Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ Oᴀᴛʜ

This is a brief analysis of “Immediacy and its discontents”, an interview with Anna Kornbluh, author of the 2024 book  Immediacy, or the Style of Too Late Capitalism . My writings originate from a long message in a Messenger group, in reply to a friend who asked more about its action items and conclusions. The irony of the origin of these writings is not lost on me! DS: I don't necessarily disagree with anything she says, but I feel like I read 15 minutes of content for almost no actual takeaways. What action items or conclusions does she actually say here? This essay contains no action items except the sense that all proposed analytic frames ask that you buy into them as explanatory and critical tools. The conclusion is that much of the aesthetic in our current day around authenticity and low barriers to art purport to have a democratizing effect in art when it really has a popularizing and anti-intellectual effect.  Where I read into it is this following observation: me...

Every man becomes a philosopher when met with beauty. Especially, when he has the intimate experience of having “created” a woman. Yet, it was God who created all. This illusion can only be sustained for so long! Amazing how an art song ( The Wind at Dawn , Edward Elgar) was in many ways a prelude to me using AI technology to bring a whole mess of delights to life.  I created this with dingboard , using assets generated by Bing Image Creator . My inspiration was from seeing (1) many examples of effective visual storytelling on social media using AI-created art, (2) feeling sucked in at times by beautiful AI images, often in ads and often depicting women, and (3) seeing a Twitter mutual reach thirty thousand (30K) followers. It made me realize, I might do well for myself—if not materially, at least in my own creativity—to more freely use various tools at my disposal to create collages of all kinds (text, image, video) that express the wealth of my vibrant life of mind. Why hold back...

Last quarter (April–June), my goal was to make clear nested references to daily notes clear within my Obsidian vault. Each daily note was linked in a weekly note, each weekly note was linked in a monthly, each monthly note was linked in a quarterly note, each quarterly note was linked in a yearly note (of which I only have one so far). The goal was to set up a structure where I can easily find my past work by the use of timestamps in and out of my Obsidian vault. If I want to find something, I only need to navigate through these periodic notes and use the unique timestamp note names to see what I was up to at a particular place and time.  I more than succeeded in this mission. But the problem is, my metric became my goal. Goodhart’s law, of course! I was not immune. It became more important for me to structure all my notes within my vault and nest them all into each other neatly than it was to *actually use my notes*. This resulted in a lot of writing that linked neither back nor f...

You are the love of my dreams. ( DeviantArt ) The future of art and expression is already here. We all have the resources to speak to the rest of the world, using all manners of media and with all manners of tools. Artificial intelligence is but one more item in our armory, one more skill to put into our weapons slot. We will keep on seeing the landscape of human expression change over and over. The hope I have for the future scares me a little. (The part where I got married this month might also contribute to that. We are trying for a baby.) The writings I put down in my Obsidian often do not see the light of day. I write with the intention of helping myself think while also drafting different ideas. But in the end, everything stays in the form of broken notes. A few micro-essays here and there, but nothing that substantial. I have learned a lot, but what fruits do I have to show for it? I have something to add to the conversation. I know it! So, why do I not speak? Speaking to the w...

An expansive arena, a virtual battleground where the laws of magic reign supreme. The scene is set within a fantastical realm, with intricate, ever-shifting landscapes that respond to the players' actions. Towers of arcane energy pulse in the distance, casting an ethereal glow upon the battlefield. (Bing Image Creator and ChatGPT ) All game designs are interfaces. Building a new paradigm is literally like setting up a desk differently and making a new workflow. Improvising ideas based on the League of Legends keyboard layout and interface is esp. interesting as I do not usually think of this as a area for creativity. Even so many years later, I am still thinking about that real-time arena game idea (probably works best as a MOBA) where players have QWER spell slots (plus maybe DF potion slots) that are the cards in their “hand”. Each player has a backlog of cards they can draw by interval, mana for those cards, and cooldowns per slot according to the card (with the next card previ...

Catherine and Gale on the beach by the Great Lakes, enjoying the end of a day before Timothy and Louise come to gather them for the ride home. Based on a memory with the architect. Perhaps it was the same with Gale, when he remembered how it was to be by another woman’s side. He loved Catherine dearly, even as the engineer wished for him to be closer to the pianist. Her success with her wishes disappointed even herself. I am on a beach, and there is the sun setting before me. Beside me is, once again, Catherine. She is there forever. I am always there with her. We have a beautiful life together in the light, and I see how it all came to be that I have a married friend who I can hold closer in my heart than anyone else in my life. Yet I misled her, and this haunts me. I wonder how I can apologize. “Don’t apologize.” She turns to me. “Just be a better man. Let God help you.” “It all seems so simple when you put it like that,” I laugh. “There is nothing but simplicity.” She kicks at the s...

Present. A painting by the love of my dreams. In your possession is a whole bag of gems, more beautiful than anything you ever knew. You want to put them in a place in your life that you would never forget, that will never be taken away. Where do you put them? The foundation of your eternal home. You mix concrete using all the pebbles, sand, and limestone you have on hand. You crush some shells that you had lying around, but had no other use for. You pour the foundation, and then press your gems into this wet creation. Safely embedded, locked in one place. Then you build the rest of your house, with whatever you want. Maybe it is time to fell some trees that are blocking the view of the sun over the sea, of the old port at the mouth of the river. Oh, there was also the lumber from other houses that toppled due to winds blowing across the sands. Soon, you have created a new abode. You put everything you have in this home. This all increases your attachment to the rooms, the walls, the ...

I encourage all my piano students to write. When I give this suggestion, many of them looked confused. (If their parent is in the room, I sometimes catch them checking the time.) It is already an oft-stated fact that writing is learning, so I will not convince you of that here if you have not encountered this idea. Those who do write, whether for others or for themselves, quickly see that it is the best way to audit your inner life. If I am writing in a steady rhythm, it all becomes a sort of musical verse that fits together in a strange and magical way that we cannot express in simple terms. Many young people, especially among the population of students whose parents send them to extracurriculars, lack a strong direction for what they want to do in the future. Often they are learning the piano to beef up their university applications, so are focused mainly on taking exams and joining festivals or competitions. The room for them to explore their own artistic interests (or to even know...

Seeing what I can do with all my ideas is a bit daunting, to be honest! It is not always easy to put myself in one place and make myself open enough with the world to tell it the things I say sincerely. I will try, as that is the only way to continue in this rapidly changing world. I am who I am. Is this not enough? Yesterday, I made a Pika account after seeing a Reddit comment from the creator. I was disappointed to see that this “free” blogging platform supported a maximum of fifty posts on the unpaid plan. But wait, most of my blogs had fewer posts than that! Maybe I could do a daily—er, weekly—writing challenge so that in one year I hit the limit? Wait, or I can just post regularly to a normal blog and stop being weird. Duh. I keep on making challenges for myself that on reflection make no sense. There is so much that shows us what we can do with all of this. There are more ideas than we can ever know. Let us keep on building and seeing what we can make of all this. Putting our not...

Experimented and created. Know this, you know who robs you of sight. Meaningless, said the Preacher. Meaningless. There once was an older girl, a younger woman, who saved me. On her good advice, I quit my job. I gave my notice at summer’s end, and Alain set me free from Génoise et Thé. “You can’t be kept, mon gars .” He patted my shoulder, and we shook hands, a parting between men. Waiting outside, Selene took off her sunglasses and dabbed her eyes. I cleaned my room, fussing over details she fixed sooner and better. The curator was a lovely guest, bringing gifts and Charlotte. We were in bright humor from the change in the season, the shift in the wind. I did well as a host, as a man. I shaved my face, brushed my teeth, wore my shirt, and owned my life. At the Old Port, we sat on a bench. She spoke, and I learned. I asked, she asked further. We leaned into mystery, and tackled the snake, fang and venom, as it was. The questions multiplied, as she said they would. Questions — at the ca...

I always loved hoarding cards. Others had Pokémon— I switched to French keyboard just to type that acute accent—while I started with Neopets then moved on to Magic: the Gathering . (Lifelong customer of Wizards of the Coast.) For a long time, I have used cards as analogies for various systems, especially ones with emergent mechanics. Last year, while playing Slay the Spire , I had the realization that even individuals can be modeled as decks. For some reason, this sparked a bunch of insights that eventually let me find God (Praise Lord Christ!) after years away from my faith. It was a revelatory experience, one that came on the tail of much personal upheaval and spiritual transformation. Some people in my rough theological camp think of Magic and roleplaying games as promoting Satanic witchcraft or Gnostic sorcery. I cannot say I do not see the dark power in these systems. Yet, I also intend on fully enjoying the freedom of a believer (see 1 Corinthians), especially when the popular p...

I have a problem where any tool that is not directly attached to my Google account is doomed to either be forgotten about, or depreciated in ways that I do not appreciate . (Punny as ever, even after a long hiatus from public longform writing.) I figured that I need to start putting my thoughts out there into the world, lest I become too insular with my journaling. So here I am. This will be written as off-the-cuff as possible, so that I can actually get this out there instead of second-guessing it. We are in the age of thinking sand, the dawn of genius silicon. This is a special time to be alive. Let us revel in our words, and think to the future that shall be ours. I have a thing where I like to alternate the styles of my paragraphs to see if there is a way to develop a new rhythm in all the thoughts that I produce. Someone reading this aloud might see how much my writing follows the pathways of an inner monologue. Indeed, I wrote this post in almost one shot without thinking too mu...