Post Conscious

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How many roads must a man walk down?

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Classic. Retro. Fragrant.

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On the coast cycle route. Stop over at Fishbourne enroute to Havenstreet (on bicycle).

Mystery has left music. I can capture ‘that tune’ and I’ve been catching those tunes. It’s no longer “I wish I knew what that song was” or “Should I ask these strangers if they know what this song is?”.

The HAZ Project is a personal music journal. It records (Shazam) what unfamiliar sounds I’ve been fascinated by. It is deeply personal because our taste in music is subjective and what triggers attraction to a melody is very context specific. Imagine you want to listen to a song, you don’t just play any song, you select your music carefully according to how you feel. Now imagine a random tune capturing that moment without you selecting it.

I hope you will find a great music collection behind this or even a whole album for each one. Let me know.

Wendy Rene – After Laughter (Comes Tears) – June 2009

Thievery Corporation – Liberation Front – June 2009

Mark Farina – Dream Machine – June 2009

My take on Four Lions.

If you are planning to see this film then I urge you to go forgetting all that is about the world. Leave all that you know behind and immerse yourself into the absurdity of this film. If you find yourself thinking it is just a comedy, then tell yourself this is a very serious thing. However, if you feel that it crosses boundaries that should not even be stepped on, then tell yourself it is just a comedy. Ride the dialectic.

It will confuse you. You will begin to wonder why you want things to go certain ways when they are so very wrong. You will try and hold back and yet you will fully embrace the comedy. You think “no” but in the end it is “no way …”. When you think you’ve hit the climax that is beyond morality, you will laugh. In the midst of laughter you begin to question. You will hesitate with your unknowingly confused facial expression.

This one is more than comedy it is. It is an exploration of the human condition, especially in the audience.

Now I think perhaps it was the whole day conference (philosophy of mind) I had attended during the day that brought me to this conclusion. Who knows!

I am no Nietzsche expert and neither do I even know a lot about him and his writings. Just as well as I’ve just finished this very dense book. It’s a very interesting take on Greek tragedy and the development of art. If I have read it correctly (what is correct?) it is also a swipe at Socratic reasoning which he suggested is inextricably linked to science. I am particularly compelled by the Dionysiac element he weaves through in this book. It took a careful surrender of the Greek context to see how in many ways this might relate to anything at all. Although having said that, I wish I knew more about the history of Greek art (spoken, written, sang and painted) so this book can be more meaningful.

He does invoke some Schopenhauerian will here which is still inconclusive to me because later on I am told that he discards this will as denial and instead will change the trajectory of will to something else – power? Like I said, I am no expert but I can’t wait for this to unfold and witness Nietzsche in his later works.

To be fair, anything written by anybody is just a projection of themselves. As brilliant as this is, it may be a fair reflection and embodiment of his strict up bringing — I am assuming here — and so he set the task to change this trail of distaste to be manifested elsewhere. People would rather read about your hate of something in beautifully conveyed writing than read your personal diary.

All of this might have been said somewhere else already. But having this written does relieve me, even if a little, of the heavy thinking Nietzsche makes me do.

Driving is a therapeutic activity. It allows your mind to wander, just enough and not too much as a degree of focus is still required. Being a passenger belongs in the same page somewhere. Maybe it is not so much being in a vehicle, it is one’s relationship with the world, time and space. When you are accustomed to other forms of transportation or movement, the change is welcome. The impromptu journey through the highways in and out of London was one of such. There was that walk where you pointed out that you don’t hear the birds sing like this in the city. Then there was that house sitting quietly at a dead-end where I wondered what kind of lives the people in it led. We both said we’d never live there, but we didn’t know for sure. Still, it felt certain that way.

On the journey back, I felt I could trap time and look at it. The way the scenes change from the evergreen villages slowly easing into the urban facade of the city. Here I got confused, it felt as though the former felt dead to me and the latter was where life and activity was. Words and the world have always told me otherwise! Damn poets. London has never failed to trigger an inner validation of space for me whenever it can. Which is always hard to explain.

Just this:

“Home is a state of mind”.

Runners dressed up in the most bizarre costumes. One in particular ran with a fridge on his back. This one man finished the race and did a marriage proposal. It can only be The London Marathon …

Tracing the Marathon’s Millions.

Sometimes I need to be grounded back down to earth by something. I thought I wasn’t being anchored down properly during Easter break, which is fine because holidays are when people let loose. I thought I was just missing the stimulation of university obligations. So I went to search for this something.

Having been away for about 5 weeks, I took the initiative the get an early start on my academic pursuits. Summer term starts next week and I thought it would be wise to get a week’s head start ahead of everyone by spending time in the library working on my draft and job applications. I want to believe everyone’s too busy doing the following things: enjoy the sun after what felt like the longest winter, over analyze each god damn political debate, come up with more cliche stories about how they overcame the volcano ash madness, and panic about final exams (which I have none, thankful for a research oriented course, until the day before a deadline when I’ll say I’d have preferred exams instead). Fumbling over words in between day dreams (week off intellectual musings equals mental rust), I spent a good 8 hours in the library with about 1000 words and 3 job applications to show for.

In the evening I decided to meet up with a good friend Mr. C who always says what my mind thinks but in the simplest ways. I am grateful for his ability to put some things at rest for me. I am now up 2 things in my organizer; buy that Don DeLillo book and visit the Barbican birds. Mr. C, I will remember your words about how cold Gorky left you feeling, so it might affect me when I go, but I will try.

Before I turned in last night I decided to dust off this website and give it a bit of a refurb. Some ideas popping here and there and it is always useful to tie in all your work together so they become part of each other instead of doing all of them separately. When they complement each other, it becomes seamless. You would have thought after such a long day, I’d be anchored down properly by something. So I was surprised this morning when I was still looking.

Fast forward to now. An hour ago I had received a package from home. In it was a card written by my lovely (often times monstrous) 5 year old sister. It read:

BW,

Love,
D

Ah, found it.

As we ease into the season changes, the world keeps on spinning regardless of numbers and spreadsheets we have created to make sense of chance and probability. I’ve been busy over several projects and mostly I’ve been away visiting places.

If you’ve written in about the Post Conscious presentation, I will write back very soon. The essay aforementioned in the last post has been put on hold as the paper I’m trying to write now is more pressing and demanding.

If you’re interested, it is on Nietzsche and education, and it is about values which have devalued themselves which Nietzsche said in Will to Power. It follows the work of Nigel Blake et al. in Education in an Age of Nihilism. However, I also want to bring back what Nietzsche said in The Birth of Tragedy about apolline illusions and dreams. I will use his idea as a way of describing the predicament of certain educational developments and theorize that institutions in some countries have to face more than one deceptive illusion. That is, following an illusory (often Western) market-made standard (league tables, mission statements etc.) as well as aligning this with whatever domestic goals there are. Domestic goals meaning whatever religious, cultural, political, nationalistic conviction an institution might have.

So it’s like onions. Many layers. Makes you cry.

Also, looking around for jobs at the moment, which could also make one cry. So instead of recreating my CV every now and then, I think I will make a portfolio section on this website so I can point potential employers to stuff I can’t fit on a CV.

Cheers, real content soon.