өөрийгөө

I forget who it was but I remember hearing a famous comedy actor say that the best way to play a comedy role is to forget about comedy. Play the part as if it's serious. Don't try to be funny. 

acting seems to involve a kind of humility, where you put your real self aside to do what is required for the role. then again, we all do that in our different roles - for our jobs and our families and the roles we play in the groups we are part of. ||| and it's not really a negation of the self. at its best, it's a fulfilment of our selves//

ପ୍ରତିନିଧିତ୍ୱ

I was watching this interview of Siri Hustvedt: Siri Hustvedt Interview: Art is a Memory. 

the part of the interview that I find very interesting, and that I've watched more than once, is where she compares art to writing, or the image to the word, and she says that, unlike an image where you can grasp the details all at once, in writing, the details unfold in a series or a process. 

she makes a point of saying that text is a different thing from visual art, as if it's a common view that it isn't, and that you can't represent the same thing in them. you can write about visual art, but you can't achieve any kind of equivalence. I've thought about this before with music....would it be possible to represent the actual sound and experience of listening to music? // not just to write about your thoughts and feelings regarding the music, but to acually convey the music itself somehow through words. of course it's impossible, but it's an appealing idea. 

కథలు

when I was at university, I knew this girl who was a really good leader. She had a lot of friends and was always helping people, giving advice and encouragement. She was involved with lots of activities - sport, social functions, events, clubs, etc. She was very charismatic and vibrant. 

anyway, one night I was on the bus and I saw a couple, and the girl reminded me somehow of this other girl I knew. and something occurred to me that was quite different from the usual story we tell ourselves and society seems to tell us - that true fulfilment and happiness lies in having a relationship and being devoted to this one other person - because it struck me that all the good this woman did through her relationships and interactions with a wide range of people - all the meaning and purpose she brought to the world through her life...it would kind of be a negative thing if that was all focused on one person. It would be a waste. It would be a kind of dimming of her light. 

but of course, hopefully, that's not the ultimate reality in a healthy relationship, and I'm sure that when she did get married (which she did) she would still engage with the world. I don't know because I've lost touch with her but I'm sure she's still the dynamo she always was, just deeper and more mature. 

but it told me something about the stories we tell ourselves

dichotomies

our brains contain an old brain and a new brain. the old brain is a lot older...it evolved first, and it's associated with emotion. The new brain is more associated with reason. interestingly, there aren't that many neural networks connecting the two, at least by default. that's why, when we react to things emotionally, we can have very strong thoughts and feelings that make sense to us and are very convincing, but we're not actually being reasonable. we're operating within the old brain and it's not really talking to the new brain. 

with practice we can develop connections between the two brains. some psychologists call this engagement of both minds, the 'wise mind'. usually the old brain kicks in first and you feel very strongly that you have to take a certain course. your feelings can be mixed...part of you regrets that things have to be this way, but you're certain that that is the case. but then, because you don't really want to go that way, you begin to question it, and it's then that you can make a decision, or come to a realisation, that you don't actually have to go that way - you can apply reason to the situation.  

so, we generally start with the old brain - it kind of kicks in instinctually - but to think wisely, we need to get the old brain and the new brain to talk to each other. the challenge is that the old brain won't initiate that conversation. 

interesting that wisdom is wrought by the tension between emotion and reason. 

when I looked up the etymology of wisdom and wise in the online etymology dictionary, the results weren't that satisfying: Old English wis "learned, sagacious, cunning; sane; prudent, discreet; experienced; having the power of discerning and judging rightly,"

so, it's like, the word 'wise' developed from the old English word 'wis' which meant...and then they give you all these synonyms of wisdom

i did find something very interesting though, looking through all the words that have 'wise' in them - like clockwise, otherwise, etc /// the word righteous developed from 'rightwise'. it would have been really interesting if the 'wise' in that word was the wise that relates to wisdom, but it isn't - it's the wise that we see in clockwise and otherwise, meaning way or manner. it's still interesting. it makes an interesting link between righteousness and the way we live - our manner of engaging with the world. 

and something else interesting - the word 'wizard' developed out of the word 'wise' || and even more interesting, it wasn't originally associated with magic. in the early 1400's, a wizard was a philosopher or sage. it wasn't until 1550 that it came to mean someone with magical or occult powers, because, before that - in the middle ages, according to the online etymological dictionary, 'the distinction between magic and philosophy was blurred'. \\\ this reminds me of the way that to spell (as in words) comes from the same root as the magic spell cast by witches, and the word 'grammar' is related to the word 'grimoire' which is a kind of manual used by witches. 

errësirë

I've been reading Earthlings by Sayaka Murata - translated by Ginny Tipley Takemori. It's Sayaka Murata's second novel to be translated into English, but she's written ten books in Japanese and won all of Japan's major literary awards. I really enjoyed Convenience Store Woman, which was her first novel to be translated into English, so I was keen to read Earthlings and I'm really enjoying it. I find Sayaka's novels very readable. 

Earthlings is a surprise though. The first indicator that it was quite different from....I just realised that I wrote about all this in an earlier blog post. sometimes i forget what I've written. or, i might remember writing about something but sometimes I write a whole post and delete it. but on January 18 I wrote about both of these books, and about how the reviews of Earthlings all said that the content was disturbing and dark. at the time, I didn't yet know what that meant, but now I do, and I agree - it's hella dark. and I think it's gona get even darker. 

ដំបូន្មាន

stop trying to draw things the way they look

learning to draw involves learning not to draw things the way you think they're supposed to be drawn

abjection

i was looking at the draft I wrote for nanowrimo. It's around 9,600 words long. as I look at it now, I can see how I could add to it. it's basically autobiographical and revolves around a couple of issues that have been important in my life. in the later chapters, I've planned out which time periods are going to be covered in each chapter, and I haven't written much yet for most of the later chapters, so I could keep adding to it \\\

the problem is that it's not really creative writing

I've been reading Sayaka Murata's second novel that has been translated into English - Earthlings. I really enjoyed Convenience Store Woman. It's about a woman whose greatest joy and fulfilment in life is working in a convenience store. I had heard that it was based on Murata's experience, so I had this image of her in my mind as someone who is like the main character, and loves working in a convenience store even though she's a successful writer, and has no interest in anything else, including getting married - she just wants to work in the convenience store. but I watched an interview in which she talked about the book and that's not the case. It is (loosely) based on her experience working in a convenience store as a student, but it's a critique of the kind of mentality that she felt was expected - not a celebration of it, as I thought...in the interview she talked about how that was what the work culture was like at the convenience store - as if everything was centred on serving the store. For example, you had a responsibility to keep yourself well, mainly so that you could effectively perform your duties in the store. She talked about how people would get sick but they would come to work anyway because the job was more important than their health. 

sometimes I really don't get the subtext. 

I'm not very far into Earthlings. apparently - from reading the reviews - it takes a very shocking and dark turn as it progresses. the consensus is that it's good but disturbing. the reviewers used words like stomach-turning and shocking. it sounds good. I think there's not enough extremeness (I know that's not a word but 'extremism' doesn't convey the meaning I'm looking for). Modern literature is so tame...maybe it's just the books I've read....but I think about a book like Wuthering Heights (which is my all time favourite novel) and how, in its day it was considered all those things - shocking, disturbing, depraved, focused on everything ugly instead of everything pleasant and beautiful. It seems like no one of any consequence in the literary world would have dreamed that this novel would one day be considered a great work of literature, as it now is. 

but Wuthering Heights still divides people...people tend to either love it or hate it. 

خلق

I saw an instagram post by Hannah✨Artist + Illustrator 🎨. This is the post. I found it really inspiring - the idea that you don't need a special space, or a studio or even a desk to do art. She talked about how she lives in a one bedroom apartment and does her digital work on the couch and her painting in a corner \\

here I am stressing because I can only fit my laptop on my desktop and my wacom tablet next to it, so when I draw or write by hand or read, I have to put the book on my lap. in any case, i've ordered a desk - actually a small table - so that I will have space to do those things on a hard surface

i'm looking forward to having that space, but still, like I said, I really liked Hannah's attitude. you don't need a lot of stuff. 

დიახ

i saw that they were dealing with me as if i was a problem in a textbook. i realised later that that's because they didn't know me. the group didn't comprehend me, both in the sense of understanding and the sense of 'enclosure' connoted by comprehension. so it was inevitable that I would come out of the group, or at least that I would never really be part of the group. 

i had issues that never went away, and i realised later that there was no capacity for me, in that group, to resolve those issues, because what mattered to the group was results....any issues were immaterial - like, they literally didn't see them.

it became very clear that that was the case because my issues manifested in my words and behaviour, and then they challenged me about that, but they said it was 'x' - it was me being Xional...and I knew they were wrong...they were actually wrong...that was interesting. 

that's the problem with making absolute claims. if you say, I'm always right about everything, all it takes for your whole position to be undermined is for you to be wrong about a single thing or even for there to be a real possibility that you could be wrong. 

languages

I started learning New Testament Greek, Biblical Hebrew and Qur'anic Arabic. I made the most progress with NT Greek, and not much with Hebrew and Arabic. 

The one I would most like to learn is Hebrew, because I'd really love to read the Old Testament in the original language, but I think I made most progress with Greek because it's closest to English out of the three. The characters are different but not as radically different as Arabic and Hebrew, and it's read from left to right.

հավասարակշռություն

I've been biased against Sam Harris, mainly because of his books opposing faith and Christianity, parts of which I've read. I thought he was unreasonable and unbalanced, and that his views weren't well thought through - were lacking in nuance and penetration // but I've just listened to one of his podcasts, and I was pleasantly surprised. 

I didn't agree with him about everything, but (just as I always say about Harold Bloom) I like his thinking. One of the things I really liked about his podcast was that he was critical of both sides - right and left. It's refreshing to hear that. So, it was interesting, compelling, and also very funny in parts. 

I was surprised. I thought he would be a rabid antitheist (which I wouldn't enjoy), but he came across as the sort of person that you could have a good conversation with. and yeah - it was very refreshing the way that he criticised both sides. he made the point early in the podcast that it's reasonable to do that - that we can be critical of the faults on one side without absolving the other side of all faults. we don't have to take a side, or, if we do take a side, we don't have to demonise the other side and think they're wrong about everything. 

irony

we always think pain and challenges are bad and pleasure and encouragement are good, but, like a lot of things we tell ourselves, it's a lie//

I think the truth is nearly always ironic. It's in giving that we receive. the way to deal with anxiety and other unpleasant emotional states is to stop fighting them - stop trying to control your emtional state. So, the way to exercise control is to let go of control.

another weird thing I've noticed is that, for some reason, it's often at the very moment that you give up trying to achieve a goal (or not long after) that it just happens. 

працоўныя месцы

for 6 years, I worked in a bank in the credit card department. i wasn't particularly good at the job, not because it was a hard job but more because it didn't really interest me. i'd mastered how it was done, but i couldn't seem to be very productive.

then I decided I wanted to become a teacher, so i left my full-time job to do full-time study, and, as weird as it sounds, I didn't really think about income....i just did it....so, very soon, i needed a part-time job. so i started applying, and I ended up working in the same bank doing a different job where I had more responsibility, the job was more interesting, I was working less hours, and even though I was working less hours, I was earning....I think, a bit more than I had earned at my old full-time job, or at least around as much - enough to pay rent, etc

I did a lot of chopping and changing of courses and ended up pursuing English literature more so than school teaching, which was my original goal. 

another interesting development is related to the kind of work I've done off and on since 2009. when I was doing that original job that I did for 6 years, people commented on how I was good at presenting in meetings and workshops. I'd also had some previous experience teaching English when I lived in Hong Kong for a year. so, I started thinking that I could try to get into the training department. a job came up and I applied, and I had to present before a panel. I think, in terms of presenting, I did quite well, but what let me down was subject matter knowledge - because they were looking for someone to train staff about personal loans, and they could tell as soon as they asked me a question, that I knew next to nothing about personal loans. 

so I didn't get the job. but that desire to do something related to education stayed with me (and is still with me) and that's why I ended up going back to uni to become a teacher. but, as I said, for various reasons, school teaching never worked out, although I did tutoring, which I really enjoyed. then, in 2008/9, someone suggested to me that I should do my Certificate IV in training and assessment, which I did, and that enabled me to get a full-time job as a business trainer. so, weirdly, all these years later, I ended up getting to do what I had wanted to do when I was working in the credit card department. 

once I was working as a trainer, I started doing some work developing and validating resources and the kind of academic/ administrative work that needs to be done in an RTO (registered training organisation) and in the last couple of years I've been doing more of that sort of work rather than training. I still love teaching though, so I wouldn't mind getting back in the classroom, or doing some tutoring, at some stage in the future. 

sound revision

while I've been working, I've been listening to a play list I found on youtube called, 'TOOL Greatest Hits'. like all great bands, their sound is distinctive, but their work is endlessly original and constantly evolving. 

there's the heaviness, but there's an intricacy || subtlety || sublimity 

some of their lyrics and song titles are a bit unseemly. like, when the O'Keefe Music Foundation kids covered a couple of their songs - which, as always, they did superbly - they had to change the lyrics in some interesting ways

what I like about O'Keefe Music Foundation is that they don't just cover the song and play it note for note like the original - they do their own arrangement and do the song in their own style, and the results are extraordinary

i was thinking the other day when I was in a shop and heard an old song that had been re-released by a different artist recently, and he sang it exactly as it was sung originally. Maybe the music was slightly different but the singing part was exactly the same - same timing, same notes....and I just felt like, what is the point of this? Is it just to cash in on a good song? maybe my negative reaction was partly because I didn't like the original version that much anyway, but, for whatever reason, I just thought, this is not good. original creation is good - even putting your own spin on an old song is good, but singing it in the same way, is not good in my opinion. 

i was thinking about this issue in relation to U2's version of Helter Skelter. Bono very cleverly said, Charles Manson stole this song from the Beatles - now we're stealing it back....but the problem is they didn't really steal it back /// they didn't take ownership of it and make it their own. 

maybe this is partly just an issue of my preferences though...like, if an artist I really like sings a song I really like, it may not matter to me that they sing it in the same way as the original version. A good test of this is Mazzie Star's version of wild horses, which I really like. Maybe it's just coz of Hope Sandoval's exquisite voice. I'm going to try an experiment - listening to Mazzie Star's version then listening to.....The Rolling Stones' version (they sang the original), and I'll listen for differences. 

It's kind of jarring listening to the Stone's version straight after Mazzie Star, but it's definitely really good. amazing to think they produced it in 1971. 

just out of interest, I'm listening to Guns n Roses do a live version of 'Wild Horses'....it's so funny.....Guns n Roses (known for being a heavy rock band) and Axl Rose says, 'we're gonna play some rolling stones (also known for being a heavy rock band, albeit it a different style/ era)....and then the song is a ballad. It was a bit disappointing though \\\ I loved the start - it was a long, intricate guitar solo, but then they just sang a couple of lines of the chorus and then it finished....

oh - Miley Cyrus has done a cover....let's see....it's pretty good, but interestingly, she's singing it very much in the style of Mick Jagger....that's the good bit....but then when she sings the chorus - the actual 'wild horses' part, she kind of lets loose and just sings it, and I don't like it as much. But bottom line, it's a note for note version. It's not too bad. It's live and it's a pretty good performance, but I doubt that she would ever release a studio recording of it. 

so, my conclusion: i think Mazzie Star does take ownership of 'wild horses'. not only are the vocals different, but the arrangement sounds different - the guitar playing sounds different. 

i discovered something very interesting when I was watching the Miley Cyrus video ￫ she does a version of the Led Zeppelin song 'Babe, I'm gonna leave you'. Here's Led Zeppelin performing it live in 1969(!): Led Zeppelin - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You (Danmarks Radio 1969). 

And here is Miley's version: Miley 

with Miley's version, at first I wasn't that impressed....it was good, but not stellar, but then once she really got into it, I was pretty impressed. and I think she really does make it her own.