@work

Reading an article about Vivienne Westwood, I was struck by how some people do what they love for work and become very, very rich. Other people hate their job and earn a normal wage. 

don't look back

The past is a strange kind of possession. My past is mine - it belongs to me and no one else. But I have no ability to change it. I can't change even the smallest detail. While I was experiencing it, I had control over some things. Now I have no control over anything in my past. But through my memory, I have access to it.

The meaning of things changes according to the context. As I go through life and grow physically and have different experiences, it puts the events in my memory in a different context. So, does that change the meaning of events? It does, but the question is whether, and if so how, my memories remain factual. 

I find that, especially unpleasant experiences or thoughts, take on a different meaning later. I look back on difficult and painful experiences with a kind of fondness. 

tim tam and who part two

I tried another one of the Jatz Tim Tams today, because I thought, now that I know it's supposed to taste like it does and it's not expired or poisoned, I might like it more, and I did. 

particles and waves

Harold Bloom's thesis is that no literary creation is truly original. All writers revise what other writers have written. He posits a series of six revisionary 'ratios' whereby this revision process takes place. Each of the ratios is based on a different trope. Tropes are like figures of speech - ways of conveying meaning by expressing things that aren't literally true. The most well-known tropes are similes and metaphors.

Tropes are the fundamental building blocks of all communication. Even that sentence contains the trope of metaphor because tropes are not really building blocks at all. And 'that sentence contains' is another trope because a sentence can't literally contain anything.

Irony is another trope. The word 'literally' is one of the most ironic words, because when something is strictly and objectively true, we say it is 'literally' true. So, the literal and the literary are opposites.

Consider a story, any story. When a character in a story says that something about that story is true, it's ironic (whether or not the writer is deliberately being ironic) because, of course, it's not true because it's happening in a story. But it's still true in some sense because in the world of the story it's true.  Irony works because of the quantum nature of reality. Contradictory conditions can both exist. It happens more than you realize. We think, that can't possibly be right, only because our limited intelligence can't comprehend it.

recognizence

‘A few anecdotes, a few traits of character, manners, face, a few incidents, have an emphasis in your memory out of all proportion to their apparent significance, if you measure them by the ordinary standards. They relate to your gift. Let them have their weight, and do not reject them, and cast about for illustration and facts more usual in literature. What your heart thinks great is great. The soul's emphasis is always right.’

                   - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Spiritual Laws

Your soul knows what it's doing when it draws your attention to things. It recognizes itself. There is an exquisite tension between difference and sameness when you perceive something of yourself in another person or in a book or a place. 

agency

The beauty of writing for me is that I don't know where it will go - it's a creative process. But, at the same time, I'm in control of what I write. When so much in life feels like it is out of control, here is a space where we can have control.

interesting

I like things that I understand to some extent but I'm aware that there is so much more that I don't understand. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, 'That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.' Likewise, the things I fully understand hold little interest for me.

In the same way, questions are often more interesting than answers. Answers are the end of the matter. They put an end to enquiry. And problems aren't the bad things we often think they are. Problems are central to life. Problems and challenges make us who we are.

It's weakness that makes things interesting. Imagine the 'perfect' painter who could paint things that look like a photo. That would be impressive, but their work wouldn't be beautiful. But as soon as there is a struggle or faltering - some expression of frailty or strangeness, within the work, it becomes interesting; it strikes a chord.

choices

This post is adapted from a post I wrote on my old blog - caeusura -on May 31, 2014.

When I was studying English at uni and I had to write my first essay, there was a range of topics/ questions to choose from. I really agonised over the choice.....which one would be best? which would I do best at?, etc. When I went to see my tutor about it, she had the most simple and elegant solution. She said, do the one you most want to do. When I thought of it like that, it was really obvious to me which one I should do. 

It's funny how I never thought of approaching it like that. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that as an option. Maybe it's because I was used to school being a place where you don't have the option of doing what you want. In High School, when there is an option, you don't think which do I want to do? you think which one will get me the best result? 

everything's not lost

I thought my old blog - caeusura - was gone forever. I deleted it when I started this blog in January 2020. But I had a look at the wayback machine, and...it's all there! Every post is there. 

So, I'll probably go through it and maybe republish, or revise and republish, some posts. Or maybe I should recreate it - open a new blog called caeusura and put all the posts in it. 

Tim Tam and who?

Someone I work with brought in a packet of Tim Tams the other day and later in the day I took a couple and when I ate the first one I thought that they must be expired or something because it tasted distinctly salty. There was the normal chocolaty flavor of Tim Tams, but then there was also a saltiness. 

So I looked at the pack, and the Tim Tams were....not salted caramel, but.....Jatz flavored. Jatz flavored Tim Tams. Yes! A marriage of two iconic Australian staples. I ate the second one, but I really didn't like it, to be honest. As I said to my friends, this flavor combination just doesn't work. 

I did some more research. The reviews I watched were generally quite positive. I also read an article that said that the original idea was an April fool's day joke, and some people believed it and complained when they found out it wasn't a real product. 

I can't help wondering, if I had known what the flavor was before tasting that first one, whether that would have changed my view, because, interestingly, while I thought the saltiness was unbelievably strong because I was expecting the normal Tim Tam sweetness, a lot of the reviewers said that it was hardly salty at all and some even said they wish it was more salty. Overall though, the reviewers liked them. 

close reading

Early on in my studies of English literature, I was never sure, when I had an idea about a poem - about what it meant or what the poet was trying to convey - whether I was right or wrong. But then, after a while, I realized that I could trust my ideas. 

That applies to anyone actually, and when I was tutoring I would tell students that. If you engage with the poem and you get something from it, that insight that you get is real and valid, more often than not. This is the case to varying extents, for all subjects, but especially for English because we each make our own meaning from literature or other kinds of text. In English, there isn't a right and wrong answer the way there is for maths and science. 

History too is malleable in that way. If you read and understand all the materials, and you're able to convey that understanding in your essays, you will do well even if your conclusion is questionable. That's why History essay questions will ask you about a particular issue and you could come down on either side and still do well, because what really matters is your ability to argue the side you choose. 

pov

I felt a bit cheated when I studied creative writing at uni. We did a single module of creative writing in first year English and I did really well. I've never been able to write stories and the beauty of this creative writing module was that they said, it's not about that; it's about playing with language. I found that I was good at that and enjoyed it.

So, I enrolled in a full unit of creative writing in second year, but, in that class, all everyone was talking about was writing stories. I actually failed that course. 

your rules don't apply here

People love to make up rules about how to taper off benzos. One expert says that you shouldn't taper for longer than 2 years. That's based on his experience. That's what he decided to do. That doesn't mean other people should do that. Do what suits you. I've been tapering for four years and I'm just coming to the end now. I only heard that advice after I had been tapering for longer than 2 years, and my response is that I'm working through this as best I can. I didn't really plan my taper in advance; I just thought that I'm going to do it as fast as I can. 

Another extremely common rule is that you have to maintain your dose from day to day. According to this rule, you make a reduction and then every day you take the same dose until you make the next reduction and then you maintain that. Or you make very small reductions each day. But you never, ever increase. Taking a 'rescue dose' would be an absolute disaster and a setback. 'Reinstating' or increasing your dose again to a point you were at previously is a very serious decision and probably not advisable. In my experience, all of that is rubbish. At every stage, before I started to taper and since I've been tapering, my dose went up and down. From day to day and week to week. On stressful days I take more. Some days and weeks I push myself and take a lot less. The key thing is that, overall, the direction has been downward. I have consistently reduced my dose.

There are probably other rules as well. There are others I've heard. Those two are just the ones that I feel strongly about because the first one comes from an 'expert' and the second one is like an article of faith for, I think, most people. I've heard that from so many people including youtubers who I also got some very good practical advice from. It always made me feel like I was failing. But now, because I have succeeded in my taper, I can say for sure, it's not a rule. Stop teaching it as if it's an article of faith. 

Anyone who is tapering, I want to encourage you. You've got this. You're doing it. You are. You really are, and you will get there. You will get to the end. You just have to keep going. It seems to go on forever, but it doesn't. It seems like it's breaking you, but it isn't. 

A good analogy I heard is that it's like chopping down a tree. It's hard work and it takes time, but once the tree starts to fall, that's it. It's no longer hard work. It's done. You just don't need the thing anymore. That can apply to benzos, alcohol, or something else. 

a catchy song

Escape aka The Pina Colada song is a good example of how what is popular in this world doesn't really merit that popularity. Two people cheat on each other, but because they both did it, they decide it's OK. More importantly, the whole experience makes them realize that they should be happy with their relationship because their partner really has everything that they are looking for, so they 'escape' together instead of escaping from each other. 

The problem is that all these things that they realize they both value aren't really a good basis for a healthy relationship - like, alcohol, inactivity, the romanticization of inconvenience, sex, unhealthy food. And we're meant to believe that each of them never knew that the other liked these things. 

It's all about escape and evading any kind of challenge, which is ultimately really boring and empty. 

fr

I'm watching Robert Eggers's Nosferatu and it's good. It's a good horror film but, for me, it's not in the same league as The VVitch, because The VVitch, besides being good, was an intellectual feast. It was like a study of the mechanics of the 17th century witch narrative. It's like Arthur Miller's The Crucible in that sense. 

These two texts bring together historical fact with emotional immediacy in a way that's really compelling. 

art LXVII

how to visit the beach

Probably one of the most important and least understood aspects of enjoying the beach is what happens with your feet, so it is vital to remove your shoes before stepping onto the sand. 

Once you have stepped on the sand....congratulations - you are now at the beach. Move quickly but calmly towards the water. Stop at a point where the incoming and outgoing water just covers your feet. The technical term for this part of the beach is [the] 'swash'. Then, as the water recedes after each wave, scrunch your toes and wiggle your feet from side to side so that your feet sink into the sand. 

That's enough! for now. Future episodes will cover: appropriate attire for the beach, entering the surf, how the beach brings new meaning to the humble sandwich, advanced beach lounging, and so forth. 

wow

This blog post is microwavable! That's right it's just what you've been waiting for. I've been studying the market and looking for a gap and I found one. This has never been done before! 

Of course you can also heat it up in a traditional oven or toast it on an open fire....it doesn't matter! enjoy!

art #2

art video #1

बोर

I can't write anything that is just about me telling the reader about something. There are things like that that I could write. For example, I could write about why you should buy a kindle if you like reading, especially if you like reading classics, but just thinking about structuring an argument and all the points I would make, is demotivating, because it's static....what I would be trying to express is exactly what I have in mind. 🎼

I like writing what is going to change my mind. Each new sentence is a response to the sentences that went before it. ቆ

That tendency to endlessly go off on tangents is a liability when it comes to writing a thesis or a recipe but an asset in writing letters or blogs. ჯ

what makes us special?

They gave the example of ants to explain why God became a human in Christ. Say if you wanted to reach out to ants, the best way would be to become an ant. 

It wouldn't really work though, because you still wouldn't be able to tell them about yourself and that you love them, which makes me realize that what makes human beings special is our use of language. That - maybe even that alone - constitutes the sense in which we are made in God's image. 

That consciousness and creativity and potential is a miracle worthy of our faith and belief. 

reflektion

the asymptote of perfection

be best

I was watching a video about the creative process and it wasn't that interesting. Then the presenter mentioned Cal Newport and I stopped watching. 

Why am I so averse to his views? I value intelligence and I also value technology, and I want both. I believe in deep-work and I want to find my own way to it. I think that social media, can be used in self-affirming and life-affirming ways. 

vs math

Was Romanticism a reaction against rationality and reason? In some ways it was, but it's really not that simple. You can't accuse Coleridge and Wordsworth (or any of the other important representatives of the Romantic movement) of being anti-intellectual. Then, if we look at German Romanticism, it's even clearer because a lot of the poets were actually scientists as well. 

Ultimately, in the battle for hearts and minds, the mathematicians won. That's why we don't take Goethe's theory of light seriously, but we do take Newton's seriously. 

construed

Every fiber of my being resists the art of fiction. 

the eye of the beholder

People who write books against liberalism/ progressivism/ 'woke' ideology seem to make some common mistakes. One mistake they make is to see everything they don't like as being orchestrated by the left. They identify phenomena that may be happening for a variety of reasons and they present it as a strategy. 

Everything is malevolent.....like, according to them, it's not possible that people can be engaged in activism against racism, inequality, discrimination based on good motives - no, it's subversive and they're depraved and want to attack conservatives and pollute the minds of the young. 

words

Writing feels like the most unnatural process. The idea that thoughts are somehow seamless with language so expressing them comes naturally and easily - that just isn't true. 

To translate thoughts into text, you have to build something new. 

our micro world

Each decade in the second half of the 20th century had a very distinctive mood, which I have my own personal sense of, but I'm not sure about the 21st century. It seems like the world is more customizable now, which makes it harder to talk about macro-culture. 

the library of enthusiasm

I've never been able to read poetry for pleasure like some people can. My appreciation for poetry is in many ways mediated by other people who understand it. Harold Bloom is a good example. Because of my appreciation for his work, the centrality of poetry to that work, and his enthusiasm about poetry, I feel enthusiasm about poetry. Because he says it's good, I believe it even if I can't see it for myself. 

turns out

A revolution has to involve an element of chaos, because all the standard narratives become suspect and have to be replaced with new narratives, which takes time. 

through a glass darkly

One of my all-time favorite books is Jean Piaget's The Child's Conception of the World. It's mostly made up of interviews with children of various ages. I've never actually read it through, although I want to at some stage. I usually just flip through it and read from random interviews, and that's always very entertaining. It's fascinating how children think. 

visions dreams poems

The Greek myths and other myths are worth studying because they express something about our deepest selves. Who's to say whether they're literally true? 

I think it's like the images we get from space telescopes and other planets. The images have to be processed. Do the images actually convey how things literally look? The question is complicated by the fact that in many ways it would be impossible for us to be in a position to look at such things in an unmediated way.

There's so much interpretation that goes on with vision. You might see a tiger for example, but it's not because you have perceived every single detail of the animal. It's a schematic thing. You perceive some key details and your brain fills in the rest. 

So what does anything actually look like? What does a cup look like? What does a pen look like? What does my face look like? 

gr8

E L Doctorow writes, in Ragtime, that J P Morgan had 'sensed in [Henry] Fords achievement a lust for order as imperial as his own. This was the first sign given to him in some time that he might not be alone on the planet.'

How extraordinary to be able to write in that way about real historical figures. Gore Vidal does that very well also. To be honest, I'm just amazed that anyone can write fiction about anything. 

agency

If things became like they are depicted in 1984 or Brave New World, we wouldn't realize it because we would be inside it. Those novels only mean what they do to us because things aren't like that in our world. 

But in any case, say if the world was like that, each individual would have their own interactions and life - their own story. One of the things that helps me in dealing with mental health issues is the realization that we each have the power to shape our own lives. 

modern history

Here are some lines from Jonathan Healey's The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England (2023):

One evening in December 1620, two men approached the door of John Harris's Alehouse in Bridgewater. 

It was a winter's night: the smell of woodsmoke scented the crisp air of the Somerset coast, accompanied by the clattering percussion of the masts from the town's dock. In the windows of the townhouses, candlelight flickered against the warm smoulder of the log fires. 

This is history in the 21st century...so different from and better than traditional history books that didn't evoke images like this but stuck to the facts and figures. 

nailed it

In The Anxiety of Influence, Harold Bloom wrote that 'all [literary] criticism is prose poetry'. I like that. When I read Bloom or Bakhtin - for example - there isn't a singular meaning that I need to try and get. It's more like the meaning emerges from my engagement with the text, so it's really my own....I made this meaning. 

postex

I forget who said it, but someone influential and successful said that they learn more about the truth from novels than from non-fiction books. I like that idea but I don't think it fully defines the novel or literature. 

There's been a growing realization as well, that what we call non-fiction has a considerable degree of fictiveness about it. It's understood that information and ideas can be represented in different ways and the most effective way to do so is to embody them in stories. 

choice

I don't believe any decision is difficult. You never stand at a crossroads and face two equal paths. It seems to me there is always one path that, when you think about it, is the better path - it's the right path for you. 

foreign climes

When I visit other countries, I always marvel at the way there are some things that are the same as here and are probably the same all over the world....like trees, for example. Wherever you go, there are trees and they're basically the same, or at least, they're the same in basic ways. And soil, clay and rocks.

you know you're right

I really thought that I would be part of the Sydney Church of Christ for the rest of my life. There didn't seem any other option. 

One of the things that really opened up the possibility of leaving as a serious option, was Henry Kreite's open letter, because here was someone who had been in the top leadership of the church, decisively stating that the church could be wrong. That's what really impacted me, because I had been taught and had accepted the belief that the church is always right. If there's a problem, it's with me. So, I had defined all the issues - and there were many - in that way. There was something wrong with me and the ones that were going to help me were the church. 

What I took from Henry Kreite's letter was different from the meaning he intended and a lot of people took from his letter - that the church had started out perfectly and, over time, had gone astray. I read his letter as an identification of a flaw in the church that was central to its nature. It wasn't some mistake that had creeped in over time. 

A big part of it, as I already mentioned, was the claim to infallibility. The letter opened up the possibility that, actually, I could be right. My issues could be real and valid and the reason why the church had never been able to help me with those issues could be because of their blindness to those issues rather than my own spiritual blindness. 

That's the problem with making absolute claims like, I am always right. You only have to be wrong once in one small way, for the whole edifice to come crashing down. 

polarization

It's problematic that whatever happens, Fox news and Sky news Australia will interpret it one way and other, more left leaning, media outlets will say it's the complete opposite. There's no real debate or reasonable consideration. The people on these shows who 'debate' or talk about the news are only interested in delivering polemical tirades. 

the way overtaken

I think of the past with a lot of regret. Every interaction I've ever had seems, in my mind, to cast me in a negative light. 

I've learnt that that is a distortion. The way I habitually think is not true. It's not just negatively slanted, it's a lie. So, I'm learning, when I think of those negative imperatives, to deliberately bring to mind something positive. 

Those thoughts don't come naturally, but the negative ones flow like a river. But, as a friend once told me, just because a path is well-worn doesn't make it the right path. 

notes on notes on camp

One of the first intellectual books I bought was A Susan Sontag Reader. To this day I remember reading 'notes on camp' for the first time and how interesting it was. It's so enjoyable even though she's writing about something so ethereal. I usually don't like that...when a book is about some purely intellectual concept and it becomes so convoluted. It's annoying. It's not about anything real. Ultimately you're just reading something that's about itself. But that's what makes 'notes on camp' so good. It's consistently tethered to reality. 

w🌀rds ➕p🎄ktures

When you put words and images together, they affect each other. It's not just that the images illustrate the words. Something is opened up. 

Barthes's distinction between 'the work' and 'the text' is relevant here. The work is a 'fragment of substance' - a physical book for example - while the text is 'a methodological field'[1]. The text is paradoxical and everchanging. This distinction also applies to visual art.

When you combine words and images, you create three source texts. There is the text that corresponds to the images, the text that corresponds to the words, and the text that corresponds to the combination of words and images. 

Notes

[1] Barthes, Roland, 'From Work to Text', Image Music Text, Hill and Wang, 1978

things change

One of the things that surprised me when I started to learn more about the subject of English, is how important poetry is. From everything I learned in High School, poetry seemed like a branch of English, but when I studied it at a higher level, I discovered that poetry was more like the whole tree...at least for most of recorded history it was. The novel - which is what I thought was the pre-eminent literary form - was a very recent development. The novel as we know it, in its modern form, has only been around for a couple of hundred years. 

hanover

A habit that has stayed with me since uni is putting little brackets around passages in the books I read. It was so important when I was first learning to write essays because I needed to be able to specify exactly where any quotes or ideas I used came from. 

Now, I still do it with pretty much any book I read (unless I don't own the book) even though I generally don't write essays these days. 

we can do nothing against the truth

It's hard to write a biography because there are so many different versions of events that all hold some truth. Even a made-up story carries meaning. 

some famous booktok tropes

'faces a reader makes'

addicted to books

more sticky tabs than pages

the 'aesthetic' of the reading 'lifestyle' as a separate thing from actually reading   

the long and the short

I'm prejudiced against short books, but when a book overcomes that prejudice and I can see that it holds real value, I then appreciate that book all the more. Examples include Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Anxiety of Influence and A Map of Misreading by Harold Bloom. 

There's nothing like a book that is both really long and really good though, and there are a lot of examples of that - The Idiot and The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky, War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, David Copperfield, The Old Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son and Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, A House for Mr Biswas by V S Naipaul, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, to name a few. 

the death of the artist

Why do we read? It's hard to answer that question. There's no doubt that we get something real and substantial from our engagement with texts. 

The question of ‘why’ is related to the question of ‘what’. What is a text? What does engaging with a text involve? 

In high school we had the idea that the kind of analysis undertaken in the course of criticism, theory and the study of English - that that was pointless. It didn't help us to appreciate or understand the text, but anyway, reading itself - engaging with all of these texts - is pointless, so we thought. 

Barthes distinguishes between the 'work' and the 'text', where the work is the words on the page - the artifact - and the text is the mental field that the work gives rise to.... something like that. 

We don't think of the way we respond to music as a kind of reading, but it is. The same is true of art, ads and stuff written on packaging labels. So, I can do a close reading of the packaging of my acrylic paints set. The box asserts that:

Whether you're planning a masterpiece or you want to try acrylic painting for the first time - this set is ready for anything. 

So, 'this set' is autonomous. This set of paints is more proactive than you...only just. While you are only 'planning' or 'wanting' to try, the paints are 'ready'. Whether you are a professional artist or a novice, it's immaterial to 'this set', which is ready regardless. You are just the vehicle for these paints to make their art.

only natural

Part of discovering the truth is the realization that it's not what you think it is. That realization is not something to be feared. It's liberating to break free from the illusion that we always know the truth when we see it - that judging the truth comes naturally. 

quotidian supernature

The thing that's interesting and mysterious about this idea of beginning a new life, which is also a continuation of your old life, is the reality that the two lives both continue. It's like there are two personas within the one person. 

That's something that I think confuses a lot of people. It confused me. When I first became a Christian, because of everything the Bible says about being a new creation, and being born again, and so on, I thought that, when I take that step and I actually become a Christian, the old me would be no more. That's why it was such a difficult step to take. 

But then when I did take the step, it was an anti-climax. Here I was - the same. It was a relief, but it was also a huge challenge, because now I had to do all the things that I thought a Christian does but with the same old nature that I had always had.