyper rational Potter - that's what I always thought I was. But... As the best of fiction always shows us ourselves, maybe I'm not.

Except- heh, I still want to be, and by exercise of will, I will be. It also might be that I lost it, like so much else. (What in the hell happened to me, that I lost so much of myself? Where did it go, why did it leave?) To be dramatic - when did I die?

I claimed, to myself, that I wouldn't survive the break-up with Kate. With... with comforting frequency, I find myself ever more finding ways in which that's true. I thought to myself; "Who-ever I'll be after all this is done - it won't be the me that I am today."

I'm getting there, one step at a time, but I'm not there yet.

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Among other things, Jealousy came back. Occured again? It's... weird. Distressing, really. But also perhaps healthy - I also keep finding myself thinking, saying, heh, even praying (but don't read to much into that, my spirituality is.... probably not what you think it is, and I'm not ready to cover it) - "I got what I needed, not what I thought I wanted."

I think it's a consequence. I did another trip down to DC (for a job interview - went very well, thanks for asking!), and I talked with my cousin and her friends about this. That it didn't happen with my previous exes, and, quiet rightly, they suggested that it's because on some level I didn't think it was real.

It's comforting to my existential goals that I think it's real because (I think) I decided it should be.

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Anyway. There was a quote in this fanfic (among many, many others) that really struck a chord in me:

"Funny how Harry's brain just seemed to keep on running and running, never shutting down no matter how tired it got. It got stupider but it refused to switch off."

This was true, and still mostly is - but not as much as I want it to be. I look back at who I was senior year -and I want to be them again. But you can't go back, as they say, you can only go forward.

I was thinking. I was living. I was doing. Am I just a shadow of who I was? (Yes - says the little voice - but you're also a phoenix of who you are. Thanks, little voice.)

I used to have more dreams, and weirder ones, and more... aware ones. I liked to blame it on the idea that I wouldn't so much as fall asleep as... get distracted enough to stop being conscious.

I'm going to think more. A lot more. It's a resolution.

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So. I was going crazy, a few hours ago - my usual method. A few pieces of data, bringing about a theory to fit, and no real way or desire to let it go. Stirring in my own juices. So I went for a walk, to confer with myself in the grand echo chamber that is a good, impressive view. Well. It's more than a view, and it doesn't entirely feel like conferring with myself - but, anyway. That's more of the spirituality stuff that I'm not wanting to hit up yet.

Anyway. Walk, and talk, was good for me. And then at the end of it, when I started to leave, I wanted to run. To just book it.

And I remembered -

Way back when, last September, (in retrospect), I think I saw Kate do the same thing I was about to do.

When we went to the Farmer's Market two Wednesday's past, I asked about what she wanted in the future - She wanted an experience to change her life.

When we went to park, after that, and I saw her on a swing for the first time...

And I think about what went wrong, and what went right, and what was wanted, and not found -

She wants to have life flow through her. When she's on a swing, I think that's what I saw - and when she took off that one time, that's what she was running through.

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Anyway. The causality between those thoughts, and taking off my sandals and running, is a little fuzzy, a little chicken-and-the-egg (and yes, I've heard)... But that's what I felt.

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Unemployed in Troy isn't healthy for me. The people that I'm living with, now, are. There's life here, flowing in and around and through me, but I'm still... somewhat ghostly.

This blog is helping. The recent successes in job hunting are helping, as is the travel. Fittingly, playing "The Void" is... helping. It's at least fitting, and makes for a good analogy.

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I still need more color, more life, more me. I need big dreams again.

N&N - The Noble the Ignoble

Sorry it's up late :P

This is also a doozy of one; 40 minutes or so! Lotta good thoughts, tho, I think.

It also occurs to me that in the last one, I compared myself to Buddhism...? And that's pretty goddamn arrogant...? Didn't really mean to come across that way; the metaphor more or less suddenly occurred to me and I just went with it - and hey, went someplace interesting.

It also, also occurs to me that I should put in "topic lists" to go with these, which I can assemble when I do the slight editing that I do do, but I'm gonna start at the beginning with those (in part cuz I don't want to listen to myself for 40 minutes, again, after editing it...), and for the new stuff.

Anyway! Usual hosts:

http://rapidshare.com/files/406314901/Nietzsche3.mp3

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=770C4Z5B

The Deliberate Me: Paying Attention

So, realizing I probably need some text up in here or I'll never snag any readers. And this thought came up again, so I decided I could try to write it down.

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So. I've got just enough ADD to have all the problems, symptoms, and opposite drug reactions (man, you shoulda seen me after that dental surgery....), and we'd seen signs waaay back when. I'd jump around in a conversation, leaping from one topic (like ketchup) to a completely, seemingly unrelated topic (like Transformers. Or vice-versa. )

In my own head, it's like 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. There'll be a series of associations, logical leaps, whatever - that get me from A to Z by means of D, M and Q. But nobody else can follow, because they're missing some piece.

Anyway, Mum says to me; "Nick, you need to remember how you get from one topic to another, so you can tell people and take them along."

So I started watching my own mind, which, I'm damn certain, is critical.

Flash forward to a college summer. I'm teaching programming at idTech Camps. I'd take the students through the basics of code and Hello World, then give them a task. Wait a bit; for the inevitable confusions and questions to arise. I'd lean over, see a bit of code that didn't make sense, or an unusual way of doing something, and so I'd ask:

"Why did you write that?"

All to often, they'd just shrug. They did a thing, and they had no idea why.


The entire concept of not knowing why you did a thing that you just did boggles my mind. You might have a terrible reason, a silly reason, a dumb one - but you still had one. There was still a moment when you opted to do one thing, instead of another. When, in not knowing what to do, but still trying to do something, you settled on one course of action. And in that moment, you were thinking something.

It's that moment that's key. Learn to spot it, to pay attention to it. When you become aware enough of that moment, you can jump into it; change it.

PS - I don't really like this post, but I still wanna talk about this stuff, and I can't figure out what to change :P

N&N 2: The Intellectual Conscience

Here they are. About 20 minutes, I think.

http://rapidshare.com/files/406268420/Nietzsche2.mp3

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OXX8R9P3

Jimmy's Death

UPDATE: NOT a suicide.

Jimmy's dead and it's an accident. Random death has always bothered me, and while this counts, there's no real relevant thinking I've got in that direction. He's dead, and that means a lot of never again's. Hopes and dreams, smiles and thoughts.

I'm still not really mourning for the reasons below; his past still exists, and with it, pieces of him - so we're all carrying Jimmy's existence forward in time. But there's no future that he'll provide, and that's sad. I don't have anything about making that not sad; all I've got are changes of focus - the usual (effective) platitudes - remember the joy, not the dismay. Focus on what you've got, rather than what you can now never have.

I'm sad, but not really mourning, and there's a little spot in my head I'm keeping for him.


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So, a friend of mine died a few days ago, and it's likely a suicide, but they haven't it ruled it one way or another yet.

Anyway. I realized I wasn't grieving as much as everyone else, and I thought about why. It's because I'd already finished, more or less, and I sort of wanted to share how and why, 'cuz it's philosophy and this is a blog.

First, I need to explain a bit of that I think of suicide. Mostly, I think it's silly, but I can begin to understand the motivations for it. In the end, I always still think - you could have taken everything you have, and moved somewhere entirely new. If you don't like the life you have, go get a different life.

That's not always possible, I think, but that's the advice I've given on the rare occasions advice on that topic has been needed. Once, as far as I know of, it's actually been taken.

Anyway. I find suicide particularly tragic because your existence ends at a low point; there's no hope to be had because it, now, can never get better. Under some views, that's your existence for ever after.

But. But! That's not in my life. That's not the Jimmy my existence carries forward, because he was never in those spots when I knew him. My existence carries forward the thinking, friendly, anxious Jimmy, eager to please to the point that he didn't accept that he already was. I'm carrying forward the Jimmy that got up one day and decided he'd see how long he could water fast, and did so until he had a few moments of blackout. The Jimmy that always wins at Axis and Allies (even with Italy!), and could be trusted with game-destroying power because he'd only ever use it to make everyone else's experience better. The Jimmy shooting the shit with us around Tofu Tim's table.

That's the existence he'll always have in my life.

It's when I thought that, and toasted to his spirit that I'd do this, that I finished grieving.

N&N - The Teachers of the Object of Existence

(Okay, it's not the first thing in TGS, but I'm skipping the poetry for now)

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It's about 20 minutes, or ~12 megs.

If there are any ideas you want me to elaborate on, ask away! I want to have a dialog with my listeners.

(BTW, if anyone has hosting suggestions, I'm all ears. Cheap, cheap ears, but ears)

N&N Intro

Let's get this thing rolling.

While this blog isn't only for the "Nietzsche with Nick" feature, it's the core bit and the original purpose. These will be in audio format, although I intend to (eventually) write up text blogs about, for instance, why this is called "The Deliberate Me". But that's for later. For now, here's the intro cast I recorded to N&N:

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N&N is me reading (aloud) the sections from Nietzsche's "The Gay Science", and then thinking about them (aloud). That's really all there is to it.

I record these 2-3 weeks before I post them, and will post twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays - except today, which is a double feature. This should mean I won't have gaps, because I've got blogging fat.

Anyway, welcome, and leave comments!