Tuesday, January 06, 2004
The Peculiar Habit of Celebrating
The humans have a perplexing habit to indulge in lenghty festivities around and on randomly selected yet firmly established chronological points. For instance, I am just coming back from one such celebration that i chose to experience as a neon sign and as a single man in a large urban settlement called New York City.
This particular holiday celebrates the arbitrarily selected date of January 1st as the beginning of each new year. There are other such dates honoroued by other cultural groups of earthlings, that don't necessarily coincide with each other but exhibit the same rationale - that time is a linear progression of repeptitive units that have clearly defined beginnings and ends. It is difficult to grasp the logic that supports such an extravagant choice as the 1st of January. January is one of 12 months that conventionally constitute one year by most human cultural standards. The year is an obvious conventional standard as it does constitute one full seasonal cycle.
This particular holiday celebrates the arbitrarily selected date of January 1st as the beginning of each new year. There are other such dates honoroued by other cultural groups of earthlings, that don't necessarily coincide with each other but exhibit the same rationale - that time is a linear progression of repeptitive units that have clearly defined beginnings and ends. It is difficult to grasp the logic that supports such an extravagant choice as the 1st of January. January is one of 12 months that conventionally constitute one year by most human cultural standards. The year is an obvious conventional standard as it does constitute one full seasonal cycle.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Shape Shifting
Last time I mentioned the freedom of shape shifting immigration allows for. By shape shifting I meant defying one's existential parameters and not merely changing appearance as the locals would understand it. For instance, it would be a monumental feat for a local to turn from human to fox (another local species of similar parameters) while my default parameters allow me to change form and size at will. I can be human, fox or anything objectifiable as long as I'm familiar with the inherent condition that defines it. You see, where I come from, the natural design is a little more ergonomic than the one currently dominant on Earth.
I use this extensively in my terrestrial observations, especially when I join the terrestrial frequencies to experience life from a local; perspective. Any organic form would usually do, but I have a slight preference for the squirrel or pigeon for urban settings and the frog or cricket for the countryside. Here I should mention that not all organic forms share the limitations of the humans. How did the latter become the dominant species is a question that is paramount in my investigation.
I use this extensively in my terrestrial observations, especially when I join the terrestrial frequencies to experience life from a local; perspective. Any organic form would usually do, but I have a slight preference for the squirrel or pigeon for urban settings and the frog or cricket for the countryside. Here I should mention that not all organic forms share the limitations of the humans. How did the latter become the dominant species is a question that is paramount in my investigation.
Friday, December 12, 2003
Immigration and Other Cognitive Delights
It's great to be an immigrant!
You get to lose everything that has defined you, everything that meant anything and, if you manage to keep your wits about you, you can turn the free fall into a flying session. Never ever will you bond with an environment as deeply as you've done it in your unconsciously complacent youth. Shape-shifting, on the other hand, can become feasible to the devoted immigrant, provided the latter does not indulge in mimicking the natives or in other shape-fixating activities. Hold that thought, I'll get back to this later.
It's been only a few moments since I landed on this particular planet, some of the locals call Earth. The predominant local chronological standards divide time meticulously into equal rhythmic lengths. Consequently, time is conceptualized and precluded from fluctuating, compelling the dominant kind of earthlings, who call themselves humans, to be unidirectional in their majority. According to these pedantic measurements, my soujourn here can translate into thirteen years. These are only arbitrary conventions but I'll henceforth adopt them for clarity in rendering my terrestrial observations.
Local time is conceived as an aspect of the modest three dimensions of space the humans can generally perceive. This specific cognitive limitation prevents them from grasping information simultaneously, except in rare occassions where it is uni-or bi-dimensionally presented. They depend on movement, hence time, to encompass all possible views of an object. Needless to say, jumping different realities, of more or of variable dimensions, is barely conceivable to them and, with rare exceptions, reserved primarily for theoretical musings.
As confusing as those spatio-temporal discrepancies may be, they allow me to conduct my observations virtually unnoticed. The fixed speed of local perception prevents the terrestrials from fully registering my presence. A mere change of frequencies allows me to go about my affairs while they perceive me in such a slow motion that I seem like a virtually static object. This, coupled with my peculiar to their senses design, allows me to effectively disguise myself as anything unalarmingly trivial, from a small piece of irrelevant junk to a giant Christmas decoration.
Humans give little semantic credence to sound, except if conducting language (see note below). Devoid of resources to detect the vibrations that accompany my presence, they have made me so careless that, apart from obliviously colliding with obstructions (whenever I am in hard physical condition); I am constantly emitting sounds for no other reason but to amuse myself. Granted, my natural sonic range is usually inaccessible to the earthlings' median cognitive apparatus, but sometimes the sounds that accompany me do slide into audible frequencies. My oddly inattentive human hosts however invariably attribute it to white noise or other trivial phenomenon.
Sometimes, of course, I do slow down and align rythmically with the locals. It gives me full taste, as they'd say here, of the terrestrial experience.
Note: Perhaps you've noticed my awkward command of English. It is only one of about 6,800 localized versions of the same basic construct, called language, which allows communication through the use of elaborate rules, codes and signs. The humans are so fond of this peculiar invention that their ability to access knowledge directly has become virtually stunted. I must admit I am also fascinated with this sluggish method of comprehension. It is a genuine delight to explore this maze of cognitive redundancy. Humans love excess and call it variety. I love variety and could be excessive in my pursuit of it. Variety lies in the unknown, in whatever I have barely or no idea of. It is the enticing whisper of the immensity around. Variety is the PR of knowledge, its commercial face. Once again it has seduced me out of my habitual setting and into a world as strange as a moth.
You get to lose everything that has defined you, everything that meant anything and, if you manage to keep your wits about you, you can turn the free fall into a flying session. Never ever will you bond with an environment as deeply as you've done it in your unconsciously complacent youth. Shape-shifting, on the other hand, can become feasible to the devoted immigrant, provided the latter does not indulge in mimicking the natives or in other shape-fixating activities. Hold that thought, I'll get back to this later.
It's been only a few moments since I landed on this particular planet, some of the locals call Earth. The predominant local chronological standards divide time meticulously into equal rhythmic lengths. Consequently, time is conceptualized and precluded from fluctuating, compelling the dominant kind of earthlings, who call themselves humans, to be unidirectional in their majority. According to these pedantic measurements, my soujourn here can translate into thirteen years. These are only arbitrary conventions but I'll henceforth adopt them for clarity in rendering my terrestrial observations.
Local time is conceived as an aspect of the modest three dimensions of space the humans can generally perceive. This specific cognitive limitation prevents them from grasping information simultaneously, except in rare occassions where it is uni-or bi-dimensionally presented. They depend on movement, hence time, to encompass all possible views of an object. Needless to say, jumping different realities, of more or of variable dimensions, is barely conceivable to them and, with rare exceptions, reserved primarily for theoretical musings.
As confusing as those spatio-temporal discrepancies may be, they allow me to conduct my observations virtually unnoticed. The fixed speed of local perception prevents the terrestrials from fully registering my presence. A mere change of frequencies allows me to go about my affairs while they perceive me in such a slow motion that I seem like a virtually static object. This, coupled with my peculiar to their senses design, allows me to effectively disguise myself as anything unalarmingly trivial, from a small piece of irrelevant junk to a giant Christmas decoration.
Humans give little semantic credence to sound, except if conducting language (see note below). Devoid of resources to detect the vibrations that accompany my presence, they have made me so careless that, apart from obliviously colliding with obstructions (whenever I am in hard physical condition); I am constantly emitting sounds for no other reason but to amuse myself. Granted, my natural sonic range is usually inaccessible to the earthlings' median cognitive apparatus, but sometimes the sounds that accompany me do slide into audible frequencies. My oddly inattentive human hosts however invariably attribute it to white noise or other trivial phenomenon.
Sometimes, of course, I do slow down and align rythmically with the locals. It gives me full taste, as they'd say here, of the terrestrial experience.
Note: Perhaps you've noticed my awkward command of English. It is only one of about 6,800 localized versions of the same basic construct, called language, which allows communication through the use of elaborate rules, codes and signs. The humans are so fond of this peculiar invention that their ability to access knowledge directly has become virtually stunted. I must admit I am also fascinated with this sluggish method of comprehension. It is a genuine delight to explore this maze of cognitive redundancy. Humans love excess and call it variety. I love variety and could be excessive in my pursuit of it. Variety lies in the unknown, in whatever I have barely or no idea of. It is the enticing whisper of the immensity around. Variety is the PR of knowledge, its commercial face. Once again it has seduced me out of my habitual setting and into a world as strange as a moth.
