philosophy | J.J. Smith's "Numbers"

CLXXIV.

April 3, 2013 § Leave a Comment

particles

scatter, frenetic, unbound

absorbed,

human eyes imagine color

without perception, brilliant pinks, blues, greens—

cease to exist

unheeded travel;

dying cosmic giants burned into weightless, heat-absent black

if we blink out

who witnesses our light?

–

from a hospital bed,

I perceive shadows, warring particles

scattered, frenetic, unbounded

Devices capture, release, diminish

Urgent Care cries dissolve, rinsed in time

CLXIII.

January 15, 2013 § Leave a Comment

mid-drink collision,
“our thought, our intellect,
unquantifiable”

you: “pour me another”

amber ale rises
foam grips, glass edge brimming

you: “hydrogen bonds are strong”
(and why else it refuses to spill
but I cannot break fixation—
soft lips, how hard syllables crack)

“odd, how immeasurably
imagination stretches,
how we house ourselves”

“how does space contain itself?”

“odd, how matter distances from matter,
how unseen, how dark”

our planet pushes away
stars recede,
we relate, we muse on
alcohol dilutes

CXLIX.

December 21, 2012 § Leave a Comment

tracking stats and “likes”

twice, LXX is ignored

just that awful, violent roar of a machine

the [vacuum] I am steering over a carpet sewn by

hands sewn with sperm and egg

this man-made object is being steered by a man-made man

a union [of women and men]

which laid down these bricks [the building I am standing in]

…me, squeezed between a space, the same properties that bend this vacuum toward my will

the properties of physics and of chemistry

myself, bent in this sucking, awful roar of the [universe]

the killer suns, and all that I will never steer

I seek to steer a vacuum, bent within a vacuum

it drives me, relentless in its own way, never my own, never me

here, there is doubt. Nature is a complex, varied organism. See: atoms. Zoom out, see: a human. Zoom out, see: a planet. Zoom out: you see a thing, not the many things trapped, bent within its awful, violent roar—

—the atoms bent in the noise of war, intercourse, ingenuity, musical vibrations

—the people bent in the starlight, oceans crashing, land shifting

—the planet bent in its orbit, its turn, its satellites

—what steers?

tracking stats and “likes”

CXI is enjoyed

I must practice writing as Earth practiced itself

the universe practiced

as did its parts, its galaxies

water planets—our solar system—Earth survived

multicellular beings practiced

until I emerged

my mind, my eyes, my hand–they practiced

now words surface

- -

often, I fear my words are read

the meaning, lost

Returning: LXX.

December 17, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Just that awful, violent roar of a machine, the one I am steering over a carpet sewn by hands sewn with sperm and egg, a union which laid down these bricks which stack all around me, squeezed between a space, the same properties that bend this vacuum toward my will, myself, bent in this sucking, awful roar of the vacuum, the killer suns, and all that I will never steer — it drives me, relentless in its own way, never my own, never me.

- -

Always me, always everyone; in its own way it makes itself in the only way it ever could, as no way other than the way it formed could have occurred; it is perfect in its disorderly manner, in fact, by means of its perfection it is not disorderly but, rather, it is in order — all is in order; that is “us” (you, me) and all outside of “us” is also “us”; it is never within something in the same way that everything is inside of it; all is outside of it (think of it as being within and out of itself) and my feelings to its pull, its bending, are subjective and weighty with misunderstandings — I was mistaken in my seeing of the energy, just that awful, violent roar of a machine…

CXLVII.

November 21, 2012 § Leave a Comment

If I could stare long enough at a single point . . . say, I was standing in a room and staring—not into a corner or at a blank wall, but if I could stare long enough, holding my friend’s hand while I did so (because her presence provides such strength), I could see into that spot, into this empty air, this vacuum, this invisible little nothingness between the ceiling and the floor and the walls, the part we walk through daily without feeling it pass through us—

if I could stare into the nonspecific space long enough I might see the atoms buzzing.

There is a law in quantum mechanics stating the specific placement of an atom cannot be exacted. A definite number cannot place its presence. The measurements are given in scientific notation so as to account for error. This is because the atoms are never not moving. Everything buzzes always. Without movement, nothing survives. Without the moon’s gravity and the tidal push, organic matter does not shift, life does not emerge on land. Stagnant lakes harbor death and bacteria. With only movement does life and light exist. With collision, new life is birthed. With a dying star, elements are hurled out into the nothingness; here, the debris collects and compacts. Planets are made. They move. The atoms they are made of move.

The laws of physics we are submitted to are specific to us and our size. Our atoms do not follow the same laws. They follow their own. How is it that the very essence of which we are made of does not follow the same rules?

The meteors and the red giants and the colliding galaxies are rushing ever-always, looming overhead. We are stuck between the quantum-sized fabric of matter and the ominous threats, the larger, unfeeling, relentless beasts. We are the Middle, a harmonizing of the unseen and the incomprehensible, all coalescing into brawn and sensuality and intellect and humor.

Vibrations of the atoms affect each erogenous pocket of matter—

screaming, we enter

pleading, we exit—

how magnificent, how frightening—

this begs interpretation but the truth remains evasive (“truth?” is the wrong question to ask here but I am left lying here, fighting off sleep and these poisonous thoughts that often plague a young man in his twenties.)

Another quantum law states how no prediction can be reached on what will happen in any given circumstance.

CXLIII.

November 18, 2012 § Leave a Comment

During the flight, Simon & Schuster’s World of Physics brought consolation; Weaver and Feynman affirmed my own life-mulling in the way that Fichte and Kant had this year previous–thank the Germans! Today, Blaise Pascal–thank the French! But these are only names, only heritages. Their words transcend them in the way that my own notes scribbled on airport receipts belong no more to me than anything else (do I “produce” these notes or, rather, discover them? And what is it I discover? That which lies dormant, breathing and waiting in nature.)

On the receipt acting as a page placeholder,

unlike the Greeks, I must form a concept of the nature of physical laws in the way that I have sought a relationship between the forces and structures of nature

no structure can exist without forces

the laws of nature which apply to a human apply to any celestial bodies as well

observation, reason, experiment

methods of understanding: control/isolate, deduction, approximation

Returning: XCII. & XXVIII.

October 31, 2012 § Leave a Comment

XCII.

Soon as I dictate my thoughts to my limbs

to my fingertips

the keys

the thought vanishes with the magic of its inception

- -

soon as I etch mentalities into a yellow legal pad

I become less of who I was

I become much less

enhanced by refinement

bereft of any chance of purity

- -

am I More now or Less now than prior to This?

XXVIII.

No matter how I try, can’t trace my pen-hand. Its shadow attached, trapped existing; out of light, extinguished, is its only rest.

Move a thumb. It moves. It interprets. It soothes. It means. It mars. It takes.

CXXXI.

October 31, 2012 § Leave a Comment

It nags, pulls here; it is not the impulse to write but

you sleep; I write

is this not true? Or am I deceived?

Skin of my bones, my muscle, my egg-carton of organs (cook, crack, split them; they expire, they spoil; all it takes is time)

all it takes is time and these nights fade

you sleep; I write

there was a life here, was there not? Out here floating off is a boy

a balloon missing its weighted-piece –

not “decorum” because my inflated form does not belong up here

not “decorum” because the wind whipped it about, scuffed the plastic, wore-down the edges

faded; all fades as these nights are closing

in, around — I am deceived

you sleep

I write

CXXIV.

October 13, 2012 § Leave a Comment

I am typing from an unreachable space. Here, you are sealed off from the immediacy of the emotions coursing through my nerves, exacted by (oh, as I have referred to them as before) these interpreters made of bone and flesh and all that is invisible to me unless I were to peel these layers back until an emptiness revealed itself, until the void creeping into my thoughts as of late is revealed–

you should feel alienated by my words now. Good. It is best this way. The relationship we are forming is too knowable…You read; I live, I write; you read…How are you living? Well? Not-so-well?

If you are not familiar with this manner-speak, please, humble me by allowing yourself entry and entreat your mind to wander; do me this courtesy and I shall offer a heavily contemplated experience. I offer you honesty.

Here, you are sealed off from knowing me. You know the words. That is all I have anymore, really (do not mistaken this for pitiful remarks of Self.) It is true. The words say what my laughter and my new pair of shoes and my haircut and the artifacts on my shelves cannot.

CXVI.

June 14, 2012 § 2 Comments

Writing fiction is one of the worst necessary choices I had to make. It nurtured me through periods of alienation. It also alienated me from those who wanted to nurture. It rescued me from despair but it distracted me from focusing on what could have made me money. It created for me a home to live in when I felt homeless, but it also became that home I could never stay in for very long. It became a chore to upkeep, to maintain, and it grew into a monster I couldn’t tame; it became an ugly growth I could not expose, but I had already removed its wrappings;

I had unveiled what I am, what I do.

Writing fiction brought me here, to this place, to this terrible June, where I’m fretting over resumes and completing a degree and now this trip to see a man who they say is my father. It has put me in this uncomfortable position from where I dispense only the ugliest of truths; it has become a burden for me to bear and unload it here for a measly 4,400-something page hits. It has me wishing for the dumbest things: fame, recognition, praise, controversy;

it has me defending myself to those who do not believe in this road trip I am undertaking, those who believe in book trilogies adapted to movies, both forms so wasteful but profitable; these enemies of mine believe in what the Screen shows; they believe in what the latest PR claims;

they do not believe in me, what I am, what I do.

Writing fiction has brought me to this blog that I have considered deleting now about 116 times…but each time I sit to do it I instead begin typing

as if it’s going to help the pain of disappointment subside,

as if I am committed to a monster worthwhile.

CX.

April 27, 2012 § Leave a Comment

“It’s all so juvenile”

is a phrase I read via someone’s Facebook status, moments ago;

What is All? Is it living? Is it social drama? Is it Facebook? Because if we are talking of anything involving humans then the above statement is correct

because Facebook is never fully developed. And the Internet is still rather young. Social drama is forever unfolding, always developing. And living is all about development, especially for humans;

furthermore, humans can never reach their full capacity because we can always aspire to becoming something better than what we are;

a son can accomplish what his father could not: always—

a flower cannot accomplish anymore beyond what its flower predecessors could accomplish; the flower has reached its full capacity, just as the lion has and even the ape has.

We are juvenile creatures, I will assert. And I can stand by this claim. Anything we invent is juvenile, in effect, and will forever be so

- -

However,

on the thought of LkCa 15b (click here to google this), Nature is rather juvenile as a Whole;

always the universe is expanding within the Multiverse which is always expanding within Whatever;

always there are planets forming;

always there are stars dying to spread the elements that spur on new life;

always, Nature is developing,

and if we are Variants of Nature then we are its Exceeding of its capacity;

we are the developing brain of All

so All is juvenile.

CVII.

April 17, 2012 § Leave a Comment

And already the calming effect of illustrating my doubt is easing over and through me; the sounds around me, silent, the colors of the sounds now rendered to shades; already, the immediate world has slipped from my awareness although I persist in writing of it; somehow, it is gone from me; somehow, I am gone, too;

(what I can best recall from those previous of Numbers is a whirlwind of terrible diction; I am adamantly striving to correct it)

somehow, I am becoming the constant state of revision; I am becoming the Corrected, the Commodity, even; somehow, I am shrunk to letters, to confined meanings, to the Page; somehow, I am found here, and you must see what I see

but you never see what I see (although I paint it for you)

as your eyes are not my eyes;

your sight is your own;

we perceive a dark hallway the way our own separate cognitive Selves perceive it;

yet, somehow, we make up the Whole. Together, All, we are Oneness

and I must remember this if I am to survive this mind of mine.

CVI.

April 17, 2012 § Leave a Comment

A long while has passed for when a constant Stream has since vomited forth from the Head

(The, From, Has, For, A, Of, To, Uh)

Uh, Uh

the Ums

and why should you care? You, the Identified, the Consumer, made by our linguistic consummation; that is, you interpret, I spill

(my guts) (your soft, vulnerable synapses firing)

fireworks, goes Us

(more allusions, more allusions, more of That and Those)

and why you are this far along with me now I am not sure

you must have plenty time to waste

(Time! Invention! more dull thoughts, and we’re stupider for them)

you give enough for Me to give of Me

I give so little for You to give of You

CI.

February 19, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Now I remember why I don’t play games online. The players, no matter what age they are, resort to tactless behavior and hurl unwarranted insults. Any social norms that might force them to hold back in real-life confrontations don’t exist. And it’s impossible to differentiate the 13-year-old from the 30-year-old.

- -

If I am to believe that a person projects their innermost and truest thoughts upon others through simple messages, might I be correct in assuming an online persona is an honest projection of who they really are? Perhaps, I should consider any social norms as invisible walls so as for a person to hide their Selves behind. Online, these walls crumble. And the Self is revealed.

- -

People are very eager to release their ugliness if it means not putting their real names and faces to it. Thusly, they are not responsible for the filth their brains eject. They wish to pollute others’ lives in order to purge their own of such awful thoughts. I cannot comprehend it. I cannot believe it. But here I am now forced to not ignore it

and here I am writing of it.

- -

I cannot declare the Internet to be a rotten place. I can only assume that people are intrinsically disturbed as they seem to embody such unfiltered hatred toward others they have never met face-to-face. So what could these people possibly think of me if they were to meet me offline? And

what could I think of them?

C.

February 11, 2012 § Leave a Comment

No dreams in particular

- -

the pond, last night, filled with geese; new flocks circled high above, descending among a blaring of imitated-car-horns and slapped water

the cloud-filled-sky masked the outer planets and unconscious stars from where I stood watching dark, feathered figures gather; my eyes could not discern between the ducks or the geese; these living shadows amassed at the rate of what I imagine it takes for a bulb to lose its captured light at the flick of a switch; they became one, huddled race intent to survive,

intent on making it through another season,

another generation

another time

I became another time

a better time for measure

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