Music

Well, it’s been more than months since my last outburst, just enough time to be self-conscious about it. Why am I not writing? Do I have nothing left to say? Has America completely pacified my thoughts like last summer? Have I done this to myself? And then a strange thing happened…I let it go. It wasn’t a big deal, not writing. It didn’t show a sense of uneasiness, or lack thereof. It would bother me and then I finally sat down and am now doing this.

Many a thought has pondered in my head all starting with the question: can things be learned if they aren’t taught? Instantly I don’t want to say yes or no, knowing that both have irrefutable conclusions, which sounds like a lie. If both sides cannot be argued, then they are in fact the same. Of course this goes by these little glimpses of intellect that we call definitions. I call them rules of thinking, which inhibits control, which someway or another leads us back to freedom, by being controlled, by, yes, freedom.

So far as we are leaning towards yes, then YES, I do want to go back to Italy, and YES, for no reason at all. I don’t know when, but there’s something about making friendships that ensures they will last, especially if you’ve worked through the language barrier and instilled some value in some one else’s life. I am talking about myself and all of my friends, but we’ll let the poets do the preaching.

I went back to school and before that I had a good friend of mine visit from Florence. His first time in the states, a family first as well. I remember driving to the airport transforming my eyes into new ones. Looking at street signs, cars on the road, trying to imagine that it was the first time I had ever seen a scene like this, and it made me excited. Boring everyday tiresome chores more banal than watching the news and feeling enlightened, were new again. Over the next three weeks I would see more of San Francisco that had seen in 24 years of existence. How easy it is to drive around and enjoy the beauty the city has to offer. I almost scolded myself for being so pretentious and ignorant, sitting down in my San Franciscan home yearning for a place that provoked creativity and beauty, history and entertainment, a quiet place to speak Italian. Little did I know I was sitting where I wanted to be, I was just to blind to realize it. So the next time you want to get out, get away, free yourself, go the place that you’ve always been and look at it differently, with new eyes. Someone said something about that before, I am saying it again, and there is no doubt in my mind that someone somewhere else will say it again. The paradox of time, existence, and the universe: one thing. No change, no reason. Zero, in this case, still equals infinity (better known as I don’t know).

A few days after he left I missed the feeling of getting up in the morning, getting in a car, and driving around the city. I have been back to a few places that are close to my house but I haven’t nearly trekked as much as we did in twenty or so days. I guess it takes a little bit of nonsense and ignorance to empower the soul, whatever that means.

I’ve been blacklisted: a super senior with more than 120 units. I graduate in spring or face being kicked out of school. Desperate times call for desperate measures, except when it comes to the “war” budget and corporate salaries. But why would we do anything about it? We might lose our jobs, our freedom, our house, you know, the things that matter the most in our make-believe lives.

I really didn’t intend to be so frank, which is kind of funny if you repeat it to yourself in the shower, “I really didn’t intend to be so frank…”

Anyways, I’m taking 18 units and going to school two days a week, which means my days are long, but not tiresome. There’s something about going from math to art history to math to art history, and maybe I should explain just what classes I am taking so that I can waste a little more of your time.

Vector Calculus is pretty straight forward, the class taken after 3 full semesters of calculus. Vectors in space, vector functions, it isn’t really abstract and very analytical, half the battle being able to read the notation. Just think of geometry and then a bunch of calculations. You’ll also learn a lot of new words that end in –oid.

The Silk Road is still a road but for some reason we are studying its past instead of its present. The various meetings of different cultures, the way the lands changed, what travelers left (goods, language, and a lot of dogma), what stook (the slang of stuck), and why in the hell we care. I don’t think the last question is ever answered directly, assuming we appreciate our existence and the things we do. I like to call it “justifying our existence” and the best way we do it is by NOT talking about it. I can envision a very tasteless (or tasteful) position involved when someone drops a pencil on the floor. That’s what the new “American” poster should be, someone bending over. I think it’s subtle and yet adds a little taste of truth. No one said it was sweet, and here we go again with the nonsensical logic.

Number Theory is flat out flabbergasting. Remember when 1 + 1 = 2? Well now 2 = 1+1. I think of it as reverse arithmetic but these mathematicians that have been studying the subject since its birth (more than 3000 years ago) call it the predecessor of abstract algebra. As words are collections of other words so are numbers collections of other numbers. Primes are the cancer, definition the cause, and there exists a whole bunch of radical ideas about thought. Namely: “things are obvious until you think about them, math isn’t perfect absolute truth but rather perfect relative truth, having to assume something first in order to conclude something else by going as far as the average person would go, and then keep going.” Ah, these assumptions again, half-truths (lies), the fundamental building block upon which all knowledge sits. A house of cards with a brick compound surrounding it. If only we could just get in there and turn on some fans. A cat would do just fine as well.

Moving on from number theory we have Egyptian and Mesopotamian Art History. Look at how professional and reputable it looks, nothing like egyptian and mesopotamian art history. It’s the same thing, so why are they different? The answer is they’re not, but that isn’t as interesting. I do, however, have one thing to say: we would be (if we aren’t already) an empty void in the nothingness that is the world if it weren’t for these people. Everything you ever knew about christianity lies in the pagan rituals. We’re all the same religion and we will continue to kill ourselves over denying this fact. Where are our values? Why are we governed by names and definition? C’mon Dan Brown, I know you have it in you.

Once a week I have an art history seminar based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written about 2001 years ago telling some of the stories of old. Mythology, parables, history, which literally are the same thing. Shakespeare, Dante, the Bible, all influenced by this book. All the famous people and places are there. All the same things happen, just with different names.

And last but certainly not least is existentialism and phenomenology, a philosophy class about existence and phenomena, which is short for nothing. Living in the moment, in doubt, and under fire, this artificially created discipline in the classification of what scholars define as philosophy discusses the opposite of all these problems. God’s a big deal and religion is the devil; existence is but a cloud; knowing yourself is knowing you’re dead; hell is other people; essence before existence, and all that other jargon. I do a lot of thinking in the class, sometimes about the subject we are talking about, and at this time I’d like to confess: I’ve been lying.

I write papers once a week for this class, short two page theses on some of the topics discussed in the very propagandistic prose we are reading.

“Why read books on existentialism in an existentialism class?”
“The status quo my good son.”
“The same reason why we start any math/philosophy/science class with the greeks and then conclude that it all started with the greeks?”
“Indeed, we assume a falsity and then use it to justify our claim.”
“God exists and therefore god exists, we exist because we do.”
“Precisely, what was your question and your point?”
“I guess I didn’t have one officer.”
“Precisely.”

And that about sums up my classes at San Jose State. I also work at Target, the 6th richest business in the country where business is freedom. They make a measly $60,000,000 a week but I’m sure a small percentage of that actually goes to their corporate minions. They do have to pay their employees, too. I guess not all is lost, there’s always Walmart. Wait, what’s the difference? Names, again, I’m sorry. Different NAME, so different everything (sarcasm lingering).

On a lighter note I get to tutor a russian in italian. It pays triple what Target pays an hour, but it’s much more enriching. I’m paid to think, which just feels so useless. What can I say, I’m a product of my environment, and my environment is a product of me.

So these thoughts, I always try to take them outside of their context, see if they really hold true in front of a mirror. I’ve rediscovered this sense of duality but in a different light and I really shouldn’t even be calling it that. Let me try to give an abstract and misleading example that is neither legible nor coherent (as I seem to be good at doing those, a modern politician, if you will). As a side note republicans are mad at obama because he’s not fixing the mistakes bush made in office. Seems like somebody is finally taking some personal responsibility for their actions, but obscurely. Is there something you’d like to say?

Back to these thoughts, I was asked by a great friend why I liked music. And I start to meditate (think) about it, and honestly don’t know if I like it. I don’t feel it necessary but at the same time I understand music to be formless. An immeasurable phenomenon that can be produced and enjoyed without rules. I don’t mean those of meter and theory, I mean those of artistic freedom. The allegories and concepts we create around the source, giving it its life. What everyone makes of it is up to them, and to the victor unfortunately go the spoils. I’ll take it for what its worth, not for what it’s selling at. Fear.

That’s why I like it, because I don’t think I do. Doesn’t seem nearly an acceptable response to such a simple and elegant question, if one takes it as such. I don’t know. It’s an alternate way of perceiving, of being, of interacting with whatever it is I think I’m interacting with. Some call it the world, others reality, and even more (the self-righteous ones) refer to it as a glimpse of my spiritual potential. I wonder why they have to go door to door and baptize the dead. Will we ever grow out of joining clubs?

Music, namely the piano, has always been with me, but it was a choice that I made and continue to make every time I play it. A few days without it is ok, and when I am being brainwashed by education and sports I usually don’t pay attention, but when I am really bored or in need of an intellectual or zombie break from what I see as the norm I sit down and make music, using the sound in stead of my vocal cords to justify my existence. Zero to infinity, 88 keys and no end in possibility. I don’t know what that really means but I feel I’m getting closer to the center of that cloud.

So we have this thought, this idea, this thing (synonyms can be so misleading sometimes: do they have the same meaning? But they are different words so they are almost the same, right?) inside this universe, inside its own concept. I draw a circle around the letter A. A is sitting there, comfortable in its own existence and ideas, never having to worry about getting lost, because as A moves so does its circle, its knowledge, its essence. I draw a line from the center of A and quite easily yank it, curve it around the backside of its truth, and position it so that it faces itself. A mirror, if you will. Now we have A, outside of its concept, and it has nothing to say. All of the assumptions are gone, and A ceases to exist, not because A doesn’t exist, but because A doesn’t know how. I conclude by restating my assumption and let the words do the work. A quick example is that we are always judging things. Is that not a judgment in itself? I’m stuck in the circle by liberating myself from it. Where must I go to be lost?

And with that I encourage your thoughts. Hopefully the next one will be in less than two months, but I wouldn’t worry about it.

-Anthony