During a Bachelor Party Post

(this was written a week and a half ago, I've been around)

 

So…did you guys check the new wallpaper? Pretty sick right? Colored it myself.

I am not going to lie, this last week has been pretty difficult. Never in my life have I had so much free time and yet been so simultaneously stressed. Is this what they call unemployed? I am staying in Minnesota for an extra three weeks to attend a friend’s wedding before heading back to California. What I didn’t realize was that I would only make it three days before losing my mind. The situation sucks on multiple levels. Level 1, I don’t get to go back to California. Level 2, I have nothing to do but make blog backgrounds. Level 3, I have to say goodbye to good friends slowly and in small amounts, kinda like some form of waterboarding. Level 4, I have no money and have to buy dinner from the Mickey D’s dollar menu. Level 5, I have to be the guy who hangs out in a coffee shop for eight hours to go on the Internet (though this morning I’ve chosen to hang out in the McCafe). If this is what purgatory is like, I’d rather take the express checkout on the up or down escalator. Heaven or hell, I don’t care, anything is better than being in the after-credit scenes of your own damn life. That being said, the kindness of the people I have met up here continues to astonish me. Thanks for continuing to lay out places for me to stay, even if I don’t have an exact answer for “how long are you staying?”

Speaking of, what is more important, a question or an answer? There is a famous part of A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where a trans-dimensional supercomputer computes the answer to the most important question in the universe to be 42. Unfortunately the actually question whose answer is 42 remains elusive, and so the supercomputer designs an even smarter supercomputer to figure out the question. This supercomputer takes the form of earth, and the curators of the supercomputer disguise themselves in plain sight as little white mice. Unfortunately, minutes before the question is to be known, earth is destroyed by a space-version of an interstate highway. Crestfallen, the mice decide to just settle on the question “How many roads must a man walk down?” from that one Bob Dylan song.

Asking a question is a very human endeavor. A question does more than demand an answer, it frames what is being talked about, and it implies a direction in which we are thinking. 42 doesn’t mean much to most people. What is the meaning of life means a whole lot. Anyone can give answers. The integral part is asking the right questions. If we are going to make artificial intelligence, we will need it to ask important questions. Otherwise we might just end up with Skynet. And, I mean, I’ve been a misanthrope out of the womb, so I’m fine with that. But you might not be.

Getting us to prefer answers to questions is one of the ways that I think our technology is changing us. In the past answers were hard to come by. We had gods who kept secret and esoteric their reasons for why things happened as they did. Our ancestors looked up to the starry night sky and held elaborate ceremonies in front of giant burning pyres just to ask one question to the all-powerful gods. Nowadays we don’t even put question marks at the ends of our Google inquires. I don’t even know if any of you remember Ask Jeeves, but you actually used to type the question mark into the search bar. Now I go to Google and type “movie with fat guy from Superbad” and immediately get what I am looking for. We are becoming the androids while our machines are becoming more sentient. The question we need to be asking is who is really the machine? Whatever doe. The revolution will not be televised… or livestreamed, put on Worldstar, liked on Youtube, etc. The ghosts in the machines will haunt the houses we are building. Let Hercules himself do what he may. The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

…

Man I wish I was in my own bed again. California, don’t dry up completely with drought or break apart with earthquakes before I get back.

 

 

 

Family likes making fun of me

Oh My Goodness, Guey, It's a Long One

Just got back from the boundary waters a few days ago. It was a pretty sweet adventure, with a lot of canoeing along the lakes of beautiful northern Minnesota and soaking in the pristine wilderness around our camps. But instead of doing another travel blog, I thought this week I could do something a little more thought provoking. Or attempt to do something a little more thought provoking. At least something with a little more value than my usual cynical pretentiousness. I don’t wish to make you feel my self-hatred through the screen, that’s not what the internet should be for. I also freely admit that I am not a member of the patrician class, I merely find it fun to pretend to be. God have mercy on me for my sins.

CAMP SUNSHINE

 

One question that I have been thinking about recently is what is the difference between Monkey and Man? How do we as malformed naked primates differ from our animal cousins? Evolutionarily speaking, we are not that different. We share a common lineage, a similar anatomy, an even more similar cell biology, and the same genetic language. Furthermore, human beings and other primates differ by surprisingly little in terms of genetic makeup (be it granted physical expression of this genetic makeup may differ to a marked amount). It is always difficult to generalize research, but it is looking like the difference between the human genome and the chimpanzee genome may be less than 10%. Humans and chimpanzees only diverged from a common ancestor between 6-8 million years ago (seems like a lot, but life on Earth has been squirming for billions of years). Is that enough time for a large enough gap to emerge to say that there is a fundamental difference between us? If we can’t say that there is a fundamental difference, in what way do we justify our actions towards other species (putting them in little cages, making the movie Kangaroo Jack, etc.)?

In the past, the fundamental difference between human and animal seems to have simply been taken for granted. We are human; it is easy to put ourselves first before other species. Most animals seem to do this. You won’t see a wolf fight to save a baby squirrel from complete and utter destruction in the talons of an eagle. The wolf is more concerned with other wolves, it is more concerned with its own species. Yet only humans construct rhetoric for why we are better than other animals. One way we have constructed rhetoric has been through religion. There have been various narratives throughout recorded human history, but the common Western strain is that God gave us dominion over the animals, that we were the only being created in HIS own image, and thus we were able to subjugate the others. In Genesis, it was Adam who named all the various animals. This ability to give names to others is a metaphor of our power over them.

There is another Biblical story that may illustrate more on the matter. In the Garden of Eden everything is living in harmony. God’s favorite creation, man, is skipping around with God’s other favorite creation, woman, and everyone is having a grand old time (sex might be allowed!). Adam and Eve are depicted naked as well, having no sense of being without clothing, much like the other animals in the garden. And then the mean old serpent convinces Eve to take a bite of a fruit off of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and share the fruit with Adam. Suddenly both of them are aware of their stark nakedness, and they are kicked out of the holy garden to suffer by God. God’s punishment stems from the fact they disobeyed him, but also seems to stem from a fear that Adam and Eve would become too much like himself. There is a line in Genesis that seems to get skipped nowadays by the televangelists who much more interested in the fact that we were punished than the reason for which we were punished.

Genesis 3:22-23 states: And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. Therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Thus God is afraid of humankind becoming like (insert gender neutral pronoun)self. The two super-trees in the Garden of Eden would allow this. The tree of knowledge bestows the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life bestows immortality. Apparently the knowledge of good and evil + immortality = God.

It is certainly a strange story, and like most sections of the Bible, it doesn’t form any clear cohesive narrative with the rest of the book. There are a myriad of meanings that one can come up with just looking at the Garden of Eden account itself. However, I view this story to be about what exactly separates humankind from the rest of the animal kingdom.

There is a certain grace all life seems to possess. Grace in the sense that there is no second-guessing one’s actions. The simplest lifeforms work on simple signal and response frameworks. E. coli, the most widely used and studied bacterium on earth, undergoes simple changes in what proteins its DNA makes based on certain molecules in the environment. Organisms even simpler than E. coli, such as viruses, attach like matching puzzle pieces to the surface of cells, and unload their diabolical contents into the host cell as a consequence of that attachment. As life becomes more complex, especially with the development of the brain, grace becomes obscured. The bigger the brain, the less grace, because biologically, a constant stream of stimulus needs to be integrated by the brain, and a response generated by it. This is not to say that the integration is some abstract process by which the brain acts (A goes in, mysterious process, B comes out); integration is just like an incredibly complicated watch-mechanism. But this mechanism by which we do basic arithmetic and take selfies results in a lack of an immediate response to a signal, in fact it is based on a sort of evaluation of what response is best enacted. In turn this results in a lack of grace. In humanity particularly, we have to integrate information about our environment, which is socially varied and dauntingly complex. Thus humans are the most awkward animal. Awkward because of the fact that sometimes we have to think about what we should do. If we view animal life and its grace as a sort of continuum of cause and effect, then the close-talking weirdo at the post-office represents a sort of break with that fluidity of existence.

But all this about the brain doesn’t fundamentally differentiate human beings from other primates. We may have the biggest brain, but it isn’t really a different brain. The difference comes in the little extra accoutrements that our brain possess. Specifically the difference is in whatever structures and pathways enable our affinity for language. If we view animal life and the idea of grace from the continuum perspective, language represents the ability to create separation between the continuous; language is the ability to make things discrete. Calling something by its proper name, for instance a ‘cup,’ defines it by what it is not. But ultimately it is an artificial designation. A cup to us is a small vessel with an open top that serves as something to drink from. It is also a collection of silicon, oxygen, sodium, calcium, and carbon atoms. It may also be innumerable bands of energy vibrating in different dimensions (sorry not a physics major). What makes humans fundamentally different from animals isn’t anything physical; it is our ability to be artificial, our ability to lack grace, our language. Other animals who rank high in intelligence may have sounds that have meaning; they may have a similar ability to learn and express themselves in unique ways. But what makes human beings different isn’t innate in our biology, it is the curation of our language.

Back to the story in Genesis, the question that needs to be asked is what does it mean to know good and evil? To me it means being able to separate the two, which is the fundamentally human binary. When Eve took a bite of that fruit, she didn’t have ultimate wisdom and a perfect morality. She simply realized she was naked. She was able to separate herself from her surroundings. To me, the story of the Garden of Eden is about the metaphorical evolution of human language because once Adam and Eve eat the fruit, they are able to define what is and what is not. In a manner of speaking, they become able to draw lines in the sand. They also become the first scientists, able to examine reality because they can separate it into words.

This hardly seems like a God-like power, but think of this. The computer you are using to read this blog is the result of years and years of scientific investigation. That in itself is based on the development of the middle class, the development of agriculture, the identification and designation of what food was good to eat through language. It all adds up to make our interesting little electronic creation. God’s fear in the Garden of Eden is that we would eat of both trees; that we would know good and evil as well as be immortal. In a way, we have found a way around being mortal. Writing down our language, we enable the next generation to stand on our shoulders, reaching ever higher. We become like God, able to create whatever we will.

One more point and I promise this post will be over. It is not arbitrary that the Tree of Knowledge gave us the knowledge of good and evil. I feel that this whole discussion is missing a very important piece. Why did God fear us becoming like (insert gender neutral pronoun)self? What was the danger in it? On what foundation does the tower we are building stand? I don’t think God is a megalomaniac, so what is the reason?

 Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to hope, to trust, and to endure whatever comes. Love has no end.

Premise A: Emotions are occur, persist for a period of time, and then dissipate.

Premise B: Love has no end.

Conclusion: Love is not an emotion.

 

In Nueva York

So I just got back from New York. It was a 8/10. That's pretty high on my scale.

My first thought when I got into the city was that it was going to swallow me completely, and that any illusions that I might have had about being able to keep being myself in a city like New York were just that, illusions. This city can consume little personalities and spit out something different, like one of those coin pressing machines that spit out flattened pennies with city-scape designs. But as I walked, and walked, and walked, I eventually found my city legs and stopped freaking out. I will admit, it was a little embarrassing because I believed, being from LA, that I would be able to handle myself. But the truth is that I have more of a suburban soul than an urban one. New York was a trip.

The bus dropped me off in the middle of Manhattan and so I ended up walking all the way across the Brooklyn bridge to my hostel in Brooklyn. It was a long freaking walk. I walked through a Black neighborhood hosting block parties, to a Hasidic neighborhood composed of Jews with large cylinder shaped fur hats, to a Puerto Rican neighborhood playing reggaeton. The real Brookyln experience.  I had walked through much of the lower half of Manhattan, including Wall Street and Ground Zero. They had just opened up the 9-11 museum but it was too crowed to go into. The two waterfalls they built around the site were impressive, but not so solemn as the flood of tourists was never-ending. The night before I got some drinks and a Panini at a local bar in Brooklyn. While I was eating my Panini I saw a cockroach crawl out from under the bar. I wrote it up as a New York thing and kept eating. Seeing as I still had a bit of time, and being a bit buzzed, I went to the local store and bought a pack of Reds (dammit). I can't even rationalize smoking at this point, its as spontaneous as an erection in a middle school classroom. I spent the rest of the evening smoking and walking up and down the neighborhoods. I met some guy from Bangladesh that definitely wanted something from me but didn't have the English language skills to ask for it. He awkwardly hung around me for a while. I got a bit annoyed, forced him to take a cigarette, and walked away. A lady asked me in Spanish where the local church was and if mass was in session. I got back to the hostel and didn't feel tired so I started to reread Heart of Darkness. No relation to my New York trip, it is just what was on my Kindle at the time.

The next day I basically walked back up Manhattan and saw Chinatown, Little Italy, NYU, MOMA, Central Park, and all around that middle area. It was pretty tight. The modern art museum was a little much. There was a cool display about future cities, the famous Warhol Monroes were a hit, but then the museum had to go and ruin that positive impression with a Yoko Ono exhibit. I would give it a 2/10. I had to leave within the hour or I was going to vomit my stomach out at the pretentiousness of the exhibit. When I got back on the subway I found to my chagrin that my track to Brooklyn was closed. So I walked the Williamsburg bridge back to Brooklyn. Along the way I encountered some real-life Jersey shore girls. It was a head scratcher as I wasn't sure that they were real human beings. And so on and so forth. I am tired so I don't feel like going too much more into what I did, but basically more walking, drinking, smoking, and people watching. New York is definitely an unlimited source of interest with some real cool people.


"Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love has no end."

Remember to delight in the truth, but keep your teeth sharp enough to survive.

 Ground Zero

Brooklyn Bridge

My Neighborhood in Brooklyn

 

Pretty Sweet

State of the Blog

Damn, it has been a while now.

In the year and a quarter that I have been gone from the curious corners of the interweb I spent 3 months in Chongqing, China participating in a laboratory “internship” and finished the year graduating college. My final GPA is .01 away from my final high school GPA (College-3.59, High School 3.6). I don’t know if there is anything more depressing then getting a little worse, but on the bright side I feel like I learned a great deal more. On the dark side again, it seems like I will be properly bald by 24 or 25. Así es la cosa.

Now I have to write an awkward post about what this blog is going to be going into the future. The truth is I never wanted to abandon it in the first place, but did so because I am lazy. As a graduated college alum, I no longer have the option to be lazy. Now the terms of the game seem to be ‘float or sink’ and so I have decided to take up the blog once again to aid in my own survival. I find that if I am able to put my thoughts out there, I gain a greater internal clarity. In my head my thoughts are a muck; I have trouble planning a day let alone the rest of my life. By writing this blog I hope to gain better clarity and develop the language I can use when I talk to people about what I believe or what my plans are. It is analogous to practicing a presentation. With practice you get down the better points of your presentation and perhaps discover some new angles on the topic.

This being the goal of the blog, I intend to write about three main topics. The first will consist on my general pretentious reflections. For this I am sorry. The second will be a sort of travel blog; I’ll write about the places I go (I might do a few retrospective posts on China). Finally, the third will be a more philosophical blog I have been wanted to write for a while about science and the areas of biology that I am interested in.

I’ll keep this one short and sweet because I am currently in DC visiting with my friends John & Jenny (the just got married), but hopefully I will get one out with some substance in the next two weeks. I am taking a bus to New York by myself on Sunday so maybe something will inspire me over there. For now, smell the dandelions, Summer is Coming.

It's all B$ and it's bad for you.

Well, about 2 months ago I came back from Chile, celebrated Christmas with the family, and returned to Collegeville, MN. Damn. Tick tick tick.

Coming back to the States I was hit almost immediately when I landed at the airport with a brick wall of reverse culture shock. I was properly sickened with all of the selfishness and vanity I saw, with the news stations blaring sounds that play on the weak emotional state of the populace. With all the pride and hubris. With the invisible walls that divide all sorts of people in this country. Truly back to Babylon (Manu Chao - Clandestino).

But that's how it is. I was glad to see friends and family again; everyone looks a bit older. Spent time walking around the old neighborhood and taking in the sights, smells, and palm trees. That is one thing I think I learned in Chile, how to enjoy walking and being a part of the part I find myself in. North Hollywood remains largely unchanged, grimy Valley pornstar parking structure stucco Starbuxx.

The question of if I remain unchanged is harder to answer. I think I am definitely a different person coming back from Chile than the person who left for it. I can't really describe why, but I think I think more clearly now.

Minnesota is cold. Spent a couple weeks getting back into it, and I won't lie, it was pretty fun. I enjoy it here, although the isolation of a small town isn't always so nice. My classes are 7 to 6 out of 10. I do enjoy Asymmetric Synthesis a good deal though.

Pienso que es dificil a vivir en estas condiciones, pero no hay otra opcion para ahora. Me quedo en Minnesota, en esta universidad, la que le quiero mucho pero igual no puedo aguantarla. Algún día yo iré a otra parte

 

Zac and I (brothers)

 

Ed's five rules for life

 1. Be Kind

2. Never lie, most of all, never lie to yourself

3.Try your hardest

4. If you forget 1-3, always remember rule #5

5. Always wear a condom

Un discurso político sin saliva

 I have a month minus three days now left in Chile. It has definitely been a trip that has formed me in someway, although it is impossible to say how exactly at this point. Just as I am writing this blog post it is really hitting me that I won't be in Chile again for a good rato, and that I will be leaving behind some of the most genuine people I have ever met. So all that is pretty sad.

There are somethings that I am definitely looking forward to. They include having a beer with that rude-ass MF Ed Roane, the annual Christmas pie contest, seeing some of my best friends again in California and Minnesota. I can't say that I don't want to go back, it is just that I also don't want to leave. I am in a space between countries.

Last week, or about a week and a half ago we all went to Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra. I would give it 7/10. He had a lot of cool stuff, but really nothing of interest. Kind of an oxymoron. The rocky beach was nice, although like many natural spots in Chile it wasn't exactly pristine, there were the obligatory beer cans and dog shit. It was still pretty beautiful. Let me see if I have some picture.

 This week has been a lot more filled with carrete, starting on Wednesday and going to Sunday morning. It was a fun week, but now I really feel it took a toll on my body and my studies. I'm going to have to stay up some nights to finish all the things that need finishing now. That and all the reading I have been doing. Oy. Oh but one cool thing was building cabinets and doing some floor polishing at the Valpo Surf Project. I miss construction actually, and hanging out with the dudes at the Surf Project is always entertaining.

This week we finally get our wine tour, so I am pretty excited about that. You know, I think that instead of writing the rest I'll just give you a paragraph of pictures from these last two weeks. Enjoy.

  Ya so that is about it. I think I am going to go get some shut-eye. The word/phrase of the day today is definitely Estoy reventado. Reventar is to blow out (like a tire) and saying estoy puto reventado is basically saying that I am very tired. But you know who never sleeps? The watchful paloma of Valparaíso. See you next time.

 

13,22 6 de noviembre, 2013

Damn. It is looking like I have to write another blog post. As the last run of my Chile experience is around the corner, I thought I would take the time to reflect on the trip so far, what I have done, and what I have learned. Sometimes cliches are what people want, and right now it is what I want to write about. 

Since the last post, the group has gone to San Pedro de Atacama, which is in the north. Atacama has the distinction of being the driest desert on Earth, which seemed to be an accurate description (in the mornings I would wake up like a dry sponge). The desert was beautiful as well. There were a pair of valleys named Valle de la Luna and Valle de la Muerte which I particularly found pleasant. I have always loved the desert, and the trip was great for me as well because it included a surprise birthday drinking binge. The town of San Pedro de Atacama had some cool things to add to the experience. I bought some presents for people in all of the tiendas de artesanía. One day we went biking up in the desert canyons. All in all, 8/10. Comparing it to Mojave back home though is a bit difficult. I really like going off into the desert with a few friends, or just by myself. If I am unable to be isolated in a desert something is wrong. But that is how I felt at times in Atacama, with the constant tour guide accompaniment and a schedule. Also in some areas, such as Valle de la Luna, you are unable to walk off "the path". This was an affront to me, because to have a path that you are required to take is the antithesis of a fucking desert. But overall the trip was great, great times where had, I met some strange people in dry desert nights, and had a good birthday. 

That was about 15 days ago. Funny how fast time slips through. When we got back from Atacama everyone was ready for a little of the norm. A week after that, some of the group went to Machu Picchu while the rest of us hurriedly got together a camping trip to La Campana. Both trips were enjoyed. My only complaint about the camping trip was that we had to fit 5 guys in a 3 person tent. If I turned to the right, there was a guy breathing on my face. If I turned to the left, there were some feet in my face. I only got 2 hours of sleep that night.

As much as I enjoy the trips, I think I might get more out of just walking the streets here in Viña during a normal week. I remember one time I just sat at a busy intersection by the sea for 2 hours, watching people. You can really pick up the character of a place just by watching its busiest intersection for a couple hours. Sometimes I hate what personal computers and the internet is doing to us, never before has it been possible to be so far from home, yet so close to it. The result is that sometimes we are deposited in this limbo-wasteland where we aren't truly in Chile or the US. Whenever I feel that feeling, I usually go out for a walk. It helps a lot, but I fear for the future. With computers relegating our existence, everyone might become, as I used to say in high school of my teachers, half-a-humans. 

Ok, let's dive deep. Here is a questions that was brought up yesterday in my literature class: are people in the US more isolated then in other parts of the world? Is our society sick with suspicion and white picket fence seperation? Are we more selfish, and afflicted with unspoken sorrow? I don't know. Sometimes I feel scared, because my answer to those questions is I don't care. 

What else can I talk about? My viewpoint in chile has definitely changed from one of a newcomer, like Jack in A Nightmare Before Christmas singing "What's This! What's This!" to one of a veterano. I am still no Chilean, culturally-wise, I think that it would take years to be that. I have noticed that there are two sides to a country, the superficial and the deeper. The superficial is tricky because sometimes it is easier to take it as the deeper. What do I mean by this? For instance, in the US, to take all the commercialism on the streets as the actual culture, and to not look deeper and ask why it is that way would just be looking at the superficial. That is ultimately the hardest part, to see something ugly in another culture and to stop yourself from just assigning it to "them." At the end of the day, we truly are all the same, and the things that manifest these ugly parts of a culture are the things to try and understand. 

Aside from all these ruminations, I think the important thing to realize is that the world is homogenating into something strange. The US definitely had a large role to play in this, but what we created I do not think we can control. Globalization is scary and will hurt a lot of people, but there is no stopping it, it has already gestated. The only option is to continue to look towards the future. As we embark on our long sojourn into the unknown, I am reminded of a didactic passage from the Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It occurs at the very beginning of the book, before all the confusing chaos, told by the sympathetic narrator of the future:

"Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end.

It flung them like stones.

...

The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death." 

Sorry, I am really not pessimistic, I just know that humankind's learning curve isn't going to straighten anytime soon. Toodle's! I'll write more later.

PS. Almost forget my word of the day section. Today's phrase is "saltar la cola/saltar la fila." For a long time, every time I would go to the neighborhood "OK Market" there would be this old lady who always tried to cut the line. Here I would be, patiently waiting in line, in Gringo fashion, when in comes Abuelita I-don't-give-a-shit-about-the-rules" and tries to just go straight up to the register. Let me tell you something. Order, Laws, Social Constructs. That is all that separates us from the apes. Long story short how to say cut the line or YOU CUT THE LINE YOU OLD HAG in Spanish is NOT cortar la linea, it is saltar la cola. Man, I miss the desert already...

PSS. That's a llama skull