you and me tube

Well, another day.

I’ve been thinking more and more and more and to a frenzying pace.

I’ve done a little youtube video to help stamp things down into the real-world a bit more. This is all very interesting and entertaining. Big up to the tweeters. Follow me @jensenwilder.

Question for the day.

What talent would you most like to be known for?

Sub Questions:

Why do old people still not have a hang of how to use a phone after it being around for as long as they have been alive????

Also why do I like Shakira's She Wolf synth singing randomness!?!?!?

And remember... grab whatever you it is you like to drink and have a right good think!

erm, honest then

What is your favorite animal?

My favorite animal would have to be the whale. We still know so little about them but what we do know is fascinating. It is such a romantic creature. Pulled along by the need to graze on little ocean critters. Knowing where it is thanks to its use of the earth’s magnetic field which it uses to navigate into all the open water on earth. During whaling attacks they will band together and will not dive (sadly) unless all in the pod do. In this way, we have lost a huge number of these leviathans. There are so many reasons why these creatures are my favorites. At least this answers the question.

Who was your first love?

Wow, first you need to define ‘love’. Nevermind. Ignoring that epic fail of a desire to pin down a feeling, I have to say it was the first girl I went nuts for Katie. I was head over heels and didn’t call it love at all. There was the dolphin necklace I gave her, the play we did together. I was 11. I think she was my first ‘love’, because to me - at this moment - love means that you recognize there is someone that you would choose above yourself.

Who would you thank most for who you are?

Wow, I think I asked this one without even considering what the answer might be, but it came to me.

Interesting question and I can come at it from many angles but I’m going to be honest. I think my ex, Much, has largely made me who I am. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting over the last 8 months and can come to that conclusion because a lot of my new understanding of myself and why I was so unhappy (chiefly jealous because I was unable to be creative). You can’t spend two and half years with someone you adore and not be changed. All I am now, I owe to her. So thank you Much. She picked me up at a time when I was down and out and needed help and lifted my spirits until we parted. That’s the thing. It isn’t always those people that you get on well with that have the most impact. I learnt more about myself from her, but she didn’t teach me herself. Nor is that a slight, I think we all learn more if we learn for ourselves. You live with someone who has that creative passion and the opportunity to achieve her aims and you either join in, or you start getting jealous. I think if I were honest there is a lot I have learnt too slowly in my life. That being said, it is a close thing. So I might just do a little list of people below here that I want to thank also.

Dom

Nathan

Nightingale

Shonette

Emma

Alicia

Cami

Jennifer

Bluebird

other questions?

I wont add too many mind-melting questions, how about some interesting ones.

What is your favorite animal?

Who was your first love?

Who would you thank most for who you are?

That’s the thing. Thinking is enough without making things intense.

What other questions would you like to ask?

Where did we get to?

Where did we get to?

Why do I sway toward the conclusion of a divine creation/will? Is it childhood teaching; or a force-infomed conclusion, like gravity?

I think it is more down to being conditioned to think in that way. Plato gave the idea of the guardians trapped in a cave and held like veal. Heads held stationary through their formative years, they garner their understanding of the world from the shadow of objects, the echo of voices, the flame that lights the walls. Then they are set loose from the cave and able to see the sun and things as they are. They are at first afraid and want to run back into the cave (great metaphor) but slowly they adjust. I think that idea prompted me to understand that we are at the mercy of our own histories, unless we condition ourselves not to be. Life is a process. That is what growth is, searching out that truth you are most comfortable with. Like shoots, we can crack concrete to reach what we need.

I don't think, after a great deal of reflection, that I can gather much inspiration for an immortal 'creator' in the Islamic/Judaic/Christianic-sense. (That I/J/C-sense I have been coherced into considering as the very definition of 'Deity'.) I tend to believe that if I can feel and understand the inherent issues of its existence, then I called out the flaw in that idea. In saying that, what I mean is that if I can deem the world out of balance (war, famine, suffering) then it is not the effort of a balanced, perfect, deity. If there is a god, it must be above good and evil (for me at least) and that comes in the form of balance to me. I need to think more about balance, but have a feeling someone will tell me. If anything I'm more attached to the idea of the absent creator that Olaf Stapledon called the 'Star Maker' (in the novel of the same name). In it his understanding is that the universe, from its smallest elements to the amoeba-like galaxies themselves, is working toward the enlightenment of becoming aware of their origin. Existence is given its rules and structure and then left to itself to progress to the point where it can come face to face with the creator. Not something involved, but something abstract - removed entirely from any kind of influence.

What does a creator mean? Does it require worship? Does it (the creative force) define goodness, or is goodness just goodness before it is defined? In short, is morality prescribed or inherent?

I think i've answered half of this already. What does the creator mean? Well, that's the thing. I'm not sure it means very much to me. I prefer Olaf's idea that we are not able to fathom it in a singular way - we are not connected enough as a universe to understand or perceive it. So that leads to the idea of whether it requires worship. If I am honest, we should be thankful, but I doubt prayer does much. So that leads on to the goodness idea, which I have certainly touched in the last answer. Finally we have the idea of morality, which I am still considering. Truth be told.

Why do I want there to be a god?? Is it to relinquish responsibility for my existence? Or to have an explaination for it, so that I have free reign to move forward with the question settled??

The answer to this wonderful and woeful question is... if I'm honest... I want to relinqish my responsibilities, it is an eaiser thing to live knowing that you can lay your inadiquacies on the shoulder of some external force. Blame is a great relief.

However, I'm going to choose not to do that. I'm going to push myself toward the more honorable end of instead blaming myself for my own failings. See where that gets me. I might prefer the outcome, I might just go back to laying it at the feet of some creature beyond me. Who knows?

Does my wish for there to be a rule (or order) to things come from a spirit of self-interest? Do I wish for rules so I can learn/utilise them for my own benefit?

Yes. I'm not wrong in determining and admitting that, given the chance, I'd taylor my life to better suit the rules of the game. I'm aware that, so far, I have learnt very few of these rules. I don't think I know any really. Lets see...

So that is my reasoning, so far.

New questions are coming.

Add your own.

Grab a cup of tea and have a nice sit and think. Better yet, a whiskey.

One and Other: All Just Soft Machines

One and Other: All Just Soft Machines.

www.jensenwilder.wordpress.com

There is a certain weight applied to the spirit when one engages deeply with the process of consideration and analytics. There are questions that will send you mad with wondering. Questions you will waste away trying to answer, so I’ve made a loop-hole for myself. A safety rope of sorts.

‘The answer never matters as much as that you asked the question.’ (I hope I’m quoted for saying that, though I’m sure it is an unoriginal sentiment.)

That is my attempt to save my sanity. That is the line that will console me, through the darkest moments of my journey.

That is what this whole Raising Awareness for Awareness idea is all about. It is about getting people merely to consider the question, if only for a moment, of who and what they are. It is what Gormley is asking us 2,400 to do. It is the question that many will have asked and many will have simply bypassed and said ‘what can I get up there and do!’ I’m not convinced it is a point of ‘doing’, but of ‘being’. I am still more intent that the aim of this whole thing is to ‘ask’.

I hope people will say - ‘What am I?’ Who am I?‘ ‘Hey, what is my politics?’ ‘How do I feel about justice/death/religion/charity/piety/immorality/sexuality?’

In some it will prompt the asking of more questions, in others it will awaken the certainty that they do not wish to ask anything further of themselves.

The safety rope will hold me back from being lost in questioning for its own, energy-draining, sake. I will keep my focus on the idea that I am struggling forward, but forever secured by my belief in my chief aim. To tone my mind, like any other muscle. One step toward being fit in mind, body and human spirit.

My ‘loop-hole’, as I put it, isn’t to wriggle free from the responsibility that comes from my starting this quest. I will not shirk away from the fact that there will be people who will reach out for an answer and gather up some objectionable theories. There will always be people who think their truth must be imposed and world should suffer its implementation. However, I feel knowledge of ourselves will lead to knowledge of a great many things. I believe that with knowledge and consideration comes empathy; and with that, unity. We are One and we are Other.

The answers may differ, but the soft machine that calculates is always of the same construction; mind, body and human spirit (or whatever you call it).

@jensenwilder

Jensenwilder@gmail.com

what is the point of change?

What is the point of change? Is it for yourself? Or for others?

At what point do we change? When we learn our lessons? Or when we act on them?

So... questions i’m wrestling with are…

Why do I sway toward the conclusion of a divine creation/will? Is it childhood teaching; or a force-infomed conclusion, like gravity?

What does a creator mean? Does it require worship? Does it (the creative force) define goodness, or is goodness just goodness before it is defined? In short, is morality prescribed or inherent?

Why do I want there to be a god?? Is it to relinquish responsibility for my existence? Or to have an explaination for it, so that I have free reign to move forward with the question settled??

Does my wish for there to be a rule (or order) to things come from a spirit of self-interest? Do I wish for rules so I can learn/utilise them for my own benefit?

hapless and neglecting

Here’s a question.

Whereas it might not always be true, philosophers tend to be pretty hapless by all accounts. In their exploration of the world do they sacrifice some ability to function in other ways?

Is it similar to one person’s ability when it comes to maths, over say someone’s natural sporting ability?

I hope not. My idea right now is to hone my body and mind. So I want it instead to be true that those that think don’t merely ‘lose’ an ability, so much as they neglect it.

I intend not to neglect any part of myself.

introduction

I am not a philosopher. I am new to the idea of formal ideas in philosophy.

I have started to learn what people have asked themselves, I'm going to work toward structuring the chaos of ideas.

I'm am not new to questions!

I'm using this little part of the internet as a place to record the questions that matter to me. As a place to recount the ideas that I encounter.

This is prompted by my inclusion in the One and Other project (www.oneandother.co.uk) created by Antony Gormley. The idea is thus...

This summer, sculptor Antony Gormley invites you to help create an astonishing living monument. He is asking the people of the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, a space normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals. They will become an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity.

A car crash of thoughts happened when I was picked. Then a bright and shining example of simplicity came through.

Raise awareness for awareness itself.

Not in any sucking eggs fashion, but out of interest in walking the talk that I talk. I want to be forced to continue my quest. If I get up on the plinth with that objective then I'm going to force my life in the direction of questioning. I'm going to produce a purpose for myself.

A spectacle to push myself forward. Like getting sponsored to run a race gives you that extra pressure to succeed.

The reason for my existence has always been veiled from me, will forever remain so, and much pain it causes. However, at this moment I have a chance to create a direction for myself.

I'm going to ask questions.

follow me on twitter @jensenwilder