29 June 2013

Outsider

I do not need people. I have never needed anybody and I have rarely wanted to be around others. This is patently different from not caring. I care deeply about others, almost against my will. I want to help people, teach them, comfort them, help them be happy and accomplish everything they want. But I do not hang around people for myself. I am indifferent. I like to be around people because I like to make them happier and I like to be around people to experience new and different ideas and ways of living. But I do not like to be around people for its own sake. Often I will do it purely for reasons of making people more comfortable around me so that they will not worry about me. I do care, somewhat, what people think of me, but only just. I do not care if they think me strange or alien as long as it does not bother them. This is probably difficult to understand so I will dwell on the point a bit.

If people think I am strange, I do not care. Not unless they are a bit afraid of me, or a bit worried for me. Then I care because I do not want to cause them any upset if I can help it. Thus, I will sometimes spend time with people in order that they understand that I am happy and healthy and not angry or volatile or dangerous. (Far from it!) This puts me in the peculiar position of caring so much for other people that these little details matter to me, but otherwise, I really do not care what people's opinions are of me, or indeed if I go weeks without company.

What I do care about are ideas. I love new perspectives and ideas and thoughts. I like to eavesdrop or discover what people think about as many topics as possible. I tire easily of repetitive topics such as small-talk, but I don't care how benign or extreme or bizarre another person's opinion is, as long as it is new to me, I would love to listen and maybe discuss. Politics, Religion, Art, Math, Science, Nature, Pet-Peeves, Sexuality, Drugs, whatever. I don't care if I disagree, it is hard to find things I will outright disagree about, and in fact it is most likely better if I do disagree. I will talk to all kinds of people about all kinds of things and be excited and interested and bend my mind to understand as much as possible. I will feel a more whole person for the opportunity and other people seem to enjoy talking to me about things because I listen and say what I think, but never belittle their position. Not because I am being polite (I am that too) but because I actually believe and am interested and value their thoughts for what they are. Even though they may not be mine.

So, in this way, I love all people much more than the average person. But in this way, I also do not love people. I love their unique ideas, but I cannot care for their whole or their choice in lifestyle unless it is a way of expressing their ideas.

Another thing I have discovered: While over the last several months I have become much more willing to tell people things that are important to me, I think I do not like the change. It is not because people are not accepting or because I feel the deeper fear-of-being-subverted manifesting. It is simply that I am most often disappointed by people more or less ignoring or not understanding the least bit how meaningful things are. They smile and agree and are happy to talk. But they are happy to talk, not happy of the ideas being communicated so much. Or at least that is what it seems like to me. It makes me feel more alone when I try to invite them to play my games, than when I play theirs.

Oh, I know sound as if I am arrogantly making myself out to be the one and only intellectual, but it is mostly because I do not have words for these types of feelings and concepts. I currently have an overabundance of vocabulary for "ideas, thoughts, meaning, newness, experience, philosophy, understanding" even though those merely cover the path I take to the "life-ness" of which I am trying to speak, and not the "grokking" itself so much. I could switch over to more art, religious, spiritual, and feeling words, but that would feel dishonest. It carries those meanings, and those words capture a very important part of it (maybe I ought to use them more than I do) but I am trying to explain and those words suggest that it is inexplicable. At least with these more parred down and dry and scientific words, I am able to approach how I come about the love-of-living that emerges, rather than just describing the joy of it, wholly detached from how I reach it.





Edit: Why do I always end up talking about myself? I am sorry to do this so overwhelmingly much of the time. I don't like it because it feels selfish (even though it (probably?!) isn't) and downright limiting. I do think that it is a sort of movement in life I am going through, so I'm not tempted to avoid it. I will simply let it pass in its own time or something, and try not to let it bother me overmuch. But it is too bad that I can only seem to speak of this topic so thoroughly when there are so many others I care about. I don't know why I don't think/write of them so much.
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Ergo Proxy - 15: Nightmare Quiz Show/Who Wants to Be in Jeopardy!


Nightmare Quiz Show

I really don't care what goes on in this episode past the cute references and the actual information dump. That's all I'll go over. Thanks.

It was Pascal who referred to man as a thinking reed.
The triangle's relationship between its legs and hypotenuse was discovered by Pythagoras. (Actually many other discovered it before him, but his writings are the ones that have been passed down through our history)
Sound is higher pitched as it approaches and lower pitched as it leaves. This is called the Doppler Effect. (The same as light waves being spread out for stars as the universe expands)
4 degrees Celsius is water's highest density.
Nobel invented dynamite.
Astronomical Unites or AU's are the distance between the earth and the sun.
The opening song is called Kiri by Monoral.


The "mistake" could be many things. It could be that the award is 450,000 points after two clues were revealed. (should be 500,000; 600,000 for the first clues, 550,000 for the second, 500,000 for the third) It could be calling the show QQQ instead of QQQQ.... or something else. I never found anything that seemed appropriate, those are other people's guesses.

"You ever seen a blue sky?" Is a strange thing to say. Then again, the domes have false ceilings and outside has always been shown as grey-brown overcast.

"Ergo Proxy" is "close," but the answer is "Proxy One." Who looks exactly like Ergo Proxy. This seems like nonsense, but why is such a nonsequittor mentioned at all? It makes it seem important, but right now it means nothing.
The best guesses that can be made at this point are things like: all the Proxy's look alike until they change their appearances, Proxy One and Ergo Proxy are brothers, Proxy One and Ergo Proxy are clones, Proxy One created all the other proxies, MCQ just used Ergo Proxy's picture to represent this other "Proxy One," MCQ is just messing with Vincent, because, (let's be honest) it's fun to mess with Vincent.

The WombSys image is described as: "Oh yes, it's alive. Although not quite. I don't want to give it all away, but it's not exactly alive. It looks like it's alive but it's a little different."
"moves and grows so it must be alive," this is patently not the definition of alive. Chemical reactions and machines can grow and move on their own. Reproduction and energy consumption are part of the definition of alive. Also possession of DNA and use of water, although none of these are definitive and none really capture what we mean when we think of "alive." Then again, can you think of a better definition?

"Yes, not that the fact is anyone's fault necessarily. I mean that nobody could have possibly foreseen what eventually happened. It took a lot longer for the planet's environment to restore itself to the proper conditions than the creators had expected. That's probably why their calculations got so messed up. Here's a hint. To survive what happened they needed to build themselves a huge dome.
" People, Mankind, Humans, Men and Women. "
No.
Then what are the dome citizens? Are they all autoreives? I would guess not exactly, they are biological, but biological constructs created in WombSys machines. Then they are not exactly alive nor humans. Still. If this rings as a remarkably limited view of alive or human, then you are not alone.

"The plan went into effect in a much harsher "Awakening Environment" than had been originally anticipated. What proved to be the greatest hurdle for the creators under these harsh conditions was the overabundance of data that had been preserved, particularly the "Origin of Species." Within the major cities the need to adapt to an ever changing and fiercely harsh environment was unnecessary. Therefore, despite the fact that they.... the original ... This law... despite their remarkable.... failing, the project was deemed defective. And the program was slated for elimination. But to admit failure, the creators had to acknowledge that the true failure was theirs. "

If you are confused, that's good. These "creators" seem to be the Proxy's, but then, who wrote "the Origin of Species"? Unless the Proxy's did before embarking on their task. And what is this "plan" and "Awakening?"

"Billions of years after the universe was created in the big bang a strangle little planet was born on the edge of an ordinary galaxy. The name of the planet would one day be "Earth." Pools of water began to form, becoming a miraculous ocean with seaweed and fish. Many strange things happened over the next few hundred million years. Later on dry land dinosaurs appeared. Thus began the law of the law of the jungle: eat, be eaten, or run away. Soon we came to the age of mammals. Here, our ancestors were born. In order to catch his prey, one of the ancestors by chance raises the bone he is holding. Yes, this is the moment when the first tool came into existence. (The image of the bone is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey) Way to go humans!"

Confused again? Good. So these are humans. And they evolved naturally and are earthlings. So then, This universe takes place here and presumably our history is this history. But then how did the Proxies and current WombSys humans come around to existence and why is this an interference in "the plan" and furthermore what is "the plan"?

"The last tool they made. It's a big one. It was rushed. Not everyone could use it so it was a bit useless. It fostered widespread resentment. Someone used it to try to get away from earth. " "Rocket."

"The apocalypse is at hand. This is "mankind's last best hope" (the images and words here are a reference to my favorite TV show, Babylon5) of escape from a world that's heading for destruction. Humanity's very own trump card. Science had finally made interplanetary emigration possible. This would be the last tool manufactured here on earth. Completed through the fusion of ultimate wisdom, it was a spaceship built in geosynchronous orbit and referred to as the Evacuation Ship. The correct answer was the Boomerang Star. An interplanetary immigration ship built by humans long ago."

Alright. Things are coming together. Humans left earth, but not all of them. Somehow the balance of Proxy's and current autoreivs/humans came about afterwards. Maybe Proxies are the descendants of humans and made dome cities to replace what they lost.

"In the second half of the twenty first century the most promising alternative energy source to fossil fuels and nuclear power was made by compressed methane gas in solid form.
The answer was Methane Hydrate
The accumulated Methane Hydrate exploded in a chain reaction. What percentage of living creatures on planet earth were wiped out.
85%
The plan to restore the human population had a double letter acronym. The letters were what?
PP (Proxy Project)
What would the human race no longer need once their numbers had been restored on the planet?
Proxy
As a result of the double P plan or Proxy Project the number of Proxies that were released across the planet was ....?
300 proxies
What is the "Pulse of the Awakening." Think about your current situation.
Conclusion of the Proxy Project
Carl Gustav Jung was known as the author of Psychology and Alchemy. Jung was also know as the King of what
subconscious
Humanity had a second plan involving the current outbreak of the cogito virus, what was it called?
The Boomerang Project
The Egyption God Ra was the god of what. (Vincent: I don't know what that is)
The sun
Beethoven's 5th Symphony is commonly referred to as the what Symphony
It's Fate
A person who trains the mind is a teacher. What is someone that minds a train?
Conductor"


Answers without questions:
Failure. Schism. Escape/Contract. Substitute. Oblivion. Awakening. Fight. Enjoy. No. Labyrinth.
Always wins - "make sure you remember his face" - Proxy One.
This seemed odd before, but now it is doubly exaggerated.

"That's how it goes. I guess Proxies will fight how proxies will fight.
I think we really wrapped everything up well."


The announcement at the end was that "The enemy we are struggling to defeat seems to have originated from here. We need to put our heads together and take this out." Then the announcer disappears in a flash of blue light, like he has been killed as a Proxy, which makes sense since he is one.

Oooookay. There is not much to interpret here. It really is an information dump, but in case you weren't listening this is what was said.

Humans used Methane Hydrate as a fuel source, it built up and in an enormous explosion decimated the planet to 15% of its life. They then constructed their last tool on earth, an evacuation spaceship. This ship was not able to rescue everyone and caused a lot of havoc. It was called the Boomerang Star and was an interplanetary ship. (This indicates to me that it would reach another planet, but also return to earth)
The Proxy Project and Boomerang Project were started as well, one being the Proxies and their domes, the other being the cogito infection. The purpose of each is not clear. The humans on earth now are not "actual" humans and not quite "alive." And "The Pulse of the Awakening" is the end of the Proxy Project.... "Think about your current situation".....? There are a few problems though, the earth has not recovered as "the creators" (original humans) intended. Also their texts were persevered and probably gave the dome cities instability with their lessons of striving for greatness. Maybe this refers to the Proxies knowing them as well, and rebelling against their designated Project goals.

The final answer is Labyrinth, which may be a reference to the Labyrinth of mirrors that Vincent was in when he discovered himself as Ergo Proxy.
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I hate this episode. The information isn't terribly original and is not presented well. It's nice to have a history of this version of earth given, and lots more information about what is going on with Proxies. Vincent makes me laugh a few times. I still hate this episode a lot. That is about it.


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09 June 2013

Ergo Proxy - 14: Someone Like You/Ophelia


Someone Like You

This episode too is about love. But this time, instead of being about how to love another, it is about how to be loved or how to love yourself.
It's about acceptance and suicide.



......./////........

Re-L speaks of the world as being somehow fundamentally connected to her. That when she dies, it would die with her. Philosophically it's impossible to prove what it's like when you stop existing..... and it is true, at least for me, that self shapes the world just as the world can help shape the self. I believe it is George Berkeley and Hume that speak of how important perception and mind are in comparison to external reality, and indeed whether external reality is even existent or even possible to understood.

For conveniences' sake, I'll write the sequence of events in order.

Re-L sees the lake glittering, and goes to investigate it. While she's there she gets the feeling she is being watched.
Ophelia-Dome-Proxy, as Re-L, goes to the Rabbit and set it adrift so they are trapped in the dome.
Re-L returns, complains, asks for Ginger Ale, and leaves to stand watch without eating.
Vincent eats Pino's food.
Doppelganger visits Vincent and is given Ginger Ale.
Doppelganger visits Re-L, gives Ginger Ale, and is pushed off the roof when it approaches Re-L too eagerly. It repeats lines it has heard earlier like Echo from Narcissus. When it is turned away, it stops being interested in tricking Re-L and turns its attention to Vincent and Pino.
I think it is the real Re-L that gets locked in the storage room, the fake Re-L falls to the ground (hoping to get Vincent's attention and care).
The real Re-L confronts the real Vincent on the roof, then runs off to try and stop the doppelganger Proxy.
Instead she is captured by the Doppelganger as Vincent which takes Pino and Re-L to the lake. It decides to kill off Re-L since she is useless to it (like the rest of the dome's citizens) and hopes to gain Pino's attention. However, Pino realizes it is a fake and it decides to kill off Pino too, but fails because Pino is an autoreiv. (Please note that "kill off" is probably closer to preserve -- the way the other dome citizens were preserved.)
Meanwhile Vincent leaves the roof and goes looking for the others. He finds the ship is gone. Vincent then heads to the lake and confronts the Doppelganger.
Pino has already rescued Re-L from the lake, but Vincent finds doppelganger Re-L.
They have their discussions in the lake while Re-L and Pino watch from the banks.

The Doppelganger has reasons for each of its tricks. At first it is feeling out which person to try to replace and gain the love of another. It realizes replacing Vincent for Re-L is not going to work, (Re-L isn't very loving) then tries to replace Vincent for Pino, but is foiled again, (Pino knows what is going on and is an autoreiv). Next, it succeeds in securing Vincent's love, but, in anger or in sadness or in Awakening, it tries to kill Vincent.

The Doppelganger is never seen in its own body. It is only shown as it takes on the form of Re-L or Vincent... It has no form but those it mimics.

Vincent (as Ergo) sees an aerial view of the city as it used to be, while the Doppelganger speaks of its own past and Vincent re-lives his own in parallel: This seems such a small, inconsequencial sequence of events, but it speaks volumes to me. Once again the doppelganger has no past of its own, only able to express itself through Vincent's memories. Also, it speaks to me about how people are miraculously able to comprehend so much and so intimately, despite differences in lives, opinions, pasts, and perceptions. Vincent and the doppelganger both experienced entirely different lives until this moment, and yet they both underwent some of the same trials and understand the same emotions.... and so the words of the Doppelganger match Vincent's own experiences enough to bring then to light.

The words it uses are somewhat extreme and overstated, but if you take it with a healthy dose of re-interpretation and put it into philosophical contexts it becomes very interesting to me.

"No matter where we go, I'll never be accepted."
Are we ever accepted by anyone else? Or do we all ultimately use each other for our own benefits? Do we do things for pure altruism, or do we just seek the good things that result from helping one another; enjoying company, and seeking support. Do we support each other only because we hope for the support to be returned? Do we communicate so that we might learn and have fun, rather than for the sake of the other? If talking to each other wasn't fun or interesting and didn't mean friendship, would we still assist each other just because it was "the right thing to do"?
"This is my territory. An eternity of solitude"
What if your very nature is one that leaves you lonely and unloved.
"Without communication. Without understanding. Why am I this way?"
We all try to communicate, but we can never communicate perfectly. We all try to understand, but we can never understand completely. Both in the sending and in the receiving, we cannot do so, no matter how we try. The Doppelganger's own words are distorted and reinterpreted to fit Vincent's own experience when he hears them. Everyone can only understand another through their own lens, never truly understanding from the perspective of the one they seek to understand.
"Why can't I be something worthy of love and acceptance?"
If you don't believe yourself to be lovable and if you do not respect yourself, then very often others will not either. What can you do? How can you change yourself? How can you become someone different when you are who you are? What if who you are, is someone that cannot change themselves?
"I found if I pretended to be someone else, I could be loved."
And what if you do change yourself? We play these social games where we bend and hide parts of ourselves when we interact. It makes us "more loved" to do so, but really it is a social dance of ranking more than love at that point.
"But after awhile I realized, the person they loved wasn't me."
Even though we get so very used to acting, and it becomes a part of who we are, it isn't really our true selves. And so, to change yourself for the sake of other's love, is meaningless. Even if you could do it perfectly. Even if you could replace seamlessly that of someone they loved, it would be meaningless.
"I am no one. Therefore I am loved by no one."
If you try to be someone else in order to be loved, you cannot be loved. Yet if you don't try to be someone else, how can you compare to the "more perfect" version of yourself? What if you are not loved for who you are in the first place?
"And so I decided to end myself. But even if we want to end ourselves, we can't."
To change yourself, or to want to be someone else, is a form of ending yourself. But if it isn't in you already, to be someone else, then how can you?
"So we ended the others. For in then we found reflections of ourselves."
In some ways, the only way to be someone else, is to change your surroundings. A lot of people push others away from themselves in order to try and "end" themselves. And if they do... kill themselves... then they, in a way, kill those around them as well. Whether we try to or not, the half-versions of ourselves that are understood by others, becomes a part of them. We rub off on each other and we absorb small bits of the people around us. We reflect each other in our actions and thoughts. We see each other in each other because we really do pass traits and pieces of what makes us "us" on to our friends and associates and acquaintances. It can be habits and modes of expression. It can be meanings and viewpoints. But we really do pick up and give away bits of life wherever we go.
"It didn't work. In the end, the only one left was the one we wished to be rid of."
Trying to push others away just leaves you alone with yourself and makes you believe your problems are unbearable as they make up what remains of your entire world.
"That radiance. Through you, I can finally end myself. Let us end it. You and I, together."
Until, eventually, you convince yourself that death and escape is the best option. One that everyone would want.
"From birth to death the story evolves. The complete picture of who we are is only clear when our story comes to an end. So you might as well take this opportunity to skip to the end."
It is strange to realize that we are never the same person for long. We are growing and changing and maturing all the time. But that means that we literally stop being who we are... all the time. We roughly understand who we used to be, but we are no longer that person. And we will no longer be "me" a few months or years from now. It is strange and frightening how true this is. What if we become something we hate? What if we do something terrible, and worse, what if we never realize it? How can we tell? After all, the only way we can judge ourselves, is by ourselves. And what if we are wrong? What if we are wrong right now? There is no way to tell. We must be, because we keep changing, and even if one of those versions is right, that means that most of them are wrong. We die over and over again, and we never even notice it happening as we change and grow and reform what makes us "us."
"You understand now, don't you? You don't get to be with anyone. The best thing we can do for everyone is disappear forever." If you are consumed with worry for what is best for everyone else, then you can never please them perfectly. The only way that path leads is to surrender. You must find a reason within yourself to live. That reason can be to serve others as best you can, but you cannot base your existence on someone else's acceptance. They can never know you for one. You can never know them and never completely satisfy them either. But also, you have to find a greater reason to live than external opinions. It has to come from within you, or from something greater than you. A god. An ideal. A purpose. A reason. A quest. A question. "A grave. So that we are never lonely."
This makes me think of attempts to bury emotions and escape them. More literally, what has happened is the Proxy has killed or put in stasis everyone that lived in their dome. They lie, frozen in time, sleeping beneath the waters of the lake.
"You're just like me. You bring misery to everyone around you. This way is better. This way they don't suffer."
Believing that you are so worthless that all you do is harm those around you is awful. But believing that it's better to disappear so they don't suffer is worse. Instead of trying to fix the problem, you give up. Instead of trying to change yourself or do something good, you try to take leave of the problem altogether. Not to mention how little faith you have in everyone else. You act like they are forced to suffer. They have control over their own lives, and can choose how they want to live them. Taking that away from them and saying they are so incapable of dealing with the way they choose to live their own lives is self-centered and offensive. You aren't responsible for their happiness. Attempting to put them into an unfeeling coma is no way to treat them.
"I'm afraid of being alone. I'm afraid of not knowing what I am. But worse I'm afraid of finding out. And the people I want to be with will die because they are with me. If that's what I am, I might as well die too."
It is frightening to live. The future is unknown. Who you are is unknown. Who you will become is unknown. What fate will decree and give you and your friends is unknown. Is it worth it to continue on? Will there be happiness ever again? What if your finest moments have already come and gone? Why go on? The things we want most, can also destroy us. And yet... it is worth the risk.
"The proxy hoped to find acceptance from others by changing its acceptance to fill their needs. I used to think along similar lines to that. But then I met Re-L and Pino. And they came with me on this journey. And with them, I can maybe change who I really am. And if I change, maybe my understanding of life will change as well. Because of that I could never let myself die. Even if I am a Proxy."
This is it. The very things that make life fearful, are also the things that make it worth living. As we mature and change and grow, we will die. Over and over again. I do not know who I will be, or if I will be someone ... good or worthy. But with the unknown comes hope. Every fear we have, could instead be a blessing. Every time we think of a disaster, luck could smile upon us instead. We could become something twisted and ugly and insane, or we could exceed our own expectations and discover a wonderful life ahead of us. Life is never worth giving up on, no matter how bad it gets, because even if life is currently at the worst, with continued life there is that chance. That possibility. That something good could come of it.
Our lives can always change.
For better or worse.
Our perspectives can change.
And that can change everything, literally everything.

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I don't know about you, but running around an empty city and taking advantage of everything you want whenever you want is kind of a fun dream to have. Free food! All the time in the world! No responsibilities and all of the items you ever wanted!
This is purely personal connections, but the times I can remember such a world being suggested are three: The wishes of an autistic(?) child's favorite dream in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, the result of a mass migration to Jupiter in City, and and effects of a nuclear fallout which spares a small valley in Z for Zachariah. Recently I also heard read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and learned of the term "post-scarcity."


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