The Northern Path

Return to the place of divergence.

An unconscious man poured out on the floorboards.

In each conversation, when we speak of travel, he tells of a road in the north.

“At first it seems common. . . If there are gentle hills, these sidle by like lambs toward a clover. Never a curve ahead.

But the dark earth pulses. . . ley-lines strung loosely on telephone poles. Sometimes we balance on them and feel ourselves pushed along above the thick, oak branches. When clouds shadow the path, young ivy creeps along its edges.

Dark, square sedans hurtle along the length. Every exit swings on hooks, they rotate on their racks like gates in a pinball machine.

Once your feet have taken a single running step on its surface, once you hurtle forward, once you send the wind retreating to the parcel (still in the hands of careless men), thoughts of flight seem vulgar.”

That’s a mistake.

I’m segregating my passions, and I realize that this is backwards because it doesn’t communicate who I am. It also has the effect of making me less prolific. My (revised) opinion is that one should create and express whenever there is inspiration or need to do so. Sounds self-indulgent, but this is a blog, right?

So… hope those few who read can tolerate that…

Dreams.

Dreams come before me with familiar casts and scripts. Without a moment of confusion I find my mark. All the details fill me.

In this one the hall runs this direction.
In that one a dumbwaiter descends to horror.
Above the garage is a thing of power.
Can I cope with the thought that he’s gone?

But is it all fluttering eyes and subconscious process? Is it all imagination, creation of minutiae? Or do I connect to something else? Does my mind instead find someone somewhere beyond the curtain? Someone in a mystic place. Someone with a home like mine or a darling child that inevitably wastes away.

Sometimes I think it’s just too familiar. Sometimes these dozens of revisits wear at my certainty.

In the hierarchy of dreams, for me, these hold portent.

Currently the FCC is reviewing possible regulation to prevent discrimination against traffic on the internet. At the same time two bills are in congress to prevent the FCC from regulating this new medium. This battle is pretty vital to fundamental rights and the economy. Even from a purely consumer standpoint it’s vital. Otherwise we’ll be seeing things that are similar to the ridiculous $1300 per megabyte pricing on SMS messages, only it’ll be on innovative technologies like Voice Over Internet Calling (VOIP), internet video (hulu/youtube/etc.) or even access to things like Google.

The FCC’s approach isn’t perfect, and most times I’m against regulation of any kind. However, the current regulation posed by the FCC is intended to allow the internet to grow unfettered by selfish business interests. Will it have unintended consequences? Possibly. On the other hand, the bills offered by members of congress will have immediate chilling effect. They will allow ISP’s to protect their business models indefinitely at the expense of everyone in the United States.

This will hurt the economy badly, especially in the realm of innovation and new business creation, all for the sake of the few. Stopping this creates a retro-active bailout, allowing ISP’s to compete via subterfuge.

Worse, lack of non-discrimination regulation means “trustworthy” companies like AT&T and Comcast can decide if they really want you to see that review of their customer service quality… or they can decide if they want to let you post or let anyone read your political/religious views online.

Free Speech/Press are vital to democracy. The internet provides the most ideal form of these ideas. Previously, you had freedom of speech, but only as much as the money you had for a PA system. You had freedom of the press, but only if you could afford a press and find an effective delivery method. Now infinitely powerful PA’s and presses and delivery systems are available for free at your local library. But some of the old press owners are not too thrilled. They didn’t mind so much, until it interfered with their business model.

Check out SaveTheInternet.com They’re pretty evenhanded, acknowledging the weaknesses of the FCC plan and exposing the hypocrisy of the “Internet Freedom Act”, which only frees ISP’s in regard to the net.

@kholinar Beneath the soft eddies, my arms struggle deeper, restless ’til I find your current, aching to be caught in your sweet maelstrom.

Megan and I recently went to see Bright Star, a period piece about the tragic romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. It’s lovely movie that’s far more grounded than most efforts in the genre.

To promote the movie, the production company decided to try their hands at social networking. They are holding a contest on twitter for the best “Little Tweet Nothing”, that is, a 140 character composition (including your username) on the themes of love, romance, or passion. The prize for the winner is the “A Diamond Is Forever Everlon Diamond Knot Collection Non-Pave Pendant.

It was a very fun exercise to distill this sort of message into 140 characters. This is one of the things I love about twitter, the constraint of squeezing an entire thought into such a concise statement. Much like strict meters in poetry, constraints make you consider other ways of expressing a near identical thought. Sometimes, the constraint even alters the thought in an interesting way that you would not have considered otherwise. I believe working in these confines changes an artist’s mind in a way that’s very valuable so that, when the constraints are removed, they still look for alternate paths. When we get away from the obvious, we learn much more about ourselves… and that’s the point of art.

Only two weeks until finalists are notified. Regardless of success, this was a fun contest.

p.s. – See the movie. It’s fab. http://www.brightstar-movie.com

Might be worth thinking twice before saying, “That’s just nonsense,” next time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06mind.html

via Carrollian @ the http://alice-in-wonderland.net forums…

Now, more than three years later, I find that someone clicked into my blog after searching for “how do you know when you found the one” and finding that link.

This wouldn’t be that remarkable, except for the fact that my blog is not likely to come up at the top of many vague search engine results. I’m not even sure how far back in that search you’d have to go to find my entry, but I’d imagine it’s in the realm of twenty to thirty pages of search results. (Note: a few more clicks and searchs {combined with this blog post} have upped my ranking, ironically enough, to page four of google search results)

For some the question is simply one of self-preservation. They’re being smart and they don’t want to make the wrong choice. To those, I salute you. I encourage you to take stock of the relationship. Does he or she encourage you in your dreams? Do they make you better? Do they respect you? Belittle you? Ask your friends and family these questions. Especially ask these questions to people who you know will give you the hard truth. And do, please, evaluate yourself to see if you fit the things I mention later in this post.

What if your desperate? There’s an air of desperation out there. It seems like it’s everywhere I look. Desperation like this inspires people to hurt each other in extraordinary ways. Jumping from one to another when you’re unsure which potential mate is best. Destroying the person with words when you break up or have a fight. This is not to say that relationships are painless affairs. I’m sure that blood waters every strong tree in the forest. Iron sharpening iron is not a pleasant process for either implement, but it makes better tools. So conflict is not a reliable metric.

However, there should be some self-evaluation in all this. When these differences arise, what is your reaction? Where are your thoughts? Are they on how you’ve been wronged? On your rights that have been trampled? On what a jerk he or she is? (Or are you blaming yourself for everything? This is even more troubling.) Conversely, maybe you find yourself thinking of different things. On reconciliation? On how to determine when you both misspoke? On how to keep your heart from hardening? On what formative experiences might have shaped each of you differently?

It’s rare that anyone will have none of the first set of thoughts, but it’s worrying if you have none of the second. If you find yourself lacking on this, do a little geneology. Watch how your parents (or formative people in your life) deal with problems. Do they resolve them? Do they shut people off? Do they explode and then just forget about it? Do they turn inward, blaming themselves? From those roots, you’ll find precisely the things you need to prune from your branch. If you’ve found nothing… well, you might want to take up a study of denial.

Maybe you’re finding people via a method that’s defective. If you can’t treat someone in a way that is similar to how you’d treat you good friends, then perhaps the internet or the club or the mall is abstracting your prospects to the point that you don’t think of them as a human being. Or maybe you’re simply not ready for this. Maybe you’ve been hurt, or maybe you haven’t recovered/become self-sufficient (emotionally).

I hate people who answer questions with a question. It’s often a diversionary and manipulative tactic, but it is effective when a person is asking the wrong question. In this case, knowing whether you’ve found the right one is completely secondary to knowing whether you’re ready to have found them. “How do you deal with conflict?” is the most important question that relates to whether you’re the right person for anyone. If you don’t deal with it correctly, then the “right” person is better of without you.

Once you’ve gotten past that question, things will become a lot clearer, I think. At that point you’ll understand much more about the person you really want, as opposed to what you think you need now.

In the back of the church property, around the bluff and down the path to the lower plain, there was a cave. We went to open it to maintain the lake within with its creatures of all types. A thousand hulks floated within, some bloated, some sleek, some armored tooth and claw. Prehistoric monsters and alligators and simple fish floated around in a daze, and occasionally one would yawn, loosing a clamour of bubbles and waves. I had swum there often. I loved the lake’s waters, and I’d float on my back in the midst of them or race from shore to shore. I loved the dark in the corners and the rich smell of earth, and the secrets it held.

On our trip to do maintenance, we were strangely aware of a danger. There was one that we did not trust. A small winged creature that seemed to follow us down, hovering just out of our vision most of the way. We knew he’d wake the flat, sawtooth worms that nested at the edges of the shore in the shallows. We were frightened at the thought. We went down and attempted to enter, but we couldn’t open it. By then we had seen him. Orange striped flippers and penguin belly, he looked almost comical, but we knew he brought the end of this place.

We called for the strong man, we called for an archer or a child with a sling, we called whoever would come. And they came. We opened the door and saw tranquility, but again the door forced us back. We opened the door and saw tranquility interrupted. Fear overwhelmed us as the lake bubbled up. It rose toward the door and we fled back. We had never seen such a reaction from the creatures in the lake, and thought the flying one must have driven them mad.

But the men had marched past us in our sleep or our blindness. Men who cared for nothing but football and racing, men who had never read, children who were guileless. And they had thrown dynamite into the pond. They had put every monster into a deeper sleep. I heard them snoring in the shallows that the water had fled. The men pushed forward carts and everyone saw that the carts were full of gold and treasure. The carts we at least 20 feet in length, 5 feet wide and 6 feet deep. We wondered how they could push so much gold in the mud. Wonder filled us and we laughed, but I looked forward and saw the monsters sleeping before they were taken away. I saw dolphins waiting to swim in the lake we had cleansed and salmon ready to be released. I was sad for the old times, and wondered if we’d ever see creatures like what had lived here again.

We walked to the front of the property and saw the small stream that entered it and fed all the way to the back of the land. Then we walked back down. A old man stopped me and we talked with contagious enthusiasm about building a tiny cabin down in the cave, and how we’d love to stay there and pay anything to own it. But the logs that we tried to build collapse under their own weight.

We went down further and many were with us. Down around from the plateau to the plain beneath the church. And we walked into a huge auditorium where music and film and theatre were made. And in the midst, a court where children could play basketball. A woman from a school looking at the court with a coach. He jumped and hung from the rim and marveled at it’s strength. I told them that if they played here that their opponents would have difficulties with the goals themselves, that they’d always have an advantage.

The main part of the cave still drew me with tranquility, but the tumult had brought plenty and riches.

Posted via email from kholinar’s posterous

For the past two months there’s been so much work to do that Megan and I have hardly had a night off. After a while you get worn down from that sort of thing. So we decided that Spring Break would be a great time to get out of town. We invited my sister, went down to Austin to see Luna Halo and did tons of shopping along the way. I was getting a little worried that the car wouldn’t hold all the new acquisitions, but somehow we found room. We stayed in hotels that ranged from fabulous to barely passable. It all went too quickly and I can’t say that we rested much, but it was a lot of fun.

Oh, and I went to my first Ikea store. :p

So the grind has begun again with a few caveats. My job has switched to a four day work week, which will be an interesting change and allow me to catch up on home duties on Friday instead of Saturdays when Megan works. It also has the potential for some amazing 3 and 4 day weekend events. We’ll see.

In addition, I’ll be volunteering as a writer for an iPhone application review site called 148apps.com. This has the benefit of getting my writing out to a lot of people and maybe becoming something bigger in the future. The site had 500k visits in the last month alone. I’ve always been very into tech and so, while I would like to write creative stuff, this is a great opportunity. I know most of you don’t have iPhones and aren’t into such things, but I wanted to put it out there in case you wanted to see what else I was doing. I’ll probably link my articles here, but I will try to keep the self-promotion tasteful.

Hope you’re all having a a great 2009!