-{ redgeek.net }-

“I’ve never been to an art exhibition before. I don’t really know what to do.”

“Ah, well then, it’s time we broaden your horizons,” I smile. “Don’t worry, you pretty much just drink wine and check out the art – photos tonight – and I might excuse myself briefly, if it’s alright with you, to try to pimp my work to the curator, but only for a moment.”

When we arrive, we’re already a couple drinks in, but it’s a dry bar at the reception, so I’m not in danger of embarrassing myself the the curator, who, as it turns out, is also the owner and a presenting artists. We do the quick introduction, trade cards, and since she’s not terribly receptive (although she doesn’t know me from Joe), I excuse myself to peruse the works with K.

K is a girl I’ve been out with a few times, but only in a group, and she’s always been hot for a friend of mine, another guy in the group. I found it interesting that she called me last Wednesday, given the aforementioned fact, but she’s cute and intelligent, so I gladly accelerated her We should hang out sometime offer with How about this Friday? There’s and exhibition I’d like to check out.

So there we were side by side, staring at photos on the white wall.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

In my book, that’s fine. Admitting your limitations, or in this case, just a lack of experience in one area of life, easily remediable, of which we all have at least a few, is far superior to pretense.

“Well at one level, it’s just a fundamental ‘Do I like it or not? Does it move me, or speak to me, or otherwise change or deepen my understanding of myself or the world?’ Or perhaps, ‘is it just plain fucking beautiful?’

“On another level, if you want to go there, but it’s not necessary, you can try to ascertain what the artist is trying to get across, or try to figure our why the piece does or doesn’t do it for you.

“Take this one, for example. To me, it’s just … flat. I don’t see the relationship between the subjects, or the negative space for that matter. It’s cluttered, just a collection of … stuff. Without focus, really. Your eyes want to drift out of the frame to something else.

“Now this one over here, I dig this. Se how low the horizon is, how there’s so much sky? It imbues a sense of space and potential, and the soft blur of the field and trees yield a dreamy, ethereal quality, although it’s muffled, like you’re an observer trying but unable to participate. The sky is the subject but only because of the minimal grounding of the land. Your eyes latch on to the horizon, briefly scanning left from the grove to the open field, but don’t find the subject, so they float upward into the clouded sky, and you’re left suspended, although slightly unsettled, limitless potential with a hint of uncertainty, the possibility of disappointment and depression.”

We lapse into silence, fixated on the photo.

“Of course, I totally pulled that our of my ass,” pulling the conversation back to the lighter side, “I have no idea what the artist was shooting for. I do the same thing with my own work.”

“No, when you say it, I totally see it, it makes sense, it’s there in the photo.”

“You’re right, it is in the photo, or rather, it’s in one interpretation of the it. I mean, art by it’s very nature is perceptual. Like I said, when people ask me about one of my pieces, this is how I answer. Yes, sometimes I’m looking to capture a particular mood or message, but sometimes that’s just where I start and not where I end. Or, a lot of the time, I’m just struck by the the image afterward, and I have to sit and ask myself why I can’t look away. And since I work in digital, sometimes that happens on the spot, right there on the little screen, I find what I’m looking for, and re-shoot, modulating what I think will improve the presentation, refining the found message.”

This perception permeates my life, I use the same feedback loops in my code, my martial arts, my writing, and obviously, my photography. I use it in my platonic relationship as well as romantic.

Why am I friends with him, why do I like her? It’s not predicated on the initial connection, or first impression, although that has an effect, like setting up the initial conditions, but it is swayed more by the recognition of evolving perception. What I see today affect what I see tomorrow, but does not derive it. The system is too complex and is constantly re-evaluating and observing itself, but at the present moment, now, it is my reality, the one I’ve chosen to create for myself.

But I always remember the other half of me, the me that’s watching me in the background, that this is just my current perception, and I can change that reality when necessary. This is also one of the levels of Ninpo beyond simple punching and kicking.

It’s not a cop out, or unwillingness to commit or wholly experience life – it’s not doublethink. I act on this reality (but realize I may be wrong) and I’m fully committed to my actions, and these actions manifest in consequences, in things that neither you nor I can ever change. I realize that is is my current interpretation of my knowledge base, I’m free to change my interpretation and expand my knowledge base any time I want, and this changes my reality – my thoughts and actions. I experience reality as that which I am, and that which I can change, again, I am a system thinking of itself. I am the author, my will manifests. Generally, that’s a good thing for everyone involved, but if it comes down to conflict, I highly recommend staying out of my way. You don’t want to be in the middle of that reality change.

And since you’re probably wondering, yes, the rest of the date went well, in terms of much talking and laughing, but I don’t think either of us really felt a connection beyond platonic. And I won’t change my reality on that unless she indicates that she’s changed hers (or perhaps, I just read her wrong.)

Out with some friends, in a partially crowded bar, I’m navigating from the patio to the restroom. Two girls ensconced in some private conversation are oblivious to the blockade they’re providing. It may be important, who am I to say.

My bladder urging me onward: “Pardon me.”

He eyes jog slowly to mine, heavy with intoxicants.

“Do I know you?”

I’m looking past her, only my voice is directed toward her. “No.”

She doesn’t move, I turn to look at her.

I want to tell her I’m not picking up on her. I’m not interested. I’m not drunk, I’m not checking out her ass, my hand is on her shoulder to guide her slightly to the side and allow me passage to the head. But I don’t, I can resist the urge to tear down her inflated ego (at least until I write about it later, which she’ll never know about, and really doesn’t yield any reprisal or warm fuzzy for me.) I can let her assume I’m aborting a poorly executed pick-up. Fine, whatever, as long as she moves and I can pee.

She rolls her eyes over toward her friend, casting rays of annoyance through the arc. I nudge her to the side, passing without further comment.

Everyone has shitty days, and every day there’s people undergoing more hardship than most of us that have access to the internet will ever experience. But most people, people I respect and can have interesting and intelligent conversation with, people I enjoy hanging out with, don’t automatically assume that everything revolves around themselves. They have an expanded view of the world and see themselves as just a part of it. Is it the insulation from adversity that allows one’s focus to drift from the world to the self? Is it a lock of maturity or upbringing?

More than your style of speech, your topic gives you away, your perspective is revealed. The high schooler tend to speak of I: I love this, I hate that, the self in relation to others, the self as the center. Through the collegiate years, it tends to be broaden to include more of you: what do you like, what do you hate, others in relation to the self, others in the center. The larger socio-political economic stage enters and exerts influence.

The high-schooler tends toward search for consonance, the latter, comparison. The world has expanded along with the scope of responses and elicited emotion. Later, the topics move away from the personal, toward larger world view and the place of yourself and your loved ones within it, interpersonal with talk of you and I. The scope of your perspective is the current of your speech, and reveals more than your language or vocal affectations.

I could attribute it to the alcohol she was drinking, or the pot she’d obviously smoked, but while the chemicals may contribute, I believe they probably just amplify. I’m inclined to attribute such a response to some adolescent narcissism, some sort of aberration in the cultivation of one’s place in the Grand Scheme, of an expansive social circle, that, regardless of our desire, we are all part of.

The world will keep spinning when you’re gone, babe. Just like when I die. We’re just not that special. What is unique, irreproducible, that which will accompany you all your life and you have the capability of cherishing forever, are is relationship with every one else come in contact with. Not me, not you, but the interaction. There’s far too much insignificance in the world to throw away that which has potential.

After Japanese class last Halloween night, I met up with Jill, Matt, and Greg down in Hillcrest to wander around and check out the local kings (or queens, as may be the case) of costuming. As Hillcrest is the “gay district” of San Diego, it promised some of the most elaborate and entertaining of projects.

Of course, there were plenty of the standard leather-clad ass-less chaps wearing village people and slutty [insert occupation here] cross-dressers milling about, but there were also some truly genius getups. Perhaps one of the most creative two guys were dressed as jellyfish: white bodysuits carrying white umbrellas draped with strips of cloth and those long skinny balloon animal type balloons sticking out from underneath. The umbrellas were low enough so as to obscure their faces, all you saw were these cloth and balloon tentacles swaying from underneath the umbrella, illuminated by strategically placed glow sticks providing faux-bio-luminescence.

Toward the close of the evening, I ended up in an interesting conversation with Greg regarding Godel, Escher, and Bach – one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books – and Catch-22. He happened to be reading them at the same time and was providing interesting correlations between Catch-22, which is, or course, entirely paradoxical, and the notion of paradox and true-but-unprovable/false-but-not-unprovable from GEB. Furthermore, he noted the similar structure of the two, of Catch-22’s devotion of each chapter to an individual and GEB’s organization into separate analogies of cognition.

We started on the topics of systems – each person in C-22 is somewhat of a “system” in the GEB sense: internally consistent, sufficiently expressive, but containing their paradoxes that can only be explained by some sort of large “meta-system,” a system that takes into account talking about itself, or as I like to say, elevated semantics. Of course, there are always paradoxes available in the meta-system, perhaps in C-22, the analogy is the book itself, (and in fact, the meta-system must have paradoxes, and it is mathematically provable.) For you number theory geeks out there, I know I’m glossing things. Deal with it.

I particularly enjoyed the conversation given that Greg understands the structure and intricacies of the Fugue (specifically, Bachs’, a major component of GEB) much better than, while on the other hand I’m much more visceral understanding of number theory (Godel) and Escher’s works (Escher, of course.) Looking back on it, we were really just two meta-systems making our own analogies about systems and cognition. We have overlapping areas of expertise as well as disparate ones, we have things we believe but are not provable, and vice versa.

In essence, our conversation was a meta-system, involving two other meta-systems, making analogies about systems analogies of systems. Meta-meta-meta-meta system?

Greg is planning on doing more in-depth analysis and comparison, using two as foils of each other, and I think the idea is fantastic.

It occurred to me on the way home that Halloween in Hillcrest is the perfect place for this conversation: boys dressed as girls finding analogies in jellyfish and village people. Systems masquerading as systems, commenting on systems, creating new systems. Kind of makes you wonder if there’s some sort of meta-system up there that encourages these kinds synchronicities.