On Zed Tycho, Singapore.net, Malaysia.net, and Gooru

Listen to THIS voice:

Asia minus Japan has not produced a single quantum invention since 1450 AD.

And:

I want to provide an avenue for the gifted young facilitating Renaissances, and these countries are all in the early stages of a Renaissance.I want to speed it up. These countries have not gone through anything parallel to the Renaissance in the 1500s in Europe or the 60s in the US... We are it right now.

This from a conversation between Kevin Leversee and Bala Pillai on http://zedtycho.com/

The astonishing thing here is that the speaker originally came from Malacca!

My guiding metaphor for South East Asian development is the Spice Trade. The emergence of something which actually adds such amazing 'spice' to everyday life that it motivates everyone to attempt to seize control of it. In the previous time the control of the spice fell to the Dutch, then the English during the Great War of 1907-1945 until the end of the British Empire.

So this kind of conversation is really quite something special and unique, a harbinger of things to come:

The Law of the Internet

The Law of the Internet

Almost anything you wish is free on the internet, if it's information, people, contact, or concepts.

But

Almost nothing you wish is free on the internet, if what you wish is energy, experience, or connection.

Thus the law of the internet.

To put it another way: Online information is free, but online energy is pay-per-use.

To state it at it's extreme: We can gather information about how we like life to be online, but in order to build the life we like we must be offline.

To state it at it's mildest: We can buy as many books on Amazon as we wish, but it's never gonna be as fun as browsing in a real life bookstore. We can watch all the internet porn (but it won't be as fun as simply reading a porn magazine or viewing other's having sex in real life), read all the blogs (but it won't be as engaging as intelligent conversation with friends after dinner, read all the online news (but it won't be as nice as reading the "local" on the kitchen table in the early morning sunlight, and chat to all the people (but it won't be as freaky-strange and challenging and intelligence-building as meeting people in real life)... we can knock ourselves OUT with information, but it will NEVER be the same as the ganging up of experiences against your mind in real life, real time, really embodied forums.

That is the law of the internet.

"Sorry About The Dinosaurs"

"SORRY ABOUT THE DINOSAURS"


"Hello, yes, we're just calling from the future to say..."

"I beg your pardon?"

"We were just ringing you on your primitive communic- ah, telephone, to apologize for a few things."

"Like what? And who is this anyhow? This is a serious science lab!"

"Atoms."

"What about them?"

"They don't exist. Sorry. We want to apologize for nudging past research in the wrong direction. Matter's not made out of atoms or waves even."

"Oh? What's it made out of them?"

"Well - ahem - I don't expect you'll understand this, but in the primitive symbolic dialog - ah, I mean in the language of your time, you might say that all matter is made out of fishing boats."

"Fishing boats?!"

"Yes, I think - yes that's what the translator says. The word signifies something that floats on an large fluid base with nets underneath it, managed by semi-intelligent agent hierarchies. Is 'fishing boat' not the right word for that meaning?"

"Now listen here -!"

"And the dinosaurs. We want to apologize for them too."

"That's my line of work here at the labs. Dinosaur DNA."

"Ah. Yes. Well. That's actually really why we're ringing?"

"Is this some kind of government agency, because if it is I'll have you know -"

"We're sorry about bringing them back."

"Back? You mean recreating them in the future?"

"Uh - ahem! - actually, we mean recreating them in the past. In the Cretaceous Era, to be exact. We, um, sent back a number of nuclear weapons and biological weapons to exterminate the, uh, difficulty, but it appears you have, um, found us. So we're sorry. You've accidently found your future descendants buried in the fossil record, and, well, we're darned if we know what to do about it. So we just thought we'd, ah, drop you a line, and see what you thought we should do? And apologize of course."

"I think you should take your phone and -" and the scientist proceded to describe in anatomical detail exactly where the time travelling caller could deposit the telephone receiver.

There was a pained silence on the other end of the line.

"I'm afraid this receiver doesn't have those capabilities, but I assure you, given the generally metaphoric language of your time, we will carefully analyze your suggestion for research purposes and discover whether we can resolve the problem that way."

The line went dead. The paleologist stalked back to his work, dissecting a large frozen mass of arctic dinosaur tissue just this week discovered. But before he could don his mask his assistant ran up with an ashen face.

"Doctor," she said, "there's something you need to take a look at."

"What is it?"

She led him to the freshly revealed dinosaur tissue. "There."

"What on earth is it?"

They both peered at the small smooth handle embedded in the dinosaur tissue.

"I think," the assistant said slowly, "I think it's a telephone receiver!"

Author's note:
I write so many of these science-fiction storyettes that I thought I might post one up here for the world to see.

I like this quote: The Secret of Exercise:

"I’ll tell you the secret right now: you’ll have to force yourself to exercise—but only for 7-10 days. After not exercising for a while, you won’t feel like it. It may even be very difficult to get back into it. But after 7-10 days, your body will be trained and you’ll actually be looking forward to your exercise routine. Start with 15 minutes and increase by 5 minutes every day. Pretty soon you’ll be rocking along with everybody at the gym."

We need more shrinks

"Before many folks can learn and incorporate the lessons of ecology, most could use the services of a good shrink."

Oh my yes.

The simple fact is that sensible spiritual teachings such as the Dalai Lama's or David Hawkins only make sense to cultivated people. As to the everyday joe, they need that special branch of delusion known as "faith".

From: THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF MASS DELUSION.

Grow Up and Play, a book review

This is an unusual book for adults. It is done in the format of a children's book, with colorful pictures and quality paper.

But do not be deceived. This book has a number of disconcerting features.

The book is about play ostensibly. It starts by observing a number of games humans play. These are: work, sex, cities, relationships, study, spirituality, and death! These are not things that are usually known as games, but the book quite seriously treats each of them that way, at the same time showing how to enjoy these 'games' more.

The book has a number of instructions. The instructions are listed thus:

How to Use Your Body (Work)
How to Use Your Senses (Sex)
How to Use Your Mind (Cities)
How to Use Your Society (Relationships)

How to Use Pleasure (Study)
How to Use Understanding and Lovingness (Spirituality)
How to Use Awareness (Death)

Each instruction is accompanied by colorful pictures to guide you through the games and a number of activities. All in all it is a very strange book indeed. I am not sure whether to recommend it or not. However, the second instructions on How to Use Your Senses are funny enough to make the book worthwhile on it's own.

This book makes the bald statement that adults play which kids think that a game is real and get upset when it doesn't go their way. It teaches the interesting an useful lesson that life is nothing personal, so there's no need to take things personally. An interesting read, with engaging illustrations and exercises, especially the sexual exercises.

The Truth About Christianity, a book review

This fascinating book puts forward an interesting concept about the reason why the Christian religion is one the one hand losing authority and on the other gaining popular support which dovetails well with my studies of history.

It says that Christianity lost spiritual power significantly at the start of the Crusades, when righteousness was equated with violent warfare. The thing that restored Christian values in a much-lessened form was, according to this book, the appropriation of the business values of thrift and enterprise, and a scientific worldview, from the Golden Age of Islam.

The end result? A society that makes a religion out of business, where customers and business people are united by the sacrement of shopping. Science in turn justifies this atomistic and unnatural worldview with physics and the biological vision of survival of the fittest. Social science, a development of Protestantism, is seen as providing economics and accounting by appropriation from Islam (economics) and Judaism (accounting).

This fascinating book does not stop there, however. It suggests that by returning to a holistic, middle-ages-style scientific worldview, we can open our minds to symbiosis instead of survival of the fittest, and Gaia Theory instead of biological determinism. Armed with a restored view of Nature, the book suggests we engage in two processes of growth which in the fine tradition of appropriation from Islam it calls Jihad, the inner war, and Aj-tihad, the external dialog, of culture.

Jihad is waged by reflection and ruthless self-honesty. Thus the business values in the light of self-enquiry are seen as fragile vanities against Divine Justice. The humility of middle-ages businesspeople is seen in a new light, and the market controls of the middle ages are re-assessed for valuable lessons for the modern day. I particularly found insightful the way market controls were linked to religious teachings, so when one was high, the other also waxed strong. Thus virtue and community were the dominant values of the middle ages during those periods. Fascinating stuff!

At-jihad, on the other hand, is a number of questions on different topics. The question and answer format of this section can be challenging to follow. There are a number of subjects addressed:

- A synthesis of Kuhn and Popper's scientific philosophies.
- A discussion of subjectivity, which concludes that scientific objectivity is a fantasy.
- A discussion of cause and effect which reveals the fallacy of simplistic linking together of phenomena.
- A discussion of the marketplace in science, and how science is biased by the limits of the awareness of the practicioner.

Altogether this section asks vital questions which are timely and contentious.

The third section of the book is entitled A Christian Restoration. It discusses in short, bold, almost Zen-like statements the core teachings of Christianity as the author sees it. These include:

- Forgivenness.
- Surrender.
- Tolerance.
- Forebearence.
- Humility.
- Releasing egotism.
- Modesty.
- Lovingkindness.

And a number of other Christian teachings.

This book boldly claims that Christianity has lost its attraction because it has lost its ability to love and support communities to business interests backed up by scientific-sounding falsehoods. In it's bold call for inner jihad and outer aj-tihad (dailog), it trailblazes where other books only meander.

A highly recommended book!

Some clarity on Print on Demand (POD):

"Highest profits are usually generated from sales direct from the print-on-demand service's website or by buying copies from the service at a discount, as the publisher, and then selling them yourself. Lowest commission usually come from sales from "bricks and mortar" bookshops, with on-line bookstores falling somewhere in between."

According to the newtonian perspective, there are three points of intervention where a message can become more useful to a market.

First is the arena within which the message occurs when the reader first sees it.
Second is the arena where the reader absorbs the material of the message.
Third is the processes whereby they form an understanding of the message.

The realities of text and image alter depending on which point of view you take. The tipping point folk will focus on 'stickiness', being able to make the medium more attractive (option one). The design audience will seek to engage the reader on various contexts, using the devices of marketing and graphic design, simple appeals to egotism and vanity that take advantage of the perceptual limits of this.

Then, the third time, will align themselves with the thought processes of the reader him or herself, thus engaging the understanding at the source. An example of this third type is skillful means in Buddhism. It is also the outgrowth of the character of the person doing it that makes these messages so enormously powerful... they simply cannot be faked, because they rely on an alliance with the fundamental thought processes of human understand. One can only pervert these thought processes by perverting one's own mind. This the ground zero of excellence, at the place where the invisible realm of the incomprehensible suddenly appears and becomes comprehensible.

On Internet Trolling

I am now a proud contributor and member of Wikipedia.

Three hours later...

Oh man. I knew what a troll meant generally, but until I read the Wikipedia article on the subject I had no idea that trolling was such a subtle and revolutionary artform.

In the last hour and a half I have read posts which have attracted millions of hits because of their sheer badness. There are some hilarious postings there. A new genre. And I am amazed and thrilled to have discovered it!

On Mindfulness

I have two concerns:

Does mindfulness cure pain?

and

How can I distill the essence of the cure into the simplest possible words?

The second question is answered here:

http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/mipe/mipe_0.htm

A totally free book, Mindfulness in Plain English, available online here.

The first question is a little more difficult to fathom.

Common sense tells us that pain comes from the site on the body that recieves the inflammation. But the signal arrives at the mind through the filters of social and moral senses of the world. So the reality is that our attitude to pain can significantly alter it's impact.

Can it cure it? I will have to learn a little more about this subject. Clearly it is a complex non-Western topic which requires openness and sensitivity to enter.

http://www.post1.com/home/kktanhp/mindfulness_htm.htm
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english_15.php
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe10.html

and an article on 'How to deal with pain':

http://www.lifepositive.com/Body/body-holistic/pain/eliminating-pain.asp

That's it for today. The pope's funeral is on television. I have the volume down low and the radio playing Beethoven's ninth symphony, which I plan to simply absorb on the couch while I witness the pope laid to rest.

Inflammatory immune processes describes how spirituality spreads:

I want to put parallel two passages here which I find highly significant together:

"The root cause of inflammatory pain is tissue damage. Broken cells discharge their contents, releasing multiple bioactive molecules, including protons, neurotransmitters such as serotonin and ATP, peptides such as bradykinin, and neurotrophins such as nerve growth factor (NGF). These molecules bind to receptors and alter sensory neurons' sensitivity thresholds, so that previously innocuous stimuli become painful. "It's an adaptive function," says Clifford Woolf of Harvard University, "that promotes repair and healing by avoiding contact with anything."

From http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/03/28/S20/1

Now parallel that with the behavior of the king of Tibet in the tenth century, as recounted by the present Dalai Lama in 'The Path To Freedom':

"At that time the king of western tibet, inspired by the great Buddhist faith of his ancestors, read many texts and found what he thought were contradictions among the many different systems, especially regarding sutra and tantra. ...the kng was aware that when Buddhism had arrived in Tibet in the eighth century, the two systems had co-existed peacefully. ...Realising that India was the source of the practice of sutra and tantra, the king sent twenty intelligent students from Tibet to study in India with the idea that they would return and clarify the teachings for Tibetans. Many of them died on the way, but two returned and reported to the king that in India the practice of sutra and tantra was undertaken without any difficulties between them. They found the great master Atisha at the monastery of Vikramashila in Bengal. Atisha, these students felt, was the one who could help Tibet.

"The king himself wen tin search of enough gold to meet the expenses of inviting this master from India, but he was captured by a king that was hostile to Buddhism. He was given the choice between his life and his search for the Dharma. When he refused to give up his search, he was imprisoned. His nephew tried to rescue him but the king said "You should not bother about me. Do not waste a single gold coin on my ransom. Use all the gold to invite Atisha from India." The nephew did not obey his uncle and eventually offered the king's weight in gold as a ransom. But the kidnapper refused it, saying the nephew had brought gold equal only to the weight of his uncle's body, but not enough for his head (?). The nephew then told his uncle what had happened. "If I wage a war to rescue you," the nephew explained ,"there will be great bloodshed. So I will try to collect the gold for your head. Please pray that I will be successful."

"His uncle replied, "It is my wish to bring the light of the Dharma to Tibet to clarify all doubts and contradictions. If my wish is fulfilled, even if I have t5o die here, I will have no regrets. I am an old man; sooner or later I will have to die. I have taken rebirth over many lifetimes, but it is very rare that I have been able to sacrifice my life for the sake of the Dharma. Today I have been granted that opportunity. So send word to Atisha himself telling him that I have given up my life so that he could be invited to Tibet and spread the message of the Buddha and clarify our misunderstandings."

Both anti-inflammatory processes spread through the divulging of a unit of life's nutrients. Once the cellular environment has been sensitised, it can no longer return to it's former equilibrium. The environment is sensitized by the spilling out of the cellular contents, or in the second case, of the wasting of the good and beneficial qualities of the king, into the wider environment. The wider the diffusion of these beneficial qualities, the wider the sensitization spreads...

And look, the sensitization of the good king of Tibet has spread now to us!

This explains why people are never the same again after exposure to spiritual teachings. They are the precious life-essence of humankind, a kind of social immune system which has evolved in response to the threats to humankind.

What we know about pain, and what we can all do about it:

The receptors for pain signals (nociceptors) are numerous.

- There are all-purpose pain receptors called TRPs. Their sensitivity thresholds and exact biochemical pathways are being unravelled at present.
- There are specific purpose nociceptors called ASIC, appear to be associated with acid conditions in the body, interestingly.
- Extracellular ATP receptors are also being studied to prove how they become primed for long term pain problems. ATP is the fuel cells run on, metaphorically speaking.
- "Certain subtypes are expressed almost exclusively in peripheral sensory neurons, potentially providing a selective drug target." Translation: some pain isn't part of the overall nervous system, but a local system going AWOL. :-)

Conclusions, anyone?

"...the most commonly used pain medications, such as opioids and non-steroidal inflammatory agents, also act on receptors outside the pain pathway, causing unwanted side effects."

Oh dear. LOL.

So the take-away value of all this is as follows:

- Eat a alkaline diet (fresh food, whole food, and purified water.)
- Recover fully from an illness by cleaning the bowels out with herbs, lemon juice, etc (so that the extracellular ATP receptors have a chance to reset themselves.)
- Bring pain into everyday life, instead of isolating it to a "damn ankle" or "stupid wrist", which would tent to isolate the stimulus in the peripheral sensory systems and keep it out of conscious awareness. In other words, be mindful of pain rather than mindless.

Pretty basic stuff, I am sure. Like all truth they are commonsense until it comes time to apply them!

A solution to the problem of morphine tolerance and associated nerve damage.

Joyce DeLeo of Dartmouth Medical School wondered about immune cell involvement in tolerance to morphine. Hear how she explored the subject and her fascinating findings. This short summary of her work has a few difficult words for laypeople which I have explained in notes at the bottom of this entry.

From:
http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/03/28/S26/1

"After studying the role of microglia (*) in neuropathic pain for many years, DeLeo applied similar experimental strategies to study the hyperalgesia observed in morphine-dependent animals and its interactions with nerve injury.

"First, she showed the decreased effect that morphine has on pain behaviors in her nerve injury model; this imitates the clinical problem with opiate resistance in neuropathic pain patients.

"Second, she found that chronic morphine treatment activated spinal microglia and concomitantly increased proinflammatory cytokines. These changes were amplified in animals with nerve injury. Given the likelihood that activated microglia enhance pain sensation, it follows that morphine administration is actually exacerbating the effect.

"By giving cytokine inhibitors (*), DeLeo was able to restore morphine's effectiveness.

Note: Microglia: A type of immune cell found in the brain. Microglia are scavengers, engulfing dead cells and other debris. In Alzheimer’s disease, microglia are found associated with dying nerve cells and amyloid plaques.

Note: Cytokine inhibitors: cytokines are cells that facilitate communication among immune system cells. Obviously, then cytokine inhibitors are substances that stop the immune system communicating well.

A thought on the Pope's funeral.

The pope is the figure of spiritual authority.

His death highlights the principles he lived for. Having no obvious political power, his approval or disapproval could sway nations and leaders both. By standing for peace, unity, harmony, commonality, and spiritual values he represented the path for power to take in the future.

His death brings his message closer to people's hearts, and what he lived for doesn't die but lives on in people's hearts.

Ever wanted to travel to the moon? here's your chance:

http://art.teleportacia.org/exhibition/GRAVITY/

This online piece of art made me joy for joy! What great music! What amazing visuals...lolol. Try it out for yourself.

Calibrating the level of consciousness of bloggery

I'm K-testing the top 100 Blogs. Most as expected test weak.

The following test strong:

Wizbang - 500 LoC!!!

Boing Boing - 450 LoC!

Will Wheaton dot net - 310 LoC.
Doc Searl's - 401 LoC.
Engadget - 310 LoC.
Volokh Conspiracy - 210 LoC.
A List Apart - 310 LoC.
Arts and Letter's Daily - 403 LoC.
Google Blog - 210 LoC.
Harvard Weblog's - 400 LoC
Jeffrey Zeldman's blog - 210 LoC.

I think that's enough of blogs by far!


But what trawl of bloggery would be complete without the current fad:
http://yagoohoogle.com/

"I can't believe it's not yahoo/google!!" LOL

Enter... the goldilocks zone!

From the Washington Times:

"We were particularly interested in the possible survival of 'Earths' in the habitable zone," Jones said. "This is often called the 'Goldilocks Zone,' where the temperature of an Earth is just right for water to be liquid at its surface. If liquid water can exist, so could life as we know it."

Jones and his colleagues Nick Sleep and David Underwood created mathematical simulations of several known exoplanetary systems, including their central star and gas-giant planets. Then they inserted an Earth-sized planet into each system at various distances from the star and from the giant planets to see what would happen."

Furthermore, the article went on to say:

"Just in the local neighborhood, there may be as many as 85 potential destinations for the Starship Enterprise -- should we "live long and prosper" or enjoy "kapla.""

Daydreaming

I'm daydreaming about stuff today. I'm thinking about my dream publishing company. I would love to publish science fiction that tests strong. I would love to put out an anthology of stories that test strong. What would I call it? Would it be: Inspirational science fiction, moral science fiction, strong science fiction... nah...

It would called 100% Excellent Science Fiction. Or Pure Class Science Fiction. Or Science Fiction that Makes Your Heart Sing. Or... LOL, I'll have to work on that one.

It would have a preface on the methodology. "Lack of the Future". LOL. This would explain the approach, critque the lack of moral discretion among science fiction ranks in favor of superfice and coolness. It would have a story by Orson Scott Card, another by Robert Sawyer, another by Michael Swanwick ("Slow Life", yea!), Brian Stapleford, Kim Stanley Robinson's "History of the Twentieth Century with Illustrations". It might have a few classics that test strong too, such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Frank Herbert.

It would be great to publish some novels too, especially something hypertextual which could also have online components for backend sales. I could basically provide the editing and textual services at a very low cost in return for agent and editor's fees for self-publishing the book through a print-on-demand system. It would be excellent.

Wonderings: Optimal questions

I wonder how I can regularly restore the sense of reverence, wonder, and peace in the vision of my novel?
I wonder how I can regenerate this vision of the Gaia novel to an ever-more vibrant form ?

Hmmmm.

Gaia means "unity-of-life-processes". That's pretty inspiring in itself.

By appreciation of what I already have here, the vision gets regenerated. I mean, I already have a pretty magificent novel in process. That's an achievement. And I am in fact committed to finishing it. And getting readers to comment.

Am I committed to improving it? Marketing it?

Honestly, I don't know. I just want to create an excellent novel. Excellent means complete. That's all I know right now. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to finish it in first draft, and be satisfied, would I truly have no regrets to just be in that space?

No. This is written with an audience in mind. This is written for an audience. A LARGE audience. It's written to be published because it merits it by the ideas and content. Merits or is marketed towards that? BOTH. The equivalence of marketable stuff and engaging stuff is exact.

Hmm. I'll have to think about that some more. Ethics and marketing one? I'm not so sure yet.

ON AUSTRALIA: Where has the magic gone?

"And, I will walk and talk in gardens all misty, wet, with rain. And, I shall never, ever, ever, grow so old again" Van Morrison

Where has the magic gone? ...Australia has none left.
The dry country absorbs the magic from our pores as rent.
This earth was red two billion years ago, when bacteria was born.
And the poetry is long gone.

I must walk in the gardens dry with faith
I must walk the hedgerows of my ancestors' memories all alone
The dust of the day is thick on my skin when I fall asleep
And I must redream the world.

Hate is just more soul-sweat
Sucked greedily into the dry crust of the land. Don't hate it,
Seek the soul's sweet urgency within, o spiritus sactus
Wake into a vigor heat can't hurt!

Where has the magic of endless youth gone to?
Somewhere this island can not longer respond to!
Far beyond the dreadful desert island
Springs that fountain of life that strives to create!

In my dreams the fey paths I travel
The paths of my ancestors in the wet forests of ancient Europe
The shaggy Cro-Magnons that hunt, red-haired Neaderthals
That dance under a bloody moon.

I hail from the highlands
I stream down the spring snows in rivulets
I course among the heather and the heath and through
The champing-cold of the dales I blossom;

I am the salmon in the deep cold Danube
I am the wild wolves in the shadow of the matterhorn
I am the wild kestel leading the Viking boats home
and I am the lofty hawk above Jericho's waters.

Their green dreams drift down centuries to me
And I am epitome and epitaph of these
True memories that sing in the sleeping blood
And hanker against Australia's hot horizons.

I long to flood the songlines with emotion.
Fill this aboriginal continent with true praise.
A hundred thousand years they burnt the island, every year.
And I'm ashamed they bought the land to this.

Andre Agassi reveals a principle of excellence:

This is Andre Agassi speaks in relation to a competitor spitting on him after Agassi won a match:

"We all make choices every day on how we choose to conduct ourselves...What I do watch and admire is the competitiveness of his game. And I find when I am out there against him, I need to step up because of what he brings, not because of how he chooses to conduct himself".

So that is to say he focuses on the technique of his opponent, rather than the moral conduct?

Fascinating!

So I think this is quite a powerful principle you’re talking about here. In personal terms he is teaching that if we want to be excellence, we must do two things:

- ignore completely the morals of your opponent.
- all you need to do is focus on the technique of your opponent, in order to be excellent.

By focusing on the technique of our opponent, by admiring and respecting it even when it is immoral we comes to see it not as a problem but as an opportunity for excellence.

That’s a pretty sophisticated shift Agassi is talking about. It shows a great deal of subtlety.

Skill me up, baby!

This is a to-do list for my blog:

Learn how to blog photos.
Learn how to register hits.
Learn how to track keywords.
Learn how to aggregate entries.

Put my photo on yahoo.
Put my photo on my blog.
Create a block for my signature.
Create a keyword-alert, search-engine-attractive blog face.

Eliminate negative, depressing, vague entries.
Create postive, uplifting, specific entries from what's there.
Explore adding audio and flash to the blog.
Explore integrating my web contributions together through a webpage.

Optimal Writing Questions: "How I can simplify the writing process so that it easily creates the optimal first draft?"

I wonder how I can simplify the writing process so that it easily creates the optimal first draft?

Scenario One: I write and write and write and it happens on its own.
Scenario Two: I write, get frustrated and quit.
Scenario Three: I don't write, feel okay about it, and forget about it eventually until it's too late, then quit
Scenario Four: I don't write, I don't feel okay about it, I plan, scheme and foster ideas, until I start late and flounder along.

Scenario Five: Optimal:

I write and write and write.
I plan, scheme and foster ideas.
I get frustrated and grateful and learn emotional management and intellectual management skills.
I feel okay whether I write or not.
I finish what I write.
I write every day.
I write a great deal quickly and lightly.
I research after writing not before.

The four extremes of this are:

1. Making writing a Golden Idol and worshipping it.
2. Forgetting about the Promised Land and losing direction.
3. Striving for self-leadership when good judgment is sufficient.
4. Enslaving myself to a commercial view, instead of a generous and inclusive view.

Musing about the Gaia project in bed

Reflecting on the Gaia project in bed, a few threads found their way into my peregrinations:

First, wondering around moving on, into new material or backwards into old, reflecting on an old project, Savage Things, which had occupied several years of my time and been a cathartic personal journey, after the first draft of which I had (lost interest?) fallen away from energetically.

Second, wondering around the status of the book, regarding the level of vision involved, and the outcomes being sought. The present level of purpose being around intellectual debate and presenting complex new ideas, and around the present level of vision:

- Lynn's journey to China to meet the 16th Dalai Lama, setting off the sequence of events whereby the Chinese Dalai Lama travels to repudiate his upstart Tibetan imitator and is savagely killed by the renegade Tibetan aristocracy. His lovemaking with Gurnanji passes his spirit directly into her. The Ocean of Wisdom as the Gaiasphere. She gives birth to the 17th Dalai Lama.

This is what I have ahead in writing. The chapters with the American Revolution, the scenes where Lynn confronts her father with Valery, Allan's discussions with his wife and son leading to A, revelations of his wife's treachery and B, Valery's decision to seem to go against both his parents and join his grandfather in researching the Gaiasphere indirectly. All of which has to successively lead to the Three Day War, later known as the first Biotech War, between the two corporate bodies of Cutter and Allan. It is useful also to keep in mind that these shenanigans lead directly to Valery swapping sides again for the Chinese and Allan emigrating to Kangaroo Island.

Third, thoughts about Valery's foreshadowing sequence. Clearly this cruxifiction scene needed careful setting up though his experience and eyes. A five year old's awareness... hmmm. Witnessing a cruxifiction. HM. So the nature of the Dreaming needs to be elucidated for the readers much earlier, back in the road trip chapters with Valery and the journalist, with witnesses sharing awareness with Valery as he experiences oceanic impressions of the Gaiasphere. Yes that sounds right.

Fourth and finally, thoughts about the creative process itself:

The level of creation has in a sense become mired in the story as it unfolds. My sense is that there is an enormity of work to be done on the present writing, much less the latter bits. I guess I am wondering how I could shift the entire trajectory of the story closer to the optimal vision WHILE writing, so that I get the sense of being on track instead of the present sense of writing in the dark what I'll probably have to change. And behind it all is the concern of losing interest in such a monumental project too. The sense of scale and appropriate vision is there - this is an earthshaking blockbuster of a novel, that's clear.

To restate briefly: I fear the novel will unfold then I'll lose interest in the unfolded vision, forgetting the original vision that motivated me to write it. And I fear having to optimize a novel which is complex.

So I wonder how I can simplify the writing process so that it easily creates the optimal first draft?
And I wonder how I can regularly restore the sense of reverence, wonder, and peace in the vision?
And I wonder how I can regenerate this vision to an ever-more vibrant form?

I think these are subjects for the next three blog entries!