Anonymous asked: what do you mean by the last line: "a mask to wear for the world of time in another go round this orbit I stay bold" why a mask?

the mask is like our personae - something we project for society to represent ourselves that is not necessarily as good a representation of us as much as it is an image of ourselves that we would like others to see us as. sort of, “the character that we play in the world.” I’m using this idea of the ‘mask-as-persona’ as a metaphor for people in general - for the individuals’ experience. people don’t really exist without others; the human experience is a social one, solitude notwithstanding (as you can always come back and write the book about it).

so in the context of the verse it’s kind of like a nod to reincarnation, only more arbitrary. since this is the mask I get to decorate and wear in this current incarnation, I’m gonna be practical about it, but also i’m still gonna put my own mark on it and make it something unique that I think is a good reflection of who I am. and then it’s really a matter of being able to know yourself (which of course is a never-ending project).

stay hungry, listen to your heart

successive reiterations of the process. making models and mockups, self-financed by selling the prototypes.

money is not the only currency. I deal in abstraction, a joke is a story is a song is a poem is a dance is a dream is a painting is a picture is a trophy is a talisman

a mandala a maypole maze a walking meditative quality in the firesign Bohemia

explosive propulsion driving coastal boundary exploration finding limits self-fulfilling prophecy the destiny you manifest at the end of the world on a fault-line on the precipice of the newest synthesis of all available information

a talisman, an alchemist’s secret handwriting gibberish to throw you off, symbols on the fringes of the institution to obscure their true purpose, a mask to wear for the world of time in another go round this orbit I stay bold.

a person who wants to live forever doesn’t smoke cigarettes.

the narrative structure of my life, right now, is problematic. where is it going is what I’m wondering. I want to be open to new experiences.

this conversation could start in different ways. you might live to see the life extension technology really take off. Is mankind destined to destroy himself? You can think about fate and prophecy, about myths like the fountain of youth, about an artificially intelligent therapist that you tell your problems to, that you take your hopes and dreams to like a fortune teller.

there’s an oracle for that. recreate life, reanimate the living world, read into everything like an historian reading over pictograms, pouring over the landscape like old notes leftover from a biographer. creativity thru visionary thinking, seeing, transcribing, transcoding. the magic ritual of symbolic reasoning - shifting a meaning, reclaiming linguistic terrains wholesale thru appropriation.

a person who wants to live forever doesn’t smoke cigarettes. I know it’s a filthy habit but I don’t want to quit right now. more power to ya if you’re healthier than I - but I don’t want to live in a world where it’s mathematically impossible to hurt myself. the old drive to dense analysis of risk calculation.

at least a world wherein the transcendent is still possible, not just a button you can press over and over again. brave new living thru chemistry and the sensible engineering of negligence out of the equation. but the human desire for meaning makes this kind of engineering seem horrible so we reject any attempts to take away our free will, our spirit, our liberty, the consciousness as sole director of itself making decisions unencumbered by any external influence - that kind of fallacious thinking got me nowhere and we’re now here and what to do about it. subservience to the march of technological progress and the resistance thereof.

Shifting Baseline Syndrome

Shifting Baseline Syndrome by robotson

every little bit

that we move within

makes us further on

to deliverance

from eternal sin

and commercial bliss

never knew what -

came before this. 

see ya next fall

have a nice trip.

have a nice day,

nice while it lasts anyway

put the glasses away

we don’t have to display

what we’re after today

because after today

doesn’t matter you say

its the profit we made

don’t have to explain

what it costs to be great-

role that we play

master of all domains

with our goal that we’ve made

to control time and space

situation change

downgrade upgrade

sideways or

stay the same - hah!

but you boil hot

never noticed the

temperature

up inside the pot

remember our haste when

the baseline has shifted

new boss is the same as the old

a new generation

is starting to listen

historical trends that’ll show

walking around down town in the cities

looking around at all the conviction

It must be so nice to have all this assurance

that everything’s normal and running so smoothly

tomorrow will wake up and no one will be lost

everyone makes it to work at the same time

economy ties the whole planet together

we’ll have world peace under one dollar sign

remember our haste when

the baseline has shifted

new boss is the same as the old

a new generation

is starting to listen

historical trends that’ll show