Cognitive Pencil

One

gerbus — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 00:40:36 +0000

The war that rages inside me is one I cannot silence. My thirst [is] to feel, to live not as I do but as I am. I am not the man that slips into society undetected. I seek to escape it, and to love, to hurt, to mourn, to crumble, to hope. I know not how to live this way. I am confronted with the thought that if I do not feel all that it is to be human, I have failed. And yet I find myself adhering to the emotionless status quo, fitting in to what it is that has become human – to be a virus and a loveless drone that wallows its way through life, realizing only near the end that there is only emptiness when all falls away to time.

I yearn to feel, if that is what is truth beyond the physical. I yearn to escape my space and time, to be truly as I am, and nothing less. The paradox within me is the fight between seeming truths; I am finite, but I need to forget all the pressures of this earth and exist in whole truth.

I am a man who travels but never meets, swims but never drinks. I seek answers to my questions; what am I that is not of this world? Are the mountains and valleys of my heart the paths to joy and peace? Is there more than what I think and do? Is there less? Why do I search for identity? What is my body and what is me? What separates these two existences?

I have planned my mortal life with a few statues of inevitability along the way, but I have not planned for the years if not decades of searching that I must do. I have not left room to feel, only to do.

There is no conclusion I can draw to the process, although I have fooled myself to believe that I know all things, for I know what the beginning and end of my body will be. Since I know the endpoints of my body’s life, a and b, I have approximated its path as a straight line. I have used the fundamental theorem of calculus to approximate my life, by allowing that change – the derivative – is constant and therefore my life will be continuous and smooth. I have made myself differentiable.

But I am thinking now that perhaps it should be approximated by a harmonic function, one that sings my life to all other life, with highs and lows. But if I am to be as I am, and nothing more, if I am to be exactly me, apart from any identity I build myself, apart from any category I place myself in, then I cannot approximate my journey, for only by living it will I know the function, only by pushing through the traps of the world can I not approximate it, but coincide with it. This exceeds knowledge, this exceeds body.

If I am to know and feel both unimaginable joy, and undeniable pain to the highest level possible, then I must be my life. I must not only live it, but be it. The separation I have conceived between me, my life, and my body must be discarded, for it matters not. This surpasses logic, for logic is a tool of thought. This surpasses emotion, for it is a tool of the soul. This surpasses senses, for they are tools of the body. Whatever connection I have to these I must break, and then become these things. To be one is to be grater than any other state.

The identity is the greatest of all beings, for it is perfect. What you give it, it returns. You cannot divide it up without leaving it whole. If you take it away from itself, nothing remains for it is everything. Again, to be one is the utmost goal, for it is perfect.

I must be my body, I must be my soul, I must be my neighbor, I must be (one with) God, I must seek all things that are separated from me, and bring them into me. I must be other peoples’ suffering, I must be other peoples’ joy, I must be my mentor, I must be my student. I must be my hope, and I must be my fear. I must be my being. I must be my strength, and I must be my weakness. I must be weakness. I must be strength. I must be. I must be. I must be.

Relativity, Space and Time, and PDEs

gerbus — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 05:25:04 +0000

I find myself trapped in a world that has left me feeling incredibly inept. It seems that my world consists of hour courses [within] which I find myself terrified by my inability to hang on. My greatest fear, has been realized.

I have spent the last three years convincing myself that my interests, my gifts, all point towards physics. Now that I have finally reached a point where I am starting my journey, I am already at a standstill. The material seems so complex, and I am falling incredibly behind. I have failed two midterms this week and have just been completely stumped on an assignment that is due tomorrow – I can’t even find where to begin. I have forgone the assignment completely in frustration, at a sure cost of 3.5% of my final grade.

I am build up with an intense desire to weep, and I now know the power of what I am getting into.

There is some comfort in the fact that 68% is what I need as an overall average, but as it stands right now, I am below that.

There needs to be a swift change in my learning, but I know not how to shift it, for I am already dedicating all my time to physics. I am sure that this will not get easier, but only more difficult.

There is marginal comfort in that Einstein himself was no academic god either.

Of Greatness

gerbus — Sun, 03 Oct 2004 05:17:38 +0000

Is greatness achieved by chance? Is there anything that isn’t decided by some form of chance? Is wisdom the trade-off for intelligence? What is it about me specifically that differs so much from great men? There must be a formula, an explanation for exactly why great men are great men. I have looked in many corners for these answers, into sleep, into history, into nutrition, into routine, into biology and body chemistry in general, I have looked for it in other people, I have looked for it in nature, and I have looked for it in nurture. But I have found nothing. Perhaps it is in the way in which I have been taught to learn, for surely my thus-far method was taught to me, surely the first thing I learned was how to learn? Or is it entirely determined by my organic brain; do I learn only the way my brain learns? Do I trust that my brain knows how best to teach itself? Do I leave it be, or do I try to better my brain by finding a new method of learning that is more effective than the current method? Greatness, perhaps is above our possible comprehension, since we hold intrinsic value in it. Why do we pursue it, what is so great about greatness?

…I Come Around The Corner

gerbus — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:48:57 +0000

…I come around the corner, and look up to see a middle aged woman light a smoke, poking just through the jarred open door. The building’s flat south side becomes atonal with the woman’s shifty presence.
I b-line to the retaining wall and lick my index finger. I push the small cinder of the half-joint in my hand, out of respect, if not some lingering fear I have for the randoms of the city. She seems not fearful, but I have caught her during the moment of her lighting the cigarette.
I light a cigarette and resume my course and speed, toque down, scarf wrapped. I approach the penetrating door, raise my head, make the briefest of eye contact, and nod. I walk on, recalling no look of acceptance, no return, no satisfaction.
I walk over, around the corner, to my building. I begin to write…

Have I Been Here Yet?

gerbus — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 03:25:30 +0000

Good Jazz in the atmosphere,
Smooth strokes to the keys,
Rolling,
As if the white clouds rushing in had no sound,
but were silent like ghosts.

A calm water sits beneath the castovercast blanket,
moving but inaudible,
and my ears rang with a void they were virgin to.

Sweet pictures of long summer days floated to the earth beneath me.
Clips of the past yearnings seemed fulfilled,
all was content and hazy,
a world of kisses in the rain swept me away,
wonder,
whisper,
frost.

“Have I been here yet?”
“Have I slept into the future’s forget?”
“Have I grasped every grape I should and thrown away the raisins?”

A rush of water,
slow,
warm,
tugs me gently under,
and I the forgotten knapkin of slow wind float into slumber.
The volume of grateful assurances is whelming in my time,
that I have wandered home,
to a vague recollection of what it means to be,
and what to live without the ticking stop-clock.

For what time brings is stop,
not go,
and without it decay is lost.
I am found engulfed in what fortune I have foretold.
I am a wisp of vapors in your dream.

Revisiting The Singularity

gerbus — Sat, 04 Sep 2004 03:08:28 +0000

I have returned

returned to see the beginning,

but not only to see,

I have run forward, ever forward, on the path I swore was linear, only to discover that I have traversed the circumference of a hidden dimension. I have been betrayed by dim headlights, they have led me nowhere.

So perhaps I have not come back, for I have never left. Now I acknowledge that I have traveled, miraculously, the event horizon’s perimeter. I must realize, too, that I can never escape.

It pulls me toward the center, never subsiding, never lamenting. I have a single source of comfort; there is a smokey image of a woman I seem to know, that I can barely see, but know is there somehow. She draws my thirst away from me.

Into the singularity.

Jesus Heals Darwin’s Pain

gerbus — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:17:40 +0000

I have said, many times, that pain is an unavoidable, inevitable consequence of our very nature, and that as such, we must move to an acceptance of [it]. Our bodies interpret pain as “wrong”, but these two ideas are not synonymous. From pain, our minds collect fear, but we must overcome it.

When I encounter a flame, and I reach out to touch it, I am burned, and my body reacts out of instinct, withdrawing from its danger. And so the body should react, for to survive longer, it must avoid that which hinders life.

When a person tells me that they cannot stand to love me back, I am hurt, and my mind reacts in numerous ways (and my heart, one might argue). And so the mind should react, for to reproduce, one must avoid incompatible mates.

Yet, bringing the rituals of Darwin close to the teachings of Jesus, there is a step we must take. We must transcend our evolutionary attempts, and rise to the goal of eternal life. We must tell the truth, which often causes immense pain. We must fight against fear itself – the mortal body’s quest to maintain life – in favour of eternal life, which is an incredible task, for our greatest fear is death. Unfortunately, logic is broken between these two [schools], where we must embrace mortal death in favour of immortal life.

The battle between the spirit and the flesh is treacherous, yet unavoidable. Pain is a concept that we must accept, and no longer fear. Our mortal bodies deceive us by process of evolution; in a struggle to preserve the flesh, we avoid the discovery of the spirit.

Herein is the ultimate, life long battle. We must promote truth at the cost of pain. When taken into perspective, it seems quite commonsense: We achieve an eternal, pure aspect, at the expense of a mortal, deprived state. Why then so difficult? Well, of course we have become dependent on our senses to dictate what “reality” is to us. Consequently, our “reality” embraces Darwin’s fear of pain, and we are blind to the simple transaction that we must make.

Here we must pause to make an important observation: Great men [and women] live and die, renouncing the presence of God. This fact should not cloud our minds from the truths that they speak about this “reality”. Darwin was justified by our mortal existence to write and teach what he did, and he was accurate. However, those truths apply only to the world that he knew – the mortal one. We can not afford to turn a blind eye to thoughts from men and women who do not believe what we do, for they provide excellent insight into our mortality, into our need for reunion with the Father.

On Pleasures And Truth

gerbus — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 17:57:27 +0000

Indeed…entertainment is the temptation of the last and current centuries. Yet, entertainment is nothing more than a temporary lie.

The advocate of entertainment does not hesitate to cast blows at my need for production. When I deny [him], the advocate becomes ill-willed, seems to convey the idea that if I do not obey, I will be alienated from my friends who also worship the god of entertainment.

But it seems simple to me, for I quest to better myself, and I rarely benefit from consuming alcohol and nicotine while conversing with others about almost incoherent ideas of nothing. It bores me. What is my goal? For others is there any reason beyond a temporary and deceiving euphoria? Is it so hard to see that when we pursue these things, we are consciously and willingly deceiving ourselves?

And then, when I first began to follow suit, I created for myself a goal that could more easily be reached while intoxicated: more physical euphoria. This occupied me for a long time because it was [conversely] difficult to obtain. Yet, even after only a few minor successes, I became bored of this as well; there was no reason, no benefit to be borrowed from the temptations before me.

Yet, there is laughter on the dark side. Isn’t laughter a pure thing? Unfortunately not. But I am tempted nonetheless to pursue joy, to pursue happiness. Perhaps this is a righteous goal approved by God. If so, then we fall because we have settled for a sweet candy that tastes like watermelon, but have failed to taste true melon. We have drunken ourselves into believing that we have found true happiness.

I know this to be a lie, for when I am engulfed [by] the shifty pleasures of this type, I seek to be rid of them. True joy must be free of guilt, and guilt I am not free of. For this reason I feel doubly stupid when I indulge in these things, for not only am I deceiving myself, but I also know very acutely that I am accepting the deception.

A Poetic Autobiography

gerbus — Sun, 16 May 2004 17:28:55 +0000

I am the lighthouse watching for lone boats out at sea.

Sometimes I feel like a rabbit in a cage, surrounded by remenants of other people’s bullshit shells, by forgotten paintchips that have weathered with a passing of meaning.

I am aware of my ongoing pride.

I feel as if my purpose here is greater than most others, that perhaps the existence I know is me-centric.

And I Step Into A New World

gerbus — Fri, 14 May 2004 06:55:16 +0000

And I step into a new world,
my toes tingling, my chest buzzing,
fingertips sending me across ivory keys.

I am lost and limbless in an aroma of harmony.
I rise, higher, my eyes growing narrower,
my heart thudding galacticly in my throat,
wild blocks of shapes fit together and pass me by,
the black curtain to my back all-encompassing.

Then a silence, a forgotten peace to my soul, a stroke of remembering, then a touch of agony. I whirl in a gray fog of myself, changing dramatically, feeling all that is felt:

Dissonance, harmony, diminished, minor…
A love-long magic strikes me,
and I slowly sink off the stage in my ballet attire,
feeling all that is felt,

I spin slowly, gaining the audience’s hushed tears,

I kneel to the ground,
Drowned in a waterfall of romantic loss,

I throw my head back, shattering the black curtain, dramatically.

And I slump over the stage, summoning all the empathy of the world, and die.

Applause and heart-aware sobs and wails, shake the auditorium, celebrating the transcendence of a romantic heart.

The river now slow after the waterfall, I still on a log that floats only straight, I look around with virgin eyes, taking in green carpet and brown protrusion, my toes are still tingling.

A familiar, foreign, almost forgotten place settles inside me, where I see waves crashing into cliffs, silently, eerily, slowly.

I glide ontop the mirror until I have nearly stopped, the log seeming more buoyant as we slow.

I depart, bidding the log adieu.