RE: Stars, the Infinite and Potential

We are made of star stuff. Each cell in our body is made of things synthesized by stars. We are walking galaxies. We explode into existence at conception. We fade into the rest of the universe after our body-galaxy disperses all its energy. We collide beautifully with other star clusters. We caress and mingle, the remnants of our collisions evident forever as it shapes who we are and how we are perceived by distant and not-so-distant observers.

We are all universes. We perceive all things from a personal perspective, each perspective governed by fundamental rules and principles. Each perceived particle of light, each sent, each touch, each taste, each tone, EACH AND EVERY neural-sensory feedback is a dimension. We are all universes.

Witnessing

..a life grow from nothingness is a profound experience. It makes me all the more appreciative of the things we are fortunate enough to experience.
Existence. Need. Be. Grappled. And. Held. Onto. For. Dear. Life.

And it spreads

Subject: Chapter 1 Discussion Question #1 Topic: Chapter 1 Discussion Question #1
Author: Yajaira Murillo Date: June 24, 2009 2:37 PM
Holistic health health by what I understood was the approach that addresses the body, mind and spirit.

As for my mental health I will continue my active reading, my spiritual health some go to a house of worship for a spiritual health but I like to draw it relaxes me what i love to draw the most is the beauty of nature & for my physical health I'm attending a belly dance class so it should help my physical health by been active and i work at subway its good, fresh and healthy!

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Subject: Yajaira message Topic: Chapter 1 Discussion Question #1
Author: Salvador Pinela Iii Date: June 25, 2009 10:35 PM
Yajaira, in your discussion answer, it's apparent you don't believe in any house of the lord. Drawing is not
a way of achieving Spiritual Wellness. Prayer and belief
gets you close. In their lifetime one should try.
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Subject: Re:Yajaira message Topic: Chapter 1 Discussion Question #1
Author: Joshua Cabrera Date: June 26, 2009 1:30 PM
I don't think it's completely necessary to believe in a "house of the lord" to be spiritually healthy. In fact I don't believe in a lord/God at all and yet I consider spirituality to be a major presence in my life. To me spirituality is the contemplation of the meaning of our existence, as well as how we can better it.

Even so, if you do believe God to be the lord and creator of all things in the universe, then it must be true that spirituality can be found within all things.

Drawing can help someone keep in touch with their own thoughts, feelings and perceptions of the beauty that resides in all things. I think if there is a God, he'd be most apparent in the beauty of nature, rather than in some building we attend once a week. I'd much rather be a part of a church that appreciates the beauty of the natural world or images conjured by the imagination, over ancient doctrine and ritual.
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Subject: Re:Yajaira message Topic: Chapter 1 Discussion Question #1
Author: Gerardo Iribe Date: June 26, 2009 1:39 PM
Again, stop trying to tell people what they should or should not do.

I'm an atheist, what do you recommend I should do about that?

The tangible arts nourish my spirit. That's how I roll.
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Subject: Re:Yajaira message Topic: Chapter 1 Discussion Question #1
Author: Joshua Cabrera Date: June 26, 2009 2:12 PM
*insert secret atheist handshake followed by a high-five*
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The Right to Life

If housing and food be conditioned on a job, then employment should be a social right.

Tattoos

I've always had respect for people with tattoos.
I think to commit to something, anything, that'll be with you for the rest of your life is impressive.

I know for certain what my first tattoo will be:

It's the oscilloscope reading of the double-scroll output given off by the Chua Circuit, the simplest electronic circuit that exhibits Chaos Theory. Chaos being a system that is predictable in principle but unpredictable in practice. In other words, although the system follows deterministic rules, its time evolution appears random. While it is based on predictable mathematical principles like all other circuits, it is so heavily based on initial conditions that make it's output vary so greatly, it becomes unpredictable. I think this applies to the universe as a whole. We live in a universe of some predictability, based on some constant principles. But there are so many simultanious phoenomena occouring all at once the world, the future, is unpredictable. Chaos.

Plan to get it on my right shoulder blade or at least that general area.

Other tattoo ideas floating in my head right now as well:
The word "Life" in 8-bit ascii binary. Left shoulder blade. The idea that everything we know and interpret and love can be contrived from soley 'yes' or 'no' answers.

Cactuar. Behind my right ear. Mischief, happiness, elusiveness of life, the importance of imagination in my life.
Pixelated Companion Cube from Portal. Left shoulder. Friendship, love of the past, willingness to let go, the ability of innanimate objects to inspire humanity to love.

Meteor/FF7 Logo. Right shoulder. Imagination, preciousness of life, persistence, fighting against impossible odds, general badassery.

Bread and Butterflies. Right wrist. Imagination, power of words, importance of the 'ridiculous,' and seemingly meaningless.

Small letter 'e' from the Serial Experiments Lain logo. Behind the left ear? Stands for Experiments, importance of curiosity in an unexplainable chaotic, sometimes harsh world. I swear it has nothing to do with ecstasy =P but I don't mind the amusing common misunderstanding that would likely ensue.

and lastly, while I don't have a picture, I'd like the two bar measure of the Song of Time from Legend of Zelda. Basically for the same reasons I want the Meteor logo from FF7.

Oh almost forgot.
TMV on my left wrist. Although I'm wary of a band tattoo cause they could always turn into something you no longer approve of. But I think chances of The Mars Volta doing anything like that is slim =P

Something for Someone

My personal interpretation of the underlying meaning of the end sequence, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, of 2001: Space Odyssey:

The Monolith is either a synthesized energy source or mass information storage built by an alien life form of some sort, although I think with powerful enough technology those two things would probably be synonymous. When Dave approaches the Monolith, he begins receiving the information/energy and witnesses the "Star Gate" phenomenon: tunnels of colored light racing at great speed across vast distances of space, seeing many strange astronomical phenomena.

What I believe he is experiencing are the different interpretations that form various levels of reality. For example: we've no idea what the world looks like at the atomic level. We know atoms exist and we know partly their structure. But what the world LOOKS like to a person at the size of an atom, we have absolutely no idea. We've no idea what the world LOOKS like viewing five, or more dimensions. When we look around all we see is light, but we've come to be able to interpret that light into something understandable, our known reality. We see a hexagonal shaped object giving off red light and we come to understand it as a stop sign, but to any other being it means nothing because it's just sensory information that lacks context. The tunnel of light Dave was witnessing was just that. A giant overload of sensory information to which he nor any other human could apply context and assign meaning.

Slightly related to this subject is my belief that the universe is both infinitely large and small. I believe we will continue to find smaller and smaller particles all working according to their own laws and principles. I also believe the correlating macro perspective of that. Our solar system is part of a bigger galaxy, which is part of a system of galaxies, which is in the greater universe, which resides in something even bigger.

Back to the movie however, when he appears in 'the room' and sees an aged version of himself, I believe this is the alien life form becoming aware of his presence and his tampering with it's device. It begins to return him to his normal plane of reality, or what it believes is his normal reality, and slowly prods and experiments with him and his consciousness. When it finally decides what is to become of him, he turns him into what many refer to as 'the Star Child,' or that glowing fetus figure that the movie ends with. I think he bestowed to Dave (or perhaps it synthesized a totally new life form) some key knowledge that would likely direct the future progress of the human race upon its discovery.

Re: Life at the Moment

Hello there neighbor.

It's been a bit of a while hasn't it?

The past week+ has been trying, to say the least.
Me and the people around me are going through something profound.
I can't think of any better word to describe it.
These are hard times for a lot of people.
But the main thing I keep trying to remind everyone, to help them see (even if I fail to see it sometimes), is that we have one another.
You're not alone.
Your friends are here for you.

Life is hard right now, yes.
But there is still good.
And we need to live for that.
And while the heart may ache for now.
And while it will never be mended to what it was before, it's still there.
It's ready to see what happiness tomorrow might bring.
Grab hold of what you can and learn to say goodbye to what's out of reach.

I think I'm ready for the summer.

Very Beautiful

Fiscal responsi.. wha?? - America's Economic Collapse

Reading various articles @ Watching America.com I get the strong impression that many people around the world are shaking their heads with great disapproval at recent actions of the American government and the American people themselves. Actions taken in attempt to remedy the global economic crisis. It really seems that our government is missing the point entirely. It's so busy trying to cling to the 'fake economy' (based on credit, massive lending and transitive bonds) it can't even the room crumbling around them.

We've spent decades coming up with convoluted economic systems that in effect magically create debt without exchange of any goods or services, as seen in sub-prime loans, unregulated interest on credit, etc. It was so easy for companies to make money off the fiscal ignorance of the American people.

What kind of world is it where companies can quite simply "oh btw ima raise yer interest kthnxbai."? It makes absolutely no sense and undermines the foundation of our entire economic system. You can't expect more money without offer of any service or goods.

Consistently I hear President Obama offering words of hope, that the stimulus will inject enough money to keep us afloat, that we should continue to consume as 'normal' in an attempt to put money into the economy, that the recovery rests upon the backs of the workers. Sure it sounds comforting but I'm deeply and sincerely concerened that we're on the precipice of a massive collapse.

“An economic depression, although traumatic, is not the end of the world... Moreover, if managed wisely, it can deliver fundamental benefits: a cleansing of excess debts, a reduction in the cost of living, and a firmer foundation for subsequent growth.” - U.S. financial analyst Martin Weiss

Watching America: On Mexican Border Security

Risks of Militarizing the Border

Full article translated by Patricia Simoni

Original Article (Spanish)

"Militarization of points along the border by the Mexican government and police reinforcement ordered by U.S. authorities across the Rio Grande are not necessarily correct steps in the fight against drug traffic, representing, instead, bilateral, ambiguous security. After all, the border between the two countries is only one realm of organized criminal activity, a place to gather and express in particularly violent ways the symptoms of a process of social and institutional decomposition much greater than the space on either side of the border, itself. The passage of drugs, arms, and criminals over the common border is, in effect, the culmination of processes that gestate and develop over time, processes that require attention from both governments in geographic areas far from their common boundary, with spheres of action much broader than police and military.

... In summary, measures announced yesterday by Washington, as well as the satisfaction expressed by the Mexican government, have put in place a flawed security strategy - shared, though it is - to focus on fighting superficial expressions of the complex and deep-rooted problem of drug trafficking. If the goal is eradication of the base of [drug trafficking] and other crimes, then the governments of Calderón and Obama should not focus on police and military pursuit, which so far have proved inefficient. Instead, they should address the social, economic, and institutional factors that foster these crimes; undertake effective policies to combat addictions, in order to reduce the demand for illicit drugs; combat the corruption eroding the institutional structure of both countries and, in Mexico, develop and apply a coherent strategy to fight misery, to alleviate poverty, and to reduce lacerating social inequality."

Alphonse Mucha

The art this man has produced is glorious. I love the lines and contours of Art Nouveau as a general rule, but some of the works by this man are just simply astounding.

I like her

Kate Micucci that is:



She has lots and lots of wonderful songs with wonderful things to say in such a beautiful way.
Hooray! Hooray!

And she herself is absolutely beautiful at that!

Michael Parenti on Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse

“The free market does not work. It’s not free. It’s not really a market. It’s a plunder and it has to be done away with.
”

Rational Scale to Assess the Harm of Drugs

I've found a scientifically sound way of categorizing substances that I will and will not use until my life is in its downward slope and nearing its end.

In the accompanying picture you will see a list of substances that are commonly abused in modern society. They are listed according to the mathematical mean of physical harm, dependency and social harm. This is according to the Rational Scale to Assess the Harm of Drugs developed by Prof. David Nutt FMedSci, Leslie A. King PhD, William Saulsbury MA and Prof. Colin Blakemore FRS.


I resolve to participate in the consumption of substances with a physical harm rating no greater than 1.5, nor any substance that has attained greater than a 2.5 in any individual category of physical harm. My own personal principles.

As you can see personal principle 1 (seen in black) has ruled out Heroin, Cocaine, Barbiturates (nervous system depressant, mild sedative/anesthetic), Ketamine (a form tranquilizer), Benzedrine (psychoactive sedative), Amphetamine and Buprenorphine (opioid). Personal principle 2 (seen in red) rules out Tobacco, on the grounds that the chronic use risk is too high.

One might find it curious as to why Alcohol is ranked so highly and yet I still choose to participate in its consumption. Let us look at why it is ranked so high: this is due to a combination of the potential for dependency of the substance, as well as the social harm it potentially can cause. My thinking is that these two categories can be managed on an individual basis determined by a person's will. Some people, do not have the psychological or physical traits required to control their actions in a safe manner when it comes to this particular substance. Some, however, do.

Be smart.
Stay safe.

I Love You

so very deeply, not even I can grasp it's depth.

Time != Money

Everyone's heard that saying Time = Money. Bah. You bloody capitalists trying to make a commodity of every damn thing possible..

Time is not a commodity.
Time is all you have.
Time is your life.
Don't go around selling away your life.
Treat your life and your time here with some respect.

Cherish it. Love it.
Don't whore it off hoping to get something in return.
I see it all too often, people trading their time for some material value.

Sure, maybe you could sell your time and make all the money in the world.
But all the money in the world is never going to be able to buy more time on this planet..

Many Times

I find myself missing you.

Sometimes

I feel so very small.

There will always be a kid inside of me.
That kid that was smaller than everyone else.
Weaker than everyone else.
The one they all made fun of.
The one who cried himself to sleep some nights.

I love him
and I hate him.

I still feel just as small in the right situations.
Sometimes I want to call out for help.
But I can't.

People Today

go looking for the gold at the end of the rainbow.
But they never stop and realize:
"Holy s@%^... I've been walking on a rainbow.."

http://www.neticons.net/music_life/

Elitism and Racism

My friends are mostly of some Mexican decent.
I am Mexican.
Is this racism?
Actually this is probably a result of the fact that the majority of people where I live ARE Mexican.

However, I was just thinking about how a Caucasian friend of mine says she feels uncomfortable hanging with my group of friends and blames it on her lack of social skills, which seems entirely plausible (no offense =3). But I wonder is race somehow involved on some deep hidden subconscious level?

I know for a fact people are more inclined to form circles of friendship with people of similar cultural background. I don't think that this fact devalues anything any group has to contribute to society.

But looking at this I can't help but wonder just how deep our racial-biases run. Is it merely because people have common interests and experiences being of the same culture that they tend to 'flock together'? I wonder to myself if this subconscious and almost natural phenomenon would constitute as 'racist'.

I recently read something Morgan Freeman said in an interview. To paraphrase: Why have a black history month? Is there a white history month? Black history is American history. The best way to stop racism is to stop talking about it. I'm not a black man, I'm just human.

But I can't think of any social issue that was handled by "not talking about it."
Maybe it's meant to be more of a mindset.
Racism cannot be conquered consciously until it is conquered unconsciously.

We've got a lot of work to do when it comes to raising our kids...

The Spoon

"Some days I think I need nothing
more in life than a spoon.
With a spoon I can eat oatmeal
Or take the medicine doctors prescribe
I can swat a fly sleeping on the sill
or pound the table to get attention.
I can point accusingly at God
or stab the empty air repeatedly.
Looking into the spoon’s mirror,
I can study my face in its shiny bowl,
or cover one eye to make half the world
disappear. With a spoon
I can dig a tunnel to freedom
spoonful by spoonful of dirt,
or waste life catching moonlight
and flinging it into the blackest night."

-- Richard Jones

Zack Attack

List of zombie movies I've recently accumulated in my recent zombie-kraZe:

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Evil Dead (1982)
Day of the Dead (1985)
Re-Animator (1985)
Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Braindead (aka Dead Alive) (1992)
Army of Darkness (1992)
Cemetery Man (1994)
Bio-Zombie (1998)
28 Days Later (2002)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Land of the Dead (2005)
28 Weeks Later (2007)
Diary of the Dead (2007)
Day of the Dead (2008)
Quarantine (2008)


I've yet to watch the Evil Dead trilogy, but the rest are good to excellent.



and on a far tangent, a gal commented on my candy saying it made her feel like a cat staring at a toy she wanted to play with.
made my day hahah.

First Day Impressions

First day of spring semester started today at PCC. Pretty standard as far as first days go. Logic seems interesting and highly practical, even if Prof. Ricards seemed a bit.. nervous? haha he seems like a nice fellow. However, I am very much NOT looking forward to my Poli-Sci class..

Prof. Williams seemed a bit unfocused in my opinion. Also a bit mean and impolite. While normally I admire directness and frankness, she lacked any clever base or explanation of her reasoning behind it. Then again, as I recall, I may have had the same impression of Prof. Schwyzer, who I've now come to admire greatly. But something about her just horribly put me off, actually effecting my mood for a short time.

Hopefully she was just attempting to 'scare some kids away' the first day. Weed out the weak, so to speak. Hopefully. Also she seemed antagonized by the common view that Poli-Sci is one of those classes students have to take.

Gah! and she actually says "mkaay." I THOUGHT TEACHERS ONLY DID THAT IN HELL AND SOUTH PARK!!

She described one of our texts, "Writing in Political Science," and it seemed to me like a useless endeavor. I'm in that class to learn Political Science. I've more than passed English.

I don't understand why teachers keep trying to regress and teach their failing students English in other subjects. It's college. If you can't communicate up to standards then you shouldn't be there. The only exception to this would of course be ESL students, but in my experience they usually have better writing skills than most America-born students. All praise to American education system. -_-

The Witch..

Don't disturb her.

Z

Inspired, entertaining, imaginative, and thought-provoking. I kid you not. I commend anyone able to be equivalently in-depth on any subject but in this particular case, I think Max deserves a bit extra praise. It delves into the collective human psyche in one of the most creative ways one can imagine.

Epic read.

Insp. Inc.

Oddly enough, I find some of my most intellectually inspired days to be days AFTER I've smoked.
But for now I'm content with melting into a state of calm.

P.S.
I LOVE CONAN

On Obama and Young Voter Turnout

Today, my professor made the claim that Barack Obama was the first U.S. president to successfully get young voters to turnout in record numbers.

I think this statement isn't entirely accurate. In my opinion it was Bush who caused young people to get interested in politics, by allowing a target for all the angst felt across America. Obama was merely the candidate most easily capable of taking advantage of this.

To use metaphor, Bush dropped the ball and Obama was the one most capable of picking it up and running with it simply because he was the youngest, "hip"-est Democratic party candidate.

I tend to credit his success to his age. Obama was the youngest candidate of the two major-news-network-covered parties (and now is the 5th youngest president in U.S. history) and therefor was the easiest candidate for young people to identify with and place their hopes with.

Who knows, maybe I'm just being biased and only capable of seeing the politicians with the monetary resources to run within the two major parties as opportunists, scoundrels, and silver-tongued-"artists of the possible."



The greatest dreams that came into being were dreams that were at one time impossible.

Yes, there's a woman attached to that

Since puberty I've amassed a collection of erotically stimulating images. I believe this to be a fairly common thing for young men to do.

Well this morning, inspired by my Women in American Society class taught by the magnificently brilliant Prof. Hugo Schwyzer, I went through these images and asked myself this question: In my fantasies of these women, am I stimulated by their body parts or the woman herself? I then rid myself of those images that caused me to mentally detach the body from the woman.

Do I still on occasion catch myself objectifying women? Yes. But I've taken steps to better myself as a man.

You can't get anywhere without taking the first step.


(much thanks to Ms. Dita Von Teese and unknown photographer for added stimulation)

Faith

is for the blind.

I have eyes that can see, hands that can bleed.
Everything I need is a part of me.
Eyes that can see, hands that can bleed.
Everything I need is a part of me.
Eyes that can see, hands that can bleed.
Everything I need is a part of me.
Everything I need is a part of me.

Reca(o)llection

Yesterday, Franco and Timmy (old friends from Bosco) passed me by in the PCC parking lot. We all went up to this spot up by the San Gabriel mountains and smoked. I missed those guys. Glad they seem to be doing well.

I wonder how a lot of people from high school are doing from time to time. There were a lot of good people in my class. That whole 'brotherhood' philosophy of the school seemed to have translate well enough I suppose, in looking back.. but I think it was actually the horrid-ness of the admin, certain faculty, and the general, whether direct or indirect, mistreatment of the students that brought us all together.

That and being in the same classes for upwards of four years together.
Spend enough time with someone and you're pretty much siblings whether you like it or not.


This talk makes me ponder a teacher career yet again.. /shrug
"That's such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don't ... I swear it's a stupid question." --Catcher in the Rye

Syaoran Li

I recall pretending to be this person when I was 11.


Currently watching: Cardcaptor Sakura