Paper Friendships

Your friends aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

If you were to be given a list of characteristics or traits that secretly described someone close to you, when asked to predict whether you would like the individual or not, I highly suspect that the results would often be contrary to the reality.  I say this because on occasion, the emotional connections between myself and another have been stripped away leaving the bare facts of the situation, devoid of disturbance and bias.  In these moments I realised that I was treating my comrades to the benefit of my double standards, distracted by the fact of friendship, cognitively blinded by their amiable familiarity.  Their words and actions all being passed through a separate filter, or group of filters reserved only for those I hold dear.

The purpose of analysing these occurrences in perhaps such a ‘cold’ manner is not to discover that your friends are equally big assholes as those you openly despise, but to bring further awareness to the manipulative methods at work in the background of your unconscious that have noticeable, and sometimes significant effects.

Unfortunately, Facebook users appear to suffer from similar effects caused by unintentional filter removal, whereby they are forced to confront the stark facts that almost 99% of their newsfeed contains utter garbage, and their friends are intolerable by equal measure.

When humans are reduced to exaggerated avatars, and stripped of all the other elements that combine to form presence, it becomes much easier to view them unempathetically.  Similarities between individuals have been shown to have a positive effect on interpersonal attraction, which seems to support the idea that uniforms have a dulling effect on our empathy when interacting with various people at work.  It's as if we must make a conscious effort to remind ourselves of our human similarities, and not to be persuaded by appearance.

In the same way that we allow our friends more leeway, those who we are unfamiliar with seem to be at a great disadvantage, as the filter appears to work in reverse.  We are much harsher in our judgments and stricter in the enforcement of our moral code.  Instead of looking for positive aspects to reinforce the ideas surrounding friendship, almost by default we are blind to them, especially if the ‘sworn enemy’ filter is in place.

All instances of a person acting in accordance with expectation will be highlighted over the negative cases, even though the former will often outweigh the latter in frequency.  This failure to take negative cases into consideration accounts for things such as the belief that dreams can predict the future, or other more subtle errors as in the example of saying that you ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ something.  When what you really mean is that on average, and to the best of your recollection, you have or haven’t had a positive experience of the person or thing in question.

By generalising you are whitewashing over the negative cases for the sake of convenience and to save on brainpower.  And sometimes we simply want to forget all the cases that do not conform to the desired or expected pattern. 

As for the predictive ability of dreams, out of the thousands we have during a lifetime we remember even less, but overall we will be more likely to recall those that are relevant to real life events, and to completely disregard the instances in which they have not ‘predicted the future’, and are otherwise deemed insignificant.  It may be more pleasing to hold onto the idea than to attribute it more realistically to coincidence and bias. 

The opportunities for coincidence to occur grow as time progresses (as sample size increases), and in the case of your irritating co-worker, the longer you spend with him, the greater the opportunity for you to confirm your biases.  Meanwhile the negative cases stack up, unacknowledged for their significance.

I have come across the mistaken belief that we only remember things which are worth remembering, and that if we forget something it is because either it was useless, or that we didn’t care (enough) about it in the first place.  This may just be a case of cognitive dissonance at work, where we feel the need to tell ourselves comforting stories to make up for the loss of important information due to our brains, and the processes we have no control over.  
Remember this next time someone tries to lay a guilt trip on you for forgetting their birthday. 

Ghost in The Machine

Man supposes that predictable processes and perfection of execution make machines, but he does so through anticipated means. ‘To err is human’ – an acknowledgement of certain faults, but also perhaps an indicator of the implicit attachment we have to our fallibility.

We distrust the seemingly mechanistic, and shun the notion that we err like clockwork.  I imagine that it prods the eternally sore spot that is our concept of free will and desire to believe in a ‘soul’.  It seems difficult to come to terms with the idea that the most complex things we know can be explained and understood by reducing them to their constituent parts and the interactions between them.  

Reductionism leaves no need for mysterious, immeasurable forces to account for any part of the process once each layer has been systematically stripped away through explanation.

The workings of an average home computer are a complete mystery to the majority of those who use them, yet most of us would not infer that there is magic at work as a result of our ignorance.  We understand that a computer is simply a complex machine, and that although its unseen process are unknown to us, they are knowable, and we have a vague understanding that all this is the case.  But we have little attachment to computers because they are merely man-made, and for that reason they are inherently soulless and without mystery, unless you are a Bagobo for instance - “Bagobos, an indigenous Philippine ethnic group in Mindanao, believe that all things possess a gimokud or soul, including man-made objects.”

I think we take a great deal of comfort from the idea that we are superior to the systems we run on, that we are the users who possess ultimate control.  And since we wish to avoid any feelings of powerlessness it may come as a huge blow to be informed (and to misunderstand the ramifications) of the various ways in which we have no choice when it comes to our biology, and in particular our brains/minds.  For this reason alone it appears to make sense to insulate yourself from the facts, or anything that might cause you to arrive at the conclusion that the idea of freewill is entirely misleading.  Real powerlessness arises from a combination of ignorance and overconfidence, and from the misuse of humility.

A lack of awareness of the many ways in which we are mechanistic, both on a physical level of systems, and on a behavioural one, doesn’t result in us being immune to them.  While it may be more comforting (or at least the expectation is that it would be so) to remain ignorant, it seems that we hold the belief that our ignorance has the power to change the facts of the situation.  In a sense we think that what we don’t know can’t hurt us, when in reality it is the exact opposite.  We are hampered not only by our ignorance, but more importantly by our refusal to confront, accept and rectify it. 

I wondered what it would like to get a new brain, an updated version that didn’t distort information in the way that my current model does, to have a total memory upgrade so that I could have perfect recall of any information, even after receiving it only once.   It would be ‘inhuman’ of me to simply ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ from my brain without difficulty or error, to never make a mistake in that regard.  To have the ability to recognise and remove biases and aberrations caused by emotion, to talk in a straightforward and factually accurate way about all things, without a hint of unnecessary metaphor or poetic embellishment.

When you live through and inside your head it’s easy to forget that there is an ‘out there’ which is the initiator of your experiences, and that the words you use to communicate with are signposts to reality, but not the reality itself.

Our humanity seems to be largely attributed to our faults, our irrational behaviours, fallibility and general wrongness.  It’s no surprise then, that when our mistakes are highlighted we hold up our hands in resignation and say ‘I’m only human’.

In order for you to have any intelligent argument against transhumanism you have to take a real hard look at what it is you think that makes you, you.  How much can you take away or change, and still remain ‘yourself’?  To challenge the idea that a consistent ‘self’ even exists, and to examine what beliefs you have been unknowingly harbouring that prevent you from accepting the ideas proposed by transhumanism.  

I’m not pro- transhumanism, but I haven’t yet come across a convincing argument against it.  To suppose that ‘upgrading’ yourself would make life pointless is to suppose that life currently has a purpose, and that it would be irreversibly destroyed in the process.  Whether the purpose or goals you assign yourself change due to ‘natural’ advancement or through assistance seems irrelevant.  In winter I’ll choose the ‘thermal underwear upgrade’ every time, over wishing to be naturally equipped for unassisted survival in all conditions.

Not long ago this idea of ‘natural’ being synonymous with ‘good’ was something I greatly suffered from believing in.  But I thank God for the conditioning which grants me the willingness to change, and for the circumstances which allow me access to the means for doing so. 

Unreal People

I don’t care that people are fake, because I think they are unreal. There is a difference between the two you see.

‘Fake’ implies imitation of some sort; a fake plant may be made of plastic and fake fruit from wax. Where one or more of the fundamental characteristics are altered in such a way as to have a significant impact on the interactions one would have, or expect to have with such an object. For example, you wouldn’t need to water a fake plant and find a sunny spot to place it, and you’d be wise not to consume a wax banana. Artificial flavours and smells are known to originate from sources entirely different from the things which they are intended to imitate. A fake chair made from a thin layer of paper would be unsuitable for sitting on, whereas the primary purpose of a ‘real chair’ is generally to allow someone to sit in relative comfort.

‘Unreal’, while similar, does not imply the exact same things as ‘fake’ does. The qualities that make something unreal seem to be even less tangible and more abstract. It might be said to be beyond our comprehension what it is at the core of something that makes us label it ‘unreal’.

The general substance that makes up something ‘fake’ is always real, but something ‘unreal’ appears fundamentally so.

People are traditionally labelled ‘fake’ when their beliefs do not correspond to their actions, or vice versa, and when their behaviour acts as a thin veneer to conceal their thoughts. Instead of being an accurate reflection of their thoughts and emotions, their behaviour is an imitation of what may be expected of them, or what they believe is necessary given the situation. They are ‘two-faced’.

This much is obvious. However, I have recently discovered that humans are unreal in addition to being ‘fake’ in the traditional sense.

I can read words, hear voices, see faces, and even occasionally make physical contact with them, yet they remain unreal and elusively distant from me.

It’s not that I consciously believe people to be just realistic projections of some kind, but sometimes my reactions to them imply that I do think them to be.

Humans are unreal because they appear to be fake – imitations of some unknown standard or blueprint, yet all currently available methods appear to verify that they are indeed genuinely genuine. A fake moustache is obviously fake because it’s made from plastic, attached to a fake nose and fake glasses, but it is not unreal. A human on the other hand, warrants its ‘unreal’ title by virtue of its apparent and unexplainable, unidentifiable ‘fakeness’. The source of its fake quality is not readily available upon inspection, whereas the moustache can be easily removed in the name of science.

I must admit, that the closer I am to a human, the more their unrealness diminishes. But it is more than a hint of suspicion that remains, even in a cell-to-cell state of proximity. It’ll take far more than intercourse to convince me.

The gap between myself and empathy is unspeakably large on average. Quite naturally and understandably, it is difficult to empathise with something whose very existence you hold in question. The demands of deities fail to inspire me, and I feel no love for dying unicorns.

Maybe I’m just inhuman. It would go a long way to explaining many things, especially when invoking Occam’s razor.

Perhaps once you strip away all the fuzzy labelling and unfit generalisations it becomes impossible to feel anything poetic for a fleshy bag of bones and impulses, let alone any variation of ‘love’. Skin is only ‘loveable’ in a very visceral sense, what people really love is ideas and concepts - fluid things that cannot be pinned down long enough to be sufficiently scrutinized.

So, where a crack appears we paper over it with engrossing and exciting-seeming stories that actually lead nowhere, and certainly no closer to bridging what is beginning to look more and more like a gaping gulf.

In Difference

I recently realised that I am largely indifferent, because when given the opportunity to engage in an activity, even one which I have an express interest in, or that is necessary in order to achieve what I have identified as personal goals, I fail to put in the necessary effort, but I am not fazed by this at all.
I feel like I have just stumbled across or unearthed my own ‘true’ nature.

I realise that I have simply been conforming to expectations about the things I should value or care about. I had just about managed to believe my own lies and to get into character long enough to really understand the demands of the role and the nature of the production. Everything I have learnt from the various characters and scenes they appeared in. I have been silently observing all this time, taking in the information, processing and testing the results for myself.

The desire to fit in is just too great. People appear to fear even the possibility of indifference, or the thought of not having an opinion, a ‘passion’, a ‘love’, or something they have always wanted to do.

I believe that the things which have been of any significance to me have only been so due to the environment, and all its accompanying factors that have been forced upon me. My interests exist solely in the interest of existence in my given environment. But it’s too strong a description to call them ‘my own’, as I have no real attachment to them. They are the seeds of dandelions blown in the breeze and captured momentarily. I wear the suit, but never unconscious of the fact that I don’t even believe in clothes, or ties of any sort.

I have slowly grown tired of trying to prove my self-worth through being good at something, or through achievement of any kind. I may not be of any interest to you if I don’t feel inclined to engage in such activities, but it’s of little or no importance. I feel comfortable in the knowledge that I may appear boring or one-dimensional to people, as it’s not my duty to make any favourable impression upon the rest of the world. Impressions matter only as far as job interviews are concerned, unlike ability.

While it may be pleasant to form bonds with people over common interests, it is a false sense of unity, I feel. And if there is one thing that really ‘connects’ us it would paradoxically seem to be the desire to feel some sort of ‘connection’.
So this is my confession to you all. I am tired of playing these games, of trying in vain to assimilate your ways and integrate into your world. It is beyond tedium. For the sake of my own version of sanity, and the energy required to maintain fully-functioning bio-logical equipment, I’d like to quietly opt out of this highly convoluted and contrived waste-of-time-and-energy.
I’m sick to my old molars of feigning consistency, reliability, stability and conviction. I’m a flaky individual and I only ‘care’ if it is rewarding to do so, or to project a convincing interpretation of such a person. You don’t want the truth, but I don’t want to lie to you either. Not because of any romantic sense of duty, or for the sake of honesty, but simply because I have been ground to dust, and yet I am still unable to fit into a square hole. A war of attrition, with the softer skin coming off worse for wear. I have tortured myself; racked my brain, only to reveal that I am in fact a conscientious objector after all.

A restless mind, desperate to find something to latch onto.

My value as a human being isn’t derived from any apparent passion or compassion I may harbour for anything, but regardless of my value, or in spite of my lack of it, I am undeniably here until I die.
I have no value, none to myself, and any value to others will vary greatly, depending on what I have to offer them, how I serve their agendas, or fit into their version of the bigger picture.
The value of human life is as non-existent as its purpose. Of course I could choose to assign value to my own life for similar reasons I might choose to give it purpose, but at present I see no utility in doing so. The realisation that concepts such as ‘meaning’ and ‘value’ are as much properties of objects and things as ‘colour’ is, has been reassuring enough.

Paying Dues

I don’t deserve anything. It isn’t a statement representative of low self-worth, but of sudden insight.

The idea of ‘deserving’ is the western equivalent of karma. Work hard, deserve to be paid well, work little and deserve to be paid poorly, where ‘effort’ appears consistent with deserving, as does lack of an abundance of ‘good will’.
Innocence.

- ‘What have I done to deserve this?’

The idea of ‘playing God’ – to decide upon who deserves to live, and who does not, who deserves punishment or reward, and what form it should take. We play god with our own lives, without realizing that there is no God.

I’d like to be financially rewarded for little effort, but there appears to be some sort of unwritten rule that states I do not deserve any such thing. It may indeed be wishful thinking, but that would be a different issue altogether I feel.

Do we just fundamentally believe in some kind of universal equilibrium?

Perhaps as a general ‘rule’, or more clearly, on average, we must work hard in order to maximize our chances of achieving our goals, but any other examples can only be seen as deviations from the norm.
Despite the evidence we still seem to hold onto the notion, and instead of updating our beliefs in light of this evidence, we re-interpret it so that it may continue to correspond to our belief. Instead of ‘karma doesn’t exist’, we get ‘I’ve done something wrong somewhere and I may not even be sure of when or what’. It might be necessary to analyse things in such a way if in fact, it consistently turned out to be the case that what you receive in reality was trailing behind your perception of what you really deserve.

The idea of deserving is a distraction from the seemingly random and unfair nature of life. It is a form of faith to believe in such a system, and this belief can lead to self-righteousness or self-pity at either end of the spectrum. What it seems to amount to is another means of explaining or justifying the many events in life that can be hard to accept. In this respect deserving appears interchangeable with ‘God’s will’. If you were successful it was because it was God’s will (you deserved it), and if not, it was because it wasn’t part of his plan, or his plan is even more abstract, and so complicated and large in scope as to be beyond human comprehension and questioning.
I think maybe our brains are just hardwired for creating/inventing detailed stories and explanations for things, especially as a coping mechanism.

Living in a world that is secretly and unknowingly faith-driven has lead me to believe that I am more deserving of something if I have desired it for a long time. Consequently, I am having to endure a significant sentence before anyone will begin to take me seriously. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be taken seriously.
On the opposite side of things I am expected to continue and even pursue a career in those things which I have had a longstanding interest in. As if we are to look out for the signs calling us to our destinies; a guiding light, a common theme. But poverty is often a common theme, as is unhappiness. I don’t want to go on producing more of the same for the sake of consistency or to live up to expectation.

Good will always triumph over evil, and you will be rewarded for your kindness. But there is no hidden war to resolve, no secret force of equilibrium or reward system by which equality is dealt out to the living. Wishful thinking is all it is. All men are created unequal. You have less control than you think, less influence than you’d like.

But you knew this already, you knew long before I did.

Faces In The Rocks

”On an excessively clear day,
A day when you wish you’d worked a lot the day before
So you’d have no work left to do,
I glimpsed, like a road between trees,
What might be The Great Secret,
That Great Mystery false poets talk about.

I saw that there is no Nature,
That Nature doesn’t exist,
That there are hills, valleys, plains,
That there are trees, flowers, weeds,
That there are rivers and stones,
But there is not a whole these belong to,
That a real and true wholeness
Is a sickness of our ideas.

Nature is parts without a whole.
Maybe this is the mystery they talk about.

This was what I hit upon without thinking or pausing,
This must be the truth
That everyone goes to look for and doesn’t find,
And only I found it because I wasn’t looking for it. ”

-Fernando Pessoa

A theme of sorts has been coalescing somewhere in my mind for a while now, coming to a point with the discovery of these words and their implications.

'Nature' appears to me very god-like and elusive; barely tangible winds, the patient growing of trees in silence, and the automatic rainfall, presumably doing the bidding of an even greater force, a few tiers further out of view, and a whole language away from description. I find that it's easy to anthropomorphise these elements as it allows me to feel a greater sense of 'connectedness' to something that could otherwise be quite cold and unforgiving, where 'inhuman' would be a perfectly suited description of the world that we live surrounded by.

I have romantic ideas about what it might be like to go 'back to nature', to live in the hills, wander the forests and sleep under the stars on a tundra somewhere, far from 'humanity', mysteriously drawn to all that is inhuman. I feel eternally welcomed back in to mother nature's arms whenever I find the time, or simply stumble across a few moments of peace atop a rocky outcrop, overlooking nature, understanding nothing. But at the same time she is as cold as she is welcoming, because when I have foolishly stumbled into a ravine cast in thick shadow, she does nothing to spare me, nothing to save me. She just continues to watch, emotionless, waters running like ever-reliable clockwork, maintaining her singular expression, immaculate and unchanging. And as I die, like any other day that has passed, like any other creature of sinew and warmth, there is no-body to cry for me where I lay. I will worm my way back into the life-cycle, without a name or identity, only a form of which I will never be aware.

Why would I harbour this attraction to something that not only doesn't reciprocate my feelings, but is incapable of feeling them in the first instance?

'Nature' is the omnipresent god, unable or perhaps just unwilling to intervene, except through 'coincidence', 'chance' and 'fate'. Like water on a red cotton sheet, seemingly indistinguishable from the lush background.

In the documentary 'Grizzly Man' by Werner Herzog he remarks:

”in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.”

The film follows the story of Timothy Treadwell who lived among the grizzly bears of Katmai National Park in Alaska, and who documented his stay there in photographs and video.

Animals are incapable of loving, as it is a human concept. They've never seen an 'overcast sky', never walked on 'concrete' or heard the thundering of a 'locomotive' approaching out of the 'darkness'.

We are projecting outwards onto the things we discover and maybe even onto the things we create ourselves and I don't know why.

The planet doesn't need to be saved, nor does it care if we all die out.

The harder you look, the more you try to define it, the more complex and further out of reach it becomes. We are caught between a microscope and a telescope; a symphony of stardust in human form. It's difficult to admire a mountain from its peak, but much better to behold the valley. Everything has a precious unreal quality to it when viewed from afar, as if it's all still in doubt, pulsing in and out of certainty until within touching distance. People are no different, and brim with mysterious and diminishing potential as they draw nearer. Out of sight – out of mind, only just in sight – slightly fake and mildly unbelievable.

I used to collect dead moths and butterflies as a child, and I recall fashioning a hotel for snails. Fishing brought me closer to nature in a way that now fascinates and saddens me, like the wildlife that fails to grasp the concept of roads. My attempts at immersing myself in the natural world are clumsy and imposing episodes of ignorance. I cannot claim the ability to differentiate between unrequited love, and love itself.

Nature reminds me that I own nothing and live a trivial and shallow life. Not only am I expendable, but I am only significant in that my environmental impact will outlive me and my responsibility.

I feel orphaned by the cities of men, but carry their scent out into the open fields with me where it doesn't belong, and I question where I do.

One man can do so much damage in such a short lifetime, but again, I overestimate the significance of my own existence.

I desire the experience of 'interconnectedness' with 'everything', despite everything having no care either way.

I discovered music that I can relate to in such a way that I feel the truth of it, and am strangely moved to tears. I ache from the weight of these lives I've lived in lands I've never laid foot upon, and from the futility of description.

I remain hypnotised by this album as it turns my headphones into a swirling stream of living landscapes, spilling into my ears and across my brain, as my skin transforms into an ancient tipi of buffalo hide to shelter me from the elements.

Nature is the most ancient of man's inspirations; a perfect performance, ongoing and oblivious of an audience. What lovely colours you boast in autumn, how life-like and uplifting is the melting of your snow in spring, and so elegant is the recital of a summer solstice skyline, with winter's subtle monologue like a blanket of simplicity to disguise the scene.

I feel that trying to get to the root of nature's mystery is like trying to decipher the apparent morse code of raindrops on an old tin roof. Tricked into thinking that there lies an answer, when it was coincidence all along.

The world has existed for billions of years, yet any meaning or significance it has been given is so insignificantly new.

If a universe is born, and nobody is around to experience it, did it make a big bang?

Fires That Lead Nowhere

What is the purpose of ideas? I don't know why I have them or the compulsion to act upon them. They are a mystery to me. I feel like the ideas have control of my life, and keep me trapped in obedience to them. I get the feeling that they are trying to distract me from something, something they don't want me to see, something significant. Even as I write now, they are still pulling the strings as I attempt to write fast enough to outdo them.

As an adult I have never valued ideas as much as I do now. They cannot be bought, but they can and will be copied. The more you do to claim and declare ownership of them, the more they will own you. They will ruin your life and convince you of their innocence. Other people like to know what ideas you have so they can compare notes on propagation, and then forget you during harvest time.

I don't know what's worse: small ideas, or big ideas. The bigger ones can rot your mind, but the small ones will keep you up all night, taking it in turns to poke your cerebrum.

I'd like to just have a robust and athletic body and no pens or paper or ideas with which to make a mess of things. I'd like every creation to be a physical action or a spoken work of art that defies repetition. I have no use for a paper legacy, as I have two arms, and these legs you see. True freedom comes from having no attachments, even to your appendages.

The first place to begin is in the physical realm. The objects that hold emotional ties and seem to coalesce into sentimental collections of trash that in turn collect dust. When you throw things away it's like you are disowning a piece of yourself, discarding the things that make you who you are. If you purge enough you may find yourself at a point where you question what you have become, who you thought you were, and why you still exist without a hoard of possessions to hide behind. I must be my ideas, after all, they were the source that led me to all my belongings in the first place.

Ideas seem to flow more freely than stamp collections or flat screen TVs. But what happens if you deny life to an idea? How long will it persist? Why do I feel the need to honour these ideas, when they seem to emerge infinitely faster than they can be brought to fruition? Have I just been conditioned to obey them, or have I just misinterpreted the ways in which I am supposed to manifest them? I'm convinced that it's possible to live in such a way as to avoid provoking such elaborate and attention-whoring ideas as the ones I'm familiar with.

When there is no problem to contend with, what is the creative process as an artist? If there is no mystery, no puzzle to solve, then what use is the creative mind? There's a possibility that the creative mind with all its ability, simply does what it does best and creates a problem or a phantom objective to focus upon, and thus satisfy its need to continue functioning. Perhaps the ego is the ultimate source of these creations.

I have noticed that people like to group together in solidarity and recognition of a common goal, even if the goal itself is separation from others. Let's all come together to fight the government, forgetting momentarily that the fictional entity known as the government is made up of real flesh and blood people like you and me. We ignore what we know to be true in order to allow the ego to create a false enemy. It seems like we feel a greater sense of satisfaction in placing blame and making enemies of real people, instead of exposing our own egos and holding them responsible for the discord and distance that we feel between one another. But as long as you identify with and believe you are your ego, blaming it amounts to blaming yourself, which appears to be one of society's big taboos that helps perpetuate this cycle.

Of course one could submit that your reasons for abandoning your ideas is due to laziness or fear of some sort, but anyone still caught up in the world of ideas doesn't want to be reminded that this is the case, or be forced to examine their own actions and motivations.

Whether you conclude that life is meaningless or not you are still left with 24 hours in a day and a life to live, so why not fill it with things that you want to do or achieve? But let's look at the difference between acting upon ideas in the moment, and storing ideas my means of recording and preservation. If it feels right I dance and get lost in the movements as time ceases to exist and I just act. Although this feeling or state might be intermittent it is the basis of the exercise. I may become aware of my self or my surroundings, and anyone else observing, but the intent is always to lose myself. In these moments the ideas can come and be executed in such a seamless way that sometimes you aren't aware of what you just did or how you did it. New things are created this way, but in order to create any kind of repertoire we must isolate and repeat the specifics, which is where practice comes in.

By practicing something your intention is to hold onto it, often in such a way that does not require conscious effort to recall and execute. If you watch someone dance, and they perform a large vocabulary of moves you will no doubt imagine that they must be creative. Although in order to perform any routine you have actually limited your creative potential in order to repeat old ideas over and over. Unless you have some innate ability to learn new technique with minimal practice, you must sacrifice one thing for another at any given time. This is why I believe that true art is raw and unpolished to some extent, and that traditional art is perpetuated by man's identification with ego, and an end product that can be stored, sold and coveted. As long as we continue to produce art in this way our work will just serve to reinforce our belief in separation.

I find myself at a point where I have grown up believing that a creative person is who I am, and therefore where I derive my strength and sense of direction from, but now I see how limiting this idea is, and how it seems to have coloured the last couple of decades. It's not that creativity in itself is a bad thing, but that like everything, a label needs to be seen for what it is.

I once imagined what it would be like to take my camera on holiday without any film loaded, and to just frame things in the viewfinder and press the button. This is because photography especially, seems inextricably tied to the end results, however involving and demanding the process may be. What happens if you remove the end product or attachment to it?

I feel very much that I have grown up as an artist i.e that I have been one since a young age, and also in the other sense that more recently I have matured. I really question why it is that I want to capture things on film, or why I desire to write something and set it in stone.

At present I feel that my drive to create in these definite and physical ways is born out of discontent, anxiety, fear, the desire to be acknowledged and the need to express an overwhelming mass of emotions inside my physical body. I am unhappy with my life, the direction it appears to be going in, and the role I have perhaps chosen to play within it all. I fear that I have lost something somewhere in the past, that I will never experience beauty, peace, clarity and insight like I did before. I worry that my memory is not enough, and that a photograph will fade so much slower over time. I feel like without a concrete past I am no one, I have gone nowhere and done nothing.

But strangely, I want to feel empty and formless. I feel like I am abandoning everyone by refusing to store their souls and cherish their portraits. I feel deeply obligated to keep things if they were given to me. Memories have become replacements for relationships that no longer exist.

Although I like the way film looks when processed, and I take comfort in the spinning of vinyl on a record player, and I enjoy the process of marking a sheet of paper with a pen or pencil, I think I'm slowly coming round to the idea that these things may not survive, except as novelties of the past.

I like the idea that almost endless amounts of information can be stored within the smallest physical space, and that something which was once an object, is now intangible. Perhaps this might mean that in the future less resources are used and wasted on things with very short lifespans.

It may turn out to be both a gift and a curse in any case though, as when the amount of information stored on computers and other devices rises, so pressumably, does the ease with which that information can be accessed, manipulated and destroyed. A power surge won't wipe out all your books, but it could erase your hard drive.

But I like the idea of leaving the physical realm behind to some extent, reading electronic books that you can easily delete or pass around to your friends without any real waste created in the process. I also like the idea of being free from material possessions, and allowing things to flow uninhibited into and out of our lives.

I was recently given a terabyte hard drive, which not so long ago, was an unimaginable amount of storage space to have, and what really put it into perspective was while going through some of my things I found 3 floppy disks, each with a maximum capacity of 1.44 megabytes. My new hard drive has close to one million times more storage capacity than these 3.5 inch disks, and it looks like things are set to continue expanding in this way for some time yet.

But maybe the energy required to produce and work with everything in digital form will just balance out any energy saved in doing away with physical media.

I guess in a sense things have come full circle almost, because there was a time when language was never written, when life was captured only through the eyes, and music could only be heard, but not recorded. Then we turned all these experiences into material objects that anyone could own, and eventually we have made these things non physical again.

I want to exist with the minimum of attachments, in every sense of the word. I'd like to be able to fit everything I need into a small backpack and just move freely. I'd like to exist from what is in my head, and to express what I can through both a piano and my body as instruments needing nothing more, and leaving no trace.

The beauty of a piano is that it's so big you must leave it wherever you find one.