The Image of Bruce Lee

    I would like to take a moment to examine why I think Bruce Lee is an inspirational figure for many people. He was a martial artist but he also has broadcast his talents on the few films that he has played in. He played roles where he was cast as an outsider who had to overcome rival gangs or crime syndicates. But at the same time, he was able to showcase his martial talents which were unrivaled at the cinema. His fighting kept his audience engaged as much as his simple charismatic line delivery. So, his films show an enhanced image of his character which people find attractive.

   I also realize that my previous post was about how following someone who you can personally call 'teacher' is not the path for those who hold to the cross and what it represents. But at the same time it would be naïve to think that we will shrug off our roll models once we learn the truth about influence and those who practice it. So, revisiting someone like a Bruce Lee in comparison with a Carl Trueman, for example, would show how influence differs widely considering that their goals and methods of impacting others, who happen to find them intriguing, are not the same. 

  Thus, having a large cult following makes one person defensive while for another it propels them forward. And the means by which each of these influencers, Bruce and Carl, are going to be emulated by their audiences have value because of how they portray influence as something to be unmasked or, in another way, to be considered unimportant compared with their respective messages that they have pushed for. It is just that their audience members (not all) seem to think that just their personas are being communicated instead of the values of marital arts from one and the cross from the other.

On the cults of those who follow a Magnus

I would like to respond to this article about how the author resisted the temptation to start a fan club:

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2018/06/on-professors-idolatry-and-a-m.php

The author, Carl Trueman, starts off by recounting his beginnings of his professorship at Westminster by the East Coast. He was asked by a group of students to talk theology in a public venue, or rather a local meeting place. And then he goes off to discuss the dangers of personality cults for young impressionable students, who often feel a sense of camaraderie when they find a prof. that they like.  

And he argues that: if you worship a professor or teacher or pastor, you will come to be like them, warts and all, and probably in an exaggerated way. That is why so many professorial disciples sound like cheap, lightweight versions of the original; they are basically idolaters, and what you see in their lives and language is the inevitable result of their idolatry. Then he brings up the cross.

The process of becoming impressed with a professor or teacher or pastor is not what the cross teaches us about how to go about engaging such influencers. To become addicted to those cults or to join those who end up modeling themselves after them tend to try to act like them, but instead of being told not to be like them, we are reminded that this idolatry splits up families and churches.

Back in my college days, I'd absorb the material to digest it for the final exam. And students outside of the class might find it quite strange to walk in on any given lecture because the way that Music does University, for example, is different than the way normal departments train students for their life after their professors impress them. Taking the same class together gives you an insider's view.

So, if our motivation is to follow an influencer around to be like them, perhaps that is not a cross-like way of approaching them. And I think back how often I mimic my own influencers unintentionally because they seemed to be powerful and attractive persons, who I can gain insight and prestige from to feel superior to those outside of my peer group. So, if we are aware of this maybe it's not too late.

Con't the Conversation

I am going to be in dialogue with this piece from a past posting from late last month:

So, I was reading about a Knight, who traveled around Europe seeking to defend her honor. And I also have read about the Orient, the Far East, through a book that I picked up, but then abandoned it like finding an empty house at a dead end street. If you knew that there was an empty house, and you had no reason to go inside, you would turn and walk away. Would you not? If you have searched all of its rooms and found them to be worthless, then you should leave before you become a person without any reason at all. So, I stopped reading my Japanese book, and went on from there.

    When given a section of fiction writing, I like to try to understand the character's motives by looking at what or who they associate with. However, this would be autobiographical, so consider the Knight from the Canterbury Tales instead. He traveled around Europe seeking to defend her honor, which is found in the prologue that introduces him among all of the other pilgrims. So, he is a traveler with other companions on his way to Canterbury. At this point, I would like to say that historical awareness of the surrounding events would be helpful but not necessary, so that you don't have to stop reading just to look up where all the places are in relation to what Chaucer is saying. 

    So there is the disconnect between the significant social events that historians inquire into and the significant literary works that critics duke themselves over with. This disconnect or better yet the categorization of these two methods is important because some people confuse these things to their own shame. There is overlap but I need to continue to beat the dead horse, until things start to make sense for you. And from that let's consider why the author stopped reading his Japanese book, since that conclusion does not seem to follow from the above. The answer is that there was a literary reference that set up the ordinary ending. How boring, right?

Prince Hal against Falstaff aka Fight at the London Bridge

    I started off this Spring by wanting to read John Donne, but I was over with him, until I found a copy of the Canterbury Tales, which I bought with credit at a local bookstore. But I then noticed that I had additional credit, so I looked at the cheap bargains and got a Sudoku puzzle book as well as a Russian dictionary for English users, who I happen to be one of. And I used English all my life but I thought that Russian would be a good choice, since it's a bit different than English. So, I got this Oxford Russian English dictionary, which I have used as a reference to learn this foreign language that is spoken in Russia among other countries. So, Donne led to Russian but then I got this Henry IV part I play that I would like to talk about now with those who enjoy English as a foreign language.

    So, Henry IV part I is the store edition, which I bought because if I wanted to get the expensive edition, then I would sink into the tale instead of telling you what the play is about, but I only have read about a few scenes so far, and could not tell you the entire plot or any detailed descriptions of the characters. In fact, there are sources dedicated to just one character, for example, where the author takes you through a play of Shakespeare's by explaining just one character as the basis of the entire play. For example, Hamlet: Poet Unlimited by Harold Bloom comes to mind, but I am sure that there are others out there, if you are interested in following your favorite characters around Shakespeare's plays. So, Falstaff is a good example, since he appears in several of his plays such the Merry Wives of Windsor, which I have never seen a performance of. So, Bloom is still a looming presence here as I discourse Henry IV part I, which I have gotten recently on store credit.

    Thus, I would like to introduce into my conclusion an element that I did not yet write about: Prince Hal, who takes the opposite way of acting compared to Falstaff. Whereas Falstaff is a fat old knight, who gets into mischief; Hal is a young price, who has a bad reputation that he uses to his advantage by poking fun at the knight. So, Falstaff is the dominating presence, who seeks to make Hal into one of his own by absorbing whatever he says and then returning that back into his own advantage. So, the audience is with Falstaff but Hal acts as a counter measure against the excesses of the fat old knight of Eastcheap. So, I had to fit in Hal to explain the importance of Falstaff, who has seemed to have won the contest before I even picked up the copy of the play at my local bookstore.

the French Connection

A few coworkers from the outside have raise their questions about this confused post from Feb.:

     There were a few animals that met in a man-made house. The snake, the rabbit, the ox, and the monkey talked about the impact of the natural disaster. The snake said that he would prevent another disaster like the first. The rabbit suggested that she might be a victim if another one happened. The ox saw that there was no way that another one will happen. And the monkey agreed with the alert ox.

    The rabbit was then upset with the monkey because he was abrupt. The rabbit began to shed her fur, which fell in clumps and made the rabbit worry even more. She made comments about her shedding and the ox decided to ignore them. The rabbit turned to the ox and the snake started to slither away. The ox made irrational noises, which could be heard from the outside. They then ended the meeting.

    It is painfully obvious that the rabbit is at the center of attention because all of the other animals just ignore the complain of the rabbit. Now, does that rabbit have a ‘Real World’ counterpart to the character in the story? No, since fiction disguises all personal identities, the rabbit is without any 'Real World' counterpart whatsoever. If you thought that the snake, the ox, or the monkey cared at all about her, then you seemed concerned about something that should not concern you at all.

   So, was it right for the rest of zoo animals to leave the rabbit in the state that she was in? Once the rabbit expressed her feelings that she might be a victim of the natural disaster, then that was exactly when all of the other barn animals left her because they had nothing to say to her. Notice, that she was left alone in the house and that no disaster happened. Maybe you should ask yourself, "what is not being said here?" So, the 'meaning' is learning how to look outside of one's man-made house, but that answer won't solve your 'Real World' issue now, won't it?

An Interview with Puffin

Vytautas: What is ASMR? I decided to ask an actual ASMRtist what’s it like being apart of a community, where users can listen to soft sounds with the intention to escape the demands of daily life, if only for a drief 10-15 mins. One such creator of ASMR on YouTube has her own channel and goes by the moniker Puffin, who does not show the upper part of her face for some reason. O Puffin, why is it that you do not reveal your face on any of your YouTube videos?

Puffin: I hide my face for both employment reasons and potential harassment. I am in the phase of my life where job searching and finding a career is extremely important, and I wouldn't want my channel to get in the way of that. Unfortunately, to people who are unfamiliar with ASMR, it can come off as a fetish or sexual, which is not my intention in the slightest. I imagine that employers and hiring managers would be among those that are unfamiliar. And if my real name or identity were to be attached to my channel, then I’d fear that it would have negative consequences. Additionally, with Jellybean's harassment story (as well as many other ASMRtists, who have faced the same thing), it just adds to the list of reasons to try and remain as private as possible.   

Vytautas: That’s understandable. I, for instance, have my own nickname that I use for an online identity. I guess, if you are famous in the ‘real life’, you wouldn’t have to worry about leaking your identity to the public, since then everyone would respect you. But for those of us trying to get a handle on finding a career, these ‘fake names’ can be a life saver. So, I first got into ASMR by watching Jellybean, but when I watched Frivvi, I was like, Wow!. So, I was wondering, have you had the chance to watch her?

Puffin: I started watching Frivvi quite a while ago. And I remember the first video that I saw of her was one of her Tascam "Tingle Party" assortments, which I immediately fell in love with! She has a great presence and I feel that she comes off as very genuine. She was one of the main ASMRtists whose videos helped me, when my anxiety skyrocketed in college. Now that I have begun my own channel, I often look to her as an inspiration. I am not a big fan of fancy sets and role-plays. So, I love that her videos are very straightforward and that she sticks to creating things that she enjoys.

Vytautas: Yes, the first video that made me ‘tingle’, which could be described as the funny feeling you have in the back of your head, when you feel that you have accomplished something, was when Frivvi was listing to Bilile Eilish, who reminds me of Meg Myers for some reason, and just being silly which kept me glued to my iPhone. So, is there a reason that you chose the name Puffin?

Puffin: I chose the name Puffin because I honestly just like the word. :) It has a comforting sound like the word pillow. Other than that, I find puffins to be adorable! I would categorize birds in general as my favorite ‘animal’, as I've owned and raised many of them throughout my life. Puffins just stuck out to me because they're cute, quite unique, as well as having a great name.

Vytautas: Great! I also happen to follow you on Twitter, since it is only natural to find you there. I noticed a few posts concerning World of Warcraft (WoW), which, I guess, is still all the rage these days. Care to elaborate on that?

Puffin: I do love WoW! I play the game casually these days. However, I used to raid quite a lot about a year ago. Currently, I play the game to collect items and just prepare for the upcoming expansion. I guess you could say that I used to be a power gamer, but now I became a role-player. I have every class at max level, but I mostly enjoy playing melee classes and healers, my current favorite being the Paladin. I can heal, melee dps, or tank depending on my mood. The versatility is great!

Vytautas: I believe it has about 15 years ago when I played Ultima Online (UO), where I was a similar type of character but not as noble as a Paladin, since I became a part of the Chaotic Clan on the Catskills shard, where Tronage and his wife would hold tournaments and monster hunts every few weeks or so. And eventually, I have shared a house with the murderous brigand, Xenox, or a name like that. So, I was a Paladin-like but I did not wander the streets of Trinsic seeking to feed the hungry, you know? Anyways, how’s life without Frivvi putting out regular ASMR videos? 

Puffin: Frivvi's absence is very unfortunate, but I'd glad she's taking time to grieve rather than just continue pumping out videos when her heart isn't into it. Since the person she lost was involved in the ASMR community, I can see why she needed to take her mind off from her videos for a while. If things ever go south in my real life (assuming they aren't related to ASMR or my channel), I would try to continue as best as I could, as I find filming therapeutic.

Vytautas: Well, thanks for taking the time to interview with me. Hope all goes well with your own ASMR output.

Those who speak when they should instead be

    What is ASMR?  You might have seen people tap away on tables, or they might have whistled, while they played Frisbee in your neighbor's yard. All of these activities show that those persons, who have expressed such outbursts, wanted to release their nervous energy through those common habits that you see through your daily life. So, ASMR is the feeling you get when you have the same intention as your nervous partner.  I say nervous, not that they cannot settle down, but rather for those whose intentions are to express an ASMR towards their listener, they would want to generate such sounds by being distracted from their surroundings. Where can one find ASMR?

    These intentional sounds are usually published through media found in app stores or websites where such media is housed. You could find all sorts of activities, where there are artists who focus intently on one particular aspect such as eating or drinking. These are the noises that should relax you, if you trust the artist and basically stop thinking, so that you are under the control of the artists who preform ASMR, an acronym meaning you feel good inside after someone makes some soothing noises. The resistance comes in when what you are experiencing is outside of the range of decorum.

    Training to experience responses from those who are willing to focus all of their energy on generating audio to put you to sleep, so that you are no longer racing with psychobabble, but rather are being treated as a patient under the care of a physician is hard because you need to focus on being in a meditative state of being, which requires some practice. But the best way is to just to watch and learn as you discover not methods, but rather the intention to trust those ASMR artists.

Student of Bloom

The following was taken from a madman's diary and edited for the sake of sanity:

    You have Hamlet, who is change incarnate, while Falstaff is the Blessing, so all other characters are manifestations of these two characters. That is, all other personages from Shakespeare can be explained from these two characters. So you have all other characters that are explained from Hamlet and Falstaff. You would find evidence of the above from the plays/ poems of Shakespeare. So if you have Iago, who is willing to put Othello to death because he was not a true military personage. Iago changes his stance towards Othello because of his relationship to Desdemona, who leaves behind a piece of cloth, which Iago uses to frame her for her infidelity. So Iago can be discussed in terms of Hamlet.

a Crash Course in Business Analysis

    Those who pay bills would like to think that those who have positions of power got there because of their lack of talent. To put it another way, within a business setting, those who have the experience are hated by those who think differently than others. On the one hand, it would seem that business leaders got to where they are through hard work and dedication, but on the other, maybe it was just being at the right place and the right time using their connections to get to where they currently are at.

    For example, if you were given the task to listen to the concerns of those bill-payers who would rather be the invoice-givers, then you would respond by saying, look, I understand your concern to make me want to pay my invoice, but here is another way of looking at it: I would loose out on the deal, while you'll just keep your comfortable seat with all of them lights on. So, the work environment makes it easier for that invoice-giver to stay in power, while the bill-payer has to suffer the beeps that are thrown into the ears of the innocent by means of a communication device.

    Thus, those of us who are familiar with the work environment can see the problems that the bill-payers go through, while maintaining that the invoice-givers are not the problem but the solution 'cause they provide the documents for those who insist that they are losing out somehow. Perhaps if they are so good at paying bills, they can look around them to see what their bill paying has accomplished. That way the invoice-givers don't have to use their phones to seek them out.

Against Open Ground Ditches

    There is a point were the one true sentence cannot suffice, since it does not describe the environment of a given area. A description such as, the water flows on the floor, when the green light turns on, does not help, even if you are in a situation, where an event such as that happened because it lacks 'reference'. The description has 'sense', but you are unsure of the 'reference' that is being made. A lot of people mistake 'context' for 'reference', which is fine in normal talk, but if you want to have precision, then we have to investigate the matter with 'sense' and 'reference'. And note that '*' = 'concept', which is an equivalence between the 'concept' and the 'universal set' within single quotation marks.

    This is an analytical distinction that is outside of a situational context, so let's first deal with 'context' and 'reference'. Is there a difference between the two? 'Context' refers to a type of 'reference' within a textual situation, while 'reference' is about how 'sense' works within a given environment, which is given meaning by those who have at least some understanding of that particular environment.  Let's call these persons interpreters who give meaning to their environment. They require both 'sense' and 'reference' to understand their environment, which is where they are located. And when the interpreters come to a text, they need both 'sense' and 'reference' to understand the 'context'. So, the context is like an environment, where there are things like settings, characters, and meta-text that give shape to the way the interpreter makes 'sense' of her surroundings.

   To finish up, there is no way that she, who has a sense of an environment, whether it be textual or geographical, will understand anything without a 'reference', which is a type of 'context', if the environment be textual or an environment, where the 'reference' is geographical. So these distinctions will help you see the 'meaning' within your environment by giving you a 'reference', which is useful for understanding life-situations, where the 'context' is just one part of the whole. So, the 'reference' will pull together with the 'sense' to make them both meaningful within an environment.

    However, I have purposely left 'environment' without the single quotation marks up to this point because I don't want to think conceptually about the 'environment' at this time. Maybe I will write about that issue some other day. So, there is a difference between 'context' and 'reference', and I have told you why the issue with 'sense' and 'reference' is important. They bring together the 'meaning' for the interpreters, who themselves would be put into quotes, but I need to learn how to stop. (ha!) Have good a day!

on Influence as a Tree in the wild wild Garden (ITG)

    Let's say that there is an influence that we experience, but let's also say that there is a type of influence that is left off to others, to do as they please with it, which influence could be seen as a tree that drops off its fruit, so others can eat of them. The fruit of our efforts are those who also see themselves as influencers, who are the audience of those who choose to eat of the fruit that the influencer produces. So what is produced from those influencers, or those who show a lot of influence, then becomes that which is eaten by those who value those influences, since their influence is not just one but many. So, influence as a tree, where the tree is the one who influences, is a metaphor for how the tree interacts with its influence environment. How does this work?

    Next, the fruit from the tree is that which shows how influential a particular tree is. But growth for the tree occurs regardless if it does or does not produce fruit. How influence works is that the tree grows by absorbing rainwater and things like that but to hold on to influence, the tree must interact with other influences that it has interacted with beforehand for growth to occur. I have avoided personal pronouns up to this point but let's classify the tree as male as the Germans do. So, the tree is an abstract characterization, until you characterize the above as a person who has the necessary background to fill in the above abstraction. And I could have chosen something like the earth, which is female because of the definite article of the substantive, but I am feeling male today.

   Thus, he who has grown as a result of his influence experience will want to have his fruit fed back to him, but the result is that of loss rather than gain. And the loss comes in when he finds out that those who have eaten of his fruits will not return them back in the same way that he has produced them. Rather those who have eaten from him will spit out his seeds while digesting his work. But there is also a gardener or gardeners, if you will the tree's audience, who will only care for his fruit and not for his growth. So, the gardeners care for the tree only in so far as he produces fruit, which will only come about if he chooses to digest what the gardener(s) has(have) given to him.

What happened on the DL this week?

    I think that it was yesterday that I caught A&O ministry's DL (Radio Free Geneva) program that they had on Tuesday. So, it must have been Thursday, when I saw the Tuesday program. And I believe that today is Friday. Anyways, Dr. White was responding to an Arminian philosopher from Canada. I could say that he comes from an angry and confused place, but that would be poisoning the well. And I could provide the link to the program as well, but if you will look to your right, there should be a list of links there. It's the Alpha and Omega one, which should take you there. So, I would like to comment and respond to the DL on Tuesday, when Dr. White was responding to the Arminian philosopher from Canada, a place that I have been to before.

    Dr. James White was responding to the philosopher by using Scripture to back up his claims, while the philosopher used his "John 3:16" principle by arguing from an English word that is not found in the Greek text. So, he probably was unaware of the meaning of "John 3:16" because he was unaware of what the text in the original language actually says. Now, I don't read Greek, and I know that Dr. White does, but at least if I am going to stake an argument from a text whose original language is Greek, then you should at least take some time to understand John 3:16 by figuring out where to find the original text for yourself. But it would seem that the philosopher from Canada made an argument based on his own ignorance of the Koine Greek at the time of Jesus, who instructed his disciples to listen to his words.

   What of it? I think that it would be great if students of (Christian) philosophy would take at least one year of Greek and a least one semester of a Greek literature discussion class, where they can talk about the meaning of various kinds of literature including the Holy Text. So, in addition to that, I would add texts like Plato, Homer, and Thucydides, who wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War, which was about the civil war between Athens and Sparta, who were the victors because of their greater strategy and tactics than the Athenians, who were weak. So, I could construct a reading list for the Arminian philosopher from Canada, but I doubt he would be interested in reading about anything in that cold dead language that he refused to listen to.

Conversation

    I was reading Donne earlier, but I switched over to Chaucer because I wanted to read him years ago, but Milton blocked that desire. He first wrote about the politics of the Revolution, but then returned to his first love of poetry later in his life. There was this play, a masque really, that he preformed in. Although this is speculation, he depicted two young children, who asked and gave answers to profound questions about morals, while Milton himself preformed one of his characters at court. The masque was amusing, but I wanted to find a narrative that included people of all walks of life.

   So, I was reading about a Knight, who traveled around Europe seeking to defend her honor. And I also have read about the Orient, the Far East, through a book that I picked up, but then abandoned it like finding an empty house at a dead end street. If you knew that there was an empty house, and you had no reason to go inside, you would turn and walk away. Would you not? If you have searched all of its rooms and found them to be worthless, then you should leave before you become a person without any reason at all. So, I stopped reading my Japanese book, and went on from there.

    Thus, if you have no business visiting a distant land, then it's best to look at your homeland. Yes, I am trying to draw a moral here. Maybe there is no moral and the point is to feel the dread of the empty house. If the knight were to visit the abandoned dwelling of my simile, where no one is around, then he would inspect everything and move on his merry way. So, would you not say then that the house is of no value, and you would also search for something more significant? So, maybe I'll stay with Chaucer, a poet that was the first to be buried in the poet's corner at Westminster Abbey in London, a city that I have no intention of visiting.

No Idea

    The idea that you spend a whole season with one particular author seems tiresome. You must work with the material for several months without having a chance to change your current assignment. I have chosen John Donne, for example, but I have not kept up with him, since I have bought other books, which now collect dust on the stacks of other unread books. Maybe they would serve as a prop for the John Donne book that I got by mail, if I was not so committed to writing about him.

   Briefly, you would like to work with your chosen material, but you have no plan as to how to make the best use of your chosen author. One way of escape is to read a biography about your chosen author. With so much info out there, you would not have any great problem finding something to read about your author of choice, unless the biographical information is not there. Otherwise, you stick to your given material, until you find something of use. Then you have a least some idea.

Influence against Fusion

    There is the opposition between influence and fusion. These concepts will be examined within a social setting, were there are members, who feel that they are equal to each other. Let the amount of human members be a finite number, so that we would not have to take a few months to analyze the results. So there are persons, who would like themselves to be made available to the public, while there are others who would like to collaborate on projects, where they themselves feel that they are a valuable member thereof.  So I understand these two concepts: influence and fusion within a sociological setting, where there is not a state of war but of peace.

    First, those who strive to make their influence known among their peers, have the problem of allowing their influence to be taken from them, so that those who have been influenced are now the heirs of the one who has influenced. This problem of leaving your mark to your followers is that of feeling that you have no place left with your community because once your influence leaves you, then your followers have the final say on the topic of what you were promoting. They have the right to say if what you have been doing was right or not. This choice leaves the one who had influenced in a position of a lack of influence if what he was promoting was wrong.

    Next, the question is about if what you were promoting was right or wrong. The moral question about influence is answered by looking at the amount of followers that the influencer has gained. If the influencer has gained a large following, then it would seem that what was being promoted was morally right. But what if the influencer promoted immorality and there was a large following gained by promoting perversion? Obviously, the followers have been deceived into following such an influence by allowing themselves to be influenced. So, we as those who are both influencing and influenced have the duty to discriminate between influencers.

    So, in addition to the problem of influence and its moral problem there is the second concept of fusion, which I would like to take a look at now. Fusion within a social setting, where there is wide spread agreement between what sources should be followed, is how group members relate to each other when the influence process breaks. If there is a disparity between the two sides, then the process of fusion will happen. The issue about who is being influenced is no longer in question because it is clear to the critic, who seeks to repair the disparity by deeming who is worthy to be called an influence. They have seen the disparity and seek to repair it.

Final Sequence

    So, the analytics of what supports your sources will depend upon those very sources that you draw your inspiration from. Your source of inspiration is acceptable when you find yourself drawn to it again and again, and always again. That wellspring fills your being when you have spent sufficient time there. How long is enough? There are no metrics for inspiration because it is not quantifiable, unfortunately. However, if you feel that you are ready to give your influence to another, then you're ready to begin to write.

   At this point, it's best to consider where other resources are found, so that you can compare, and perhaps, even triangulate your sources of inspiration. Notice, these sources are for fiction and not for the real life, which hits you from within and without. Change your perspective by looking for another way to express what would be said in any given situation. Other writers have their own inspiration that will infuse with you if you allow that to happen. So, I would suggest that you block anyone who wants to invade your domain because mixed results are not always best.

 Thus, your inspiration for writing fiction should be found by following your interests, but if others rush to prevent you from drinking from your wellspring, then may I suggest violence? They have turned their attention to your domain by seeking to draw from the same sources, which could very well be shared by all, if everyone were to hold to the same perceptions, but history says no. Other writers do not want to loose their place within their own circles, which come and go but your public generally stays constant, unless you yourself are without inspiration.

Supported by Fiction

    The emotional experience by reading a story about people, who feel that they have a voice within an hostile environment makes you, the reader, want to read more about that. What motives do the characters have to propel them to action? Is it love, hate, revenge, or the desire to promote the general welfare? Asking a question such as this gets you to think about how the characters' behavior in a given fictional medium (novel, movie, comic, or your own life) paints a picture of how that environment works. In another way, given that you have taken the time to read or watch a book or show, you will then have some understanding of the dynamics of that fictional environment.

    Let's take our general understanding of what fiction is, and then discuss how to focus on the characters, rather than the social-cultural features of a given work. I will not be focusing on those features such as the state of the wool trade during the time of Shakespeare because his characters did not make a living by trading wool in the cities of his day. They had their professions, which shows their station in their fictional environment. So at the time of Shakespeare's life, I have set the Globe ablaze to make room for his cast of characters, which is how I intend to approach understanding fiction.

   Let's also take the metaphor of 'painting a picture' because it might give us insight into fiction, which is different from the real life, since that has already been 'painted' for us, while fiction is in a constant state of painting by its painters (writers). It needs support because of its changing nature based upon the constant state of flux of the people's interests, which change from season to season. And I think that a feature like 'character' is more persistent than art style, for example. So the writer (painter) shapes their characters through the current interest levels of his (bias!) audience, who enjoying seeing themselves on the page. The fictional writer tailors his characters to his audience's interests and perspectives.

the Life as Political

    When we think about living situations within a political environment, we may wonder where do we stand among our peers? What sort of reputation do we have among of a group of persons, who all differ in ranking according to their respective political influence, but also have the same affiliation of some kind? We could attempt to answer this question broadly, but let's narrow the question for the sake of clarity. Say there is a baseball team that takes the field. Their affiliation is that they are all on the Chicago Cubs, but they all differ according to their athletic ability. Also in the process of specifying such an example, my reputation went down slightly because I haven't shown interest in any such sport anywhere on my blog.

   So, maybe, there are affiliations that have an assortment of persons, who differ in their abilities to preform their tasks delegated by an authority. This authority is a person or group of persons, who have the political influence to make sure that their political environment is running smoothly. How did their influence come about? When asking the question about where do we stand in relation to our peers, perhaps the more interesting question is how do we relate to our authority figures? Our peers may come and go, but those with political influence tend to stay longer within their respective environments because of their repute.

   Thus, if there is an authority over us, perhaps, we might improve our station in life, if we mimic the behavior of those, who would like their influence to be made public. So then question of whether the authority figure is being ethical comes up, and I would draw a sharp line between the question of the ethical and the political because ethics concerns what ought to be, while politics is about what is actually the case aside from the ideal cases of the political, which are not apart of this discussion of a real political environment. The distinction is warranted because I see the political in terms of influence, rather than correct behavior, which is regulated through those who influence others.

On the Issue of Truth and Falsehood

    It was an interesting DL, when Dr. White brought up the issue of cognitive dissonance of a certain professor of textual studies, which was the topic of discussion. That professor is from BYU, a university that my mentor, in a loose sense, chose to bring up for discussion. The discussion, as I understand it, is how can you take a position such as that of claiming that the scribes of the early to medieval centuries of the church were effective, if they had less knowledge of the Koine Greek, than their counterparts, who had more knowledge of that language.

    So there was the thesis that if you have less knowledge of a human language, then you are more likely to copy your manuscripts more accurately than another person, who has at least some familiarity of that language. This thesis or topic interests me because it runs in counter distinction to the thesis that the Book of Mormon has been given by Joseph Smith on golden tablets that were of heavenly origin. I think that was the antithesis to the above thesis. Basically, the thesis is that this Mormon professor of textual critical studies from BYU was accused by Dr. White of holding to two theses that were incompatible with each other.

    When we think of holding to two ideas that are contradictory, we think about which one is true and which one is false. This way of thinking is trying to separate out the true from the false, but when both theses are held at the same time, then you undergo cognitive dissonance, which is an irrational approach to solving the contradiction. Another method is to hold onto the thesis or proposition that seems to be true by comparison. You would be able to see the true statement by rejecting the false one, which is by comparing both statements in light of what else is held to be true.

    So, the brief discussion on the DL was about the preservation of the NT manuscripts in light of a recent doctoral dissertation that Dr. White had access to. The professor was accused by Dr. White of holding to contradictory ideas about textual studies, which is an area that I only have the faintest understanding of. And then there was the concept of cognitive dissonance, which could be dissolved by comparing your theses for their validity. This additional discussion brought on by Dr. White was helpful in seeing that the validity of statements would be solved in part by the comparative method of sorting out the truth from the false.

Tragic Catastrophe or Temporary Confusion

    There is the occasion to wonder, how is one to face a totally hopeless situation, when one is confronted with such a situation, where everything has fallen apart. There is the easy way of saying, "Things will get worse before they are better.", but there is the more interesting way of saying, "Things right now are where they should be, but let's try to improve the way that they function by employing our resources to confront our current state of affairs". This method of willing to address such situations by activity, rather than mere comment and criticism, will allow you to be prepared for such an event as a tragic catastrophe or temporary confusion.

    First, there is the assessment of the situation. For example, there is a grammatical error on a page, and you happen to be an editor for a newspaper. This is a simple example, to illustrate a general point, which is that such a TC requires an error of some kind and that you have a remedy that will solve that problem. If there is a TC, where everything is totally helpless, you would try to remove yourself from that situation, but we have a TC, where you have means to fix such an error by your language skills. There are no real 'grammar errors' but there is a thing such as robust composition that requires your talent to promote your standing among your language community.

    Second, there is the execution of your talent to improve on the present state of language usage. You would simply read the sentence, then you would fix the error, and then you would move on to further investigate any other errors that might be there. This method has the goal of solving TC by identifying the grammar error, fixing such an error, and then also moving on to fix any other issues with the page that may contain additional errors. So, in your execution, the grammar errors are solved by your willingness to confront such problems and then accepting the results of the correctness of the newspaper article that will be published. You would like your readers to have no obstacles.

    To conclude this simple exercise, the above illustration of TC was carried out by having a plan to execute your willingness to fix grammatical errors, which could be replaced by other problems, which you may also have the desire to solve. Your willingness to solve a TC makes it far less of a problem than it really is, if you take the time to examine, and also be willing to confront whatever situation you may find yourself in. Yes, there are limits to solving some TCs because those problems are beyond our capabilities to solve. Others might be able to solve them, but our concern is for our own TCs.

Labyrinth Method

    Yesterday, I brought up the idea of the Labyrinth Method and said that was something that I have all ready talked about, but let's look at what LM is to see how it works. LM is a way of describing the way that a particular author references his own work. So if an author uses LM, then that author would use other authors to show how he understands the pathways between their influences. So it would be helpful here to look at a different way of looking at things. Another writer's method might be to write about whatever is on her mind. Let's say just for the sake of argument that this author writes about her children, for example. So she writes about her daughter Sue and her sons Bob and Eric, but at no point in her own writing does she reference, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, or John Ashbery because none of those persons are her children. She sticks to what is on her mind, you see.

    My method is hard for me to explain because of the split between word-stories and literary-stories. So let's say that both of these are WE and LC, which are ways of telling you how to navigate the links between how both linguistic and literary stories operate. One question that may arise is why should WE and LC require a symbology for us to understand them? These symbols help the user to understand these concepts about linguistic meaning. They mark what other users of linguistic meaning tell you about how they talk about things like words, books, and other authors. But I am trying to mark what these limits are, which cannot be done, since then we would need to look at both sides of how language is put together to form the literary cannon, which comes to us as a whole.

    It is conveyed like the way that Wittgenstein put his idea of how we cannot talk about the limits of linguistic reality. So, I work in a literary reality, where there is linguistic meaning to my content, but my concern is also for the reader to find her way around of how other authors have contributed to my method. Once the question about the topic of what I write or what writing is comes up, I pause, and then ask what about my work is the subject mater of your concern. Notice that I did not give an answer like, I am writing about a restaurant review that I intend to publish because things like service and the taste of the food are not my interests at this moment. So I cannot write about those things.

    Thus, you have authors who are important enough to be included in the canon that has shaped my writing style, which mimes their way of writing, but not their subject matter, but rather how they have shown themselves to be influential as a writers regardless of race, class, or gender. But once you invoke RCG, the question about how should my writing promote this part of RCG or that part of RCG will not provoke me into either side of the issue that you may wonder about. So I think that LM is beyond the issues of any idea of political concern, which is important but unworthy to be considered here because such conveyances would be misplaced.

Fluff or Self-Reference

I would like to respond to my own post:

http://privyfisherman.blogspot.com/2015/10/our-poor-way-of-writting.html

Specifically this:

    But no writer lives up to the standards that these theologians set up for us. These standards show how bad we are in explaining to our audience what we are trying to give them through our words. One is a good theologian, if he recognizes the limitations of us prose writers.

    I wrote the above in response from an article from Reformation21, a blog that is still on my list to the right, but I have not read it for a while. I remember being provoked to write the above in response to the demand to right well because our theology requires it. There is the idea that we should conform to certain standards, but there is also the idea of how we relate to our own standards. I would like to write about the latter, our own standards, rather than the former, other standards that we incorporate into our own ways of doing things.

    So I recognize that what I said about the above was written in defense of my own writing style, which varies from writer to writer. But what is style? Is a list of rules that writers should follow? Is it a Hemingway-esque way of keeping yourself under control by not talking about such rules? Such questions reveal the writer's influence on himself, which is covered in the Anxiety of Influence that Harold Bloom has promulgated throughout his books meant for the general public. And there is also the fact that I have left the misspelling of the word "writting" all these years. But 'style' is a way of speaking about how a particular writer writes.

    I would not like to describe 'styles of writing' but rather just show them to you, the reader. For example, if I was on a basketball court, and you asked me to describe, "How does one stargaze with a telescope during a starry night?", that would be an inappropriate question because I would be busy shooting the ball, maybe, and not be preoccupied rather by the Big Dipper, which would be off my radar at the time. So something like mechanics (grammar, spelling, and so on) is not 'style' because every writer has to obey those rules but they all follow them in different ways depending upon their skill-level.

   How you put together a sentence, which was the topic of a book that I have just read, depends upon your style as a writer. So when I bring up this topic, I feel that I am obligated as a writer to not just show you but to also tell you what that is. My style is that of the labyrinth process, which I have discussed before. I would like to say that I have no style and that I was influenced by no writers but that would be false. So the labyrinth method is writing something that references another work, like the above link to what I have wrote before. But I don't always follow that way because sometimes there are much better ways of writing than to reference someone else's work. But I cannot say that what I write is original with me.

  To conclude, the above paragraph about how theologians should recognize the limitations of writers is a disagreement between writing styles and not theology. I agree that prose should conform to certain standards but the way that they insist upon the correct way to write for Trinitarian-believers is not going to help you, if you decide to become a writer of sorts. It is helpful to suggest good mechanics but it is unhelpful to insist that my way of writing should be studied by all writers because of its conformity to the set style, which I am only aware of at a surface-level anyway.

the View from Below

    If you have tried to find a way out of the mess, one first has to stop and tell you that it is, in fact, a mess, and perhaps lecture you about its history as well as its contemporary political scene, where the people have divided over whether to keep the mess or rather to overthrow it and set up a new mess.  Once that has been established, then one must justify one’s position on the mess by regurgitating without claiming that what you are putting forth is regurgitated drivel about your commitment to make the mess great again. Of course, once you have done that, others have marched overnight on your mess and have destroyed what you have worked on.

Done with Spring

    I started to pick up on Donne after the sequence with Shakespeare and then Milton. Sir Philip Sidney was considered, but I rather just read him than write about him because his work is so scarce compared to John Donne, who published a great deal more than Sidney in his lifetime. So I would like to copy down one of his poems and try to say something about it:

Elegy 6: Perfume

Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a cockatrice,
Though he have oft sworn, that he would remove
Thy beauty’s beauty, and food of our love,
Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seen,
Yet close and secret, as our souls, we have been.

    So I got the above from a website (the number elegy there is 4, but my source says 6) and then cross referenced that with my source, which is a compilation book of his major works. The above is not the whole poem but only a selection of it, and I think that it will do for our purposes here. So I would like to foreground the text by trying to get a sense of his circumstances or his current state of affairs. Also I just might read the above passage as well as the surrounding verses.

    After reading the above, you would see that the "glazed eyes" behave in a way that Donne is suggesting that he is familiar with them. It used to be that these 'eyes' were set to kill a formidable opponent (cockatrice), but now they see the very opposite of what he is used to seeing. The eyes are that of a father-figure, which could be seen above these lines if you had the material.

    So part of understanding Donne is how he uses certain imagery to affect his audience. I would suggest that his verse teases out our understanding about his chosen subject up for discussion. You are not sure what is being presented even though concrete language is used to invoke an image, but you are drawn in by the familiar passage as if you have insider information about what is happening.  

Lang vs Dialect

    I remember back a few years ago, I wrote about a constructed human language that I was keen on explaining to newcomers. Now, however, I am trying to bridge the gap between a specific language and what could be said about language as a whole. This process takes the abstract language of LL and complies a way of speaking about it. And because the language of LL is abstract, we need to start speaking in concrete language. The language of LL is philosophic, while human languages are practical. So in order to move out from the clouds and onto the earth, I would like to talk about the distinction between Lang on the one hand and Dialect on the other.

    First, there is Lang, which is the state of a perfect language as represented in a given grammar book. Let's talk about French. There is a perfect state of French only as it is described by a given community who knows the French language. This community would seek to preserve their lang by keeping polished records of the best French and would seek to distribute them through an educational system supported by the French government. Now I would like to suggest that this lang does not exist in the everyday speech in the streets of Paris, but it exists as idea promulgated by the service members of the French academy, which is a concrete example of how a lang might develop.

    Second, there is Dialect. For this concept, let us look at German, another foreign language I have attempted to learn. This is a good example because you have the division of Low and High German. High German is spoken in the south of Germany, while low German is spoken by some of the northerners. The reason that German is divided into High and Low is because of the geographic conditions of Germany. The region in the south of German is generally mountainous, while the north is generally flat land, so the division resulted from the geographic terrain. Location has a lot to do with how a language is spoken. 

    Thus, the language of LL is abstract, so we need to start talking about specific languages that show the Lang vs Dialect (LvD) distinction to understand LL from the perspective of the human, which is what ordinary languages describes. And French and German were good examples illustrating the difference of LvD, which is how to tell if a language is in its 'pure' form or if is in its 'dirty' form. Next I don't what I will write about. So I will probably just read a book and then you can read my review of it. I might talk about sentences and how to read them, so continue to try to grasp my meanings as I stream them to you.

the Center of the Heart

    The following will be a way of approaching culture from the discourse of LL by looking at some specific language examples of how people do things, which will be important to approach understanding LL. Okay, let us begin with English. And the example is that of giving. If you want to give your coworker a stapler, you would take the stapler with you and hand it to her. But you would also say, "Here is the stapler." And, hopefully, she would say, "Thanks!". So I have just described the process of giving in a real world example. The word 'give' designates the above action by summarizing all other related activities of giving by the word: 'give'. But a better way to put this is to say that the two-word compounded infinite verb is 'to give', which shows the above activity. Does not all of this seem obvious? Not to someone who just knows Spanish for example. That person would not have a complete understanding given that his primary language is Spanish because he would need English to understand ' to give'. So the objective has been met with one example, and others could be multiplied if I was willing to do so. But for now, let's summarize the two following ideas: one is that of spoken and written language and the other is situational communication such as giving a 'thumbs up' which cannot be analyzed by means of the phrase itself but by understanding how it is used in a situation.   

   I will leave the above paragraph unedited except for obvious spelling errors and added punctuation to show that a human process has taken place. Can a machine learn language? We speak of learning things like Java, Python, and C#, which are computer languages, however, these are not human languages because they lack situational content, which cannot be represented in their coding. If you are interested in those languages, there are other places, where you could learn those, but part of LL is the acquisition, which is messy and does not always look good on paper. We acquire lang haphazardly, but we take care of our dialect.  Lang is the ideal state of language where everything is perfect, while our dialect is how we use language in everyday situations. This distinction is important because it shows the difference between what should be and how things actually are. So maybe next time I will talk more about the difference between lang and dialect. And if you want to explore the distinction on your own, I recommend thinking about how the words you use are applied to everyday life situations.

Finding your Way to the Heart

    Language learning is a way of developing of your skills in understanding things like grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. One other important part is the way that you use your own language and how you relate it to other languages that you may or may not know. So once you have a grasp on your Mother Tongue (the language you grew up speaking with) and perhaps an L2 language (a language that you have acquired later in life), then you can begin to understand the concepts of language learning.

    First, there is the issue that language learning (LL from now on) will be spoken of using the language of concepts, which are substantive ideas that need to be explained rather than talked about using ordinary language. Once we understand that the essence of LL is coming to grips with the overall way that the language is used, then we can begin to apply specific languages in understanding the realm of LL. So this is the overview map that will guide us in the journey of LL, which is how we acquire languages.

   Second, there is the spoken phonemes and the written words that are found on the page that have to be interpreted by understanding the meaning of these things. This is done by listening and reading and then digesting, so that the language could be spoken and written. The digesting process of language learning is how you acquire your target language. So the main part here is to see that the metaphor of digestion is how we are going to understand LL, the key to getting linguistic information into us, so that it can be expressed to others.

   Third, there is the issue of how different languages are related to each other. To begin to approach this issue, we will be focusing in on specific languages without the use of how they are unique in themselves. So this means that I will only be using the English language, for example, to discuss how languages are understood as a whole. Also the issue about how to speak about Spanish, for example, without using the Spanish language will be addressed. For now, let's be content to say that we are able to discuss LL using the current language being communicated.

   To conclude, LL should also be a fun exercise, rather than just dry academic discourse. Otherwise no one would approach LL because the culture gets extracted from the analytic prose. So there will also be a way of approaching culture from the discourse of LL by looking at some real world examples of how people do things, which will be important to have a full understanding of LL. More could be said about LL, but let the above be the way that we approach this subject. I will be going over some specific and concrete examples to make all this more clear next time.

Social Media Ethics

    Some of my colleagues over here at the blog have been complaining how they do not understand what I have to say on these posts. It's not that they are unclear, but rather that they do not grasp the meaning of what is being said. So I take this as a valid criticism about how I express myself here specifically on this blog. In my real life people always know exactly what I am talking about, but I could understand why that there are some who cannot grasp onto what I am writing. They see the words on the post but they have no meaning to them.

    So I will be providing a remedy to help solve their problem of a failure to appreciate the way that this blog is constructed. Feel free to reject the entire premise, but try to hear me out also. You are supposed to get lost.  You are to drown in my labyrinth of linkages to find your way around them. By losing your way in my train of thought, you are not be focusing on what I as a person am saying to you, but rather through the words, concepts, and personages that are being expressed here, you should be able to see the way that all of those things interrelate with one another.

    There have been those who have criticized me for my method but not for my results. The method is that of trying to show you the way that different sources relate to one another, while the result is understanding how John Donne is a lot more expressive than John Milton, for example. You cannot understand that from me by just reading that it is the case. You must see why this is important, so that you will take the time to see it for yourself. This idea of importance can be described as an influence that you recognize by seeing their work being applied in the use of understanding the written word as a whole.

     This labyrinth of linkages does not focus your thinking about literature, it rather causes you to see that you have no footing, unless you have some idea of how the canon is constructed from the efforts of those who have seen how to build such a complex system that maps out the way in which authors have related to one another. To conclude, you must have some experience with my work to see where I am going. And there is no starting point. You either have the experience of taking the time to look at what this is all about or you are just wasting your time.

the Conspiratorial Ideology

    How many hold to a conspiratorial ideology? Hard to tell. For those that do hold to it, it is best to explain the meaning of my title and some of the mental furniture located in the minds of those persuaded that this is absolute reality. I will not speak of actual events that are conspiracies but rather the description of those who show plausible situations that are interpreted within a framework that has all of the agents working in tandem usually to promote control over those who are unwillingly captive to the machinations of powerful people. With the pieces explained, the whole will emerge.

    The first piece of the puzzle is the use of metaphor. I would like to begin with something innocuous so that we can approach the subject without any prejudices toward those who hold such views. Also the definition is elastic so we start with how these ideologues express themselves. I would propose that they use metaphor in a way that shows the imagery invoked is usually displayed as clearly shadowy. They are certain that of whatever aspect they bring up that it is a plain thing that could only be spoken of in figures since their ideology allows for certainty but not for their sources. 

    An example will be helpful here. Take the example of how politicians use religion to control their constituents. The imagery of a spider's web would be called the way that politicians use their influence over the victims who on accident fall into the trap of religion. But the web itself remains undefined since it is necessary for the metaphor to hold. Also it is left in suspense as to what the origins and mechanics are. The shadowy nature is assumed without explaining it in much further detail so as to leave the impression that the web is interestingly constructed by the powers that be.

    So the web is a component where the metaphor becomes a means to further the person who gives into conspiracies. The person who gives into conspiracies uses this method to show that the conspiracy has clear parts in place but the overall goal of control is left in the shadows. The shadowy control is assumed to be a gestalt that everyone is captive to but only the conspiratorialist and their followers are able to see through it. The web can be seen as an overall metaphor that they themselves don't necessarily use but it is useful in explaining their way of thinking about how society works.

Shedding Light in the Darkness

I would like to comment on this post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/02/here-i-opened-wide-door-darkness-there.html

    It a dialogue between two social media users, an atheist and a Christian, that concerns the truth of Christianity based on a would-be miracle. If the atheist's sister would be miraculously cured of her MS, then that would be sufficient evidence for him to believe. She has experienced this disease over the course of years and has deteriorated as a result. That is evident to the atheist's eyes.

    The Christian then offers a couple of examples of miraculous cures of fatal diseases, which then the atheist offers counter explanations of how the cases could be explained without a miraculous explanation. Perhaps the examples themselves are suspect or the patients have been misdiagnosed. He offers alternative explanations in the face of narratives outside of his common experience.

    This response I am offering does not criticize the way either party has represented their beliefs about miracles. But this dialogue reminds me how what we are familiar with becomes the way to interpret analogous cases typically outside of our experience. Because we have not failed to understand, but rather have not taken the time to absorb what a source says, we react weakly when confronted.

    So beyond apologetics, there is the idea that this story of the atheist's sister who has this disease can serve as an excuse for unbelief. This idea is not brought up in the dialogue but perhaps that is in the background. Or perhaps one has seen for himself the miraculous cure of a family member and that gives that person enough evidence to believe. Again one's experience can shape your beliefs.

    Based on one's perceived grievance or gratitude, you respond in offence or beneficence. Albeit this is a theistic viewpoint, what is the alternative? One sees the facts as they are and the other just is blind? Given the atheist is correct, what explains theistic belief? I guess they don't have to justify it because it is outside of their narrow viewpoint. I have my atheism, so whatever you believe does not matter.

Four of a Kind

    There were a few animals that met in a man-made house. The snake, the rabbit, the ox, and the monkey talked about the impact of the natural disaster. The snake said that he would prevent another disaster like the first. The rabbit suggested that she might be a victim if another one happened. The ox saw that there was no way that another one will happen. And the monkey agreed with the alert ox.

    The rabbit was then upset with the monkey because he was abrupt. The rabbit began to shed her fur, which fell in clumps and made the rabbit worry even more. She made comments about her shedding and the ox decided to ignore them. The rabbit turned to the ox and the snake started to slither away. The ox made irrational noises, which could be heard from the outside. They then ended the meeting.