fractured reality

I hate this time of year, the gaming drought from E3 to the “Holiday Season”.

Bah.

E

When browsing my own bookshelves for reading material this weekend, I discovered a couple books I never actually read. From the cover information I knew immediately that these were books that I had bought for college, but only was ever required to read certain passages. And so it was that I discovered another one of the great missed opportunities of education in this stupid system: campus book buy-backs.

When I was a college student, and the year was done with, and I’d just scrambled tooth and nail through my examinations, my projects, and I had to pack everything I owned up again to go back to Buttfuck, Ohio for another “break”, two primary concerns conspired to more or less force my hand: money and real estate. I couldn’t move all the books I owned, and when the hell was I ever going to need those texts again, anyhow? So off I’d go to sell my books at ridiculously undercut prices, to people who would then no doubt gouge the next poor cog in the collegiate machine. Only a [i]decade[/i] later would I realize that I really missed having some of those books. Any text that was required reading by these professors is probably worth the time (except anything suggested by M. Suydam, who was worthless in the class she got shunted into). But since I didn’t have the time back then to read *everything*, a condition exacerbated by Quake, relationships, and physics, I never got around to it. Until now.

Ummm, I’m pretty sure I was gonna write more here, but work got very busy and distracting, so yes. I guess my main, belabored point this morning is Don’t sell your books back. You’ll lament their absense later on.

E

As I emerged from the restroom and returned to my office, it occurred to me that if someone had asked me right then what I was thinking about, I would’ve responded, promptly and honestly, “Activation enthalpy”.

E

For today, Andrian Kreye is my hero.

Kreye’s Law of Literalism

When devaluated information makes opinion an added value, the law of literalism is permanently questioned, while remaining the last resort of reason.

The inflation of available information has devaluated word and image to mere content. The resulting perception fatigue is increasingly met with the overused rhetorical tool of polarizing opinion. It’s based on an old trick used by street vendors. In the intellectual food court of mass media, opinion appeals to reflexes just as the fried fat and sugar smells of snackfood outlets activate age-old instincts of hunting and gathering. In the average consumer opinion triggers an illusion of enlightenment and understanding that ultimately clouds the reason of literalism.

Literalism is freedom from credo, dogma and philosophical pessimism. It’s the process of finding reality driven by an optimistic faith in its existence. It tries to transcend the limits of the word, by permanently questioning any perception of reality.

Belief and ideology, the strongest purveyors of opinion, have long known the language of science and reason. Creationists use secular reasoning to demand that schools stop teaching the laws of evolution. Right-wing radicals and religious fundamentalists of all creeds tone down their world visions to fit into an opinionated consensus. Economic and political forces use selective findings to present their interests as fact.

Literalism can become an exhausting effort to defend the principles of fact and reason in a polarized world. The complex and often boring nature of factual reality makes it an unglamorous voice amid a choir of sparkling witticisms and provocations. Devoid of the ecstasies and spiritual cushioning of religion it denies age old longings. It can be decried as heresy or simultaneously accused of treason by all sides. It must sustain the insecurities brought on by the absence of ultimate truth. Having been the gravitational center of enlightenment, it must be defended as the last resort of reason.

The second and fourth paragraphs are the same thoughts I’d been having about “pundits” lately, but could not properly articulate. Thank you, Andrian.

E

I am considering rewriting the instructions for a certain work-related software installation so that I also get e-mailed or telephoned by people who are carefully following directions. As it is, I only get e-mailed of called if they are patently unable to read and follow simple instructions. This has the effect of impressing upon me that the vast majority of people cannot follow directions, which isn’t true. I imagine many people are successfully negotiating the installation without a hitch; I just don’t hear from them.

Anyhow, this is just a rehashing of the primary theme in my workplace: utterly soul-crushing apathy.

We are preparing for Renovation of the Thompson Library here, and that means we leave the building, which for me means returning to SEL. It’s a bit surreal.

And now for some quality time with mod_rewrite and php/mySQL. Whee!

E