Romper Stomper

The activities of today have led to much sublime cogitations, and the discovery that in spite of my desperate need to brush up on much lacking break dancing skills, clearing the living room does not compensate for bushy carpet and long legs. Consequentially, I have rug burns to compliment the nice, fat hip bruises acquired from failed windmills on the gym floor. Certainly something needs to be done about my tendency to crash land, or flip over my shoulder with much head smacking, but since none of my other frat brothers seem to be able to break dance, the burden and the pain is all on my lovely shoulders. It's nice to know that I have some modicum of normalcy, at least pertaining to various bodily injuries. It would not be proper for me to be pain free for long. The grievous injuries to my fingers are now healed, to some extent, so I look forward to other damage. I'm hoping that the bruises on my hip will be enough to stave off something a bit more serious, but I will not cross my fingers for fear of breaking one in the process.

Speaking of healing, I have taken the bandage off my right pinky finger in hopes of speeding up the healing process. Scarring appears to be minimal, however, the grafted skin has taken on a bulbous, jelly appearance. I expect, any day now, that it will some how amoeba itself off the finger and terrorize my remaining digits. My roommates will find me running from room to room screaming something about flesh beasts consuming everything and they will shrug it off as normal Jon behavior. At the moment, it is complacent, and gives off a very cool purple colour under black lights. I use it to initiate conversation with fuckable girls. Hey, do you want to see my injury? I got it in Iraq, saving kids from nukulear(SIC, pops to ma boy, Bush) bomb shrapnel...

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Other than abortive attempts at break dancing, the day has had the decency to move at an appropriate pace. Next week threatens to supreme damage, and last week was filled with the stress of a Grandfather's less than stable heart. I am brought to remember childhood interactions with the question of his heart's stability. Grandfather's heart has never been good, according to him. Medicine was imbibed regularly and came in the delicious form of 12yr Glenlivet. I once asked him why he drank scotch nightly and was told that he did so in order to help his heart. I resolved then that when I came of age, I would have a glass of scotch nightly as well. It is only natural that I came to associate the smell of scotch in the evening with Grandfather. Years after that, when I was in high school, Grandfather went to the hospital with heart problems. I told him that apparently his years of scotch drinking didn't help as his heart was junk. His response was standard Grandfather. He said that if it weren't for the scotch, things would have been much worse. That pretty much ended the conversation. When I was old enough to purchase scotch legally, I came to the conclusion that drinking Glenlivet was about as pleasing as chugging antifreeze. I am determined, though, to develop a taste for it. It's a respect thing, yannow? And, maybe one day, my grandkids will come to associate the smell of scotch with my evening habituations.

Ruminations aside, days of searching through dirty laundry in search of socks that don't stink have led me to the conclusion that laundry ought to be done on a reasonable basis. I am tempted to simply go out and purchase new socks, an action that I did often my freshman year at Gallaudet, which led Wenchy's mother to call me a typical Jew. I guess some problems can be solved by throwing money at them. Clean socks, in the mean time, are an extreme form of motivation, right up there with a dominatrix snapping a whip. The thought of bringing a girl back to my room, only to have her repulsed by the fetid stench of my unbridled and living socks is enough to drive me to the laundry machines. I will eventually have to clean my room as well, but that is a task that will not worry me until later this week. The room is not livid, and I can see patches of floor underneath paper and trash. I promise that the room was marginally clean until I bought my new camera, then camera junk has proceeded to take over every element of room space. I am tempted to call my camera Rommel, but I will not dirty it further.

My camera has already had interesting experiences, and I have not owned it for more than a few days. For those of you wondering, it is a Sony Cyber-shot, with a 4.1 mega pixel capacity. I nabbed it for $40 of list price, because it was an open stock item. I could have gotten a 5.0 mega pixel camera for only fifteen dollars more, but consoled myself with the 4.1 because, really, I don’t need 5.0 mega pixels and knew that I'd find myself with a very expensive 6.0 mega pixel camera because I'd tell myself that it was only $30 more than the 5.0, and so on and on.

I have not had much time to play with my new camera, but my roommates have taken an immediate liking to it. I came home after an evening of drinking and smoking up, only to find half-nude roommates wandering around my room and occasionally striking up compromising poses for the camera. I was immediately and severely traumatized. They later found me rocking myself in the living room, babbling something about extended nipples and pasty man flesh. For some reason though, I cannot bring myself to delete the pictures. I am completely tempted to post them on the internet for revilation (I know it’s not a real word. I don’t care) and mockery. I took much joy in showing various girls Blondie's completely hairless body. Their reactions were kodiak moments. I should have asked them to freeze face for more pictures. I will make a website, with the roomie pictures, and female reactions to them. It will be funny. It will be grand. I will wake up in my bed with camera parts scattered around me much like a Godfather flick. If y'all reading this, I demand small, unmarked bills and access to both y'all cars.

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Tonight promises much action and my liver has battened down the hatches. In the mean time, my Plantain has become overripe and is in desperate need of a good frying.

To my sister:

I'm not sure if you read comics, but I have found a pretty good one about the Punk world. I read it over and think you would enjoy it. It is below;

http://www.nothingnice.com/

Enjoy

Jon Cops Out

Kant’s argument for Time as a product of a priori intuition eviscerates itself on the first sentence. Kant is entirely convinced that time is not the product of empirical experience (Kant, 1781, pg 32). This, however, goes contrary to human concepts of time. The passage of time, as it refers to clocks, calendars, and the like, is very much an empirical product. The notion of time was first derived from repetition in nature. Man’s knowledge of time wasn’t intuited. It was calculated using mathematical means. Ancient man looked at the sky and noticed that certain star formations appeared in the sky at certain places at certain points in continuity. By tracking these star formations, ancient man was able to create a relatively accurate calendar that was able to predict seasonal changes and the timing of religious holidays. This notion of change was not a priori. It was noticed, and meticulously recorded for future observation. This recognition of time through empirical notation shatters Kant’s assertion that time is completely a priori. The acknowledgement that time is a completely subjective object of human experience does not make Kant’s argument consistent. Although he seems to recover when he notes that there is only one time, and all other times are derivative of this one time (given the possibility of a consistent time mark in the universe), his other comments regarding the consistency of time with relation to human perception deny Kant this saving grace (Kant, 1781, pg 32) (Kant, 1781, pg 34).

The concepts behind Kant’s arguments cannot be completely denied. Time does exist. To say otherwise would be to take a Parminedean stance and reject completely the notion of time. To do so would be to ignore the lack of complete object permanence. Lack of complete object permanence, or change through continuity, is proof that there is concepts of time and that it is not an artificial fabrication. In order to give Kant’s philosophy more accreditation, I believe small word change is in order. I do not think Kant meant Time, when he was talking about changes in continuity. It is possible that he did not know the proper word for the concepts of which he discussed, or that the German word did not translate well in to English. I am wholly convinced, though, that Kant did not mean Time, but Continuity. Time is an artificial concept. Continuity is not. Change in Continuity is the means by which we conceive notions of time. Thus, Time is a posteriori, whereas Continuity is possibly a priori.

Having fixed this small semantics error, we can now re-approach Kant’s premises on Time. Continuity is not derived from empirical experience. How can this be so, if all information gleaned is processed through sensory means? Our awareness of continuity comes from seeing things change. An object’s position in one point of continuity is not the same as its position in the next point of continuity. Our senses process this and the mind comes to the conclusion that the object has moved. The moving is quite empirical, however, the space in continuity is not even recognized. Certainly something has transpired, as the object cannot possess simultaneous positions in all points of continuity, at least according to our awareness. Kant would argue that the recognition of differentiation in points of continuity is based on pure intuition. We intuit that there have been changes in continuity, leading to motion and concepts of time. Kant calls this intuit sequential intuition (P -> Q), and uses it to confer actuality on motion as well as time frame changes.

But, if changes in points of continuity were a priori, then every human would have the exact same notions of continuity. This does not explain differences in concepts of continuity, especially among the sensory deprived or the brain damaged. Let us suppose a newly born human is placed in a sensory deprivation chamber. All repetition that would give it a sense of time is denied. The five senses of the child have been rendered void, and nothing in the sensory chamber ever changes. The child does not have a sense of time, as time is based on observed change, but does it have a sense of continuity? Kant would argue that the child would have a sense of continuity, because the mind would be able to intuit changes between point A of continuity and point B of continuity. His proof for this is quite sketchy. It is enough for him that continuity is an inner sense. But, his descriptions of how this inner sense came about rely extensively on changes in points of continuity, which are excessively dependant on observations. The deprived child has nothing. Therefore, I cannot be entirely convinced that the deprived child has any notion of continuity.

Some might argue that the deprived child would some how be able to intuit change through changes in his body. The body grows. There has been some change along lines of continuity. This argument may have merit, but loses it if the child cannot feel. Perhaps a more likely scenario is in order, because it is not common for children to be placed in sensory deprivation chambers. It is more common for people to accidentally damage their hypothalamus and lose the ability to create new memories. Memory is the medium by which the mind notes changes in continuity. We remember a frame of time and are able to compare it to the next frame of time in order to determine change. If a person damages their hypothalamus, s/he loses the ability to create new memories. Certainly, the memories of the past have given the person the knowledge of time, but since they cannot formulate new memories, they have no basis of time change. For them, time dies when their hypothalamus perishes. The damaged have no way of discerning new time, but can they note continuity? Kant would still insist that the damaged can intuit continuity, even without the ability to note time. Continuity is the absolute, and the mind, even damaged, can reason through the absolute. Having read Oliver Sack’s theories on the lack of memory cogitation, I remain eminently unconvinced that continuity is completely a priori, but an unable to explain why.

To this, Kant would reply that my inability to explain the properties of continuity is proof that I merely intuit it, and lack the adequate cognition to prove otherwise. The idea of continuity is simply something that the mind processes completely without experience, much like my sexuality. I cannot completely explain why I prefer redheads with round derrieres, but I do because something in my body compels me to appreciate them. It has come that I must grudgingly accept some of Kant’s arguments for the intuition of continuity because I have no other argument to explain the complete awareness of transition between points on scale. Things are certainly sequential.

Sources Cited

Kant, I. (1787). Critique of pure reason (Abridged). Cambridge: Hackett Publishing
Company.

Sacks, O (1998). The man who mistook his wife for a hat: And other clinical tales. New
York: Touchstone.

My House

The thing about music is that it has a tendency to completely obliterate my sense of time and space. I'm not saying that it some how opens a wrinkle in time, or that it sucks me through some kind of wormhole and places me in an alternative dimension where only my wits and my wacky friends will help me survive, but it does send me into past times where everything seems to be a bit better. Right now, Hendrix is playing. And, he's going to keep playing until I tell him to stop. The song of the moment is Red House, and it's one of my favorite songs. Actually, most of the songs on the Are You Experienced are favorites. Actually, the album itself has to be on my top ten of all time lists.

I purchased it in the Spring of 2003. It was a few months after I came home from Gallaudet. I was suffering from Mono, and wracked with doubt about my choices in life. Certainly, things seemed to be moving along, but I wasn't sure if the moving along was where I wanted to move along. I was embroiled in conflict with my then girlfriend, and the teachers at the local community college. Life was regulated to the 290 highway, my truck, and Hendrix. I remember putting that CD in while driving to her house and just dreaming the entire way down. The drive itself wasn't too bad, and at times I find myself missing the route. It was simple enough; take Palatine to the 53, south past the mall and a swiggle right to the 290. Jam 290 towards the city, and then Mannheim. Occasionally, the sun would hit the earth just right, and the air would shimmer gold rather than clear and everything would seem just so.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm wallowing in melancholy. I started the day feeling chipper, but walked outside and noticed that the clouds were desperately trying to overtake the blue of the sky. Conflict in the sky preludes conflict in man, and my biology class left sour tastes in my mouth. I walked home thinking nothing but black and wishing terribly that I could just go for a ride. Everyone in my family hates the motorcycles, but at times I think that riding is the only thing that keeps me sane. It's hard for me to describe how I feel when I'm riding. It's a mixture of emotions, that's for sure. There's excitement, as well as a sense of danger, and a whole lot of adrenaline going on. But, when you combine all these rushed feelings, they become some kind of supreme zen. Odd how chaos is actually serenity.

But my family really does dislike motorcycles, and they tell me so at every opportunity. On my birthday, we were in some small town southeast of Los Angeles, headed towards tequila bliss and decent food, when we passed by a downed motorcyclist. I took a good look at the motorcycle. It was a recently shiny and then tattered V-Max, the power-cruiser of choice for old men and one Redneck friend. It was obvious, judging by the fact that there were no cars in the vicinity, that it was a single person accident. The sky was blue, the roads were clear, and there was nothing but shattered motorcycle and shattered man. I think he probably just lost control and nailed himself hard. Later, that night, I suffered through hours of drunken rants on how I shouldn't get a motorcycle because it'll break every heart in my family but mine. I like to say that I'm immune to pure Jewish guilt, but there is a smidgen of Jew in me that listens a bit too much. Even my Uncle, who like myself is a bit of a family troublemaker, told me that motorcycles are bad because then I'd be breaking an obligation to the people who gave me life. I told him that they wanted to give me life and I had no obligation to them for that want. I dont think he bought it.

I'm not trying to make this a downer post, but this has been one of those weeks where I feel like everything eludes my grasp and that I'm chasing spilled and scattered marbles on a downhill incline. As soon as I manage to tackle one marble, another marble rolls by. Eventually, I realize that I've forgotten where most of the marbles have spun off to, and I know that those marbles were pretty fucking important. My senior thesis breathes down my neck and my books emit audible gasps whenever I walk by. Who's he? Why isn't he reading me? Shouldn't he be reading me? I bet he's jerking off to pixilated porn rather than reading me. I have people calling on me, asking me why I'm not dedicating more of myself to them, as if a few hours a day weren't enough.

I'm reminded of a video game from my youth. I believe it was called Rock and Roll Racing. Whenever a car was battered so much that it smoked, a voice would come on and say something to the extent of "X is about to blow!" Yeah. That's how I feel right now. Jon is about to blow! I need a break. Badly. I cut classes today trying to find some modicum of balance, but ended up throwing everything off.

Spring Break was supposed to be my escape from everything central Illinois, but all my plans have fallen apart. I dread going to Phoenix. Well, Phoenix would be nice enough had I my own transportation, but my family works and cannot play Jon's Chauffer. Consequentially, I sit on my ass and watch movies. That's not a fucking vacation. I can watch movies in Central Illinois. I was going to go to Europe, but my pen pal first asked me to rim her, and then asked for money. Certainly I could go and just walk around, but I want more than a week to walk around Europe, and I won't do it with the money I have. The road trips have failed. My options are disintegrating. I will make one last call to a friend out west, and if that fails, I guess I'll just skulk to Phoenix and work very hard at making an ass-impression in the couch cushions.

I'll also get a digital camera. That excites me, and probably only me. I want to just forget all the work that needs to be done, and think only two things: Minotola or Sony. Certainly, Minotola has the name and the perfect SLR cameras, but Sony has better CCR technology. I'm going to try for at least a 4-mega-pixel camera, although I'll go with a 5 if it's cheap enough. The problem with the cheap 5-mega-pixels is that they don't have a lot of options. It's questionable if I really need these bells and whistles, but options are nice. Sometimes I want a quick picture. Other times, I want an artistic shot. You know how it goes.


Anyone who knows me knows that these moods of mine don't last long. But, really, on some days, I do feel like a Daedalus Falling.