Undiluted Stupid

Here i am, in work way early in the morning, in an attempt to get out early.The getting here early was kinda nice actually, but it’s a little off-putting when you’re the last person to leave for the day and the first person in the next morning. I felt like i was going to the airport this morning, it was peaceful.

I’m here early though so i can  go push my way through a throng of sweaty hipsters at ground zero of hip seattle culture. i speak of the capitol hill block party, which looks to be huger than ever this year, and chock full of seattle hip hop. Last year was a big year for the hip-hop scene around here, and i think that’s settled down a bit. but everyone’s still grindin’ hard, and i think there’s going to be alot of new music coming out after summer into next year, which i look forward to.

The scene is coming into something of it’s own (again), and there’s going to be good representation at this year’s block party, along with other fun bands as well. I haven’t been to a day long festival type music fest in awhile, and despite getting to old for this, i’m really looking forward to it.

Seeing Macklemore, Shabazz Palaces, Champagne Champagne, and some collaboration act with Helladope, State of the Artist, Spaceman, and Grynch. Not all my favorite groups, but this is a live music experience. It’s going to be a good one. I’m smitten with seattle hip-hop, glad i’m youngish enough to still go to these things, even if i don’t really care about being publicly awesome anymore.

most of the time, i ask myself what i’m doing here. that i’m beyond this type of self-reflection, that this only does me marginally good. typing like a narcissistic goon, (not)begging for attention.

but whether i like it or not, i come here and create. creation. creating something out of an apparent nothing. a place where unbridled creation is unleashed,  embracing some creative element. most of the time, i would rather consume stuff, but the bug is there to occasionally create something. write my thoughts down, brew some beer, fix something that’s broken. A creative life versus a consumption life, yet another balancing act to strike. consume too much and you just become a receptacle just loaded with facts and ideas. create too much and you get too focused on creating and getting lost in your own world. neither is a bad thing, but much like everything in this world, too much of anything is no good. thank you 3rd grade, for that nugget of wisdom.

the big thing is the quality level. quality is not inherent to creation or consumption, but it’s a big part. i still haven’t figured out quality though. you can feel it in things you create, see it in things you consume. for all i know, it could be the amount of love that goes into or comes out of these objects when you interact with them. it’s impossible to quantify, it can only be done by feeling, but you know it when you see it. it’s a nice thought, anyways.

i think my big problem these days is that i don’t care if i create anything. i enjoy creation but i don’t try and catalog and store alot of it, and the stuff i do still just doesn’t feel like it has enough importance to try and force others to consume what i create. either through laziness or fear of rejection, i don’t know. mostly i think it’s the apathy that is encountered you make something you think is nice. it is presented and summarily dismissed with a shrug and a “meh”, and life goes on. maybe a “that’s nice”.

but so what? if i create something and a bunch of people think it’s the greatest thing ever, then what? my ego gets a little scratch under it’s chin and a treat for being such a good boy, and i’m back to where i started, chasing the high of creating something people think is important to further satiate my ego. it’s a damn vicious cycle, but it all feels like it if i sit down and start thinking hard enough.

let’s turn this around, though. creation does bring a sense of accomplishment, and i suppose that’s about all i can expect from it. at least i can do tangible things for myself, to make me feel better. as long as i’m not hurting anyone else, i can justify what i do for myself, or people i truly care about. there are  not many things in life worrying yourself over, and a sense of accomplishment is a damn fine distraction.

beer might be something worth screaming about from the hilltops for me, but i’d still rather relax than work, and i think that makes all the difference.

you know it when you see it.

Apparently, you cannot brew beer in a garage attached to a house. If it was unattached, that would be cool. fuck.

WHY CAN’T I BREW BEER IN MY GARAGE, GOVERNMENT?

Jesus spam bots, attacking my comments? How insidious. Now no one gets to comment, but I don’t think that’s ever been a problem with this blog.

Right here is a huge reason i enjoy and listen to music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeqqrrSHfDM

For me, this hits on everything i enjoy about a well crafted song. But it’s the rest of the stuff that happens now because of a song like this that i am here writing. Now comes the pounding of the song throughout the next couple of weeks, months if it has that kind of staying power. Starting to listen to everything else they’ve made to see how solid they are as songwriters and musicians. Keeping an ear to the ground for a show they will play in Seattle at some point. Listening to their music doing something i can associate it with.

In short, enjoying the shit out of it.

Are you going somewhere? How’s it working out for you? I think it’s going pretty OK, no real complaints. I just observe it everywhere. People are doing things this very second, things that are important. A never ending, slow grind of importance.

There’s really no reason not to, but i like to get reflective about it occasionally. viewing the process from the outside, feeling absurd, and then getting right back to it. life still hasn’t stopped since i started reflecting on it, and i figure it’s going to keep heading in that direction.

Information comes in and immediately, my brain just starts going “who cares? i mean, really, who cares?”. the cynical filter turns on and all incoming stimuli has a negative edge to it. it works both ways though, i feel the same damn way about any information i can create. so i come here, try and hash it out, all the while thinking “really, who cares?”.  it’s ridiculous.

Something has to come out of these feelings though, something more than just a cynical, existential rant along the lines of “who cares! you’re gonna die anyways” which is what this line of reasoning normally devolves into. it’s during times like these that i can barely talk to people. most conversation revolves around complaining and i can’t take it. most of the time, i can deal, relate a little. it never hurt anyone to complain a little to shoot the shit. othertimes all i want to say is something along the lines of  “got any solutions?” and that doesn’t go over very well.

so i do what i’ve learned to do, be quiet and just let it pass. i’ll get over myself, and opening my mouth leads to more problems than keeping it shut. is this growth? really, who cares?

there has to be something more to get out of this than resignation, a reason this side of my personality flares up. maybe self-preservation. maybe self-loathing. maybe self-pity. whatever it is, i’m positive it is narcissistic and selfish. i can’t see these feelings supporting any other purpose but to stoke my ego a little bit and tell myself that yes it is all crazy, it’s not just me. but everything is crazy, me included. there are no rational ports in this storm. there is no storm. everything’s just happening, and then it’s happening somehow else.

Yeah, that’s the gist of it. there’s not much to get out of this state, it just has to happen to balance out the other somehows. your brain freaks out because it’s a freaking computer based around chemical signals, and they’re all finding homeostasis based on stimuli. the lack of control is exhilarating.

So it goes. with the context of the word “exhilarating”, it clicks.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Totally turned in the paperwork we’ve been assembling for a few weeks for the brewery, thank goodness that ball is at least rolling. it feels good now, but i can see the impending clarifications and resubmissions.  the bulk is there, tweaking is par for the course.

The summer is looming on the horizon, and i can see the demands from here. stacking work, friends, and family all into the schedule is always fun and challenging. now with setting up a business, the hits just keep coming. but i’m doing something i feel is of worth my extra time and effort, and it makes all the difference.

i still have time to do many of the things i need to be happy, but now i’m spread a little more thin. i can do it though. i can be a single layer of oil molecules on a gigantic ocean if i want to be. i can do it all if  i want to.

i love having titles, i can influence or revamp the whole feel of my post, based on responding to a title, or making a title after creating what i feel is a complete thought. i am coming to grips with having a blog voice again. it’s basically a side of my personality now. free access and recall is a nice touch.

aside aside, let’s move on. yada yada yada,  i can come here and ruminate.

at this point, it’s still around Lost. i’ve had some time to digest a bit now, and come back here. it was a state of shock for me for a little bit, something so viscerally emotional. something i haven’t felt in awhile. and why? why not?  the whole series was expert at manipulating my emotions, both in it’s devices and my willingness to surrender.  it was that suspension of disbelief that really struck me. whatever the creators did, I clicked with it and let myself be carried away by their story.when Lost was finished, it was comparable to the feeling of finishing a great novel, experienced for the first time. somehow, they made me feel exactly the way i feel when i finish a book  that i already have profound love for before i even get halfway through it. you see the voice and structure of the story, and are completely willing to see this story telling voice wherever it goes, whether you agree or not.

the story becomes a voice, and you want to listen to it.

i know it didn’t leave the exact same message with me that it did with everyone else, but i felt that was part of the message it imparted, an open-endedness. the main point of being connected to those around you and what that entails is open for debate, but you know it when you see it. along with such sweeping generalizations though, are the details. they are there if you want to sweat them. but to me, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. being willing to succumb to something you don’t understand, accepting some limitations (faith or no faith), i feel that’s what the show was trying to express that at the end. it can get as meta as you want it to, just like REAL life.

in the end, i think it was just reminding you to turn around occasionally and marvel at the fractals you create in your life.

they may not be as unique as you think.

It finally happened, it ended after years of surrendering. it came together in what i thought was a fitting fashion.

all i can say is that this ending makes me feel at peace.

there’s alot of buzz right now around craig venter, since him and his sizeable team managed to produce a (basically) synthetic life form. It’s not synthetic in the way that it has silicon parts or anything, it’s synthetic in the sense that they built it from the ground up, using what evolution has already provided to make cellular life form on earth.

even using the simplest bacteria they could, it took years to do this project. the reason i got hired at blue heron bio in the first place was because they accepted a gene building project for this, and they just needed temp work to handle the huge volume. now, we’ve been cited in the scientific publication, which is almost akin to being cited in the human genome paper (also spearheaded by Venter). it’s exciting for the company to get some good publicity like this, especially in this economic climate. go blue heron!

seeing this synthetic building of a life form finally work out is really exciting though. this synthetic bacteria is basically a nanomachine. venter’s group stripped down this bacteria, isolated every single gene, and then built it all back up, seeing which genes were necessary to keep it alive, and finding all sorts of interconnections between genes and gene expression. now that the base form is there, and with a little tweaking, almost any other gene can be added. make some biofuel, make some drugs, whatever gene you can coax it into expressing without dying. eventually you get these things sophisticated enough that they can be in your bloodstream, regulating your blood sugar for you if you’re diabetic.  eating up excessive cholesterol, and cleaning your circulatory system. this is all years off though, lots of FDA testing before this starts happening, but these are nanomachines.

robots we built off of an organic scaffolding, and we can program them to do what we want. nanomachines! science marches on.