Majorie

We crave simplicity,
But simplicity does not exist when you’re trying to put it all together.
A man can wax theoretical until his last breath,
But Life shakes hands with Us all.

I used to dream.
I used to dream of algorithms that illustrated concision.
Wondrous renderings replete with dramatic affect,
Teaching a man how he should be.

But like Faith, these dreams were impotent against complexity;
Compexity that made one man mutter and another stutter;
Complexity that made one man rich and another borrow,
Pauper to existence, let the concrete record his sorrow.

I used to dream of magical men in the sky.
But what Good is it to have a disconnected advocate?
One who escapes logic through His wondrous awesomeness;
What good is it to keep remembrance of a vestige?

A man once told me that I was mad at God.
Perhaps.
I am certainly mad at Anthrops.
I am mad that we are without blueprint.
I am incensed that we are without precedent.

Whiskey

And I will look at you
And I will remember.
I will remember the forbidden kisses and hidden movements.
I will remember the unbidden pisses and the fucking insanity.

Trust me, Love, I loved you more than words could explain;
There is no tonal palette; no supreme spectrum,
That could capture my sentiment towards you.
Gravity.

Fuck gravity; Pardon me, Love, I’ve been drinking.
I’ve been fucking thinking about how I’ve been thinking;
This isn’t healthy,
I can’t move on from this hell, see, because you were my angel.

What truly fucks with me is the realization that nothing is nothing;
How I feel is no portend of God’s Heavenly decree.
This is me and I cannot make you mine any longer;
I cannot make myself stronger.

Well, fuck. Pardon me, Babe, I’ve been drinking.
I cannot make you feel anything because connections are temperamental;
I cannot entertain ideas of elemental;
Fundamental connectivities at meaningful levels.

If we love then we live;
But we don’t,
So we die.
I cannot get you to feel me huh?

Well fuck this. Pardon my language, Sweetheart, I’ve been drinking.
Goodness, I love you more than I love my own life.
I love you more than I love my own life.
Or so I like to say.

I Am Hero

Who am I really?
Moreover, what is this ‘who’ of which I speak?
Is it the conglomeration of nerve impulses and electrochemicals,
Mechanical manuals etched into the annuls of my gene pool?

I struggle in vain;
Everything I am is called to attention every moment,
I tell myself in the quiet moments that nothing matters,
Hoping my cow grows fatter as I prepare for the onslaught;

For every moment brings demands that supersede intimation,
I say to myself that Life is this, yet Life is also that,
Balance throws off consistency;
The only constant is the insistence of knowing.

But how does one comprehend the incomprehensible?
How does one survive without doing reprehensible,
Irresponsible, irreversible disturbing tricks with their words,
Donning verbs that sponsor herds of sheep-think;

I think.
This is my sole issue.
I think. I think. I think.
I consider what should not be pondered.

I question the fabric of questioning.
How can I know what can be known?
How do I ascertain what is actually ascertainable;
Without uncertainty man is relegated to doom swiftly.

But who am I?
What am I?
When I am laying in my bed of blessings feel inconsolable,
As the noble edicts of love escape me.

The showable precepts of friendship grate me;
I cannot anchor myself to anything worthwhile
Because I cannot define worth while violating principles;
Principles that I must exchange as the world makes its demands.

I cannot find constancy in a world that requires;
I am Prometheus. I cannot win even in integrity.
Life, I beg of thee;
Help me.

What the fuck am I?
Who the fuck am I?
Is there anything to even know?
Or am I an organic being doomed to grow,

Then die; teaching my acolytes tenuous reasons why?
What am I attached to?
She that I cannot have;
She that I can no longer touch.

Money which can never sate.
Dreams that I can never remake.
Feelings which I can never catch.
Demands of my mind’s eye which I can never match.

I am a slave to that which I am;
But I cannot recognize this creature;
I do not recognize his features;
I do not know what I am.

I am aided by nothing but the folly I tell myself;
I am sustained by my delusional ego.
I am upended by my delusional ego.
I am the number one consumer of my delusion

Ex Nihilo

This post is intended to be little more than a journal scrawl of all the thoughts buzzing around in my mind. I hope to do this topic justice in the very near future, but for now this disjointed, uncited truncation will have to do. – B

There are plenty of notorious problems besetting the human on the roads between birth and death. These have been the fodder of philosophy, religion, and sciences since the beginning of recorded history.

The Universe, no matter how one chooses to describe it, is mostly ineffable. Our beautiful cosmic home is practically virginal when we measure our understanding of it. Moreover, if one takes a hard glance at our understanding of things, very, very curious trends begin to emerge from the lines of inquiry and result.

Julian Jaynes has become my academic hero of late and his book The Origins of Consciousness: The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind has become somewhat of a holy text in my eyes. Although his theory is fantastical and quite possibly impossible to prove, his approach allows for some reasonable elucidations about anatomically modern humans and our psychical faculties. He draws upon an important precept, one that goes unnoticed by daily considerations, and that is the importance of language in our species.

Without deviating too far from my ultimate point, I want to stress to you the supreme importance of language in mental functioning. Linguistic considerations actually paved the way for the cognitive revolution and a much more robust understanding of consciousness and neuroanatomy. The reasoning for this is paradoxically obvious and subtle: obvious in the sense that language is  the very capturing of sentiments at any given moment, but subtle in how one must analyze texts and lexicons to gain insight.

The scientific method has been, bar none, the most successful methodology in drawing out insight into the world(s) around us. The scientific method, done correctly, takes NOTHING for granted and treats even the most banal circumstance as a contributing variable. Thus, it follows that a scientific treatment of language does not just analyze the translations of things, but tantamount, analyzes how and what is being expressed throughout time. Comparing identical texts written in two different languages allows for translation, but they may not mean the same thing.

We have now reached the first landing in this steady ascent of analysis: words and meaning are not the same thing. Again, this isn’t a tremendous revelation; slang and idioms demonstrate the flexibility of word usage and meaning on daily basis, but taken into an anthropological context, it provides an interesting entry point into the discussion at large.

When we are describing the Universe, everything around and within us, that is, we have at our disposal a universal lexicon that is consistent with innate human ability. There are certain sounds and tonalities that are possible given our lung capacity, larynx, and tongue, amongst others. These are the phonemes that form the building blocks of spoken language. As a grouping of sounds evolves into a codified language, the other mental functions of a society’s members begin to construct an algorithm that is that society’s culture. Meaning becomes a function of natural ability conflated with cultural context.

The construction of a human reality is bound by the minima and maxima established by human genetics; however, the variability from one person to another is in part governed by the environment they are raised within.

Once this hurdle is surmounted, a vision of humans should begin to coalesce: the generation of words is natural, but without understanding sociocultural context, meaning can quickly become disconnected. A cluster of words can have divergent meanings.

Jaynes’ proposition, based upon this paraphrasing, is that our ancestors had meanings wildly divergent from ours because they had psychological functioning wildly divergent from ours. Thus, when we access their texts and attempt to understand what they mean we mustn’t make the mistake of superimposing our context over what was occurring at the time. 

Without going into Jaynesian bicameralism, we witnessed a change in psychological functioning during the 1st and 2nd second centuries BCE. We went from organic automatons, to self-reflective beings all of which was recorded in heralded texts such as The Old Testament, Epic of Gilgamesh, and even Hammurabi’s Code.

I believe that we are on the crux of yet another pivot in the evolution of our species. Following Jaynes’ logic, since the middle of the 1st century BCE, we have gained this consciousness which has improved our ability to address novel stimuli and respond to uncertainty. However, we have still struggled with this notion of identity. During bicameral times, names were essentially “Servant of Baal” or “Son of Marduk”: our identities were inseparable from the deities that Jaynes’ calls hallucinations. However, as the voices died away and gave rise to subjective consciousness, a signal to a change in psychological functioning, there remained a void of purpose.

Why did we have this extremely powerful mental life? What should we be doing? Who are we? What are we?

At last I can interpose a modern familiarity with “meaning”. Advances in physics over the last 150 years have led to robust understandings of how the Universe operates. Both theoretical and experimental data shows that the macrocosm is an active cauldron of balance. While relativity is sufficient for large bodies, quantum mechanics is needed for subatomic levels.

But, and this is the thorn in many a theoretician’s side, there always seems to be a limit in what we can describe as being. Irrespective of cultural background, there are just places where words break down and meaning frays into individual proclivities. Even the most materialist of propositions cannot handle the mysteries of our Universe. Just google black holes and look at the the sophisticated discussions between brilliant minds.

Taking a penultimate stance, I want to remark on epistemology and not ontology. I cannot say for sure what is or even what could be considered is. However, with relative conviction, I can say that meaning or the descriptions of the universe around us, bound by the minima and maxima of human genetic ability, is simply in the business of describing information that is already there.

Nothing in the Universe is created or destroyed.

Matter can transformed into energy and energy can be transformed into matter, but the information remains conserved. This, to me, is the most important aspect of existence. While things may undergo changes, the net result of the equation is a constant. Thus humans are in a special place where they can record, reflect, and act upon the various configurations of a complex framework. Our “meanings” are not “meanings” in the modern sense. Whenever I hear my colleagues or friends discuss meaning, it is always pregnant with concretion or rigidity. Meanings, like matter or energy, are flux configurations, components of algorithms, that our brains possess an ability to pattern, codify, and act upon in a manner consistent with other aspects of the algorithm.

I do not believe that life has a meaning in the sense that “we are here to do something” in a preordinate sort of manner. To me, this is moot because as social beings we will act upon the nervous systems of others in positive and negative ways. Purpose, more often than not, is simply doing something that triggers positive emotionality and leads to prolonged productivity. I cannot and will not bring myself to stultify my conception of life to anything that solely exists within man and his physiology.

I can explain away all of the darkness and mysteries of human language by soberly pointing to the structure which supports it, the nervous system. This is the position of Jaynes and other great psycholinguists like Noam Chomsky.

I have a very difficult time having conversations with folks about the universe and man’s experience in it because they have mistaken their language — modern treatments of meaning — and its actions back upon the nervous system, as indicative of truth about existence. Language is a complex phenomena, worthy of study, worthy of analysis, but we should be slow to equate how we feel or even how others feel to grand theories about all there is.

This is where computation and interpretation split. Computation, the plugging of variables into equations, is the bread and butter of most sciences, however, what these mean to the existence of man, animals, other heavenly bodies — whatever — is the domain of interpretation. Interpretation is the process of “jacking in” one’s processing center, the brain, into the stream of information bombarding our nervous systems at any given time and attempting to describe one’s experience through written or spoken words.

Whew.

What does this all mean? Haha, I’m glad you asked. The point I am driving at is that it is easy to forget that words and meaning are not the same thing. Also, it is easy to forget that meaning, in and of itself, is a phenomena that cannot be trusted to explain anything. It is much, much more logically consistent to take your feelings, your thoughts and understand that they are the sum total of you and you alone. The places where they line up with the feelings of others is often the boundary line of being genetically human and where they diverge is the interactive forces of socialization on brain function.

I’m all for doing what makes you happy, just be slow to try to make sweeping claims that what brings you a sense of gratification automatically signals a universal constant.

Bryce

Atlas

I will find you.
Even if prior to I have to design you
A castle in my heart designed to
Bring you to the moment that inclines you to stay.

You were consecrated long before there was the conception of time;
Emotion has divined that you are mine.
Therefore, I will find you and impel you stay.
Ineluctable before the stars, I will move Heaven & Earth to find a way.

Usual and Customary

There is a phrase in insurance lingo, ‘usual and customary’, that describes the rate at which an insurance carrier is willing to reimburse a doctor for a particular procedure. In my field, behavioral health, UCR’s (usual & customary rates) that companies follow, shadow the rates set by CMS for Medicare. There is a sense of synchrony and safety in these procedures.

Usual and customary could be the battle cry of the human race. As a species, we love things that are pegged against other widely understood practices as it creates a wonderful sense of predictability and safety. It is that much better when “usual and customary” indirectly benefits you without you having to lift a finger.

That is the timbre of race relations in this country. The fact that there is white privilege is an abject truth that only the people with their heads firmly secured in the sand could deny. While many of the deniers may point to regions of a particular city where a white person may not feel safe, this is a drop in the pan against the entire cities or regions where a black person could be arrested, beaten, or gunned down.

The issue here isn’t violence: all cultures commit deplorable acts; the issue here is that when a black man or black woman is gunned down or arrested, mainstream society is quick to dismiss the culprit as mentally unfit or some misunderstood loner. However, let a black suspect FLEE from a police officer, posing no imminent threat, and the last 10 months have shown that that suspect will be executed on the spot.

This has become usual and customary.

I, in no way, shape, or form, intend this post to be an indictment against all white people, but I do hope that by the end of this post you can begin to understand the indignation that nonwhites feel in the light of the usual and customary practices employed in this country.

Let us not mix words: this is a white-centric nation built upon white supremacist principles. While overt white supremacy is no longer en vogue, there is still a powerful undercurrent of centricity that tilts towards those of the fairer skin.

Here is where I will diverge from most of my colleagues: as a scientist, it is my duty to rationally observe all variables and offer statements that paint an objective picture, rather than letting my indignation guide me. White-centricity in this nation is a complex phenomenon that has less to do with active supremacy and everything to do with chronology, occurrence, and status quo. Lets take a quick look at this.

From a standpoint of human relations, it is more likely that we feel interrelatedness with someone who is similar to us in all forms, thus, it is consistent that cultures will tend to band together. However, this sober, objective approach leaves out far too nuance.

Slavery has been a staple of human society for millennia; however, the enslavement of blacks in this country occurred at an interesting time in our evolution. I’m sure there were many brilliant Jewish minds during the Egyptian and Babylonian captivities; however, our enslavement and subsequent release coincided with the industrial revolution and an increase connectivity across the globe. That is, we as a species gained greater access to information in toto and this has had profound consequences on cultural evolution in kind. It is much easier to track the roiling changes as a result.

White-centricity in this country is most widely expressed in the misunderstanding of the effects of historical acts.

Let me make a quick analogy using something I’m intensely interested in: it is hypothesized by some physicists that we may exist in a simulated universe, or more appropriately, a series of nested simulations created by hyper intelligent beings. The only issue with probing this mystery is that even if we are existing in such a milieu, it would be virtually impossible to “step outside” the simulation as that would be all there is for a being whose entire existence in built within it. If we are mere simulations, it would be logically impossible to experience anything outside the simulation.

The simulation would be all that there is.

White-centricity, or white status quo, can be seen in this same fashion. When you have been inside of a particular construct for the entirety of your existence, reaping the fruits of usual and customary and fed the knowledge of pragmatic socialization, then everything seems hunky-dory to you. To succeed, one need only to work hard and obey the rules.

But what if the rules weren’t universal?

This is the cry of every nonwhite trying to succeed in this country. The logic of white-centricity isn’t unconditional. If you are a nonwhite attempting to integrate into mainstream cultures or economies, you feel the asymmetry on a daily basis. You have to work a little harder. You are constantly inundated by snide remarks or asked to change something that is “usual and customary” to whatever culture you come from.

We must constantly assimilate to you.

So while many whites know nothing about reality outside of mainstream simulation, nonwhites are forced into making choices on the daily.

Lets add some further complexity to the mix. Using words like “white” and “nonwhite” is an egregious misrepresentation of the diversity that accompanies human existence. What does it mean to be “white”? Or “black”? We can argue this ad infinitum but allow me to truncate this argument swiftly: you are generally being judged as you walk up to an person, group, or establishment. Before you’ve uttered a word, you’ve been sized up. I get it; Its a human thing to do. Where the centricity rears its ugly head is how much harder someone who is in a quickly concluded “out group” must work to gain entrance “in”.

Without taking you through an exhausting, abject history lesson on relations in our country, but still offering a reminder of the struggles of nonwhites in this country, let us turn our attention to slavery and its sequelae. It took an all out war for blacks to be released. War. Even after, we were beaten, raped, and hung from trees. We couldn’t vote. We couldn’t use the same facilities. We couldn’t even look at whites in the eye.

If your response to this is, “get over it, it isn’t like that anymore,” you are the biggest problem. It isn’t the few and far flung bigots, its the passive beneficiaries of usual and customary. Violent bigots are the minority, but statistically speaking, those who are apathetic, while reaping benefits are much more populous. They miss the point because they either don’t understand how society works or they just don’t care.

If you are the great grandchildren of people who were broken by the country they call home, you are still familiar with the sting of humiliation. That sort of pain doesn’t dissipate over night. Then you wake up in the morning and you see a black child with a white police officer’s knee in her back? This same officer pulls a gun on the surrounding group for talking back? This all is a result of too many nonwhites at a community pool? Then the following week a white man kills 9 people at a black church? In a state that still flies the Confederate Flag? All of this in the wake of several high profile murders of black men across the nation at the hands of the police — which does nothing else but uphold usual and customary white centricity?

Do you see the tension created here? The most important part of argumentation is making sure you and your opponent are discussing the same thing. As a nation we have never, ever, ever been discussing the same thing. It isn’t a matter of differing viewpoints, but a matter of differing “simulations”.

If you can’t understand why nonwhites feel such abject hatred towards a system that requires them to play by additional rules, then you need to do your homework.

This isn’t an indictment against whites; it is an indictment against white centricity and the fetishization of nonwhite cultures. As long as nonwhites are hooting and hollering on music stages or catching balls on Sunday afternoons, everything is great. But when our people are being slain in the streets and the status quo starts calling their murderers “misunderstood” or “lone wolves” then its time for you to get a fucking clue. When kids with toy guns or men with their backs to police start getting gunned down without consequences, its time for us to wake the fuck up.

I will proclaim the sanctity of science until my last breath, but to know that my last breath could be at the hands of someone proclaimed to be a hero or mentally ill and the nation would do little more than tweet and spin stories sickens me.

That is what is usual and customary in this country. Inequality that goes ignored by those that profit from it. It is a safe, predictable pegging that most people in this nation have no vested interest in altering. Those in out groups are terrorists, thugs, and niggers, while those in group members are mentally unfit, lonely, and confused.

Be proud of whoever the fuck you are, but remember that you are a human before any other modifier gets applied. You share an overwhelming amount of your genome with every other member of the human race. An atrocity against one of us is an atrocity against all of us. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Japanese, Black, German, Saudi, Aborigine, Ghanaian, liberal, conservative, Labor, democrat — whatever. To even be able to identify as one of these makes you a human FIRST.

I work my ass off and give back to anyone that needs motivation, but in dark hours like these, it is incredibly difficult to maintain hope in our species. While I believe that ration, reason, and empirical veracity can light even the dark of crevasses, I fear that people of my ilk may never get the chance.

Best,
Bryce

Intoxicated

Unconditional love,
That transcends human boundary;
Intertwined completely.

They say that which is truly real,
Is that which will never change;
So, I promise girl I’ll never change.

You speak to my heart and spirit,
And although I sometimes fear it;
I… I love this feeling.

You’ve become my heart’s contentment,
I swear you’re heaven sent and,
I… I love this feeling.

Of Cupid & His Arrow.