Childhood

Working on my own and trying to start a business has unsurprisingly been the source of a lot of anxiety. Sitting inside all day working starts to take a toll and even the weekends can be challenging if I don't get myself out and about. But as I was taking a walk today, I started to look around the city streets and enjoy them in the way that I have for so many years and this song popped into my head:

Most people would wonder why I remember such a song, let alone have the mp3 file for it; it's a bit nerdy to say the least. But for me, it has a very strong association with my childhood and evokes a refreshing sense of playfulness; everything becomes more atmospheric and a strange grandeur imbues itself on the symbols that populate the city skyline and the scenery of downtown Brooklyn.

It takes me back to the visceral pleasure I found in a game that most people passed over and considered one of Will Wright's more mediocre works. While most people didn't care for it, SimCity 3000 was the first time that I came to an understanding of what I was looking for in games, a sense of exploring a narrative, of decisions that impact people and the often contradictory and conflicting demands that they make both as individuals and as a whole.

The music of that game, especially this song, now brings me back to a sense of childlike playfulness; a feeling that to me is the ultimate remedy to anxiety--a sense that the world is yours to explore at your leisure. I never thought of childhood as idyllic, but it always did offer the opportunity to play; it placed a priority on learning, it gave space. In my quest to find the intersection of narrative and technology, to bring to the rest of the world the visceral inspiration that lies behind the screen of a personal computer, I've come full circle in having the opportunity once more to learn, to grow, to be a kid; being an entrepreneur might be a lot of work, but I once again feel the ability to explore the world and leave my mark on it.

Used Bookstores

Used bookstores are like crack. There are too many books in a given trip that I feel I can't leave without, and it's especially bothersome when they're overpriced.

Nonetheless, used books are much better than new ones. They're what financial people call the "long option"; you buy a ton of them for cheap in the hopes that one of them is going to have a high impact. With new books, you can't be so surprised, the books are expensive and you come in set on some book that's been published in the last two years or canonized in the last ten. Maybe you get what you were looking for, but you have not much better of an idea of how satisfied you'll be than if you were to pick up a random book at a used bookstore.

I also find that used bookstores are more likely to have some more obscure things that are maybe a little bit dated but nonetheless more illuminating to a particular field of study. Today I got three books, some more well known than others:

Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism by Frederic Jameson

Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes

Essays on Non-Conceptual Content

The last one, by the way, is for research purposes. I also have a long option strategy when it comes to research on Bart. There are some books that I'll buy because I specifically think that they'll answer a question I have, but many things surprise me and give me new ideas on what to do. Of course, my reading list has gotten ever longer to the point that I'll refrain from posting it for fear of name-dropping.

I also very much enjoy buying used vinyl records, particularly aesthetically one-track house/techno/trance/trip-hop/etc LPs. I get them if they're a dollar or two and stack them up with some sound equipment I have yet to use again. Weird hobby, yes, but I dream of having some extremely lush jungle of random sounds that I can put together through all of these stripped down building blocks; making soundscapes through bricolage, to be precise.

Aesthetically, I'm a hoarder. I take many tiny fragments in the hope that the right set of them will make a whole that's far more valuable than everything I've collected.

A Digression

Will be posting soon about a new idea for understanding language through concepts taken from neuroscience and (to some degree) semiotics. It's a bit hard to explain, I'm not entirely sure where it's going, but it looks to be an alternative to grammars that doesn't necessarily discriminate between syntax and semantics. It may take a while, however, since I'm trying to come up with something that's simple and applicable enough to actually count for something.

For the time being, something different:


I've been very glad that winter is approaching. November and December are two of my favorite months, despite how many people are bummed by the cold weather and the shorter days; not as much goes on, people aren't out as late, the day ends before 5:00. I've always kind of liked that when it's in moderation.

A quiet and contemplative calm falls over everything and reveals the sacredness of so many places. When there are few people around and I can hear the wind scratch past my ears in the night, I can wander aimlessly and watch the light protrude from the buildings in Brooklyn Heights and the not-so-distant New York City skyline as if it were giving me just enough light to see where I'm going so that I can contemplate more things.

Winter might not be as fun as spring or summer, but it's much more sacred to me. May be posting pictures soon; for now, someone else's will suffice:



[Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJBoSmW3-aNvbTvN0PvCDwi_3lk7pYy1MSROvV0iFyvFq_kyT5HNe_WT60DOewP9P2Hti58Auh-rqGbx3oyPMV7-VZdprGFRDRaGTw2IvDA51xEBvv44jHFZKZxk64U-PBTZDssDGf5Yx/s1600-r/IMG_6057_empire_state_park_snow_scene.jpg]

Hi everyone,

For those who know me (the short version): I have a lot of idle thoughts about narratives, technology, math, uncertainty, systems, subjectivity (blah blah blah) and I thought that I should write them down.

For those who may not (won't be that long): I'm a recent college graduate with a B.A. in Computer Science and English. I study (and mess with) the intersection between narratives, technology and math. I'm working on several projects, one big one that I talk about here. I like just about any subject or idea that I can fit into a larger framework. This blog is meant to contain a lot of my thoughts about subjects ranging from literature and philosophy to neuroscience and economics. Just about every entry in this blog will draw from at least two "disciplines"--I rarely like thinking in a vacuum. Oh, yeah, I also dislike departments and the "specialization" of knowledge rampant in academia, but that's another story.

So if you're interested in any of the subjects I talk about, keep an eye out for new entries. And if you're a contrarian, please be sure to attack my ideas; keep me honest.