Readers & Writers

For readers and writers, this age is history in the making.

Historically, there have been writers and readers in two watertight
compartments, like the producers and the consumers. Writers may read
stuff written by other writers, but readers have always been readers -
they never wrote. Among the readers were critiques who wrote about
what they read, but they were the only exceptions. As a rule, a writer
built up a readership base. He or she enjoyed the fruits of their
labour in solitude while the readers remained a faceless mass of
humanity. With the advent of the Internet, however, the situation is
beginning to change.

Today there are many avenues to write. There are blogs, wikis, Twitter
and Facebook, to mention only a few. The opportunities to write
increased manifold, thus enabling any one with the least inclination
to write to do so. There are no barriers to write: no critics to
satisfy, no publishers to lure, no marketing experts to sell your
stuff. The wall dividing the readers and writers began to crumble,

Readers become writers and vice versa. No group of elite talented men
and women hold the monopoly over the written word, except of course
the copyright on their work. Even criticism too is not the niche of a
few, but open to a large number of readers who are free to offer their
opinion, their reactions and experiences, after reading a book. The
lines separating the writers and the readers is blurring and we are
witness to the advent of a bold new wave of creativity that has once
been the lofty citadel of a few, while the rest ridiculed or admired
from the ground below.

But change often comes not without a whimper.

Whenever a new situation arises in the world there is always some
concern, some trepidation and some form of protest accompanying it.
The naysayers lament the degeneracy of a sublime pursuit to the
portals of mediocrity. The newbies revel in the opportunity afforded
by the medium and apply themselves unabashedly to make a mark. The
teetering humanity in between watch from the sidelines and take
tentative steps before making the plunge one way or the other.

Oppose the opposites, dear ME

Take not the insult nor praise For both are aspects of the same thing
Marry not nor keep a woman to look after or be looked after For both rasie expectations of the same kind
Neither do good nor expect good in return For both tie you to another
Let not habit or duty enslave you For both put you to sleep
Neither passion nor emotion rule your relationship For both are destructive of the same
Neither judge nor be judged For judgement clouds wisdom
Neither worry nor exult For neither can affect the outcome
You neither succeed nor fail For a very long time
Success lifts you into the sky and failure drags you underground Remain on the earth both times
Neither bind nor bond with another For both put you on a leash
Neither bow to pressure nor rise on flattery For both disturb your inner balance
Riches cannot enhance your dignity nor poverty demean you For both deviate from the golden mean
Your loss is someone's gain and vice versa For both are relative, never absolute

A Dialog on Senesthesia

geeklore #

August 22, 2012

Dear Zach,

Thanks for liking my post on my blog Geeklore. I first heard of synesthesia only from your blog. I feel something of the sort myself, though I am not sure it can be called that. A color pops into my head when I remember a voice. A strange association, you might say, but is it synesthesia? But I don't see any utility value in it. It is just one of those things which are just there and defy explanation. I find your blog interesting, not only for things of this kind but also because I have turned to writing fiction now and have written about a dozen short stories and a couple of unfinished novels- all yet to be published. Some short ones are available on fiction magazines online.

Anand

Reply

Zack Hunter #

August 22, 2012

Synesthesia is a double edged sword that when dull resembles a kayak paddle used by a phantom limb passing through the water of our possibilities long-ways sliding through unnoticed by the flow just waiting to be twisted.

Reply

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

Is it possible to sharpen it? Or is it best left alone? A double edged sword implies the possibility of an unintended effect. Sometimes I hear things in my head clearly spoken. I see things in a half wakeful state. Is this the beginning of synesthesia? Or it is not connected at all? Thanks.

Zack Hunter #

August 23, 2012

Yes- metaphorically speaking sharpening of the proverbial phantom paddle sword would imply it being an exercise, which it most certainly can be, but that isn't always the case.

What you are describing sounds like "normal" byproducts of consciousness. Consciousness itself knows no senses until it passes through them to create all the things we think we know. I don't think it's technically synesthesia until the links start growing and you start experiencing sensations through the lens of other sensors.

When you start visualizing the fence you see walking down the street looks and sounds like a vibrato or slicer effect synthesizer that's linked to everything that ever was, is and will be numerological, geometrically, and acoustically- or symbols start taking on vivid personalities, or you see auras of colors emanating off of people and certain things, or you start tasting and feeling the rise and fall of civilizations on your solar plexus, fingers, and tongue- you know you have synesthesia.

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

Sounds like Don Juan of Carlos Castaneda. Or Fritjof Capra's web of life. Some tantriks in Asia feel it too, I believe. Is it born of silence or is the brain fertile enough to breed associations of phantasmagoric nature? It's awesome! And senesthetes (for want of a better word) must see the world in unique ways. The world of man – bereft of nature – is too drab and insensitive. Is it a gift, what you have, or can it be nurtured? Thanks.

Reply

Zack Hunter #

August 23, 2012

For the sake of accuracy I will say Castaneda's claims that his stories were true have been proven to be fiction, but I still know what you mean. As far as I know people are both born with it, and it can be cultivated and exercised. To what extent, I do not know. Those who are born with it definitely have a heads up so-to-speak on those who aren't if they wished to experience it for themselves. There is a reason synesthesia is a phenomena, as much of it (and everything) is still quite mysterious at this time.

Could someone who does not have it drink san pedro tea every week while singing songs, playing music and meditating and eventually wind up having it permanently? Do my readers experience synesthesia when reading my novel? Are we just labeling things with obscure terms that are otherwise perfectly natural instances of depersonalization and conscious integration? For example, what about aboriginal or native tribes, how would they respond to a study on synesthesia versus "westerners?" What about Tibetan monks? It would be interesting to know.

I don't know the exact causes that lead to people having this. I am sure there are many factors. I do know my own version of the story, though. I have some theories but nothing concrete. Like I said, consciousness knows no senses. There is only it in it's ever expanding forms. Once you realize this, the walls that were put up by human nature dissolve.

Reply

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

Consciousness, says J Krishnamurti, is neither yours nor mine; it is impersonal. I imagine it like the light from a thousand candles. By looking at the light, you couldn't tell which candle it came from, unless you impose an obstruction which casts a shadow – the obstruction in our case being our personal identity. Eckhart Tolle says you are not your mind or the body. Through the senses, the consciousness assumes an identity which they would have us believe is patently false. ESP certainly points to perceptions beyond the so-called normal. Your own experiences seem to confirm the necessity to go beyond the sensory perception.

Zack Hunter #

August 23, 2012

Well said, geeklore! On that note, sensory deprivation is a really critical tool on the path to exploring consciousness. There are many, and we all find the ones that work best for us in phases.

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

I would never want to be deprived of my senses; rather, I'd try to go beyond them. I want to perceive more than the senses are capable of. Why close the doors of perception when I want to paddle out and beyond? To go to Mars I have to leave the Earth. But to leave the Earth I must know what is holding me to Earth. When I understand that I will find out how to overcome it. Doesn't it work the same way? Sorry to be importunate, but you need not continue if you don't feel like it. Or you may answer some other time.

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Hello, reader, 

Do you have any experience with senesthesia? Use the comments section to write about it.

Visit Geeklore on Wordpress, if you feel bored.

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Racist Language :)

The English language may acquire the dubious distinction of being racist. Why? When you use the words White or Black, the words raise the hackles of specialists and purists who would rather not use those words, especially not in an academic setting. 

In the days before the advent of the electronic gizmos, even before the West figured out how to use the Africans as slaves, learners were imbibing nuggets of wisdom from a blackboard. And then came the whiteboards, first those that needed marker pens to write on, and then their electronic counterparts which took the place of giant white screens that served to project the same wisdom of yore in bits and bytes. 

Now the academics are all equivocal in their condemnation of the use of colors such as WHITE and BLACK in the context of a board. They argue that these colors incited the majority, victimized the minority, and segregated the groups into believing that humanity's worst moments are not only not over, but right round the corner. They have therefore banned the association of these colors to the board whose primary objective, they opine, is to dissolve these differences and elevate humanity from the pit of segregation. 

With the colors removed from their vocabulary, the academics still needed to call their boards by some means and they came up with the innovative expression: dry erase board. While this serves the purpose, it still does not bring to mind the color of the board which learners the world over have come to identify with. Even the online guru Salman Khan of the Khan Academy uses a black, ouch! Sorry. He uses a dark screen to write on, if that expression is allowed. A tutor who uses a board commented rather piquantly that whiteboards are racist and blackboards aren't black! It is not the board, obviously, that is at issue here; it is the color of the board. Nah, it is not the color either; what is at stake here is the name of the color. 

It is no good changing the color of the board to say yellow. That color too has been in some murky use. Even the word color could be regarded as racist and the academics would do well to remove the color spectrum from the subjects. They may not ban the rainbow from the sky, but at least they can ban the use of a prism in the laboratory. Color, that faculty of the eye that few animals in the world share with humans, has now become a dangerous thing to handle. Perhaps we should all use the word pigment. And think up new words for the pigments in the rainbow. After all, the world of humans still need the pigments even if we manage to ban the colors of Nature.

A Reader's Memoir 2

From the comics I stepped up to reading stories in the long form. At the teenage level I picked up Enid Blyton books. the Famous Five was my all time favorite. Stories of mystery and suspense never failed to trigger the adrenalin. I read book after book with absorbing interest. Chandamama in Telugu published interesting stories and my reading time divided between the two languages. They were entirely of a very different kind, but the stories written in simple language without literary acrobatics and sometimes illustrated served two purposes: no special vocabulary was needed to follow the story and no great feat of imagination was required to recreate the scenes in the mind. The comic strips made the transition from episodic format to a variety of stories in long and short forms.

The itch to read grew at a frenetic pace. To enter into an adult world became an urgent necessity. There were several factors at work here. The story must have an element of mystery, some adventure with suspense, and it must be something that adults read. The language also became a compelling attraction. English is the medium of instruction and in a Christian school a good knowledge of the language is very well appreciated. The native tongue having been relegated to just passing exams and speaking only at home, English assumed a predominant position. The vocabulary grew in response to the need to read. Words became easy to follow from the context and a dictionary at hand — dad kept an Oxford dictionary always on his reporter's desk. Reading and learning new words fueled each other.

Soon I started reading Perry Mason, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alistair McLean, Arthur Haley, Frederic Forsyth and others who wrote stories of this genre. Books from these authors became the daily feed to whet my appetite. What is common to these authors? Their stories were of men who belonged to our time, set in locales far from my own, about things that I never heard in a household, like war, court trial, murder mystery, assassination, corporate world, detective whodunit and so on. My romance with these books is 'seeing' things not there in my daily living. MI5, KGB, Holmes, Hitler, mercenary, lawyers and detectives — these words and more like them thrilled me no end.

Allied to my thirst for mystery and adventure (not of the historic kind, though) was another interest growing and found fulfillment in the books that took romance to the next level. It probably began with Irving Wallace — The Seven Minutes — and later sustained and even stoked further by Harold Robbins — The Carpetbaggers. The road quickly led south to books that provided more explicit content and imagery.






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Web implements

Every age provides a set of implements to deal with life in that age. The stone age produced stone implements of various sizes and shapes to deal with nuts, hunting and so on. The age of agriculture developed farm implements to produce better and more crop. The industrial age produced goods and provided services to handle mass production, distribution and consumption. We are now living in the information age and we have a myriad online avenues to explore the vast information repositories around the world. In most countries the right to information is a fundamental right and accordingly we have a spate of tools to harness information of all kinds. This age is still evolving and is impacting every sphere of human activity. Its primacy lies in its ability to generate, preserve and disseminate information and, most importantly, in the facility to garner information through a myriad tools which we may call the web implements. 

Some of the web implements include:

Google for searching 

Pocket to bookmark and read it later

Evernote to keep notes and web page snapshots

Zotero to do research on the web

Diidgo to store web clipping

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Homocentric

You understand life better when you have broken through your cultural constraints, the moral injunctions, and the so-called good behavior. 

How will you know what it means to do all the things that people do without doing them yourself at least once?

Go to the pawn shop, the wine shop, the red light area and so on.  You need not be doing that which the people there do, but if you don't go there you will never know how life is lived there, what kinds of thoughts and behaviors are possible by people living there. 

Life is the high and the low and everything in between. A life unexplored is an unfinished business, an incomplete understanding, a myopic outlook, a blinkered existence. It is the totality of life that gives understanding. 

What excites our interest is the out of the ordinary in the context of life that we lead. Though we may condemn it or condone it for whatever reasons, it never fails to Venice interest in us. We are forever curious about the lives led by other people. Gossip is symptomatic of our curiosity. We talk about others in awe, in wonder, in disgust, in reproach, in praise and in contempt. In so many ways that we feel the expression is an indication that we are alive and not just buried under labor and struggling through pain and relieving through pleasure.  

In all our communication the subject most inserting and arresting even is that of ourselves. We are ever in wonder of ourselves. As a species. Much more than we are thrilled by auroras and the marvel of technology. We are a narcissistic species. Our curiosity begins with us and ends in us. 

We have worshipped ourselves as gods and daemons. We love and hate each other. We respect and insult each other. In short, all our emotions - thoughts and feelings - that we experience are directed towards ourselves, more than at anything else. We are self-centered, that is, we are at the center of the universe of our life. We are homocentric. Not necessarily due to arrogance, but mostly due to fascination. A fixation that is shared by all of us and in some degree. 

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