Transdimensionalism 1:01... & Parallel Worlds

"Blueprint" for Unit 3 Aggregate 6 - 1983, DS

"We have ways of determining when a physical body is no longer, obviously alive. And, yes, we know how different living structures come together to produce more complex structures. These eventually result in a creature who can, quite possibly, walk to a local diner and order "home-fries". But, ultimately, this knowledge fails to illuminate us. While we can surmise that John Doe desires home-fries due to theories regarding genetic or environmental prompts which happen to coincide with that biological drive known as "hunger", we do not really know why it was that, while John was walking home from the diner, he got hit by a renegade truck. Nor do we know why John's wife, Sylvia, told him to stay home that day because she "had a bad feeling" about his going out. Nor do we know why John's son, Rufus, shot the neighbor's dog two days earlier. You can call in all the biologists and psychiatrists in the world, and possibly after several months, they might be able to determine the "how" of several elements of this scenario, but they'll never be able to determine the "why" of this succession of events because there is no obvious logic involved. And, that's life.

Hence, we have the "story", which is not so much a thing, nor a series of things, but a mad combination of all sorts of no-things that come together in a such away to amuse us or dismay us.  And it's a very strange occurrence to realize that some of these tales which filter into our brains, mysteriously become part of our own personal databank of experiences without ever attaining 'thingness' at all."

- from Transdimensionalism 1:01, a .pdf file I've just uploaded, containing material I wrote in 2010 and revised in 2015 (A link appears after the jump...).

The Shadow Self and the Mirror Image

"Some artists fear the judgement of failure: the manuscript unpublished, the painting unsold; and others the judgement of the marketplace: bad reviews, poor sales, disappointed fans. Some fear specific kinds of judgement: the lowered esteem of colleagues or certain critics, the negative opinions of family or friends. And for others, the harshest judge of all is the one who whispers inside our own head: You aren't any good. You don't know what you're doing. What makes you think you can write/draw/craft/compose/perform? You're mediocre. You're a fraud. You're a fool...

Only perfection will silence these critics -- or so we secretly believe, and since there's no such thing as the "absolutely perfect," we're damned before we've even begun..."

- Terri Windling from her blogpost When Every Day is Judgement Day , January 7, 2015

"Psyche has two main functions. It is both a non-material "hard disk" that stores memories as well as a non-material digestion organ that masters fear. Psyche can be of different complexity and can in this respect be compared to a mirror globe that has more or less reflectors on its surface. A globe with less mirrors gives a simple image of reality whilst a globe with many mirrors gives a highly complex image of reality. It is obvious that a highly complex psyche is able to represent reality more sophisticated but on the other hand is more prone to picture distorted images of reality."

- Gordon Praxis from Functions of the Psyche

***

I've just come back from a long, enforced hiatus from the internet recently. As it stands, operating out of the particular area of New Mexico in which I currently reside, reliable ISPs are hard to come by. But, that wasn't the only reason I avoided getting an internet connection; in the end, I just wanted to attend to my own projects without the added distractions cyberspace involves. In the past , I would've doubted that going cold turkey from the virtual world was even possible. But, I'm here to report that not only is it possible, it isn't a half-bad exercise.

For instance, within the past two months, I reworked and finished the first draft of a manuscript; a YA novel which had been sitting on "the back burner" for a period of over ten years. Had I been caught in the glare of that giant disco-ball we call virtual reality, this wouldn't have been possible...