Once I thought of a certain person that: 'if the truth took two sentences and a lie would take one, he'd lie.' Even about trivial stuff he was constantly lying. It occurs to me it could be that he was just (and is) uncomfortable with speaking much. And also perhaps not so good with words. So he tries to keep things very short. And that perhaps he's got enough fear/nervousness in him that it causes him to say really stupid things.

Perhaps I incorrectly thought he was 'evil'? And thus in return was fearful of him and thus somewhat indifferent?

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In regard to a recent email was also thinking somewhat related that perhaps this is the main cause of indifference, that people are too busy being afraid, too busy being suspicious, fearful, too busy erring on the side of selfish caution, and thus just simply avoid others.

Over and over again I can look at indifference and see this at it's heart. Which is to say again, that it simply takes strong/happy people to be compassionate. Where 'strong' and 'happy' mean about the same thing.

Where someone can be rich and 'successful', have tons of 'friends', have great health and even seemingly be happy (to some extent...?), yet be full of suspicion of others and thus indifferent and even hateful.

And so then the obvious thing to do is to try to reduce their fear, their suspicions, and to somehow make them 'stronger' and 'happier'. The end result being that they can manage to find more time to have concern for others instead of being selfish. (This as opposed to the zombie basis for compassion. The too far future. What a good blog title that was.) The end result also being they become wiser perhaps? And thus don't need to err quite so far towards selfish caution.

But it means that at times two seemingly contradictory things must be done. You must manage to truly show them that you want them personally to be happy while at the same time making very clear that you disagree with their actions. Successfully doing that is so difficult because their suspicion gage will go into the red the moment you express any disagreement.

What way to cure indifference?

Should we shower love and compassion on indifferent people?

In this way can we show them what it's like to live in a world where people are something other than indifferent to each other?

But what of the hate usually mixed in? What when their indifference is also tied into suspicions of evil all around them? When they perceive evil they respond with hateful actions and cause harm, how should we then respond?

The same. We respond still with love and compassion even when they hurt us exactly to show that their perception that we're evil is simply wrong.

Against this though is the worry that we're thus letting them get away with the hurt that they've caused. That instead of punishing them for their harmful actions were basically sending a message that they can get away with such actions.

But we already know that a world based on punishment and force doesn't work so very well.

Whether it's hate or indifference or a mixture of both (and indifference is the worse of the two) we should respond with love and compassion. At the same time we still need to try to somehow speak out and say when an action (or lack thereof) is causing harm.

This is complicated. Because speaking out may likely mean they'll think you wish them harm. They'll think you're 'attacking' them. To both speak out against their actions and to still love them and truly try to make their life better is something between difficult and impossible.

In this industrial society if you ever speak out against someone's actions you're immediately someone who should just go away. There's millions living in some proximity of one another. Those who have any disagreement have no reason to have anything to do with one another.

In this industrial society there's no reasons to bother caring about the welfare of people. To show such love and compassion in and of itself is considered strange.

In this industrial society there's no reasons to bother trying to work through disagreements.

The system is setup so that what should be done is basically impossible. But still, to what extent it can be done, it must be done.

A: But you can't make the world a better place unless you are critical of it. You can't make it a better place unless you first identify the things that are wrong with it.

B: But you can by just immediately believing everything's basically fine.

A: That's an incredibly short sighted solution. It's what someone would do who didn't look very far into the future.

B: It's what a person would do who is capable of enjoying themselves right now. Those who can't have no real choice but to forever focus on some distant future that will never arrive.

The Heart of Stalking???

Trying to change you though (make you something other than indifferent) is I think the main question of humankind. So to sit and ponder and ponder and wonder what miracle it would take doesn't seem to be really that much of a waste of time.

Would be good if I had some idea what the particulars are here though.

Do you know what suffering you're causing and just not care?
Do you think I'm not actually suffering?
Do you think it's some kind of bizarre trick and that actually I'm some kind of evil person?
Do you think there's actually nothing at all you can do to stop my suffering? I'm just nuts (go see a 'professional', you just need a happy pill)? Or that it would take waaay too much on your part to stop it?

Which one of the above errors, or which combination, are you making?

There are types of people that think when they disagree with someone, the thing to do is simply say nothing and suddenly cut all ties with the person.

Why?

Because they believe the way everyone acts is set in stone?
Because they project their own incredible closemindedness on everyone else?
Or because they don't understand what the heck is going on in their own head well enough to explain what it is they aren't liking/disagree about?
Because there's so many millions of people living in close proximity and yet at the same time conveniently shut off from one another that we can let a few float in and then pass on by and it really doesn't even matter? They're interchangeable? Concepts like community and friendship are so 16th century?
Because actually, other than a spouse, 'friends' today are just the people you work with for a year or so till one of you moves to a new job?
Because we really don't have any meaningful concrete connection? There aren't any crops we're growing together; no village we're defending?
Because they're evil?

All it would take is appearing to give a shit about the lives of your fellow human beings. Just attempting to explain whatever in the world you're thinking.

And what would it take for that to happen?

The assumption of good on my part. Not perfect. Making mistakes. But not meaning anything bad. Not trying at all to cause harm. The assumption that of course there is a worthwhile human being here.

With that assumption, then just simply having explained yourself in the first place, instead of what you did.

But that's not what you are, that's not what the world is. (You = World, symbolic. Like it or not, you've represented it perfectly). You and everyone else doesn't make that assumption. You and everyone else errs on the side of not getting taken advantage of. And the weaker and stupider people are, the farther they err in that direction. They find ways to suspect, to believe, the other is evil.

Or they find no way to not be indifferent.

And thus the world is a sort of dystopia.
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And then there is punishment of the evildoer, etc, in a great big neverending circle.
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My gawd my music kicks ass.
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I went to work the other night despite my back being so messed up I could hardly stand erect. The first 8 hours were hell. Of course I got pulled to another unit for the very first time. I knew the evil god who's (or I'm Job) torturing me would make sure on this night when my back hurt so bad I'd get pulled and have a difficult assignment. Possible dilantin infiltrations, endless people with so many tubes coming out of them it was very difficult to keep it all straight. And I'm hobbling around like Igor. Perfect.

Then I drank a bottle of OJ. Regretably I don't hardly ever eat fruit or even drink fruit juice. I drank the bottle of OJ and within an hour I was walking normally without any pain. This after my back being so messed up for the previous 5 days. Hmpf.

Surely there was more to it than the OJ but it reminds me (yet again) that I really ought to make sure to consume a little fruit each day.
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What was it? ? ? ? ? ? Ghost idealism

Imagine a large tribe of elves in the woods (by elves I mean 'good humans') that are defeated by an army of orcs (bad humans)(notice 'good' was in quotes but not 'bad', as it's maybe not actually possible for anyone to be good but bad is easy enough).

The elves are defeated and made slaves (because they're not as aggressive and being aggressive more than makes up for stupidity). The pretty elven women that survive exist as sex things. The people who survive in general are slaves.

But the orces are way too crude to not have a meritocracy. If you embrace their ways you can move up and someday be a powerful man amongst them.

Three elves. One on seeing the women raped attacks the orcs, knowing full well he'll be killed and indeed he is killed.

He's an idealist.

The second one sees it and is sickened but does nothing to stop it. He does as he's told and spends his life as a slave. Never attempting to effect any change.

He's a ghost idealist.

The third elf embraces their ways. He seemingly learns to think a bit of rape is all in good fun. Slavery's just how life is, etc. He becomes a powerful man and enacts some few rules regulating slavery.

One could say the first man was a coward; that he couldn't bear to continue living. One could say the second man, the ghost idealist, is another type of coward; by being an idealist he is making himself partially not really here at all. He's making sure he'll never accomplish anything and actually need not even ever really try. One could say the third man is the one responding the best.

One could look at it all another way whereby this makes no sense.

One could instead make the pragmatist spend his life in a most awful way where every moment is horror just to in the end see himself and his race die out.

It's a question of degree but humans don't really do degrees well. Should be some kind of way to take questions of degrees and respin them so that we can consistently hold on to highly nuanced positions over the long term and even in our 'reflex' thinking.
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What was that? ? Ghost Idealism and what was the other? ? I imagine it was some really amazing thing. But I remember that it wasn't actually. It's really just I have nothing to say and I'm saying it (the entire blog). But this one bit that was forgotten has such mystery now. I can put it on a pedestal as a great thought to worship. To love.

It may seem ridiculous to start talking about inventing things when yur talking about things you don't know crap about (the arrogance of youth, the simple stupidity..., etc). But well, nothing wrong with getting initial thoughts down before getting stuck into the established track.
Harrison must be doing something else with his justly tuned piano. Have to read up some more I guess.

I read Guy Gavriel Kay's viking fantasy, something about Light of the Sun... title made no sense relative to the book that I could see. I've read half of another titled Prospero's Children. And part of that Gene Wolfe ancient Greece book.

None of these people know how to properly tell a story. OTOH Robin Hobb is king. I shall attempt to start putting together a story/ies keeping Hobb's expert writing in mind.

I've spent the last 4 days laid up with I guess back spasms. Not too painful but I can't stand up straight and can hardly walk (not too painful unless I try to stand up straight). The worst part is just watching the time pass by, praying I'll have healed enough to go work for 14 hours (on my feet probably a good 5) on Monday night. I already called off for Friday night. If I call off Monday night that will be two call offs. We get 5 for an entire year. At which point we receive a written infraction (whatever that means). Fired at 11.

Which is absurd. It's a hospital by the way. This means people routinely come to work sick and spread their diseases to their patients. It should be against the law to have such a policy about sick days at a hospital. It is a threat to the public's health.

It's not as big a deal for me as I usually go years at a time without catching colds or flus. But the back thing worries me. It seems to be an increasingly chronic problem. Will have to start taking additional steps to try to fix this problem. But it seems to follow no rhyme or reason...

I don't think sitting in a chair is really a good idea so for now I lay in bed praying I'll heal enough to handle work Monday night. It's not looking like I'll quite be better enough that I should attempt such a thing. I suppose I could get out my old laptop and try to outline some kind of template while I lay in bed...

At some point I need to actually truly begin the writing. I hold back almost as if I think my real life hasn't yet started.
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I think Michael Harrison's justly toned piano is beautiful by the way. There is perhaps something positive to be said for the extra dissonance along with the extra consonance.

Despite going off into dissonance there still seems to be something limited about the songs he's written with it though. (Also the pounding repetitive dissonant tone clouds of song 4 and 10 are kind of awful.) If one stayed in consonance, just intonation IS limited. With Harrison, I think he's still staying enough within it (it still sounds like music) that it is limited. I want though to experiment with the same tuning next and see if it is indeed limited. Probably so.

Limited or not, when working instead with VST technology it might make more sense to add many additional tones to the standard 12 to potentially remove dissonance from the just intonation (so you had a choice). So for example, having a second D note that was tuned to be consonant (1.5/1) with the originally justly tuned A note, etc. Although this concept taken all the way could mean a huge scale. One could instead limit this scale somewhat, maybe just tripling it for example to add more possibility, if indeed the justly toned 12 is as limited (although beautiful) as it appears in Harrison's work.

This does appear to come back somewhat to the justonic concept. Although is a combination of the two and was thinking might be easier or lazier to not actually bother with justonic and instead just make a separate scala file that added additional... secondary D, E notes, etc.

But there are all kinds of additional issues. Does one retune the additional notes based on the triad or the fifth, etc? There is no answer really. Would depend on each individual song. Would be very complicated.

About the justonic: I don't even think the justonic really makes all that much sense either. You play for example a C/E/G chord, then a D/F/A followed by a E/G/B chord in succession. In just intonation the first is perfect consonance, the following two are dissonant. But using the justonic, say where it used the lowest note as the root, all would be consonant, but the last G would be a different G than the first.

What this is to say, is that the step up by the middle note would be different than the step up by the bottom note... I think this in and of itself is similar to the issue of dissonance. I need to hear extended music written with justonic. I think it would have a vertigo-like effect.

While 3/2 is assoclated with power, 5/4 is more expressive of sentiment and emotion. To my ear, these qualities of the primes show up to some extent in combined intervals; for example, the included interval 5/3 (a "major sixth") seems to convey some "fiveness" and some "threeness." This would imply that the character of any just interval includes expression of the prime factors that make it up. Of course, all this is highly subjective.

In early times the interval 5/4 was considered discordant; its acceptance as consonant came centuries after 3/2 gained popularity. Then it became firmly established as an essential component of traditional triadic harmony.

http://www.redshift.com/~dcanright/harmser/

Power versus a more nuanced expression of differing feelings. Sort of like forcing people in line versus actually using reason and communicating their differences. Originally the 5/4 sounded discordant but as the ears spent time hearing it became 'musical'. With time a much larger and discordant scale could become acceptable. Would such routinely listened to by an entire society influence the actions in the same direction?

justonic and long explanation of just intonation

http://www.justonic.com/demos.html
Do I really care? Not sure.


These commas exist only outside the confines of the twelve notes tones of equal temperament. In fact, tempered tunings were developed over the past four hundred years precisely to avoid the commas that are heard whenever music with moderately complex harmonies is played in just intonation. I have discovered that incorporating the commas into the harmonic fabric of my music frees it from the need for tempered tunings and opens up a new approach to tonality.-Michael Harrison (as opposed to justonic)

Throughout the history of Western classical music there has been a gradual evolution from the use of relatively wide and consonant intervals to increasingly narrow and more dissonant sounding intervals. For example, organum, early two-part music that developed from the 9th to 12th centuries, used the consonant open sounding intervals of perfect fourths, fifths and octaves. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the relatively dissonant intervals of seconds, thirds, and sevenths were interwoven into the polyphonic fabric of the music, which was still organized contrapuntally as opposed to tonally. At the beginning of the 18th century, music began to be formally organized around tonal centers. As major, minor, and other key relationships developed, it became essential to create a tuning system that permitted moving easily between different key centers. In the 19th century, the evolution of even more complex chromaticism resulted in stretching tonal harmony to its limits. In the 20th century, Schoenberg’s concept of “emancipation of dissonance” led to the free use of any interval combination in equal temperament. I propose that this evolution is still in progress, and that its next stage is the “emancipation of the comma.”

etc...