Progress Ancestry

Art seems to explore human capability and the ambiguity of reality. We are becoming more and more socially and conceptually fragmented every morning we wake. There are few grand theories that hold strong anymore.

This generation is quite unique, as I assume all have been. Is it true that our connection with reality is less strong and apparent than that of our parents? I was born when the Cold War ended and when “post-modernism” was supposedly just a young lad. What is my mind if not a product of others’ thoughts surrounding the history of our world and our relationship with it?

Must we symbolically kill our ancestors in order to move toward progression? In an urge to create innovative ideas and movements, must we first look up to their ideas and then grow tall above them to the point where we sweep them under our feet with the rest of history’s dust? Has our birth alone spilled ignorance onto them?

Jorge Louis Borges had something interesting to say about the present author: “Gracias al autora presente, porque por eso podemos leer con mas atención, y encontrar ideas y conceptos nuevos, las autoras del pasado.” What this means is that present authors and artists recreate the identities of their historical influences and furthermore, this crafted recreation gives us an opportunity to see these influences with a fresh eye, to view them with a new perspective that is consequently (and necessarily) more profound.

What is the relationship between film and reality?

Film as representation of reality, whether black, white, grey, or colorless. Andy Warhol claimed the truth to not be out there in the world, yet instead residing in the areas where he plays with modes of representation; there is a truth, and it is here in the abstraction.

Oscar Wilde had an interesting idea that suggested that reality, instead of influencing fictitious art, is actually created by it. In the way that Sartre reversed the temporal order of essence and existence, claiming that existence truly corals and births essence, Wilde does the same with the concepts of fiction and reality. It is thus fiction, made up stories, and the imagination, that not only precedes, but also directly influences what then happens in the real world. Reality copies fiction, not the other way around.

Do value discrepancies and human profundity really exist?

Experimental film works only with aesthetic material, form and texture, while narrative-driven stories take the back seat or even the dark unopened trunk in these forms.

Is there always (or ever) truth in the conceptual creator (author, writer, director, painter, sculptor, etc.) that is inevitably incapable of being translated, bound to be lost and misunderstood through the limits of communication?

I listened to an interview with Quentin Tarentino just days ago and he was talking about his script-writing process and how he ignores sub-textual elements for the most part. Yet there exists a dense world of subtext in nearly all of his works, a universe to explore behind the dialogue. Hm. And His unique mixing of genres seems to be working in this day and age.

Awakening

Days and days and days and days and days… piling up on my bookshelf as if I had died and spent my afterlife hopping from novel to novel never looking up, down, or outside the fickle margins. Are there more ahead or behind me? You can never tell and that seems to be a thought that wants to play chess nightly but I try not to let it. I’ll never win, and what a strange experience this is, so full of symbolic paths and fascinating gadgets I could’ve never imagined. Where are the spirits on your side of the river? I’m faulted to see things with my eyes, turning clouds and houses striped on blue marbles in outer space. You are made up of what?

Loving it more and more. The battle with Castellano is nearing a tie- I’ll never win but at least I can gain ground. Spanish-speaking dogs have entered my dreams. My experience here has been everything but empty; I’m truly enjoying myself and the environment around me. I can feel myself already looking back and missing certain moments and scenes here. Are you scared of losing your memories? Age will bring them as gifts then rob them. Some physical travels I’ve embarked on within the past months have given gifts to my eyes, ears, and memories…

A while ago I embarked on a group trip to this rugged orange nest of beauty, Jujuy: a northern region of Argentina that borders both Bolivia and Chile… and pretty it was.

Furthermore, I have found my favorite city I have thus-far seen in my 20 years of existence…

Valparaíso, Chile is purely gorgeous. In a nutshell, the city IS color. The art lives on the streets and buildings as if it were a swarming species of scorpions constantly infecting us with its joyous poison. Walking the tilted hills (cerros) at dusk felt like a drug trip to a wonderland existing simultaneously in the past and future. It felt as if the people there don’t see color like the rest of the world. And a pure blue ocean lying underneath the softest of clouds serves as their protection. Not too clean and not too dirty, just rich in vibrancy and character. It is everything but simple, and yet I felt as if I understood it. It seemed too unique to be real. Each step taken up the hills was like preparing for a new world to come when you’re ready to turn around and absorb it all.

Una Siesta

Broken hard drive- lost everything. Although I feel like I have so much to write, life's getting real busy here. I´ll be taking a break from blogging for a little bit. Only a break.

Much peace and love.

Orgullo

Jumping and playing with the sunsets of childhood bouncing round days and games with smiles stripes on the wall and gumbo falling into our eyes from silk and skin and things that were and what could be surreal. The teal from the leaves disappeared into a raisin persuasion innocent and glee, things are me underneath blankets of pink sighing streets, secrets and diamonds hiding in time and shyness around sound, kindness trying to simply be. Too late for the morning trolley from goodbye, growing up inside bright lime bottles or remedy who. I’m too very proud of you.

Creator made her still young dare thin bear her song along and bring me fine wine and whispering organs of voices pouring down slide nine to ten men. We’re grateful again there when satisfaction ripens it settles into key and leaves us berry bower blue. Not always sweet to be and to do, a feat luck in shoe but look, I’m so very proud of you.

Subte Travel to Invisible Pools

Hace calor en este pais, geeeeeze. Escalators sweat sounds and spiders. Stray dogs searching for ice cubes and people walking in rhythms to the sound waves in my head(phones). An ocean it is, guiding me through the city’s islands while barely keeping me afloat. Moving around the good airs is exciting, really. This place is starting to feel normal in a good way.

As I ride the subte (subway) multiple times a day here, I think about what it means to be a traveler. Life on the subte is seemingly dull, but beneath the surface it’s a fascinating world with much to explore. People staring glaring laughing chaos sleeping children falling people holding people kissing order thinking talking eating waiting planning dancing people begging sitting standing demanding chaos wishing writing lying buying people sighing giving taking waiting breaking communicating. Eye-contact is an understanding, an accident or an interest-- a form of speaking however vague or faint it may be. Who are you and where are you going I have no ideas and don’t want to judge. Weird and amusing places.

Are we unified by similarities or differences? The key is to fit in and stand out simultaneously.

But is traveling really about seeing the other, taking a peek inside the room next door that’s been locked since you were a child? Are travelers innately drawn toward climbing out of their skin and into the invisible pools above their eyes? It could be a hobby, an activity, a way of life, a metaphoric demonstration of birth and death, coming and going, or maybe a reflection of the innate desire to manifest our curiosity. We must know… because we always hear about it but maybe we actually want to see for ourselves how big the world really is.

Maybe we need a radical change of environment to rattle our senses a bit and spark the thoughts that tell us how fascinating the universe is in each moment. It’s easy to normalize everything now to the point where it takes some truly special or unordinary event to make us realize, think about, question, or even notice the astonishing abstraction of everyday life.

How about finding peace in new and uncomfortable situations? To learn and grow we must put ourselves in uneasy and unfamiliar positions that change our life’s context. When surroundings get too secure, safe, cozy, and agreeable, the ruts in the dirt grow deep and the sky disappears. It is easy to be fearful and avoid discomfort. But when you see yourself in a situation you are not used to, you see your self in truest form. I need to walk through the night, no matter how dark, because it keeps my experience fresh and my imagination fed. Development stems from the decision to escort risk and charm mystery.

And vulnerability is the consequence of living ardently.

Holes Beneath the Ground Dew

¿Qué hice? I know but I’ll still ask. We share things and then push away, that is so natural. There’s a small radio in my alley that sings songs of every emotion. It plays continuously and I can never find it to turn the dial. I have a problem, spinning wine bottles and cigarettes through the holes beneath the ground dew. Because maps and tacks and paper bags on the wall talk too, and ¿who am I? The crevices in my skin don’t feel all too real when the sun bathes them- all my dirt and hair and fear. This is not the last time toy boats will float in rhythms. Beating hearts will always conquer us and the fires we build in the streets. And the chains we find there won’t stick around for long, or even change color if we desire.

Run children there’s much to see.

A month here and I’ve nestled in quite well. Time’s moving too quickly but it always does. Next week will be my first week with all my classes, which are…(if you’re interested):

Philosophical Anthropology (UCA), The Anthropology of Music (UBA), The New Argentine Cinema in the Latinoamerican Context (FLACSO), Spanish (FLACSO), and Advanced Percussion (non-academic)

More than excited to really delve into these subjects a fondo. Already I’ve met three times with my Philosophical Anthropology class and it’s really captivating; we talked about nihilism today and the voluntud of the individual that creates reality— la calidad de valores simply thrown out the sphere of objectivity. Giovanni Reale (Italian philosopher) then argues that el amor (love) acts as the ultimate therapy for nihilism. Hmm. Real interesting stuff.

An Argentine girl took notes for me yesterday in English; it was such a nice gesture I didn’t know what to do when she gave them to me. People at UCA have treated me with a cool kindness that is nice to experience. I try to reciprocate.

The city is still grand.

Run children there’s much to see.

The Power of Nature And Magical Rainbows: Las Cataratas de Iguazú

So this weekend I traveled 18 hours outside of Buenos Aires to visit Iguazú Falls, the second biggest waterfall in the world. There ended up being a group of about 15 of us from CIEE that went which was definitely cool. Great hanging out time away from the city. However I spent the day at the falls alone and it was almost a sort of spiritual experience for me. I hadn’t been out in nature alone for a while, and I really needed it. The peace, the serenity, the speaking creatures, and of course, the air. Green everywhere. Leaves, moss, wet rocks… an intoxicating freshness. The natural world always shows me things I forgot about myself and my environment. It’s nice to be reminded we just might be part of something much larger, something city life doesn’t show us too often.

(It’s early and I feel just fine. Heat is at my back and Iguazú will never whisper a word, it doesn’t need to and I shouldn’t have said so much.)

I’ve never seen anything like Iguazú Falls. It was almost too grand, too large to understand. Pictures won’t give it half the justice it deserves, but I’ll post a few anyway:

La Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat): Elements…

The anticipation: water at the top waiting to be spilled over into the colossal thirsty throat…preparation and excitement as all tranquility is soon to be sucked away.

The falling water: simultaneously still and moving. You could see the liquid dissipate into specific ripples and waves as they slipped off the edge of the cliff…the drops appear seemingly free and full.

The moment of impact: water hits the core of the throat and a roar erupts into the skies…a moment of unity or truth or something of that sort.

The spray: mist shooting up and out as if it were showering us with fireworks in the time of festivities… all in celebration of its natural beauty.

People were so uncontrollably drawn to its grandiose allure, which was quite a captivating sight. The abundance of sheer beauty and shock pressed powerfully against my imagination as it took me to other places. The natural world is so fascinating isn’t it?

Argentina Begins

What is this city? Un muerto en la calle, se vive. Smiles and stuggles and communication. Simple, pero no.

So it’s been almost three weeks since I’ve written and now that I have some time to say something I don’t even have the slightest idea of where to begin.

This city is a wonderland full of life, passion, and humor.

Buenos Aires is huge, a walking city, which I love. It’s more of a social city than any I’ve ever been to. Last night I was at a café at 5:30 in the morning and there were adults chatting away as if it were their lunch break. The sense of time they adopt here is more than admirable. Moments can be enjoyed and cherished without preoccupations of the future. And nights begin in the morning. La comida es buena, of course. Lots of steak, empanadas, pizza, y sandwiches. Not too different than American food, but definitely unique. Y el vino (wine)… delicious.

Mi family is great as well. Sweet, fun, and patient. And they value music with a passion so intense and loyal. I’m really learning a lot. Language will be the ultimate challenge- the more I grow with Spanish, the more I possibilities I’ll have to expand cultural knowledge. Going out I’ve tried to meet and talk with porteños (Argentines) que quieren hablar. People are generous. It’s nice talking to porteños… cab drivers and people you meet in bars and clubs. Already I’ve met some really great people. CIEE (the study abroad program) does a great job of giving us tons of free time to explore the city and do what we desire. The freedom is great. There’s no way I could count the hours I’ve spent just relaxing and bathing in conversation at corner cafes. It’s just what you do here.

This city never sleeps, yet no one’s in a rush. Time runs far away.

Some moments here feel like dreams, and I’ve already begun dreaming in Spanish. My focus within the language is to develop my own character, my own Spanish-speaking personality that feels natural and unique. It’s difficult but it’s a mountain I will climb. I liked the city initially, and throughout the next five months I can only see it growing on me. Yes there are moments of seclusion here, but that’s the crux of the challenge.

First class Wednesday. I'm realizing this blog will not become a typical travel blog; I’ll continue to share my thoughts and insights instead of the things that I do. It all is so overwhelming and busy right now. Much more depth coming soon.

Off to Buenos Aires

Off To Buenos Aires!

Plane leaves in 14 hours and I need to sleep. So excited I can’t describe it. What are my goals, what’s lies front of me, which parts of myself will I take with me, which will I attempt to leave behind? I will track as closely as possible my progression as a human being and the effect travel will have on me. And of course, the people. Essentially I am entering a foreign place both in the world and my head. I don’t know much of what to really expect, but will greet the experience with an open mind and a positive attitude. I will approach each passing moment with courage and compassion. What should I aspire to be while abroad? A good person who lives through impulse, intuition, and feeling. Can’t be afraid to put myself out there in an attempt to absorb new information and new experiences.

“All we’ve got to do is be brave, and be kind.” –The National

The funny thing you notice when you travel is that everyone else’s life actually goes on. The continuous story of a friend’s life is constantly being written, just as your own story is being written. We’re traveling all the time, crossing paths with others in the forest… yet eventually going off on our own, unaware of what creatures and landscapes lie ahead. I’m certain the adventures I’m soon to experience will be some of the most meaningful in my life.

As for the blog, it will continue to share my travels, thoughts, and writing with friends and family. Hopefully I won’t abandon it… I don’t plan on doing so. Anyway, pleasant journeys for everyone. See you in the future.

Adios North America.

Intentions for Digital Peacock

So I’ve been thinking about the intentions of this blog and some other little things:

Okay: human in the world. A young soul with no home, watching people run, fly, skip, fall, get up, say hi, move on, forget, look around, take chances, and find everything they’re looking and not looking for. I am homeless, except for my mind. I am a part of this seemingly endless process that takes us around the unknown world and back safely to the place we so sweetly began. I am a person about to embark on a journey to places I don’t even know exist. Existence is always strange, as it may always be. However I desire not to answer the questions that simultaneously plague and enflame all human minds, instead I seek to watch with detail my own existence, express it, and eventually convey my living experience (along with the thoughts that follow all experience) in an attempt to give back to this human community I believe in.

I’m interested in humans… our thoughts, our behavior, and the systems that influence them. I’m studying anthropology in an attempt to observe how humans construct meaning through culture and I’m curious about which aspects of culture inform human minds about “knowledge” (any type). Moreover, I want to look at the ways in which we form our conceptions of identity. I wish to understand the contexts that give rise to these mental and behavioral patterns that drive societal norms. I stand on the street with open eyes and ears, watching a man cross from one side to the other without a single indication of awareness that other beings abound at the doorstep of his face. Six cars drive by and I think about human seclusion.

I’ve been realizing the abundance of insignificant truth that we all live with. The truth that guides people’s lives yet simultaneously attracts them toward the top of a mountain that shows them a view of all the other truths guiding all other forms of life. Truth is relative, and it’s important for me to seriously put into question all that I think I know about the world. It’s a little disillusioning, however humbly liberating at the same moment. Who knows what our calling will be? My values are scattered, and so is my future. For it could take me anywhere, with anyone, on a search for any thing--- and that’s intensely exciting.

“In 2080 I’m sure to be dead, so don’t look ahead. Never look ahead.” – Yeasayer – “2080”

At 20 I feel changed in a way that gives rise to some incentive to document my life for my own purposes, and maybe one day for someone else’s. After two decades of exploring the labyrinth in and around my head, there are too many thoughts I can’t begin to keep track of, while I don’t even know what a thought really is in its truest form. For these reasons, I am giving into the process of creative expression. From now on, I will never live in solitude. My mind will work tirelessly to process this game called life... because all beings possess unique colors. This world is diverse and vibrant with immeasurable richness, all melting together and crafting a masterpiece that will exist infinitely in no one’s memory.

We are a living contradiction where every thought, action, and desire reflects both irony and paradox. Am I wrong to assume confusion in the deepest core of everyone’s mind, and thus everywhere else? No. I can only attempt to account for my own, so that’s what I’ll do.

I don’t know enough to write a novel and don’t have a story I’m compelled to tell. But I know enough to express thoughts, and that may be some sort of beginning. Everything has beginnings. I want to know about my mind and yours. How similar are they and why? I want to know why people do what they do. I want to learn from individuals themselves why they choose to occupy their time the way they do. If I can receive some sort of insight about these themes then I may be able to find some key commonalities and differences between humans that both divide and bring us together… and thus form my own theories about what defines humans as such a unique species.

I don’t know the direction this blog will take but I’m assuming it may soon turn into more of a travel blog that documents my time in Argentina. It may become less philosophical and act as more of a documentation, but may not. Who knows? I’ll always throw in some music here and there, being that harmonious sounds have always played an important part in my life. Anyways… until next time, may peace be with our minds.

Animal Collective: "What Would I Want Sky"

New track from Animal Collective that samples from The Greatful Dead's "Unbroken Chain".

Highly vivid and moving, especially when the vocals come in and the moment of clarity dawns. Check it out.

You Are An Improvisational Genius

A day in the life of you. Decisions. Actions. Movements. Thoughts. Are we enslaved to fate? Definitely maybe.

Tomorrow you will awake without knowledge of what the transcript of your conversations will look like if it were to exist. What to do, what to say, who to be? And then conscious thoughts emerge from your brain as if they were a swarming school of fish swimming without direction. But it’s all okay right? You’ll figure it out along the way.

It's impressive really, our artistry. Surviving alone has forced us to craft our extemporizing abilities. No scripts. We are improvising in every action, every decision, and every conversation. Except when we’re not. Except when we’re following orders. Except when we feel our body becoming too real. Except when we treat this majestic playground (the world) with an immutably stern outlook… that’s when we lose what makes us human. I don’t know what that really is (the unifying aspect of humanity), and probably never will, but I would guess that it has something to do with passion, meaning, connection, creativity, and an inexplicable desire to be valuable in such a confusing environment. We will share our confusion with one another for no reason at all. Or maybe for the purpose of masking it, or unveiling it, or describing it, or even battling it. Or maybe to display the extension of our compassion. But never for explaining it with any real seriousness; it is impossible to know anything, and simultaneously impossible to not know anything.

To treat the world as if it were clay to be shaped may lead to a colorful consciousness that yields glowing sensations.

Farewell Ride

I leave the country in five days. From now until then shall be my farewell ride.

Mostly when I walk around a communal area, say, a busy street, I tend to notice information and people organized into businesses: competing groups desperately vying with each other for society’s worth. Apparently true intrinsic value or substance has been reduced to a systematically agreed-upon material we call money. What is this material and why is it valued so strongly? Must the symbol for value/worth become more significant than our values themselves? Money is not the problem, it is the way in which we think about it and the way we often use it. It divides us and guides us into tunnels of greed and envy. It confuses us even more than we already are when we wake up every morning, blinking our eyes and wondering what strange happening the day might have in store. Looking around, it seems like we’re all trying to invent more moments in which we can become more efficient. And efficiency has become, for many, defined as the rate at which money can be gained when it should be defined as the rate at which we create meaning, construct compassion, generate pleasure, and aid others within our lives. Can I really devote my time to the accumulation of symbolic power for self-gain? I don’t know. I don’t think so, but many societies throughout the world seem to be not only following this groundwork, but spreading it as well. Why don’t we ask kids who they want to be instead of what they want to be? We should strive to be good people, not productive mechanisms working in the name of order.

“Get a good job. Be well-off. You’ll retire early and be happy.” ---- no. thanks.

I believe we need an abundance of art: writers, poets, musicians, painters, drawers, sculptors, dancers, filmmakers, photographers, engineers, architects, etc. that feel passionately about making communities more vibrant, substantive, expressive, colorful, and most importantly, more meaningful. We need an environment that harnesses respect for meaningful forms of human expression that deserve to be appreciated in our society. We need to encourage an atmosphere that opens up creative thinking in people’s minds, a new habitat for our individuality. We mustn’t think about moving the world forward (“efficiency”, “systems”, “machines”, “formulas”, "material productivity", “money”) anymore. Instead, we must move it outward (creativity, expression, interaction, communication, compassion, love), expanding and enlarging it in every infinite direction. Every day we are attacking both our ability to think differently and the ways in which we manifest that ability… in both kids and adults.

We shape our culture. How to inspire people to consciously shape their own is a question I ponder.

I desire to know what people most truly believe day and night. Or, moreover, I want them to express it, because the world is seemingly losing the voice of the person, the creator, the individual. We are drowning in ourselves as managed systemic contraptions, losing our sense of compassion, originality, and innovation. We all yearn to be given ideas to think about, art to absorb, significance to nourish. We value each other, not the structures that value their own survival at the cost of our imagination’s. Where there is fire, we shall dance.

Be You, Tea Full

“The town’s so small, how could anybody not look you in the eye or wave as you drive by? The world is such a wonderful place.” – Band of Horses (“Ode to LRC”)

Beauty beauty beauty beauty beauty. It’s everywhere: color, shapes, texture, sound, emotion, language, thought, interaction, fear, dreams, creativity. It’s easy to forget though, our physical and mental lives become normalized too often. It feels like we’re all searching for an answer or something to magically make us happy, but the pure aspects of our world and the fact that we simply exist in such a strange and unique place should keep us beyond fascinated for all of our lives. I often forget how shockingly amazing everything around me is at every moment. When I go on trips I often return feeling as if I’ve been living blindly for too long. Living with a paper bag suffocating my senses and my ability to see things how they truly are. Traveling, exploring the unseen corners in your mind, is a gift. The world in my head is far more grandiose than the one my eyes can see… or are they one in the same?

Appreciate the wonders of this planet and let them urge you to do something and be someone…anyone. If these thoughts of appreciation and gratitude swarmed our minds all the time though, then their significance would die. We would be in awe in every moment, and thus the awe would become conventional, nothing would stand out, and we would perceive the world as bland. However it’s important to see that we exist in an infinite toy store within the ocean of space that fits inside our eyes. (Silly thought: If all of this is produced by my brain, then it feels like my eyes are backwards. They should actually be looking inside my head if they want to see the world, but it looks like it’s the other way around, maybe?) Our sensory world is generated within our head and our head is matter inside the sensory world. The concepts of “inside” and “outside” are relative to us humans anyways. What a wonder. The mystery remains utterly mesmerizing; it bathes me in joy.

“After all these years I have observed that beauty, like happiness, is frequent. A day does not pass when we are not, for an instant, in paradise.” – Jorge Luis Borges

Waking Life - Life Is Not A Dream

Purely amazing and inspirational scene from Waking Life, a powerfully philosophical 2001 film written and directed by Richard Linklater.

Thoughts...