strange warning

I bought a replacement cup for my Nutri bullet, and it had a sticker on the bottom which read, 'Caution: only remove once blades have stopped spinning', which means that the people who make the replacement cups have no idea how a Nutri bullet works. After you've blended up your smoothie, you remove the cup from the base, with the blade mechanism still attached to the cup, then you unscrew the blade mechanism, so it's impossible for the blades to still be spinning when you detach the blade mechanism from the cup. 

pov

History is written by the victors, as they say, but we tend not to see that. We read history as if it was an objective account, when it probably never is.

I've been thinking about this issue lately because I've been learning about the Third Reich and everyone involved, including Hitler, of course, Goebbels, Himmler, and others, and I was struck by the thought that, as much as I think the accounts I'm reading and watching are accurate and true, we're not getting the Nazi point of view. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for the Nazi point of view, but as I was watching all of these videos about the Nuremberg Rallies and the war and Hitler's and Goebbel's speeches and so on, all presented as the evil enterprise that it was, and thinking about how this could happen, I realized that, to the people involved, it wasn't evil. They were proud and passionate. They thought they were doing something good. 

I did a search using AI and there are actually a lot of books about this issue, both specifically about the Nazis and also the psychology of fascism generally. I think the psychology of cults is also very relevant. So, I've added to my list of books I want to get and read. 

nocturn

I've always liked working at night, or reading or writing or whatever. There's a greater sense of freedom at night. 

I remember thinking, when I was younger, that my day-time life was like a merry go round that I was stuck on, and had no say about. 

ephebe

I enjoyed the film 'while we're young'. It expressed something really deep and profound about human nature. One of my favorite lines is when Ben Stiller says about Adam Driver, after he has completely seen through his duplicitousness - 'it's as if he saw someone being earnest and sincere when he was young and he's been trying to copy it ever since'. I probably don't have that quote exactly right. It's such a funny and perceptive description. It's such a deep observation but it's said in the heat of the moment. 

spectra

When I wrote that joy is the opposite of depression, I wasn't suggesting that we can only ever experience one or the other. I believe in both, and we can, and I do, experience both at the same time. Maybe it's a dialectic. 

Of course, over time, joy kills depression. 

joy and depression

Joy is the opposite of depression. Depression is a pain or sadness that persists unreasonably. Everyone experiences pain or sadness at times but hopefully you feel better after a while as you change and grow. Emotions are cyclical. Sometimes we're happy and feel good and other times it's the opposite, usually because of something that happens either way. But depression is when nothing helps and you're stuck in a hole through everything, good and bad. 

Joy is the opposite of that - a sense of well-being that persists beyond all reason, through good and bad. 

how to make it convincing

The more realistic you want your story to be, the more contrived you have to make it. Verisimilitude, like any other word with so many i's, doesn't occur naturally. 

impossible dream

Jack White wants love to change his friends to enemies and to murder his mother. 

I don't think it works like that. 

good news

In his first letter to the Philippians, Paul talks about how, while some preach Christ out of 'goodwill', there are others who preach Christ 'from envy and rivalry', but he goes on to say that it doesn't bother him because all that matters is that Christ is preached. That shows a very deep and expansive faith - an assurance that, whatever happens, all is well, because what happens doesn't hinge on us but depends on God. 

It brings to mind 2 Corinthians 13:8: 'For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.' At first that seems wrong. Of course we can do something against the truth. We can lie and people do it all the time. But what this verse is getting at is that, when you lie, you don't change the truth. You can't change the truth. So again, we see this assurance that all is well. 

essential

Generally, I don't like short books, but two that I do like are Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence and A Map of Misreading. 

The Anxiety of Influence is the core of his theory, and then in A Map of Misreading, he begins to apply the theory to reading. 

After those 2 he continues to expand on his theory and his books get longer, and some of them are great, but they aren't essential. You can get a really good grasp of Bloom's theory by reading and rereading those first two. 

ታሪክ

It's almost a lie when I explain what's going on in my mind by referring to what's going on in the real world. But it's not a lie. It's a story - a fiction.

new noise

Recovery has been largely a change in what I give my attention to. The old life still draws me in, but I'm aware now of an alternative, which makes all the difference. 

Stories that always seemed to be so many cold, soulless data points have now become interesting. I can make my own. 

misnoma

Sorry, but I'm not going to take life advice from someone publicly known as 'the rapist'.

Therapist! I'm a therapist, not 'the rapist'!

knead

I always wondered what it would be like to be addicted to drugs, and then I experienced it with Valium, but now that I'm very nearly off Valium, I don't have a sense of what it's like to be addicted to it. 

I remember needing it but remembering needing it and needing it are very different things. I always remember the most traumatic and painful times in my life with a sense of fondness - a sense of their value. 

warp

History can't be written impartially. It is replete with assumptions and value judgements. The best history justifies the assumptions though. There's no getting around it. There is a narrative being woven. 

out of the overflow

How we appear to others can be different to how we feel inside. That's why people's behavior sometimes seems strange and inexplicable - they're responding more to some inner drama than to what's going on around them, and we can't see that inner drama.

When people speak to us, especially people we don't know, they aren't really talking to us, they are talking to what we represent in their world. For Christians, other people should represent their neighbor or even Christ himself, and we should talk to them accordingly. 

The Bible talks about the fruits of the spirit - the qualities that the holy spirit will bear in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23). They aren't like KPIs, where you strive to meet the criteria. No, they are qualities that will grow naturally when you have a relationship with God and they are qualities that are reflected (or not) very clearly in how you speak to others. 

rules of trolling

One of the things kids do to troll is to talk in a way that sounds intelligent but doesn't mean much. They aren't very good at it though. To do that well, you have to have a solid grasp on language so that you can use words in a way that sounds like it makes sense but ultimately doesn't. That's what makes it funny. If you're just putting long words together randomly, it's not very effective trolling. Some people do this kind of trolling unintentionally when they're trying to actually be smart, like when Kevin Rudd used the term 'parametric specificity' and said we should aim to get more of it, and everyone laughed at him about it. 

moved

Björk said that she left London because 'everybody was trying to corner me off like some kind of elf'.

She has such a wonderful economy of language - saying so much in a few words.

the engine of the mind

This is a post that I originally published on April 12, 2016, which I've lightly edited. I retrieved it through the magic of the 'wayback machine'. 

Is artificial intelligence as novel as we think it is?

I found out recently that the words 'grammar' and 'glamour' are related and they both derive from a word that means magic. Think of the word grimoire, which is a book of magic - a book of spells. And the word 'spell'. We spell words and we cast spells.

The idea that words are magic is an old one. Wasn't that why Plato wanted to banish the poets - because they could use language to transform things, which is dangerous? But poets don't actually change things, they just seem to, which is probably worse.

In today's world, magicians perform tricks and witches cast spells. So, magicians are kind of like grammar and witches are like glamour. Witches and magicians are two different things, even though, if we take those words back to their original meanings, they ought not to be. Magic is trickery. Witchcraft is sorcery.

When I look up the etymology of the word 'sorcery' I find this: 'From Middle French sorcerie, ultimately derived from Latin sors ‎(“fate”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- ‎(“to sort, lineup”)' To sort....interesting. So, 'grimoire', 'spell' and even 'sorcery' all had ordinary everyday meanings not associated with witchcraft. 

The etymology of the word trickery is really hard to find but I found a reference to trickery in the etymology of the word, 'engine'. Now this is really interesting, and again we are led back to systematic, concrete things, not esoteric, mysterious things. Engine.....around the year 1300, 'engine' meant a mechanical device (as it still does) but then it gets interesting because we can see from the other meanings that that word had, that it wasn't called that because of what we would regard as its 'engine like' qualities - how it's mechanical and systematic and concrete...no, it was called that because it was mysterious and kind of magical! And it's true when you think about it - new advances in technology are magical.

So, in the twelfth century, 'engine' also meant "skill, craft, innate ability; deceitfulness, trickery," It was derived from the Latin, ingenium, which meant 'inborn qualities or talent'. Ingenium to engine...amazing. 

What about the word 'machine'? The first thing that comes to my mind, before even looking at the etymology is the word 'machinations', which means plotting and scheming and has a slight connotation (I think) of deception. And again - very interesting - we find the word 'trick'. 'Machine' comes from the Latin Machina, which meant "machine, engine, military machine; device, trick, instrument"

......and now, it get's even more interesting:

'from Greek makhana, Doric variant of mekhane "device, means," related to mekhos "means, expedient, contrivance," from PIE *maghana- "that which enables," from root *magh- (1) "to be able, have power" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic mogo "be able," Old English mæg "I can;"....old English mæg! So there's a clear link between 'machine' and 'magic'. The old words 'magh' and 'mæg', meaning to be able to do something, represent the roots of both 'magic' and 'machine'. 

When I look up the etymology of the word 'magic' it says, among other things, that it 'probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂gh- ‎(“to be able to, to help; power, sorcerer”).'

When you think about how the word 'engine' and the word 'genius' are derived from the same source, it makes you realize that actually, artificial intelligence isn't as new as we think it is. It seems that, in the twelfth century, any kind of machine or mechanical device was regarded as embodying a kind of artificial intelligence.

a loan

A book can be the difference between writing and not writing, and what a difference that is. Only you can write what you write - that expression of thoughts and experience and inner-world that is yours alone. 

will to appear

I'm nearly finished reading The Vivisector by Patrick White. I really noticed, as I got further into the book, how at times, reading it stopped being an effort and became a kind of experience. It was so compelling and vivid that I wasn't aware of it as a text, and instead I just wanted to see what happened. 

It's like with art how I forget what my hands actually do to create and it's as if I'm just mentally willing the image to appear. 

on the floor

But the problem - the frustrating thing - is not the flaws themselves. The problem is the toll the flaws take on us. The problem is that these flaws cause damage.

exploration

There are certain things that it's good to think about. It's good to think about goals and values. It's good to think about your direction in life because you are the only one who can think about that - it's ultimately your responsibility and yours alone. But the way we think about these things has to change and evolve.

Thinking is hard work. Your mind will always go in the direction it knows - the direction it has gone in the past - the habitual direction you have trained it to take. You can't really see places that you haven't been in your mind. You can't really grasp possibilities that are nothing like the possibilities you've already encountered. You can't learn new things unless there's some link to what you already know - you just won't understand them.

ironic lessons

I've always tended to think that, if I do a good job as a teacher, that's the best thing I can do for my students' learning, and generally I'm sure that's true, but at times I've also thought that, actually, sometimes it may help my students succeed if I fail in some way. Like, if I don't have all the best answers to all the questions. Sometimes if you can struggle and allow students to help you - not just as a pretense, but for real - that's a far better lesson than you lecturing them and seeing yourself as the fount of all wisdom.  

lines and curves

There are few straight lines or uniform curves in nature, but most things that are made by humans are mostly straight lines and uniform curves. That’s a requirement of mass production, but not when God is the creator. God mass produced trees and, though there’s a uniformity about them, no tree is exactly the same as another. The beauty of ruins or their more modern variant — abandoned places — is that they are a collaborative effort between nature and humanity. Humanity builds something with lines and defined edges and then, over time, nature goes to work, eroding the hard lines and introducing an element of chaotic life. 

post hoc ergo propter hoc

I like learning about things in a non-systematic, haphazard way. I do that with programming languages. I'll decide on a particular language and then I'll watch a series of YouTube videos or a course on Udemy or whatever, and even if I've been through that course before I generally start at or near the beginning and rather than follow each lesson through I'll try to anticipate and see if I can figure out how to do the thing. Same with learning about philosophy, which I've been doing for a few months now. I have different books and I watch videos, but I just follow my interest, I don't work systematically. 

consolation

The comfort you seek becomes your discomfort, and the discomfort you face becomes your comfort. Your refuge becomes your prison and the world outside your door becomes your liberty. 

writing is like teaching

Just because someone knows how to do something or they’re knowledgeable about a topic doesn’t mean they can teach it. There’s a lot of explanation that seems obvious to someone who already knows how to do something that is necessary when teaching others how to do it. Also, you have to work through the material gradually and systematically, not making any quick moves. Sometimes we think that those ‘quick moves’ display our expertise, but they don’t — they just confuse those we are trying to teach. A similar principle applies to writing. To really get your message across, you have to include a lot of ‘signposting’ and explanation that you, the writer, don’t need but which helps the reader to understand what you’re trying to convey. 

determinations

I think that temperature can be a good analogy for depression. Severe depression is like being permanently cold and having no way to warm up. You’re not free and flexible. Over many years, through catering to my own anxiety and depression, I had cultivated a cold world in my mind. Interest begets warmth, but the problem with depression is that you don’t feel interested in anything. But that’s also something that can be cultivated. Through following my interests, I can build refuges in my mind. 

I’ve written before about the 3 crucial conversations I had in 2022. The one I had with the nurse in detox was about how, through catering to my anxiety, through withdrawal and rumination, I had built my anxiety into something all-consuming, like a toxic plant or a monument to terror that requires all my attention. She said, imagine what you could do if you engage in life. You could cultivate a health-giving plant or a monument that celebrates character, spirit, joy, beauty. It’s not just about being physically active — like doing exercise — or being socially active — doing stuff with people — although it is about those things, but there’s a kind of mental activity that is the opposite of rumination and withdrawal. 

NF’s song Mansion is about the dwelling we build for ourselves when we take refuge in fear and doubt. That’s a mystery that really interests me — how, with depression especially, what we fear and loathe becomes a refuge that we seek. We take refuge in the thing that we are taking refuge from. It’s like a recursive function. I think it’s about control. We want to tame and domesticate our fear. We serve it, thinking that we will be rewarded by its subservience when what we actually get is our subservience. 

When I think in general about all the mental vicissitudes I’ve been through in my life, it’s with a sense of regret, even bitterness. If I wasn’t so messed up mentally, I would have been more successful, more normal, happier, nicer to people. I would have been able to make a meaningful, positive contribution to the world. But for some reason, when I think about the actual experience of those struggles — like, thinking about particular battles rather than the whole war — I feel a sense of appreciation that I went through those things. I see some value that I didn’t see at the time. 

reading the waves

Books like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves require a different kind of reading. You have to resist the urge to continually interpret what you’re reading and just let the text talk to you — take it in and see what forms in your mind. 

words @

Places I write:

• This blog - What I write here is very free, informal, experimental. 
• Medium - These are more like proper essays or articles, that I write for an audience. 
• Substack - Here I write about English, literature and literary theory.
• Patreon - This is something new, where I'm going to try to write fiction.

200

Sometimes I feel like what I write has to be profound to matter, but then I was thinking about the value of writing about everyday life and concerns. In 200 years’ time, people are going to be interested in what life was like in 2026, and what seems ordinary and everyday now will then be more interesting than most other kinds of writing. The example of Anne Frank comes to mind. She just wanted to write her own thoughts and reflections relative to the difficult experience she was going through. When she did that, she surely wouldn’t have thought that anyone else would read what she wrote. At most she may have shared some of what she wrote with people she was close to. But look what happened. Her work is timeless, immortal, treasured by millions. 

tfw

when you tune out and realize that you've been listening to an ad for 5 minutes and your song hasn't come on yet

possession

E: do you ever feel it's not coming from you at all?

W: yes, it's as if I just chanced to be in the right place and it chose me. Is that strange?

E: no. I feel that too....when my writing is at its best. 

Sometimes it's not as if you're writing something or you're creating something....it's as if this thing has to be written and it's using you for that purpose. at the same time, you know you're writing it. 

page and screen

I enjoyed the TV show, The Man in the High Castle, so much that I got the book by Philip K Dick. It's a good example of the principle that, to faithfully adapt a book for the screen, you have to change the story in fundamental ways. 

The basic idea is the same. The axis, not the allies, won the second world war, so America is governed by the Reich and the Japanese. There is a subversive text or set of texts that show a world where the allies won. In the TV show, the subversive texts are films, but in the book, it's a book. 

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. In a TV series - a text on a screen - the subversive text is a film - a text on a screen - but in the book, it's a book. In a funny way, it's not even a change. It's a direct adaptation. It's faithful to the spirit of the book, not the letter of the book. 

taper news

Officially I'm down to 3 x 2 mg of Valium a week, but for the last 7 weeks, my weekly total has been less than 3. There's a certain logic about the mechanics of tapering that presents itself. My plan flowed from the realization that I could break the tablets into quarters. Now I get through most days on a quarter of a 2 mg tablet = .5 mg. 

Breaking the tablet into 4 quarters isn't an exact science, but it doesn't really matter. Because I can't break the quarters into eighths, not that there would be any point to doing so, I can only reduce to 0, from this point. I'm getting there. There have been a couple of days when I forgot to take the quarter but then remembered later. Also, how much is .5 mg going to affect me? Even when I take a whole 2 mg, which I sometimes do, I don't really feel any effect anymore. 

The big thing is sleep. I used to need at least 2 x 2 mg to sleep and that has been steadily reducing until now I take .5 x 2 mg and I don't really need it. I can sleep without it, and soon I will.

dreary night in november

There are actually 3 editions of Frankenstein. There’s the first edition published in 1818, then the revised edition published in 1831, and in between the two there is an 1818 manuscript that Mary Shelley made changes to and gave to a friend in 1823. James Rieger published an edition in 1974 that incorporated all the deletions and additions that Mary made in the 1823 copy. Cancellations are enclosed in angle brackets and additions in square brackets. 

It’s very interesting reading Riegers’ edition along with the 1831 edition. That’s a way of reading all 3 actually, because you’re seeing the additions and cancelations made by the 1823 copy, and the 1818 copy is just that text minus the additions and cancelations. 

synchronicity

A soldier with a broken arm made Bowie stare at the wheels of a Cadillac. It wasn't an intentional reaction. That's just where his eyes fell. 

chordination

When I was learning to play guitar, I didn't think I would ever master transitioning from one chord to another. I always had to stop and move my fingers, then start playing again. How can you even do that? How can you reposition your fingers in zero time? 

But I kept practicing and then one day I had the idea of moving my fingers just before the transition....that's the thing - you have to do something different from what the music seems to require. Drumming is like that, as is singing and playing guitar at the same time. 

That was pretty much it...once I started moving my fingers slightly before the transition, I had it. 

a greater plan

It's weird in a good way, how things work out. In my HSC, English was my worst subject, I didn't do History at all, I did all maths and science subjects, along with English and Economics, I had no interest in doing an arts degree or becoming a teacher, and yet, later on in life, that all changed. I ended up doing an arts degree with a double major in English and History and then doing honors in English. Education became one of the main drivers of my career. I know that somehow things worked out for the best. I wouldn't want any other degree and I think teaching is such a great vocation. 

I see the same thing in my personal life. I have ideas about what I want and what I should do - how things should go - and things unfold in a much better way than I could have planned. A good example is how the challenges of stopping alcohol and tapering off valium have led to positive changes in my life, which can be summarized as a movement away from rumination and withdrawal to action and engagement. 

When things go wrong or you're really struggling the link to positive developments is not clear at all - you just don't see it - but it's real. 

against the day

I'm not very reactive in the moment. If someone tells me something that I feel strongly about, for good or bad, I don't respond then and there. Instead, I go away and think about it and then react. Not that my reactions are always considered and deliberate. Sometimes I get angry or upset, but it's always later.