damn new rage

"As Breuer stood and reached for his coat, Nietzsche added, "One final comment. You've talked a great deal about the second item on our list: 'besieged by alien thoughts.' Perhaps we have today exhausted that category, for I now have an appreciation of how these unworthy thoughts invade and possess your mind. Yet they are nonetheless your thoughts, and it is your mind. I wonder what benefit there is to you in permitting this to occur - or, to put it more strongly - in making it occur."

Breuer, who had one arm in his coat sleeve, froze. "Making it occur? I don't know. All I can say is that, from the inside, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like it happens to me. Your claim that I make it happen has - how shall I say? - no emotional meaning for me."

"We must find a way to give it meaning." And Nietzsche rose and walked to the door with Breuer. "Let us try a thought experiment. For tomorrow's discussion, please consider this question: If you were not thinking these alien thoughts, what would you be thinking?"

--excerpt from When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession by Irvin D. Yalom.

i wanna be an action hero...

I heard someone say, "...any asshole can say, "I love you." But those words only mean something to the person who says them. It is our actions towards those that we say we love that really matter."

may my actions prove my words true...

conversations

Conversations in my mind,
will they ever take place?

What if I see her again?
Will she be in pain?

I love her, I will explain.
Will she ever again?

She caused me so much pain?
How could she, she never explained.

Will he ever, be my friend again?
I doubt it, I almost went insane.

Nothing, however, is in vain.

Conversations in my mind,
will they ever take place?

What if, they did?
What will I say?

(03-08-1999; revised 07-13-1999)

i have a dream...

Sometimes I wonder, what would it be like to have full control of my dreams? What if we all did? What if we could somehow order our dreams before going to sleep as easily as ordering a pizza with our favorite toppings? What would people order? Would we sleep better? Would we sleep longer? Would we want to wake up? Would we be happier?

For about a year now, nearly all of my dreams have included a particular person, let's say person B. Having person B in my dreams is indicative of a past life, of lingering thoughts, of difficult times, but more recently (about 3 to 4 weeks ago), person B has been let go - downsized. Replaced by person D, person C has been apparently skipped over. But why?

Last night my PG dream included some friends and person D. While the content is not very exciting, the presence of person D is; it is to me. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe because it suggests I'm making some sort of progress. Maybe because person C has never really been part of my dreams despite obvious reasons, yet person D has despite no obvious reason. If I were in full control of my dreams, would it mean something different?

What would you dream about if you could dream about whatever you wanted?

viva error, salsa harder

First entry: I found an interesting anagram of my full name and interestingly enough, it turns out to be an applicable title for this blog! VESH captures what my postings are likely to be about - the joy of learning new, albeit not always extremely important, lessons that result from doing unintended stupid things.


Case in point: it turns out my travel-drive can handle the wash, spin, and medium-heat cycles! After finding it in my clothes-dryer, I was afraid of plugging it to my computer, "could it possibly short-out my computer?" I thought. "Hmm, there's one way to find out." It turns out my computer is still working and my usb-drive is too! Makes me want to test it in the dishwasher. Viva error.

As for salsa'ing harder, I salsa'ed hard enough today - I attended my first salsa lesson. Besides a few basic steps, I also learned that salsa instructors can have stage-names! In my instructor's case his name led me to assume an entire battery of things about his dancing prowess before learning his 'real' name (to whom my check was to be made out to). Was I wrong for assuming certain things about my instructor based on his stage-name? Is he wrong for choosing a stage-name that implies things about him that are not exactly true?

I think it's an interesting question not only because of the set of stereotypes from which we both drew our presumptions, but also because of what it says about self-identity. Self-identity is, of course, relative by definition. Not only is it relative to the other, but it varies by context and over time. That is to say, you can have an individual that self-identifies as X relative to Y in context Z at time 1, but change any of those parameters and X's self-identity is likely to be something else relative to someone else, a different context, or a different time.

So, what's the lesson here? Don't presume that your salsa instructor knows or does not know how to teach or dance based on his/her name - it could be just a stage-name! ;-)

Anyhow, I learned quite a bit, although I do have to thank my sister Maribel for showing me the fundamentals. Thanks sis.

Now I just need a dancing partner...stage-name not required.