I got annoyed at my dad during a phone conversation the other day.  I hung up on him which is the first time I've ever done that in my life.  And now I don't even feel like talking to him at all.  My mom's family is known for their ability to hold long-lasting grudges and I can almost feel that desire in me.  I'm willing to bet that I'm capable of it.

I don't know if he was in a bad mood or what.  He was determined to be crtical about everything which in and of itself is something I can sympathize with, but what bothered me was that he was doing it in a self-righteous way (with an implication that my opinion was worth less than his).  He was arguing that there was only one truth and he so happened to be in possession of it. 

At first, I tried to point out the positives for sake of balance and then I tried to be conciliatory, but he just wouldn't have it.  He wouldn't leave it as simply a differences of perspectives... because, as a moral conservative, that smacks of moral relativism.  Someone has to be right and therefore everyone else must be wrong (Extraverted Thinking types I tell ya).

He was complaining about the lazy selfish kids these days (not like the good ol' days when kids were obediant and submissive to authority... sure).  Basically, he was coming off as a bitter old man who has forgotten what it was like to be young.  He is a moral conservative and seems to think that Obama (who mobilized all those lazy selfish youngsters) is one of the first signs of the end of the world.  I'm the last to argue against the imperfections of this existence and the failings of human nature, but I'm not usually one of those that will try to pin it all on a specific group of people.

The thing is that he can be one of the nicest people.  He seems to genuinely like people and he is always helping others.  At the same time, he can be one of the most arrogantly judgmental people that I know.  He sees himself as a self-made man and arrogance is often the flaw of this type of person. 

He has had his struggles in life like everyone, but he has never known really hard times... such as involving racial prejudice, poverty, major illness, or long-term depression.  I don't get the sense that he has a deep understanding of or compassion for the suffering of others which are the very things I value above all else.  This isn't to say he isn't compassionate.  He is a caring person in a patriarchal fatherly kind of way.  He cares about the poor as one who has never been poor, but he does care.  He goes to great effort to make a positive difference in the world.

His morality seems to be primarily based upon intellectual principles and a sense of social obligation.  He does have a more accepting side that is very much genuine, but his righteous side is never very far away.  It can actually bother me even more sometimes when I sense him trying to hide his righteous side.  If someone is going to feel judgmental towards me, they might as well just get it out in the open.

What I was thinking about is how people can have such contradictory sides of their personality.  I'm the same way.  I can be extremely compassionate and understanding, but there is another part of me that is severely misanthropic.  Despite or because of my understanding of suffering, I can simply get stuck in my suffering... even selfishly stuck.  My dad, because he isn't overwhelmed by such an intimate knowledge of suffering, is much more able to actively help others. 

Theoretically, balance is always possible and to that extent desirable.  However, experience has shown me that this ideal of balance is rarely a reality.

I'm not in a morally superior position to judge my father.  I guess what my annoyance comes down to is that he wants to put himself above others as an example of superiority.  He wants to be admired and looked up to.  He has a side of him that feels quite the opposite of superior, but this is the side that he rarely shows.  I know that it bothers him that he feels his sons don't respect him, but I'd respect him more if he'd let that more vulnerable side show more.  However, maybe that is the same as saying that I'd like him better if he was more like me.

From the perspective of the societal standard of morality, he is a much better man than I am.  He is a respectable professor and church leader.  He has high expectations that he strives hard to live up to.  He gives of himself constantly in that his life revolves around others.  He is one of those people who needs people to need him.  That is what our society values.  He is an admirable representative of our society's aspirations.  He is the American ideal of ambiton (with its concomitant shadow of the advantages and privilege of being a middle class white male... which my dad would deny).

He is an Extraverted Thinking type which has been the ideal male personality type of our society.  He is a very well developed person in terms of his personality inclinations.  He even has come to sense the more Feeling side of life in his older age, but of course this gets subjugated to his dominant function of Extraverted Thinking.  His moral righteousness may even be an expression of his being in the grip of his inferior function of Introverted Feeling.  Our inferior function becomes stronger as we age which can both be good and bad.

I'm the opposite of him as my dominant function is Introverted Feeling.  My being raised by two Extraverted Thinking types has left a lasting impression on me.  I sense that a significant element of my depression is how much I'm drawn into the grip of my inferior Extraverted Thinking. 

Our weaknesses are simply the other side of our strengths.

The practical purpose of my thinking about this is the consideration of my relationship with my dad... what it could be and what I don't want it to be.  If he was always as righteous as he was the other day, I very well might gladly refuse to speak to him for the rest of my life.  Fortunately, he rarely behaves in such an overtly righteous manner.  Most often he tries to be kind and friendly.  When he is in a good mood, which is more often than not, he enjoys being humorous and entertaining.

In the past, it seemed I was closer to him than my brothers.  I've tended to be forthright in speaking about my life to my parents whereas my brothers tend to keep the personal out of their relationships to them.  Nonetheless, my brothers get along with my dad better maybe because of that formality.  My brothers interact with him through more neutral subjects such as computers and finances.  I'm the only one who will debate with my dad about what he deeply values (we both love to debate), and I seem to be the one he feels the most comfortable with being honest about his opinions (which was what did happen during the recent phone conversation).  Even so, we're usually both good at coming to a middle ground (which is what didn't happen during the recent phone conversation).

My famly isn't all seriousness.  My brothers and I learned our humor from our dad, and so humor is a major aspect of how we all relate.  However, its my oldest brother who has the most similar personality to my dad and also the most simlar of a sense of humor.  They're both more congenially entertaining in their humor.  My humor, on the other hand, goes between the extremes of inanely silly and cynically dark.  My dad often uses his congenial nature to try to manipulate people... manipulate in a good-intentioned kind of way.  But, good intentions or not, I'm stubbornly resistant (a trait from my mom) to being anyone who tries to change me or my mood.  I'm what I am and that is just the way it is.

Because of all this, my dad is an extemely more likable person than I'd ever hope to be.  I'm not much of a people pleaser whereas my dad is the gregarious type who is the life of the party.  In his adult age, he has gained the confidence and popularity that he feels he lacked as a chld.  He is proud of his accomplishments and the person he has become.  He is very capable in what he does and he is very knowledgable.

I've learned a lot from him.  I too have become a knoledgable person in my own way.  And one aspect I'm superior to him is in my obsessive compulsion to see all sides to every situation... which he sees as moral relativism.  His knowledge is highly specialized and focused, but my knowledge is randomly wide-ranging and motivated by undirected curiosity.  I learned my rationality from him, but as an Extraverted Thinking type rationality comes more natural to him as being a well developed attribute of his everyday behavior.  His rationality is usually focused on practical matters of living a responsible life (even his humor has a tinge of social responsibility to it).  My rationality, because its more of a learned attribute and because its ruled by my Introversion, is more detached and neutral.  I don't try to conform my rationality to any particular moral belief system as he does.

My dad and I live in very different worlds, and yet there is quite a bit that we share.  My base personality might be more of my mom's contribution, but my dad has had an immense impression on me. 

He is the standard by which I feel judged in my failure to live up to his example, and he is the standard of our society that just doesn't make sense to me personally.  He has all the proof on his side, the respectability, the "hard-earned" money.  He lives his moral ideals.  When he dies, there will be a long line of people wanting to make grand statements about what an admirable fellow he was. 

I have nothing tangible to show for my life besides who I am as an individual, but to him what matters is what you do and what you accomplish.  Its obvious from his perspective that his opinions are superior because the life he has lived is superior.  The proof is in the pudding. 

I'm sure he'll want to reconcile, but I'll always know his true opinions even when he hides them.  He wouldn't judge me directly, but I represent what he sees as problematic in the world.  He wouldn't say it that way to my face.  Still, those are the facts.  And that is what erupted the other day in that phone conversation.

I really don't know how to relate to him.  If we weren't father and son, there wouldn't be much to base our relationship upon.  That seems to be the way family is.  The close friendships I seek are with people who aren't like anyone in my family.  I get along with my family actually quite well, but family is what they are.  At one time, I almost had a friendship-like relationship with one of my brothers, but even that has mostly dissipated with his own family responsibilities and stresses.

My family is there for me in a distant kind of way.  If worst came to worst, they'd help me out.  But my life would have to be horribly bad before my family would intervene.  I'd have to be homeless or suicidal or something.  I mean what could they do?

For all my dad's accomplishments, any good advice he could give me would most likely be worthless to me.  He cares about me as a father... in the way that being a father is a social obligation... but he doesn't know me.  And I'm sure that I don't really know him either.

As I get older, I start questioning who it is that I would turn to in times of need.  I'm starting to feel that I'd more likely turn to a friend than to family.  I have sincere doubts about the support my family can offer.  Then again, I have sincere doubts about the support anyone can offer anyone else.

I noticed this blog from the Futurismic site.  I always thought that modern life might slow down evolution, but I can understand the opposite argument.  Its interesting to think that major evolutionary changes can occur even over just a few thousand years.

Humans are evolving faster than ever

Paul Raven @ 11-12-2007

Thanks to the magic of the wire services, this story is all over the web like a rash - you can read the abstract of the paper that's caused the hoo-haa on the blog of John Hawks, one its authors.

But the nutshell quote is this one:

"The massive growth of human populations has led to far more genetic mutations, and every mutation that is advantageous to people has a chance of being selected and driven toward fixation. We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals."

As an early commenter points out on the inevitable MetaFilter thread, faster evolution doesn't mean we're improving as a species, because evolution selects for ‘reproductive fitness' rather than any quality that we might describe as being ‘better' from a rational point of view.

But it's an interesting story nonetheless; I'd always thought evolution was a glacially slow process. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the implications are ... not to mention the spin that the ‘Young Earth' folk will try to put on it. [Image by KevinDooley]

I created a chart at work to display some work-related info.  It was rather boring information, but I enjoyed the process.  One of my favorite activities is gathering and organizing info.  Its often what I do with my time on the web. 

I love it even more when I find the product of someone else's effort.  There are many people online who spend years or even a lifetime gathering and organizing info about a single subject.  If it weren't for such people, the web would be a chaos of data. 

Most people don't have the time to do a thorough search and so our society is dependent on people who will do this and offer it to others... often for free, sometimes losing money in the process.  Its amazing what people are willing to do even without the hope of financial gain.  The internet would collapse if it weren't for all the "volunteers" that help to keep it running.  Most of the activity on the internet has very little direct economic value, but indirectly it promotes all of the online traffic which others capitalize on.

I see myself as one of those volunteers.  Some of my blogs represent immense amounts of time perusing hundreds of websites. In my recent research about virtual worlds and networking sites, I looked at thousands of websites over several months.  I've gathered enough info to write a very large book if I felt inspired to do so.

And all this activity by all these people is largely collaborative... intentionally or not.  The whole structure of the internet seems to promote a collective framework.  Authorship becomes less clear.  Information takes on a viral status. 

In my recent blog about virtual worlds, I gathered and organized info that had already been gathered and organized by others.  Who knows how many stages of information filtration had happened even before that.  And, of course, there will be an endless chain of links that will follow from my blog.  I did a websearch.  My blog has already been linked in some blogs, several times on Twitter and FriendFeed, linked on a forum for virtual gaming, and for some strange reason it was listed on a porn webcam site.  Oh, dear me!  lol

I've been looking at my blogging options.  There is a lot out there and its hard to make a decision.  I've found reviews, but everything is always changing and so I have no way of knowing which reviews are still relevant.  At least, I have an idea of what types of things are available and so have a better sense of what I'm looking for.

I want to bring my blogging up a notch as part of my wanting to get more focused on my own writing.  I want a blog that is hosted by a site like Gaia, but something with more options. 

I have a couple particularly important factors.  I'm mostly interested in the big players in the field.  Since I'm planning to put a lot of time and effort into blogging, I want a stable system with a company that won't go belly up.  There are way too many new companies popping up and not all of them will last.

However, problems can even arise with the big companies.  Blogs can get (accidentally?) deleted or frozen, and depending on the customer service it might be a challenge to retrieve your blog.  This has happened with some people on Google's Blogger, but maybe they've fixed it by now. 

Blogger does seem to be the single most popular blogging site with WordPress in a close second.  Blogger is simpler and WordPress is fancier, but both are constantly improving.  Yahoo has jumped in with MyBlogLog which looks promising, but I haven't looked into it very much yet. 

All these have definite advantages, but they're focused just on blogging.  Part of me is attracted to white-label networking sites as they balance tons of options with ease of use.  Ning is the most popular, and is the only company in this category that I feel sure will continue to exist for many years.  The problem with blogging on Ning is that your blog is in a community that you set up.  You could make it a more private community, but the main problem is whether the blog is easy to find.  For instance, is it picked up by a websearch like any other blog would be?  I'd hate to have a blog that was simply hidden away somewhere.

The reason I'm looking at the networking sites is because they allow more complex designs.  WordPress does allow more complexity, but the learning curve on WordPress is quite large from what I understand.  I want to be able to (easily) set up multiple pages with categories (and possibly sub-categories).  I want to be able to have multiple blogs for different topics and maybe pages for longer articles.  Ideally, I'd like to even be able to set different accessability for the separate pages... some public, some private, and some viewable only to friends.  I don't know if any blogging site has these functions, and so networking sites may have more of what I'm looking for.

There are many other networking sites that are similar to Ning.  Some of them even seem nicer than Ning, but its hard to tell which ones will last.  There so much hype and splogging (spam blogging) that its hard to determine what info is reliable.  Ning is the only one that gets consistent praise.

I've already joined a bunch of these sites.  I wanted to explore them for myself, but haven't yet started blogging on any of them.  I was thinking of narrowing my choice down to two or three, and actually start using them.  In particular, I wanted to try out maybe Blogger and Ning as they're two very popular and yet very different platforms. 

Anyways, I thought it would be good to keep two blogs going with the same posts.  They would act as backups for eachother instead of me saving my blog posts to my computer.  I have this fear about blogs.  I'd hate to wake up one day and see years of blogging entirely disappeared into the aether.

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This continues in Part 2:

Marmalade's New Blogs

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Milk
by Barry Yourgrau

On a bet a man climbs inside a cow. Once there he decides to stay. The cow's interior is warm and soft, although very dark. But the man's eyes get by with the driblets of light that do manage to seep in. Food is no problem: there's milk and more milk. 'Fresher than diary fresh,' the man wisecracks to himself, chuckling, as he pulls off his socks. No need for clothes, after all, so why bother keeping them on? He bundles them up and stuffs them down the appropriate cavity, thinking slyly of how they'll end up.

Then he lies back and dozes. The movements of the cow, now that's she quieted down, are lulling. The man's friends are still out there, beside themselves: every once in a while they band their hoarse voices into a collective shriek of protest - protest from the world of sanity and reality. But their cries grow hoarser and feebler, and then disappear altogether into the milky stomach mucus with which the man loads up his ears. Slowly, with contented grace of a baby, he falls into a deep sleep.

Outside the sun creeps away and the moon climbs up over the pasture. The cow wanders slowly, still cautious in her gait, chewing cud. Finally she sinks with heavy care onto the grass, well away from the rest of the herd. Her large, sensitive eyes brim with concern as she tries to fathom her new fate and responsibility.

I've felt a bit off recently.  I haven't been sleeping well this past month and I've been off my normal schedule.  Visits from friends and family have added to my sleep alteration.  I was feeling dead tired a week ago and took a couple of sick days off to try to recuperate.  I rarely take sick days (I've gone years without taking a sick day off), but I really needed it. 

My schedule is still slightly off even though I've been sleeping better again.  My whole sense of time seems to be off recently. 

The day after the two sick days I accidentally went to work late.  I was taking a nap before work and set my alarm.  In the process of messing with the clock, I changed the timezone on it as its an atomic clock. 

And then I went to work late again today.  For an odd reason, today felt like Saturday to me and I go to work later on Saturdays.  I think the reason for my confusion was that I worked on my day off which I rarely do and it threw off my routine.  I have a split weekend and Saturday normally comes after my first day off of the week.  Since I worked Friday, it made it feel like my whole week had shifted.  My unconscious mind had a rule it was following and told my conscious mind it was Saturday. 

It simply felt like Saturday and I had a shock to my system when I finally noticed what day it was.  I felt kind of stupid.  If I had given it a moment of conscious thought it would've been obvious that it couldn't be Saturday for various reasons.

Its extremely unusual for me to go to work late.  I have an issue about tardiness as my mom raised me to be very time conscious.  I'm a person that likes to get to work 30 minutes early despite my living so close by.  I have a very set routine and I live only a block away from work.  It doesn't take me long to get ready and walk to work and I give myself plenty of leeway.

These kinds of events tend to happen in multiples. Its usually during a period of time when my schedule has shifted or been disrupted.  I'll have to pay attention more closely to time and days until my system gets reset to my regular routine.

I've been checking out sites where you can play music and create channels.  I've so far only played around Last FM to any great extent, but plan on checking out the others.  Here is a good recent review of the top four by Nathan Chase:

Slacker, Last.fm, Pandora, & LaunchCast - A Personalized Radio Roundup

Here is an article by Matt Rosoff at Digital Noise:

CBS adds Launchcast to its online radio arsenal

Launchcast was owned by Yahoo and was the original online music service, but I don't get the sense that its as popular as some of the others.  CBS already owns Last FFM and plans on changing Launchcast to fit a different niche.  Last FM and Launchast combined will create quite a competition to the other offerings.

Edit: I want to add a couple of links and comments.

The first comparison I came across was this one by Steve Krause.  Its a good analysis of the differences between the two biggest players that have free services.

Pandora and Last.fm: Nature vs. Nurture in Music Recommenders

Here is a review by Gary Savelson that gives a quick synopsis of many different services.

Discovering Music: Jango, Finetune, Meemix, Slacker, Deezer, MOG, Last.fm, Pandora, Haystack

This one that is very detailed.

Rocketsurgeon Blog

This is interesting... a couple of sites that allow you to use your Last FM account to discover videos on Youtube.

last.fm mashup

I Love Music Video

The comment I wanted to make is that there is some nice software that helps connect between these services.  There is one that sends what you listen to on Pandora to your Last FM account and one that does the same sending your Rhapsody music to Last FM. 

Last FM seems to be the most popular and sounds like its probably more useful for most people.  It has a simpler model and the community aspect creates a strong loyalty base.  I've found it easy to use and it gives me solid recommendations for similar music.  I'll explore Pandora some and I might even choose to pay for Rhapsody, but whatever the case I'll probably still visit Last FM.

Its hard to tell which services might survive in the long run as the music industry is always looking to increase their profits which might force under some of these free services.  I don't know about Pandora because it was having some trouble recently, but I'm willing to bet Last FM lasts as it has a large company backing it.  Pandora could easily lose out as soon as other companies start trying the same thing they do.

I'm not sure what is going on with Yahoo.  There changing everything around and I don't know what they'll be offering in the future.  They shifted some of their services off onto Rhapsody.  I have no idea how Yahoo compares, but it doesn't seem to be in the same league with Pandora and Last FM.

I've been trying out a trial of Rhapsody.  I must say I like the service and can find nearly everything I'm looking for.  In the process, I discovered a music genre that they had... Post-Modern Pop (top albums, top tracks).  I'd never heard of that category, but they had several of my favorite artists listed: Bjork, Ween, They Might Be Giants, Beck, and Tegan and Sara.  Here is Rhapsody's definition of Post-Modern Pop:

Post-Modern Pop alternately mocks and celebrates trashy culture -- sometimes at the same time -- through a hodgepodge of sampling and genre-bending. Beck, Post-Modern Pop's point man, crystallized the genre's junkyard vision by blending nearly every imaginable musical style -- from folk to hip-hop to Indie Rock -- on his groundbreaking mid-1990s albums Mellow Gold and Odelay. L.A. production duo the Dust Brothers have played a significant role in forming Post- Modern Pop's eclectic sound, producing Odelay as well as the Beastie Boys' cult favorite Paul's Boutique plus several tracks on I Become Small and Go, the sleeper debut of Bay Area band Creeper Lagoon. Post-Modern Pop's success rests in its ability to tap into an overwhelming variety of stylistic sources to assemble hazy yet gripping amalgamations of sound that somehow reflect the essence of pop culture.

Someone just knocked on my door.  I didn't answer it.  I'm pretty sure they knew I was in here because my light is on.  Five minutes later they knocked again and even less wanted to answer the door at that point.  I don't like answering my door late at night to a probable stranger.  If it was someone I knew, then they probably would've said so through the door.

Really its not that I'm afraid of being robbed or murdered.  I just don't like having to deal with strangers when I'm relaxing at the end of my day.  Besides, I've rarely found that answering my door to strangers ever brings me much pleasure.  Strangers knocking on my door usually aren't the kinds of strangers I feel much desire to talk to... Mormons, salespeople, etc.

It is kind of creepy though having someone hang around outside my door late at night.  I'm almost tempted to answer the door just to tell them to go away or I'll call the police.  I think they're gone right now... I hope.

Am I being weird?  I wonder if others are as reluctant as I am to deal with strangers.

I've heard the theory that a stranger might very well be Jesus.  Even if it was Jesus knocking on my door late at night, I'd probably still find it creepy.  Couldn't he at least call first?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Wiloch

Dissection

Decide which one you are, I said, motioning to the objects on the table.
He looked them over and pointed to a glass bell.
This one? I asked.
He nodded.
I picked up the glass bell and rang it gently. The ring brought tears to his eyes.
Very good, I told him. Very good, indeed. You made a good choice.
I dropped the bell on the concrete floor where it shattered.
Now, I asked, motioning to the remaining objects on the table, now which one are you?  


Jorge Luis Borges

Dreamtigers

In my childhood I was a fervent worshiper of the tiger-not the jaguar, that spotted "tiger" that inhabits the floating islands of water hyacinths along the Parana and the tangled wilderness of the Amazon, but the true tiger, the striped Asian breed that can be faced only by men of war, in a castle atop an elephant. I would stand for hours on end before one of the cages at the zoo; I would rank vast encyclopedias and natural history books by the splendor of their tigers. (I still remember those pictures, I who cannot recall without error a woman's brow or smile.) My childhood outgrown, the tigers and my passion for them faded, but they are still in my dreams. In that underground sea or chaos, they still endure. As I sleep I am drawn into some dream or other, and suddenly I realize that it's a dream. At those moments, I often think: This is a dream, a pure diversion of my will, and since I have unlimited power, I am going to bring forth a tiger.

Oh, incompetence! My dreams never seen to engender the creature I so hunger for. The tiger does appear, but it is all dried up, or it's flimsy-looking, or it has impure vagaries of shape or an unacceptable size, or it's altogether too ephemeral, or it looks more like a dog or bird than like a tiger.


Franz Kafka

The Trees

For we are like tree trunks in the snow. In appearance they lie sleekly and a little push should be enough to set them rolling. No, it can't be done, for they are firmly wedded to the ground. But see, even that is only appearance.

(1) I've noticed a correlation between the length of stories and the type of fiction.  Genre fiction tends toward short fiction... or is it short fiction tends towards the genre?  One thing is for sure, the only way for an author to escape genre categorization is to write a novel.  The only genre writers allowed into the mainstream literature section are those who've written longer works.  I can't think of any exceptions offhand.

Is my observation correct?  If there is a correlation, what might be the causation?

Some possible answers:

 - Suspension of disbelief is hard to sustain in longer works of genre fiction which necessitates both a talented writer and a willing reader.
 - In terms of fantasy and horror, maybe it has something to do with the human psyche.  It could be related to how we tend to only remember short snippets of dreams.  So, this mght imply that the imagination works most effectively when highly focused.
 - Maybe it has to do with technique.  The loose and limited narrative structure that a short story allows may give more freedom for the imagination.
 - It could be as simple as it being the tradition of the genres.  Each generation of writers take their inspiration from and thus emulate the writers that came before them.  The earliest imaginative stories were short and have been influential.
 - Another possbility has to do with the expectations of publishers and readers.  The genres have often had a special relationship with anthologies and magazines.  Partly, this is because the genres have never been big money-makers.  Short fiction is what sold, and publishing magazines is cheaper than publishing a book.  If an author wrote enough short stories, they might be able to eke out a living.  A short story has a quicker return in terms of making money than spending a long time writing a novel.


(2) Horror is somewhat unique amongst the genres.  In some ways its the most respectable of the genres and someways its the least.  The earliest horror writers such as Poe aren't even kept in the genre section, and even many of the fantasy writers that make it into the mainstream are often of a darker persuasion.  Horror seems to attact more literary writers than many of the genres, but simultaneously horror is the least popular of the genres in that its almost always the smallest section.  Horror gets isolated by itself wheras Sci-Fi and Fantasy usually get mixed together.

Horror has always had a close relationship with philosophy, and it often seems that horror writers can be more loose with their narrative structure than the other genres.  In many horror stories, not much happens at all narrative-wise... it can be rather cerebral where your stuck in a characters head and everything is subjective.


(3) I enjoy authors that have distinctive personalities and voices.  The two examples that come to mind are William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick, but to a lesser degree Kafka and Hesse fit in this category for me.  As for WSB and PKD, here ar some of the traits they share:

 - They both wrote fiction and nonfiction, and they often mixed the two together.
 - As such, they often mixed autobiography into their fiction even to the extent of creating characters that essentially represented themselves.
 - Along with this, because of their dstinctive personalities, they were both admired by other writers who also used them as characters in their stories.
 - They use repeating themes and chracter types across all of their work.

WSB and PKD are flawed writers (and flawed human beings), but still their writings compel me to a greater extent than do the writings of supposedly better writers.  Their is a humanity to their writing in that they both were interested in people and were great observers.  Also, you coud tell how much they simply enjoyed telling a good story.

Despite their similarities, they were very different in manyways.  For one, WSB travelled widely and PKD hated to travel.  One other thing is that WSB was way more cynical, but probably the better writer of the two.  PKD was a hopeless optimistic and more overtly spiritual.  For sure, they both had their own versions of despair even though they might've dealt with it differently.

I sense that they represent different sides of my own personality.  I don't think they ever met even though they probably had some common acquaintances.  In my mind I try to imagine what they would be like if they had met eachother. 

I'm not sure if they'd even like eachother.  They'd both probaly think the other one was crazy.  WSB would be more confident and aloof, and PKD would be more nervous and talkative.  If they ever became relaxed enough around eachother, they would probably start swapping weird anecdotes, and neither of them would be sure if the other one was telling the truth or merely telling a good story.

I have an equal interest in fiction and nonfiction.  They often feel in confict and they can have very different effect on me.  I tend to obsess on one or the other.  In recent years, I've been more focused on nonfiction, but I'm slowly switching back into a mood for fiction.

I don't see them as fundamentally in conflict.  My favorite writers are those that combine fiction and nonfiction.  This is my interest in William S. Burroughs and Philip K. Dick, but its also the reason for my more recent interest in "horror" writers such as Thomas Ligotti and Quentin S. Crisp.

There are various aspects in common.  As I said, they all combined fiction and nonfiction, but they also wrote them separately.  Besides all of this, the most obvious similaity is the Gothic.  The Gothic definitely applies to the horror writers, but the Gothic isn't limited to the horror genre.  The other connection is Gnosticism.  PKD helped to popularize Gnosticism only to maybe a slightly lesser degree than Jung had.  Gnostic themes and references are found throughout the works of WSB, TL and QSP.

What has brought all of this together in my mind are several nonfiction books that have been occupying my mind particularly past year or so.  One book is The Secret Lives of Puppets by Victoria Nelson, and two books by Eric G. Wilson (The Melancholy Android, and Secret Cinema).  Wilson was influenced by Nelson and I always think of these authors together.  Both of these authors write about PKD, and Nelson mentions WSB a couple of times.  Both focus on the the fantastical and horrific in fiction.  Both write about Gnosticism and Wilson goes into great detail about the connection between Gnosticism, the Gothic and the genres.

I won't go in more detail right now.  I just wanted to set down where my thoughts are at the moment.  This is a very personal nexus of my understanding of life.  Thinking about these authors is my way of contempating my place amidst a world of tremendous suffering.  I plan on blogging more about this soon as I clarify my ideas.

A favorite writer of mine is Quentin S. Crisp.  He is a fiction writer, but I admit I haven't read much of his fiction.  He is moreso a favorite writer of my friend.  I primarily know him through his blog writings and I will say he is my favorite blogger.  He shares many of my interests and views.  I think he was raised by a psychotherapist or something.  Maybe that is the reason that, despite his occasional cynicism, he has a very accepting and easygoing attitude about life.  He is often designated as a horror writer, but does't like that designation.  He is more just a weird write with dark streak.

I like how he is usually very reserved and humble about his opinions.  He has written that he doesn't take his opinions as ultimate truths but simply what makes sense to him in the given moment.  I like what he says here(this is from the comments section of one of his blogs):

Actually, I feel like adding that, although I used the word 'pessimistic' at one point, I don't really think of myself as pessimistic. I know some people do, because they've told me. But for me to call myself that would suggest I had some preformed pessimistic bent to which I wished to shape any conclusion. I don't. I actually have a sense of enormous potential within existence, which seems, rather tiresomely, to be thwarted again and again by human stupidity, my own included. Some people have tried to find the way out of this trap but it tends to turn to the way back in, because as soon as they call themselves 'right' and start preaching about it, it all goes wrong. I suppose that's why I prefer to be wrong from the start, to be a 'lost cause' and to write fiction rather than philosophy.

This relates to the connection between Gnosticism and the Gothic.  Many Horror writers study religion and spirituality.  Some even practice it or are members of churches.  Some horror writers go so far as giving up their horror for religion... such as Anne Rice's conversion.  Most Christian horror writers find a middle-ground because Christian theology gives plenty of space for the horrific... especially Catholicism.

A Biblical scholar I enjoy is Robert M. Price.  He is very well respected as a Biblical scholar, but he is also an expert on Lovecraft and writes horror himself.  Not surprisingly, he is very knowledgeable about Gnosticism.

Some other examples I've heard of:  Russell Kirk wrote ghost stories, but he was more famous for his influential political theories.  Charles Williams is best known for his horror novels (or supernatural thrillers as  T.S. Eliot described them), but he also wrote widely on many nonfiction subjects.

Thomas Ligotti and Quentin S. Crisp have both been highly influenced by religion and spirituality.  They've both studied diverse topics, but I do know that they were highly attracted to Buddhism.   As far as I understand, both had done spiritual practices such as meditation and so their interests aren't merely in the abstract.

For those who don't find discussion of horror all that enticing, this blog is dedicated to you.  From a pagan view, this time of year is a time of darkness until the solstice and then its a time of celebration.  So... with the solstice already past us and on this the eve of Christmas, I present here a positive view of the year sponsored by the lovely magazine Ode: top 10 stories from 2008.  Cheers!

The Secret Life of Puppets
by Victoria Nelson

pp. 18-19:
At the same time, however, this demonology is the only avenue open to the transcendental.  "You can raise issues in the horror genre that you can't raise so easily in other types of films," a Hollywood screenwriter once ingenuously explained, adding, "Characters can talk about the existence of God in a horror movie, whereas in other films that would be incredibly pretentious."  Ironically, beacuse of the old Reformation link between Catholicism and the supernatural, the only means for defending oneself against the Devil in these narratives is always represented as a potpourri of faux rituals rendered in Latin or Greek and always erroneously attributed to the Catholic Church, to the unendng aggravation of that church's worthies, who might be less upset if only they reflected on the unavoidable implication---that the Protestant mainstream unconsciously perceives its own rituals as utterly inadequate for warding off demons.

p. 19:
Lacking an allowable connection with the transcendent, we have substituted an obsessive, unconscious focus on the negative dimension of the denied experience.  In popular Western entertainments through the end of the twentieth century, the supernatural translated mostly as terror and monsters enjoyably consumed.  But as Paul Tillich profoundly remarked, "Wherever the demonic appears, there the question of its correlate, the divine, will also be raised."

p. 28:
Far from being mutually exclusive, nous and logos share this common denominator of human consciousness, a field that remained constant while its content and focus have swung like a pendulum between the two modes.  For the gnosis-oriented authors of the Corpus Hermeticum tractates, consciousness was not only humanity's distinguishing charactistic but the special feature that connected us with the divine.  This position  was counterbalanced by the materialist views of their contemporaries the Stoics and Skeptics; indeed, many Greeks and Romans of the time openly mocked graven images.  And, as Susanna Elm argues, far from being a "decline into belief" as is usually supposed, the radical iconoclasm of Judeo-Christianity, learnedly argued first by the rabbis and then by the early Christian fathers, represented a scientific revolution of rational discourse that supplanted the gnosis-dominated cults and religions of Late Antiquity analagous to the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation, which performed a similar function in relation to the Catholic Chruch a millennium later.

Secret Cinema: Gnostic Vision in Film
by Eric G. Wilson

p. 26:
Gnostic films understandably migrate toward the gothic genres---science fiction pictures devoted to ambiguous relationships between humans and machines; fantasy movies exploring blurred boundaries between dream and reality; noir movies hovering on the boundary between psychic projection and brute fact; horror films fraught with ambiguous meldings of monstrosity and miracle.  There are historical reasons behind this connection between the Gnostic and the gothic. As Victioria Nelson has shown, ever since the early modern age, esoteric ways of knowing including Gnosticism, Cabbala, and alchemy, have been pushed to the margins of culture.  There on the edges these heretical visions have attracted the aesthtic mediums rejected by mainstream institutions.  This confluence of occult religion and underground expression reached full force in the pulpy sub-world of the twentieth century, the lurid realm of weird tales, comic books, and gothic movies. These historical connections are valid and interesting.  However, as I have been suggestig, there are also deep epistemological reasons for the merger between Gostic vision and gothic cinema.  Both modes are dependent upon mental failure: the inability of the rational mind to reconcile opposites and of the physical world to transcend dualistic conflict.  However, these failures offer success: the possibility of the mind finding knowledge beyon reason, of the world dissolving into a unity beyond time.

I've had many ideas rolling around in my head this past week or so. I've at least mentioned most of them in my recent blogs, but there are still some I've been meaning to get around to.
 
Even though I've mentioned Ligotti, I haven't ever written about the one nonfiction work (besides textbooks) that I'm aware of him writing. Only an excerpt of it has been published so far and its in a recent volume of Collapse journal which also included some nonfiction by the well known fantasy writer China Mievelle. Anyways, he writes about the philosophy known as Pessimism in relationship to suffering.
 
He uses as one of his primary inspirations the 'The Last Messiah' by Peter Wessel Zapffe. Zapffe called his type of thinking biosophy and its my understanding that he had major influence on the deep ecology movement. The basic idea is that humans have certain over-developed functions, specifically consciousness, which cause humans to not easily fit into their environment.  More importantly, for my purposes, are the problems it causes with a hyper-sensitivity to suffering, and hence the necessity to counter it with various methods that Zapffe puts into 4 categories: isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation. Zapffe was actually a rather life-embracing guy who liked to climb mountains (for the very reason that it was pointless) and wrote humorous stories, but Ligotti takes his ideas in a much more cynical direction.
 
I get the sense that Ligotti is a failed idealist.  My idealism has likewise failed in many ways but not entirely (and maybe correspondingly my faith has increased in certain ways). I think I'll always have some of the hopeless idealist in me. Its hard to tell what Ligotti's personal experiences or views are as he keeps his philosophizing mostly on the level of the abstract. He claims this is intentional because his arguments aren't based on his moods, but he does admit that the experience of horror is something most people will never understand. He seems to accept that he is in the minority and that his writing will probably never be widely read (despite the fact that he is one of the better writers alive today and is highly respected by other writers).
 
I can agree with Ligotti in many ways. Humans are naturally optimistic and we avoid the experience of suffering as if our lives depended on it... because our lives probably do. I imagine that most people would go insane or kill themselves if they ever felt suffering fully. In all actuality, I doubt humans are capable of experiencing suffering without various psychological filters and buffers limiting our consciousness.  Its the double-bind of being human... the inability to either fully avoid or fully face suffering.
 
The problem is that Ligotti seems to leave this Existentialist insight on the level of biological horror. I don't know that he has never had any experiences that he'd deem "spiritual", but if he has he leaves them out of the equation. I've had experiences that went so far beyond (or within?) suffering that my experience was transformed... or, if not exactly transformed, I did touch upon something that felt entirely Other.
 
Because of this, I prefer to go the route of something like Gnosticism.  So, in this way, I can accept that the world is filled with suffering and yet not simply resign myself to it. Gnosticism is also a way I can give meaning to why the deep experience of suffering is so rare. Some have criticized Gnosticism as elitist, but I think that Gnosticism was simply observing the rarity of true gnosis (maybe similar to some early forms of Protestantism).

Its not an attitude of judgment because I wouldn't claim true gnosis for myself as I'm way too confused for all that.  But I will say that I feel there is much superficiality and falseness in most claims of spirituality... and I can sense this even in myself whenever I try to speak of spirituality. I don't believe gnosis is about being saved and so its not that the unworthy are left behind. Gnosis is just an insight and that is all and serves no greater purpose beyond that. Unlike the Gnostics, I have severe doubts about the notion of escaping suffering and prefer something more akin to Buddhism. Suffering, when felt deeply enough, can open one to understanding and potentially compassion.
 
As far as pure rationality goes, I consider Pessimism to be one of the most objectively accurate assessments of human experience that we are capable of coming up with.  For sure, its at least as reasonable as any other philosophical or theological position, not that reasonableness is the primary standard by which people choose their beliefs.

In light of Pessimism, there are the criticisms towards mainstream notions of freewill which interests me very much. Its without a doubt, in my mind, that the lack of freewill is the more scientific hypothesis given the scientific standard of parsimony. Rationality is important because all discussion (ie shared understanding) is of almost no use or merit without it, but when it comes to personal experience I don't limit my understandings to mere rationality. Even someone like Ligotti with his very rational arguments is fully aware of the extreme limits of the human intellect.
 
I may have lost most of my audience by now with this dreary philosophizing during this time of "holiday cheer", but I shall continue with another set of ideas.

When I think of Gnosticism, it automatically brings to my mind Jung... probably from whose writings I first learned about Gnostic-type of ideas. Also related to Jung are theories such as Myers-Briggs typology and Campbell's Monomyth, but most Jungians dislike it when Jung's ideas are systematized. The type of books that often reference Jung usually won't reference the MBTI or the Hero's Journey. This is the case with the books of Victoria Nelson and Eric G. Wilson.

I, of course, consider all of these to be related. In particular, I've been thinking about the Monomyth in how Jesus fits the typical Hero's Journey and thus the corelation to the Gnostic interpretation of the Christ figure.
 
Even with the vastness of the internet, its still hard to find much writing about these connections. The best source I always seem to come back to is Tim Boucher in his extensive blogging. He has lots of interesting thoughts, but here are just a few quotes from his site that I found relevant:
 
The Hero With A Thousand Faces
 
the hero is basically synonymous with the ego. the ego is sort of the main part of the mind that we identify with as a culture. the "hero's journey" to me seems like a story about what happens when the ego encounters parts of the mind besides itself. looking at how various cultures portray the archetypal "hero" can shed a lot of light on how their minds work, and the values they cherish. alternatively, i think that looking at the types of heroes and stories that you personally are drawn to can shed a lot of light on what's important to you, what you're struggling with, and possible symbolically encoded outcomes that could be achieved.
 
Demiurge and Ego
 
The Jungian concept of ego/Self dovetails nicely with gnostic theology as well. In it, the Demiurge is a false god who brashly and wrongly believes that he is the creator and most powerful being in the universe. Usually associated with the Judeo-Christian Yahweh, he is a jealous, egotistical god who is violent, capricious and authoritarian. Consider the first of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt have no other god before me."
 
The Joseph Campbell of Conspiracy Theory

I've wondered before why Campbell didn't talk more about "pop culture as mythology". I mean, he did, but it wasn't the focus of his work. I only realized very recently the sleight of hand that he really pulled. What he did was use pop culture as a vehicle. I think he realized that traditional religions were essentially dead in the water, or if not dead then at least declining in people's lives. Certainly they still play a role, but nowadays the real grunt-work is done by pop culture. It provides us with a story-system which binds us as a culture, and which acts as a vehicle or vessel for the symbolic contents of our subconscious minds.

I think he realized this, but he also realized that there was a danger here. Namely, that our archetypes were being clothed in pop culture, and we didn't even know it. Since it was happening mostly outside the context of organized religion, with traditions of ritual and symbolism, most people were missing out on the important lessons learned in those traditions. So what he did, the real genius of his work, was to strip out the symbolic messages out of all world religions, and inject them directly into the bloodstream of the new religion, pop culture. And he essentially trusted that through the chaos of the mediasphere, these messages would ultimately find their place on their own and go right to where they were needed.

 
His speaking about pop culture returns me to the genres. Ever since Star Wars, the Monomyth has become a standard model for making movies in Hollywood... a model that even mainstream religion has had to come to terms with, however reluctantly. Parallel to the Monomyth, Neo-noir has brought Gnosticism into the public view. These two strains have come together in many movies such as The Matrix. So, I'm back in the territory of Philip K. Dick and the cultural analyses of Victoria Nelson and Eric G. Wilson.
 
What I was thinking about is the narrative structure of Gnostic films. They often end with the door in the sky. The narrative must end there because that is where rationality ends. Is there something beyond that door? What might it be? Any answer given won't satisfy. We'd be disappointed if we followed Truman to the world beyond the Demiurge's false reality.

This makes me wonder. The Monomyth is circular without any apparent escape. The traditional hero leaves just to return, but the Gnostic hero leaves without returning... or, if you prefer, his leaving is his returning to the real world... or in Jungian terms to his real Self. His boon is self-transformation (or else ananmesis) which is rather intangible.
 
This is where my personal sufferings and doubts come in. I recognize the limits of rationality.  At its best, fiction can (potentially) at least point beyond itself in a way that philosophy doesn't seem as capable of doing.
 
Nonetheless, the narrative ends with the Gnostic hero's accomplishment and yet we the audience are stuck in this endless loop of Monomyth's repetition. Stories can be just as much distracting entertainment as mode of insight. The Monomyth is a circle, but traditional religion offers us the hope of either escape from the enclosing periphery or otherwise to bring us deeper to the center around which it all revolves.
 
Can we only worship the hero as most Christians do or like Gnostics can we become the hero? Or is identifying with the hero part of the ego's trap of endless misery? How does the story truly end? Does the story ever end? Will people still be telling ever new versions of the Monomyth far into the distant future (assuming we're still around)?

The whole finger pointing at the moon comes to mind. What is the point of studying stories? What is the point of worshipping the Monomyth hero even if you believe him to be the Son of God? Does turning to religion offer us any further insight or guidance?

I don't know the answer to all of that. My questioning here is partially in response to similar thoughts that Eric G. Wilson writes about which I might go into more detail about sometime. For now, I'll just end with my wondering about all things archetypal.
What are the archetypes? Mere biological mechanisms of Darwinian evolution? A good case can be made for that, but it doesn't satisfy me personally. I'd like to believe that archetypes, if not the moon the finger is pointing at, may at least be the trajectory of the finger pointing. If I follow the archetypes in contemplation, where shall they lead me?

To use the sea as a metaphor for the vastness of suffering, is there any reason to leave the shore?

This blog is a two for one deal.  I'll offer you both a movie and a blog.

On this fine Christmas, I watched a very unusual animated neo-noir movie titled Renaissance.  It was enjoyable even if not precisely appropriate for this Holy of Holy days.  I'm sure Jesus would be understanding.  Why can't anyone make a good neo-noir Christmas special?

The Wikipedia Article on the Rennaissance.

A good review by A.J. MacReady.

I was also spending some quality time with Tim Boucher on his insightful blog.  Here is one that particularly amused me partly because the funny quote he started off with.

God gets lonely too, you know

Three bears in the bed, and the little one said
"I'm crowded, roll over"
So they all rolled over and one fell out

Two bears in the bed, and the little one said
"I'm crowded, roll over"
So they all rolled over and one fell out

One bear in the bed, and the little one said
"I'm lonely"
- (from Sesame Street)


What I really found interesting was this diagram and a related quote.



I was wondering if there were any historical theological precedents wherein Jesus and Lucifer were two stages of the same entity. That is, Lucifer transforms into Jesus through a process of purification. Lucifer is thrown out of Heaven, descends like a meteor and burns, burns, burns, until one day he just cools off. At this point, he is transfigured, and rises into Heaven once again, like a rocket shot into space.


The quote is the third paragraph below the diagram, but I had the same exact thought when I saw the diagram.  Lucifer, afterall, is an angel.  Angels are direct manifestations, extensions even, of God.  According to some sources, Lucifer fell because his loyalty was so strong to God.  Lucifer coming into this world was the first time an aspect of God directly manifested on Earth, and Lucifer's fall parallels that of Adam and Eve.  Lucifer led the way for Mankind to fully enter this world of limits and suffering, and so likewise Jesus in becoming Christ is the Wayshower back to Heaven.

*begin rant*

I did a really silly thing.  I just made a brief comment on a Christian's Youtube video.  I really didn't want to discuss anything, but he responded and I responded.  I knew from the get-go that I desired not such a "discussion" (if an exchange with an apologist could be called that). 

I quickly disentangled myself from the pointless spiderweb of verbiage that apologists are so capable of tirelessly weaving.  I've dealt with enough of them to instantly realize when its not going anywhere.  I'm a person of curiosity and I find myself utterly bewildered by someone who has made up their mind before I even say anything.  They just know they're right.

Shouldn't apologists have better things to do on Christmas than argue about Jesus?  Shouldn't they be spreading Christ's Good message of Love or maybe ladling soup to the homeless while preaching to them about their sinful souls?

This particular apologist was one of the worst varieties.  I've come across this exact type many times before, and they're all very predictable.  Its almost a personality type.  This type of apologist doesn't tend to rant unless you really get them riled up.  They're actually very intellectual with an aloof self-certainty.  They're mostly harmless in that they're not that annoying except if you're ever experienced banging your head against their brickwall.  They have this intellectual inner certainty that reminds me of Introverted Intuition, but they have this outwardly congenial nature that doesn't allow them to ruffle easily which makes me think of an INFJ Christian I know from another site... mostly a nice guy if a bit difficult to connect with.

If you're feeling patient, you can sometimes have a good discussion with this type as they've tended to read a lot and they think very deeply.  The problem is that their thinking is somewhat narrow and plodding, and they have strong beliefs which at least tend to be somewhat interesting in their uniqueness.  They usually have some favorite obscure Christian philosopher, but it won't bother them that you've never heard of the person.  They're used to not being understood even by other Christians. 
They might secretly pride themselves on their idiosyncracies somewhat, but mostly they seem humble in a laid back way.  Its hard to unsettle them or change their minds.  If you try to have a debate with them, you'll just go round and round.  In certain ways, they're very conventional in that they just don't see or don't care about what exists outside of their narrow focus (definitely no sign of Extraverted Intuition).  You're more likely to have an interesting conversation with them if you simply limit yourself to their interests. 

They can keep up an argument if necessary, but they don't really care to get worked up.  Even though their beliefs are strong, they keep them mostly to themselves.  They'll often talk about more peripheral issues because that which truly matters to them is such a deep and profound experience for them.

They're very scholarly with a typical pedantic attitude.  Even though they like certain obscure writers, they put a fair amount of weight on tradition.  They're the type that would make a great Catholic theologian who knows the entire history of the Church.  Their thinking is very abstract and they feel safest keeping theology away from practical affairs and thus keeping themselves away from getting mired in politics.  They're very understanding people and capable of relating well, but they're also wary of the risks of complex social dynamics.  They're very good at reading others and also at hiding their own inner thoughts.

To be specific, this guy I was talking to on Youtube was quick to dismiss (dispute is the word he preferred) Robert M. Price.  I briefly defended Price as he is as about as respectable as you can get, but its true that he doesn't toe the party line of Biblical scholarship (ie conventional belief of mainstream Christianity).  This guy definitely valued the theistic majority perspective of Biblical scholarship.  People in Biblical scholarship tend to be Christians and so its no great surprise that belief in the historical Jesus is just assumed.  One would have to be extremely naive to claim that this field was one of the more objective fields in academia.

Okay... so, I knew that if I tried to defend Price any further, this Christian would just nitpick and it would ultimately be just a battle of opinons.  This kind of person can be very willful in having great intellectual stamina in going over and over the same little detail.  I imagine that he would continually demand quotes and references all the while offering few of his own... or, anyways, that is a technique many apologists use... they just assume their position doesn't need to be proved that its so obviously true.

In some ways, I prefer the ranting apologists more... the way an INFP apologist would act. lol  There is an honesty about in-your-face prosyletizing.  On the other hand, these more pedantic types lure you in with an appearance of being reasonable, but no amount of rationality will sway them.  They just enjoy discussing ideas even though they've stated the exact same ideas a million times before.  I'm fine with belief as long as someone is willing to admit that their views are beliefs.  However, this type has this intricate facade of rationalization that you can't even pierce through to the actual person behind it all.

*end rant*

I suspect this is a conflict that I experience when my Ne confronts the Ni of another.  This might go back to my dad having auxiliary Ni.  Anyways, its a challenge for me.  The Ni is hiding away from the view of my Ne, but my Fi can sense it behind the social facade (especially in INFJs).  I want to force to the surface which is exactly where Ni doesn't want to be, where it can't be in fact.  My Ne gets bored with the narrow focus even though I can be momentarily impressed by the depth of insight that Ni sometimes proffers forth.  I just don't have the patience waiting around for that inisight that may or may not show itself.  My Ne has thousand directions to go in and time is a'wasting.  Curiosity beckons.

I think this is particularly magnified when Ni is the dominant for the other person as my Ne is auxiliary.  I don't identify with my thinking per se.  Its simply how I try to relate to the world.  My auxiliary Ne holds ideas very lightly.  I too have an inner certainty but it just ain't involving ideas for sure.  Also, my inner certainty is less aloof as INFPs are more likely to get worked up than an INFJ.  The burning passion of an idealistic core (Fi) manifests through the ungrounded infinitude of wonder and possibility (Ne).  Simply put, Ne hates conventional thinking with a passion.  It chafes against more plodding thought processes, and it mistrusts the aloof congenial nature (or facade as Fi judges it) of an INFJ.

Don't get me started about NTs.  :)

I've been repeatedly mentioning several authors in my recent blogs.  While I'm at it, I want to bring in two other authors that I haven't mentioned in a while.

I'll sort of keep with the theme of my recent blogs, but lighten up the mood a bit.  One thing I've come to enjoy more and more is a good musical.  It was either The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Jesus Christ Superstar that first made me fall in love with musicals.  Even so, I still don't like the classic musicals to any great degree. 

I'm glad that the musical is getting a modernized revival, but there is a particular category of musical that is quite surprising in its popularity.  The category I speak of is the comedy horror musical.  Its about as lighthearted and silly as horror can get and still vaguely be called horror.

Maybe it isn't surprising at all when considering the modern musical's origin in opera.  There are plenty of tragic operas, but as far as I know operas aren't known for their comedy.  In my meager research, it seems that the comedy horror musical was an American invention, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show might've been the first.

I'm trying to get more in the holiday spirit.  This blog is in commemoration of Baby Jesus.  As a gift of the season, I present this video of the Greatest Action Story Ever Told.

I was just watching some of The Wizard of Oz again.  For some reason, I never think of it as a musical.  It does have music, but the songs seem more spread out than a typical musical.  Watching it again I was as impressed as ever. 

Much of it touches upon favorite tropes in our culture.  I wonder why our culture has such an obsession about young girl characters that are excitable and have wild imaginations.  LIke Anne of Green Gables, she is raised by an older couple who aren't her parents and she gets in trouble with a crotchety old neighbor lady.

There have been many fictional works (both books and movies) spawned off of the original books.  In particular, I enjoyed the movie Return to Oz and the tv series Tin Man.  I also just watched the musical Wicked and thought it well done.

Of course, when The Wizard of Oz is mentioned Judy Garland immediately comes to mind.  She does a good version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but here is my favorite version.

Besides PKD making himself a character in his own work (ie VALIS as Horselover Fat), I wanted to list all of the books that have used him as a fictional character.  I decided to create this list because I haven't seen a complete list anywhere online which is quite impressive considering how many websites relate to PKD's work.  There might be more, but here are the only books I've discovered so far.

Novels:

Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas by Michael Bishop

The Word of God by Thomas M. Disch

Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory


Anthology of short stories:

Welcome to Reality: The Nightmares of Philip K Dick edited by Uwe Anton


Edit: I removed Philip K. Dick High by David Bischoff because I'm not sure that PKD is actually a character in it.  Maybe I'll read it someday to find out.  It was this review I was looking at and he mentioned a book of short stories I added to the list.

Burroughs is different from Philip K. Dick.  Whereas PKD was the first to use himself as a character, Burroughs had been made a character before he even was published himself. 

That would be a tough act to follow.  He had the shadow of someone else's fame over him (Kerouac), and the popularity and mythos of the whole Beat movement.  Burroughs had to attempt to claim himself not only as a writer but also as his own person.  Fortunately, he wasn't one to follow on the coattails of the fame of others.  He was certainly a way better writer than Kerouac, and he was quite distinct from all of the Beat writers.

Finding works that Burroughs is in is rather difficult.  I'm not sure how many books in which Kerouac placed a Burroughs character, and it wouldn't surprise me if other Beats had also used him as a character.  Burroughs is much more a cultural icon than PKD.  I don't know how to even begin to seek out fictional works that feature him, but I'll offer what little I know at present.

As far as I can figure, William S. Burroughs first appeared as Bill Lee in Kerouac's On the Road.  Burroughs used this name later in his own work.  He might of initially used it in Junky which he did intentionally to play off of Kerouac's work.  He chose to continue this mythologizing.  He later used this name in other Works such as Naked Lunch which was supposedly a name given it by Kerouac.  I don't know if there are any other names that Burroughs went by in his fiction or the fiction of others.

Novels:

The works of Jack Kerouac

Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas
(A recent novel that mixes the mythos of the Beats with the Mythos of Lovecraft's Cthulu.)


Movies:

Drugstore Cowboy written and directed by Gus Van Sant
(Burroughs acts the character of a defrocked priest named Tom.  He is loosely playing a character that is a mix of himself and his own fictional characters.)

God's Goodness is man's suffering by which I'm not implying the good and bad as theological beliefs.  Its the ideal of Goodness (via our longing for it) that creates dissatisfaction of this world.  Even so, this tendency to idealize and to long is natural to the human psyche.  God or our experience of God isn't in opposition to this earthly existence.

The reason that such immense ideals have an "otheworldly" feel to them is because God is the ultimate Other... which isn't the same as saying God is separate.  This Other can also be experienced inwardly (if such a word applies), but this doesn't change the esential Otherness.  God's Goodness isn't human goodness meaning it isn't comprehensible in everyday terms nor can it be conformed to our purposes.  God undermines our entire sense of self and reality which isn't a bad thing per se, but  its hard to interpret such an experience according to our normal beliefs and expectations of goodness. 

This world of suffering is Hell and our complicity with suffering is Evil.  I use these strong words because only they can convey the power of suffering when felt deeply.  But, by this, I don't mean to assume any particular theological claims.  And, yet, I do mean to say that essentially both the Christians and Gnostics are right about God.  Thusly, without logical consistency and without psychological reconciliation, I accept my inability to separate my experience of suffering from my experience of that which is other than suffering... whatever one may wish to call it.

Or, anyways, this is what makes sense to me at the moment.  Unlike a pessimist of a materialist bent, I don't deny any metaphysical possibility.  I have experienced something that felt like an Other.  Was it God?  Was it even good in the ultimate sense?  I don't know.  It felt real... and, in this world of confusion, a glimpse of reality may be the closest one gets to the Good.