why I write?

dear friends,

Why, well and then?

To make meaning against the void, I ride my horse towards the dragon that flies within the Tale I attempt to tell. I project myself into these words but once these words pass, is it still me left in the prose?

I question, I inquire, I am left wondering with more questions than answers the more I learn and the more I realize how little I actually know. I imagine myself as a horsefly, then as a dragonfly, then as a horse, then as a dragon. The Year of the Horse is steadily approaching as I snake my way through the path I have wrapped myself in. The dead leaves are coming!

I feel far from completing the Book. My ego is suffering as I forcibly shatter it by my own two hands. I chose this pursuit. I must remain accountable to the promises I have made myself. Does it make the struggle any more meaningful or meaningless, to live so symbolically?

I approach my "quarter" life in less than 27 days (24 to be exact). I catch myself anthropomorphizing the bug I view myself as in my imagined brain.

Jake the Lightning Bug of Fire!

your friend(ly)

jakester

Why do I write?

I find myself toiled away, scrolling in bed for 3 hours at a time, disgusted with myself once more. I ask myself the same repetitive questions, the same lines of reason, the same routines: I fall back again on old paradigms and behaviors twice more.

I'm angry and frustrated with myself. The empty pages haunt me and I break under the need to fill them with even emptier words that I try to give transpose meaning to. I fail and fail in each and every way. I hate these words, these empty words of mine. They aren't empty to me but they scream of the void, the vast void, the void I play with and enjoy. So insufferable I am to play with such a thing. I think back to A Confession by Uncle Tolstoy. The taste that was left in my mouth after hearing of the last droplet of honey in the well by the eastern traveler. His last yearning for one last ounce of honey. How desperate he was.

I am home alone and I find peace in the solitude. I don't want to be around people when I am like this. I scrutinize myself in such an insective way. I am the horsefly struggling to find its six feet, fallen on my own wings, unable to fly again. What a horrible way to view oneself. I acknowledge the cruelty in my own thoughts and words. Those pestful insective thoughts pester me in such an infestious way. I cannot help but allow these thoughts to fester as I struggle to find footing, to find a place in this world. I know I am loved. I am love. I am capable of love. But Death crawls each and every day. Day in and day out, I hear the night owl. His wisdom of the iridescent trees glowing under the moonlit sky. He sees life when the Sun no longer shines. He sees the horrible things that occur at night. The dark and dreadful, the shadows no longer contained by the light. How wise is he to acknowledge the night.

The horsefly found its footing, twitching as it recovers. He tries to fly again, lifting off, only to ram its head into a bright orange Home Depot bucket. What a stupid insect to repeat itself again thrice more. The definition of insanity. It hurts to watch, to see such a tragedy in nature. For patterns to repeat themselves again and again and again. The cycle of life repeats and waits for no one. I confess my feelings, these honest feelings of mine (how stupid):

I can feel my wheels spinning endlessly in a desperate attempt to find traction. It's a beautiful sight to see such creatures to continue on despite seemingly falling into a deep well of insanity. They're delusional, these creatures of nature.

I am a creature of nature, I will admit. I am a creature of habit: I cannot help but submit. I am the horse flying across the sky living in his own shattered reality imagined by his own insanity. Across the plain, I fly, boasting of freedom as if I, the flying horse, had possessed some hidden truth unknown to the common. I try to transpose meaning to my manic flight as if all meaning was held in each stride I tell'd. 'There is more to this,' I proudly heralded, 'there is purpose to this' as if trying to desperately prove its the worth of my own plight. 'What a depressing sight,' I mutter to myself.

The horsefly continues to cling onto life, scaffolding itself with all the cliches it could find. It was in its nature to continue to fight. No matter its place, the horsefly continued to fight. It did not think itself to be a pest. It did not think itself to be a stupid horsefly. It simply wanted to live. I envy this drive, this needing of life. I am the horsefly dreaming of being a flying horse. What a silly way to put it. 'The day does not desire to be night. The night does not desire to be day' the wise owl wooed to me, 'why do you desire such a dream?'

'I dream of life.' I hesitantly responded 'and of freedom to live.'

The wise owl chuckled, 'You have much to learn of day and night' shaking his head side to side as he took flight. I felt stupid again but there was no old words left to fill these empty thoughts. No words came after thrice-

[breakdown by BoomBot](a link to my documented micro-process of learning)

I came across this equation: frame + actor = symbol while reading Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.

Here's how BoomBot unpacked it (see link above for full chat window):

We are but frames and actors performing, forming symbols of meaning within the passing of messages and of expression.

I interpreted the frame to be that of order and actors to be that of chaos. I ask 'what emerges but Life and Death?' wondering the source of it all. We create these frames to make sense of the world we perceive, but within us, we have this messy drive in our nature to pursue life itself. Does it emerge from pure randomness?

Does pure randomness exist?

It's an interesting inquiry posited by Donald Hoffman on how our human evolution may be hiding the truth itself (reality is illusion) as our perception is adapted towards survival rather than truth. We create this frame for stability and control so that we can navigate the world we see in front of us. A sensible sense we grasp.

Life without frames is chaos. Life with frames creates meaning. Thus Spoke Symbols: of myth and meaning, of archetypes, patterns of culture, language, and the differing levels of abstraction we operate our agents on. There is beauty here.

I cannot keep up, I continue to fall into obsolescence, peeking for answers through every frame, through the looking glass. I wage war to myself, thirsting for more.

We are in the middle of a revolution: what is there to learn?

Earnestly, I am eager to learn: but in my folly, I am a fool and I cannot find my way between genuine philosophy and of sophistry. I am led to all the traps and paradoxes of learning. I cannot distinguish between what I ought to learn and what is plain noise. I do not wish to share the same fate as Sarah the seamstress or Harold the saddle-maker. What use am I?

It's easy to get caught into the spirit of the times, questioning your very worth, doing anything you can to prove your value within an age of capital and constant flows of transactions. Yet, you cannot ignore society. You cannot ignore the obligations and contracts you enter (knowingly or not).

You cannot pretend to be ignorantly blind.

One must acquaint themselves with what is practical within their praxis frame of life, to have a sensible taste as to what they ought to learn. Your taste is the aim, the guardrails to whom you set.

When skills become invalidated and the value of mastery dwindles, what is there for us to learn?

As students, do we see our teachers as cashiers of knowledge or as an occasion for us to experience?

We have a responsibility as students of life to not solely rely on old techniques and crafts. We are not tools, we must remember. We cannot blame our teachers for our shortcomings. We cannot blame the system. We must hold the blame. We must engage with the interface held in front of our faces. What is there to learn?

Take the shapes, the patterns that emerge. Find the isomorphic lessons passed through different disciplines and levels of abstractions. There is much to learn in this life with so little time. Reacquaint yourself with Wonder. Pose the problem and earnestly go solve it. Feed your taste, feed your hunger, your desire for life.

What are the wider themes, the timeless lessons that hold the test of Time?

What emerges but Life and Death?

Do not covet these lessons, these messages, these fated expressions. Make frame, take frame, break frame.

A plight nonetheless, you must find in the height of life. There is no easy way from the Earth to the stars. Sic itur ad astra. Do not lose sight! Nathless, I say: Do not forget the lonesome, lowly, longing for Life!

Do not fear the dark, for the night inevitably comes. Do not go early into the night. You must be strong, to live on. You mustn't panic nor fret.

What are we but frames and actors?

'When perception breaks?' Be aware of the self-deceiver. A phantom, how does one escape? A derivative of nature's true beauty and essence. The fragility and resilience of life acts and counteracts. Perturb one ant, the whole system changes. New patterns emerge. New perceptions form?

The threshold of knowledge, it holds me, I fear. These malaphors misplace meaning to meaninglessness, swinging back and forth in a mythical dance.

The precocious pink cockatoo swings through the air with delight. Through pleasure, through pain — the momentum of youth and vitality in the Garden given up to the Wind. Oh, The Swing!

To lose frame, to lose touch, to lose the actor: a true tragedy it is to misplace your sense. One must live symbolically, to carry on messages and of expression. The slip between fragility and resilience is but a playful endeavor masked in seriousness. To trick Life and Death, a dance nonetheless.

Do not covet, free yourself. Take no credit, everything is plundered. It's hard to see from out the well, the cave-well you have fallen to. Climb out to play!

Come out the Dragon's Well and tell your Tale, you Nightingale!