Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: …and everything else

Mostly everything else in a brain-academic way.

Inspiration

...and everything else

I know I promised Phillip I’d stop reading his dissertation if he provided me with a copy of his book, but I was short on motivation and inspiration, and just a few pages turned on whatever was stuck and I started to write. Then I hit stuck again, stumbling over affect, a concept I’m still learning and wrestling with. A quick Google later, and I think I know enough for this paper… and I found the most beautiful essay helping to explain the very concept. Isn’t this just lovely?

What is valuable about this account of affect is the way it makes trouble for all those epistemologies that begin with a knowing subject ready to act on the world or be acted upon. For the body in affect is not subjectivity to the world’s objectivity, it is a body in transition, a body in relation. To respond, to have a response is to be in a relation. This is why Massumi argues so emphatically and beautifully that affect is relationality. Drawing on the work of William James he argues that relationality is already in the world, to be in the world to participate in it is to be in an ever unfolding relation. Thinking about affect in this way means an abandonment of the subject/object dualism. What is needed instead, according to Massumi, is a notion of continuity and discontinuity that is not framed in terms of opposition but as a processual rhythm.

It’s writing like this that remind me of the passions academia/knowledge ignites.

Idyllic

...and everything else, life and living

Dreams last night. This morning, really. Dreams that kept me wrapped in the warm cocoon of bed, snuggled with a furbeast on either side of me. Dreams as warm and inviting as being buried on a cold morning under a down comforter.

Time had passed. People had changed, but instead of for the different, it was back together. Missing, longing, laughter. There were other people involved, but they were cast off – perhaps cruelly – in favour of one another. Like magnets, we couldn’t stay apart. There was a warmth, clicking.

Typing it all out sounds absurd, ideal. And I know my mind was playing with ideals, and there was really never a time or person like that (for either person). But your memory has a way of softening the edges and making things more…perfect.

I can pick out what year (age) the ideal came from.

It’s funny. I’m spending so much time with people lately, and yet I have become aware of how lonely I am. And it’s not the other people – the other people have opened up so much to me, I know so much about them. It’s me. Something in me that keeps me from taking that step, sharing that information.

Do you know, I did overcome that once, recently. And it felt like I was tearing a bit of myself out. And now it’s weird, that there’s someone I see three to four times a week, who knows these intimate details about me, knows more about me than most of my friends do. It makes me skittish. Like there’s information out there that can be held against me, used against me.

Typing this out, I have to laugh – trust issues, much? But why should I trust people? It’s not like I’ve had terrible much proof that it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

All I see when I look in the mirror is broken shards.

The Abyss

...and everything else, Autumn 05, CHID 491

So, I have to write a four page paper, double spaced, Times New Roman 12 point font. In this paper, I have to include the question my research plans to address, from whence the question arises, scholarly debates around it, the previous literature on the question, my working hypothesis, sources and methodologies, the importance of the project, talk about the educational benefits to both the research and the project, how I am contributing to the field, how my mentor guides me and supports my research, a detailed description of how the project fits into the bigger picture (of life, I guess), write it for the intelligent generalist, talk about the implications of the work, allow my passion and “voice” to show, and address challenges to the work.

…I’m sorry. Please to be giving me a 250 word limit for an abstract. I’ll take that over this any day of the week.

…this is where we see if Karen’s writing methods pays off. I’m just going to tackle a question, answer it, and go on. First draft is a first draft, and I can ditch the entire thing if I need to. Just start writing. Just start writing, and don’t let the abyss eat you whole.

everybody else’s girl

...and everything else, life and living

I was sitting in Bauhaus today when Journey’s “greatest hits” came on, and was surprised at the strength of negative emotion is sent coursing through me. Have someone dedicate a few of those songs to you, and you suddenly realize just how creepy the lyrics are. I wrestle with saying any more than that, which suggests it’s not time to.

But in the grand trip down memory lane that today turned into, this, this made me smile, and turn wistful thoughts towards someone I’ve not seen in years. He always used to say similar to me, and played other songs for me. I wonder where he is, and how he’s doing? He’d be so tickled with how my life is going; my Neuromancer project would have thrilled him (he’s the one who introduced me to the book, after all).

If I could tell him one thing, it would be that someday came, and I’m finally my own girl.

Do you ever realize how important the words you say now might be in 15 years?

A Copy of the Abstract Submitted to SCCUR

...and everything else

Desire, Affect and Time: Constructing the Appeal of Reality Television

If fantasy is where your desire is constructed, how better to visualize it than to see it actually playing out on television in front of you? As Jacque Lacan says, it is through fantasy that we learn how to desire, and it becomes precisely the role of reality television to specify the object and coordinates of desire. The viewer engages, and with this participation, reality television breaks the rule of one-way mass communication. Instead of being disengaged from direct viewer participation, it is in fact dependent upon it. This active participation stretches from the viewer watching fantasy to actually participating in the creation of the show. We become immersed in and can see our effects upon reality television. And because reality television is a slice of life of an actual person whose story begins before the show and will continue after it, as opposed to a scripted character, it has time, and time moves. Concurrently, the structure of the show insures that it steps just enough out of time to be fantasy, and not the real. It becomes a place where desires are temporarily found for both the viewer and the participant; when the television is turned off, the fantasy is closed and the desire is once more out of reach. We have formed a love affair with reality television because instead of being a self-contained system that we merely observe, it is something that constructs our desires, has the continuity of time, and we can touch, we can affect.