Currently Watching Perth By Kay Tong Lim, Qiu Lian Liu, A. Panneeirchelvam, Stefanie Budiman, Sunny Pang see related

It is often said that we should treat others as we ourselves expect to be treated. This of course makes perfect sense to just about everyone, but it is all too easy to take it one step too far and expect that others will treat us the way we treat them. It is altogether fallacious to assume that because we have set an example, others will unquestioningly follow our lead. People who adopt such a perspective unknowingly create for themselves a great source of social conflict, as they will face disappointment at every turn when they find that the world in general does not subscribe to their creed. It is a question of unilaterally creating an expectation, and then, when that expectation is not met, accusing the party who has fallen short of the subjective image of some grievous wrong.

We often expect the world to react to us in a particular way, and often believe that we are deserving of certain basic rights and courtesies. And while the world at large objectively agrees with the asserted rights, there is no conflict. In any event, when we are dealing with the world at large, we are more willing to accept that our expectations are not edicts, and furthermore, that we have little if any control over things. However, when it comes to inter-personal relationships, it is considerably more challenging to approach such situations with a level of objectivity.

The expectations that we hold the ones we love to are often the very things that push them away. This is in part because it is not that we hope they will treat us with the same love and respect that we shower on them, but rather, that we feel that they are in some way obliged the reciprocate. Is that truly the best way to express love? Assuming that we have a degree of control over the ones we are close to is not suggestive of love. It is, more appropriately, suggestive of possession. It signifies that we love someone or something not for what it is in itself, its essence, but rather, because of what it symbolizes to us.

When we feel that something that we love is slipping away, one common reaction is to reach out and hold on to it tighter, as if the strength of our conviction mirrors the strength of our love. Yet, to some, love is the relinquishment of strength. It isn possession by force, but rather, companionship by choice. We are all largely free to come and go as we please, to create new associations at will, and to break old ones as we fancy. It is important to learn to recognize and cherish this freedom, this sign of individuality and choice. Love is not conditional, for affections that are based on conditions necessarily impose requirements on their objects, and fail to appreciate them for their intrinsic value.

Love, conceived in this sense, is a rather lofty ambition. After all, it would require absolute and unquestionable objectivity to deny the desire to possess, which is the desire to create a proprietary right with respect to something. Yet, it is helpful to bear in mind such a strict ideal. It keeps us in check, and helps us remember that the desire to possess is the seed of murderous intent. It reminds us that everyone is an individual, that we should treat them as such, and that we should not force them

 to conform to our standards. After all, if there is no desire to possess and we find a particular individual a source of great frustration, it is easy enough to remove ourselves from the situation.

The real manifestation of love is not possession or control, but rather, it is compassion. It is to recognize the individuality of every person, and with both reason and emotion, to try and lessen their suffering. And ultimately, it is to relinquish whatever power we wish to possess or may have over a person, and accept them for who they are. They may at times frustrate us, as we surely must frustrate them, but if can remember that the fault lies not with them for failing to meet our expectations but rather with us for having expectations of them in the first place, we can avoid much disappointment.

 At Watson's Bay

Currently Listening Tala Matrix By Tabla Beat Science Magnetic see related

Feedback is the reaction or response to a particular process or activity. It is not uncommon to percieve this as being external reaction or response, but that represents only one part of the equation. Musically, feedback is sound created when a transducer such as a microphone or electric guitar picks up sound from a speaker connected to an amplifier and regenerates it back through the amplifier. As a musician, I have for many years found this to be a source of great frustration. Recieving feedback when you don want it can be rather distrating, inconvenient, and altogether disruptive. And yet, in the hands on Carlos Santana for example, feedback can be transformed into part of the musical pallette. It can be controlled, and through the will of the artist, used to create tonalities not otherwise attainable.

Essentially, harnessing feedback is about understanding how the loop works. By listening to the sound coming out from the speaker, the performer is able to choose his subsequent actions carefully and choose what particular tonality he wishes to emhpasize, not like tuning into a radio station. The feedback loop amplifies the characteristics of the source signal, and if the source is carefully chose, the amplified elements will all but drown out the undesirable parts of the signal. However, the very action of dictating what tonalities one wishes to emphasize is an act of engagining in feedback in itself. The artist starts with one particular note, which he either anticipates will give him the sound he so desires, or which he wishes to explore. By listening to the sound produced by his actions, he continuously adjusts his performance, so that he may emphasize the components he finds desirable and eliminate the parts he does not.

This activity is something we engage in on a daily basis. We respond to our environment, and in so responding, knowingly or unknowingly shape it. And, like musicians, we all do it to varying degrees. Some of us look at the feedback loop of life as something bothersome, that we should eliminate it. Others approach it in the manner that many great musicians approached acoustic feedback, by treating it as part of the experience of living, and something that we can harness if we take the time to understand it to enrich out lives.

Which perspective we choose is entirely up to us. However, it is suffice to say that a person who finds feedback bothersome will no doubt find life increasingly tedious and bothersome. After all, while we may wish to block out much of objective reality, unless we wish to remove ourselves from society, we will always be forced to recieve information and respond to it in varying degrees. Personally, I consider it more satisfying to strive to understand how feedback works. If we can see what our part is in the grand equation, and if we consider outselves as a source, one of many sources in fact, then we can alter the signals we send out to the world, and in doing so, shape the world in our own image.

I certainly not advocating that we can control all aspects of life. Rather, by understanding how people will react to our actions, thoughts and beliefs, and by understanding how our actions will subsequently define us, we have a choice to lead the life we choose, rather than let the world dictate what we should be. And we accomplish this by emphasisng the aspects of ourselves that we see as bringing about the results we desire, and by understanding that our actions are not meaningless. That our words and deeds carry on long after we are gone. That the world is one big feedback loop, and that over time, everything is amplified. We either shape ourselves and the world we live in, or we resign ourselves to being drowned by by feedback. It helps to remember that because everything is amplified by the system, even the smallest change can make a difference, because you never known when somebody else is going to tune in to your frequency.

Cambewarra Lookout, Southern Highlands

The skeleton drumtracks are done
Here's a taste of things to come
I seem to have oodles and oodles of time
For I'm making the effort to talk in rhyme
Perhaps I should go lie down soon
From my window I spy the moon
If I am still awake when the sun comes
Then I can be assured that the day is done
One has to wonder what manner of loon
Comes across as such a buffoon...

Ah... this will bring back memories. And it's only just the beginning...
HADOKEN!

ALL DONE! Come get some you Street Fighter 2 fanatics :) Thanks to GJ of Level 28 for helping with the mixing and EQ

Currently Listening Voyageur By Enigma Page Of Cups see related

I've always found it interesting how people can accept the Bible (or any 2000 year old book for that matter) as being a historically accurate depiction. That takes a modicum of faith, which I lack. Sometimes I can't even remember what I had for lunch the day before, so obviously when it comes to a high political 2000 year old doctrine, I have my reservations about its accuracy. People can have faith in just about anything. Children have faith in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. In any event, the question of faith lies outside the realm of logic. You either have faith, or you don't. But I do think it's a fallacy to try and justify faith with logic.

If you have proof (objectively verifiable proof), you don't need faith. And if you have faith, you shouldn't need proof. If anything, faith should pick up where logic and reason drop off. Quite honestly (and perhaps I speak heresy but I mean no disrespect), the probability of God existing and creating the world is probably about the same as the probability that the universe exists for no apparent reason and human life is merely an accident, which is probably about the same as the probability that the world was created by extraterrestrial beings as we know it as some sort of experiment.

Wars have been waged over faith. Does that mean one person faith is stronger than another? Does the strength of one faith have any impact on shaping the truth? I don know. Every religion claims to have its share of miracles. And yet, many religions claim that they are the one true religion. That would suggest that:

a)      miracles of other religions are either the act of the devil (a convenient explanation if there ever was one), or

b)      that all religions are wrong about there only being one God when in fact there are many, or

c)      that there is only one God but he presents himself to different cultures in different ways and prescribes different rituals, or his message was distorted by various cultures to suit their own agendas

Option a) requires belief in God for if one doesn believe in God then the Devil (at least as he is described by the Christians and the Muslims) does not exist. Option b) isn particularly feasible because that means that all religions are wrong about insisting they are the one true path to salvation, and about insisting that there is only one God, and therefore it flows that if the premise for religion is flawed then religion must be flawed. Option c) is apparently accepted by some religions, but then it raises the issue of which of the religion is the TRUE religion. If you take it on faith?well. Everyone else has faith too. Some of them must be wrong?time will tell.

Am I suggesting that faith is a bad thing? Nothing of that sort. If a person faith is strong enough to displace them from objective reality and allow them to live entirely within the confines of their minds and their faith, then they will remain blissful in their own little world, wanting nothing from the objective world. However, society has evolved to a point where one cannot be truly independent of society. Increased specialization means that wee dependent on society to provide for us, and everything is bartered for with money.

The Gnostics believe that matter is evil, and that existence is a mistake, and that we should work towards returning the pneuma, or spirit, back to the creator. While that may be considered a harsh view by many, most monotheistic religions preach abstinence and obedience on earth on as a prerequisite for entry into heaven. In a way, that not so different. Material things make it more difficult for people to follow the tenets of religious. Of the seven cardinal sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride), all except wrath and sloth can be traced back to things that exist in the temporal world. In a society that preaches vanity, greed, meritocracy, competitiveness and hedonism, there appears to be a direct conflict of interest between religious goals and social expectations.

This conflict of interest has the potential to be the source of a great deal of confusion and emotional tension for an individual. Is it possible for one to abide strictly by religious tenets and actively participate in society? Every day, compromises are being made and religious ideals are being eroded by social expectations. How many Catholics listen to the Pope when he says that contraception is wrong? Unfortunately, religion isn particularly in a position to adapt to modern society. If anything, it should expect the opposite, that society should repent for its sins and become more pure. Not that I anticipate this will be happening anytime soon.

What you end up with is a war of words. In the past, some individuals have added religious books. Some individuals have excluded some of them. Today, the battle is fought over interpretations. Should things be interpreted strictly or broadly? Was the Bible written with the world as it was 2000 years ago in mind? Does that mean that now we can choose to interpret some parts as being more significant and others as being less? At the end of the day, people are really just taking the first step down a slippery slope. Language, being the imprecise tool that it is, always aims but never achieves. A person creative enough can turn almost anything on its head and interpret text to mean just about whatever they want it to mean. In a way, religious is like a nuclear arms race. Everyone is stocking up. And when it goes off, it will be catastrophic.

Currently Listening Beethoven: 9 Symphonies Sym No. 9 in d, Op. 125 IV Presto - Recitativo - Allegro Assai see related

Yes, also whoever only one soul

Calls his own around the world!

And whoever has never known of this,

Steal away crying out from this group!

            - Ode to Joy, Ludwig van Beethoven

It is strange how disorientating experiences can be. In one moment you can be faced with an existential crisis that threatens to break your mental resolve, and potentially end your existence, and the next moment you find that you have simply gone back to your routine, mundane lives, as though nothing had happened. We may never know how often we come so close to becoming a nothing more than a human stain, just waiting to be rubbed out in the briefest instance. How close we can come to having the world renounce us, and how far we can be from appreciating the gravity and fragility of the life. It is the folly of youth to believe that one is indestructible, that the world is one of endless promise. Is it possible that life can be both a heavy burden and weightless at the same time?

Perhaps life is not so at any particular instant in time. But certainly, we swing between weightlessness and burden at the blink of an eye. Sometimes our minds are so feeble that they are scarcely capable of taking note of that which is happening around us, much less being capable of comprehending it. It is almost as though we are trying desperately to escape from our own shadows. And then we have these lucid moments, as though we have had an epiphany, a mandate from some higher plane, which gives our lives form and purpose. This usually takes place in the form of an intense desire to perform some positive action.

Suddenly, it is as though we are running through quick sand. Our pace slackens and soon we find that we are rooted in place. We realize that we are trapped in a predicament that is dependent on forces beyond our control, and we though we try our best to free ourselves, we will eventually come to understand that the world is not always a will to power. To be alive is to walk blindfolded through a mind field. We can exercise caution. But caution itself may not be enough.

Multitasking reduces effectiveness. It is efficiency at the cost of effectiveness, and ultimately one must strike a balance between the two. And certainly, there are times when we will encounter issues that demand our complete and undivided attention. Not only does it require it, but it compels us. Usually, such a catharsis takes place when we are at our lowest, when we are vulnerable. Man is not a creature of infinite spirit, and if he runs long enough and far enough, his constitution is bound to reach its limit, for man cannot live on fear alone.

Like a man lost in desert with little more than rags on his back. The scorching heat will surely drive him mad. Sooner or later he will become delusional, and will start to imagine that that which could quench his thirst is within his reach. Hope can keep a man going for a long time. But when his hope is extinguished before he can actualize it, then he will be left with little more than regret. And yet, though these moments of clarity have the potential to inflict such disappointment upon us, we literally live for them. The feeling of elation of having something to desire in life, of having a purpose, instils in us a sense of ambition that we rarely find. To know what it means to satiate desire, is to know reprieve from the pains of the world. Suffering, truly, is the knowledge that our desires are beyond our means.

At times we do have the ability to shape what it is that we desire. A man can desire many things, not all of which are beneficial for him. But in those rare instances when our desires are accurate reflections of our needs, and when they are fulfilled, these are the times that we begin to feel the weight of existence. The weight of the world is felt when we are drawn down to it. Lacking a purpose, man has a tendency to become weightless, and to float away. A man who values nothing temporal will find existence transient and meaningless. It is those who have invested emotional content and effort into the world who will cling to life most fervently, for their lives truly become a reflection of their desires and values, and not merely an empty shell which serves as their host for the pitiful duration of their existence.

These lucid moments are to be treasured. We may come across only a handful during a lifetime, and these will be the rare events, these crossroads, that serve to cause a man to rethink his existence. Southern black communities believed that one could go to the crossroad to sell one soul to the devil, but one need not contemplate such a barter to seek happiness. We are empowered to determine our own destiny. Though happiness can only be attained at the end of a virtuous life (if Aristotle is correct), joy is a transient feeling that we are capable of experiencing at any point in time. There is nothing quite like the joy of having clarity of thought, of having a purpose, of having hope.