A grouping of thoughts that usually occur to me late at night. Thank heavens for the laptop.

Cycles: And it goes up, and it comes down.
Extra-personal: Empathy with fellow beings.
Pearl Jam on Kurt Cobain: It took me a while to spot this connection
Robotoids: One does what one must to survive.
Authorship: On writing.
Good Will Hunting: Yes, I know it’s only a movie.

Cycles

Something I saw on telly brought the old question back to me, yet in a different light. Perhaps this amalgamation of two thoughts was inevitable; I leave you to judge. On the one hand, I can criticise some forms of management (of countries, for example) by denouncing their deference to age in matters politic, while we all know that youth brings change, and that change is essential to the continuous process of adaptation. However, perhaps my relentlessly ever-increasing age now forces upon me another thought. Yes, the ability to recognise and allow for change is a key characteristic acknowledged by managers. But is not the difference between youth and non-youth that chiefly of experience? And would it be right for a manager to sit back and allow youth to change a course which history has had a word or two to say about? The Folly Of youth is a strong counter-argument to those advocating the importance of new blood. Or perhaps that just is the way of things; to occur in cycles. It brings to mind the analogy of entire humankind as resembling an animal force, one that at times resents peace and longs for disquiet. Man the Usurper versus Man the Sharer. P.S. I believe it was some mention of Schumpeter’s (?) theory addressing economic cycles that concretely verbalised this concept of history in cycles that I had.

Extra-personal

Does everyone interested in extra-terrestrial life have an equal interest in extra-personal life? By which I mean that, when I try to empathise with a fellow human being, I’m always wondering what it means to be that person, and whether, even with my benefit of having life, brain, emotions and reasoning power, I will ever truly hit the mark. The obvious answer is: of course not. But what is intriguing is by how far am I missing the mark? I guess the similarity between the extra-terrestrial life question, and indeed the extra-species question as well as extra-personal is the same: Do we really understand another?

Pearl Jam on Nirvana

It’s finally hit me. Yes, ladies and non-ladies, I have seen the light. Granted, it took its time coming (I will admit I’m no budding rose; I see myself as more of a gnarly oak (I’ve been trying to introduce the word ‘gnarly’ into my conversations for a while now, but for some reason “The weather’s very gnarly today” just doesn’t go down well”)) but the truth is here and it’s brought all its furniture too. The exact moment? I was drumming along to Pearl Jam singing ‘State of love and trust’, a song which, by the way, I have heard a million times before, if not less, and I realised the lines
“Nothing, I’ll do this one myself”
“And the barrel shakes, aimed directly at my head”
“Won’t you help me, help me from myself”
et cetera…
is a reference to none less than Mr. Cobain himself (his recent works include fronting the band Nirvana and topping himself), which perhaps I should have cottoned on to given that Eddie even sings a line from a famous Nirvana song, the name of which eludes me now. Oh hell, listening to it again, the references are just reaching out and slapping me in the face with the business end of a cold dead fish!! How could I have been so obtuse?

Robotoids

In the beginning, survival was pretty much based upon one factor; the ability to locate and assimilate food. Then, as competition increased within as well as between individual species, the notion of warfare took root. Then it became a matter of grouping together. This was followed by tool use, further military developments, finally leading to wars of intelligence. The next generation of successful beings, however, are going to be those who have a built-in filter that can immediately distinguish between boring but relevant information, and interesting but useless kinds. This is a natural step forward, which will serve to distinguish between those who will ever be distracted by minutae (e.g. me) and those who give not a flying about anything other than what is relevant to the job in hand. Thus will we become a species of robotoid humans.

Authorship

Reading Tom Holt, and appreciating his faculty for inventing plot from a simple trail of similies, reminds me of an author talking about his developing a style. Martin Amis feels free to mock his earlier attempts at writing with expressions similar to “what was I thinking. Could I be anymore dopey?”. Presumably his authorship is beyond reproach now that he’s written a number of Nobel-winning treatises, or something. My own style has become remarkably similar to Tom Holt recently, especially while blogging, so perhaps I’m not the person to comment.

Good Will Hunting

I’m like a fish out of water, gulping for air because I’m watching the slow build up of trust between Matt Damon and Robin Williams.
What comes here?
RW: So call her up Romeo
MD: Why? So I can realise she’s not that smart, that she’s fuckin’ boring, you know what I mean, you know this girl is like fucking perfect right now, I don’t wanna ruin that.
RW: Maybe you’re perfect right now, you don’t want to ruin that.

also

RW: Do you think I know the first thing about what being an orphan is like because I read Oliver Twist?