import random
def samsara():
enlightened = False
lifetimes_of_ignorance = 0
karma = 0
buddha_karma = 42 ** 42
while not enlightened:
karma += random.randint(buddha_karma / -42, buddha_karma / 42)
if karma < buddha_karma:
lifetimes_of_ignorance += 1
else:
days_sitting = 0
while days_sitting < 7:
days_sitting += 1
if days_sitting == 7:
enlightened = True
print('You achieved enlightenment after %i lifetimes of ignorance. Enjoy!' % lifetimes_of_ignorance)
samsara()
#To try it:
#1.) go to http://codepad.org
#2.) select python as the language
#3.) paste in the whole poem
#4.) click submit
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The Tale of Two Santiagos - Intro: Synchronicity
Readers of Robert Anton Wilson are familiar with his deep fascination with coincidence, more specifically the apparently significant or symmetrical variety. Aka Synchronicity. The idea is that the apparent randomness of the universe, while vast and inscrutable, isn't necessarily mechanistic and detached in its outcomes. That au contraire, the underpinnings of chance are deeply entangled with the primordial fibers of consciousness, and interact with the daily events of our perceived reality in distinct (if mysterious) ways.
This approach to chance and consciousness is firmly rooted in the philosophy of idealism. Not the starry-eyed political or holding out for world peace kind, the Bishop Berkeleyan/Hindu-Buddhist/dream-within-a-dream kind. Its core credo is that all the cosmos and the beings that populate it are subjective, mental phenomena. That there is nothing outside our thoughts. That all reality is rooted in perception.
The Suicide
Jorge Luis Borges
Not a single start will be left in the night.
The night will not be left.
I will die, and with me,
the weight of the intolerable universe.
I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,
the continents and faces.
I shall erase the accumulated past.
I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I am looking on the final sunset.
I am hearing the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no one.
Here Borges mixes in solipsism, which goes a bit further in positing that not only is all existence a mental conjuration, it also resides entirely within one individual mind (presumably mine, or yours as the case may be). The concept isn't generally received with great accolades, since it amounts to calling everybody one knows figments of one's imagination. But it starts to open up when one reaches the inevitable question: or perhaps I'm a figment of theirs? Then one is back to plain pluralistic idealism once more.
So that's idealism. It provides some unexpectedly firm philosophical ground for an idea like Synchronicity to stand on. Since it doesn't really purport to act on physical forces, but the underlying mental forces that contain them, there isn't necessarily a clash with the principles of scientific inquiry.
Here's my take. Whether apparently meaningful coincidences truly are meaningful or are in fact purely coldly random, that they can appear meaningful is enough to make them worth paying attention to. When you're walking down the street in a strange city and you say to a friend "I'd like to find a bookstore", and then you both turn to the right as a big wooden creaky old door opens all slow and movie-like of its own accord, as if inviting you into the musty and sort of Neverending Story-ish bookstore that you happened to be standing right beside, a quantum physicist could elaborate on equations and models that might be helpful in understanding the logic of how the situation unfolded physically, right down to the duplicitous probabilistic interactions of subatomic particles, but determining whether it was just a freak roll of the happenstance dice or a somehow conscious deliberate life-path-beckoning is, for the time being, outside the quantitative materialist's realm of speculation. It's ultimately up to you and your imagination whether you'd like to play along. My feeling is: if it makes life more poetic or interesting, why not do so? The protagonists of fairy tales never expect to end up in them, and the mind that seeks out adventure and mystery and poetry is the mind that will tend to discover these things, whether the universe offers them up randomly or there is a deeper logic at work.
After that, my particular bit of coincidental symmetry might seem rather ho-hum, but it represents both a way of seeing things and a certain magical-mystery quality inherent to travel that feels particularly strong in Buenos Aires. It twirls and coughs in the brisk dusty air. It wheezes in the hydraulic brakes of old fashioned Mercedes buses and glints in their polished chrome wheels. It lurks in abandoned parks and the uniform wooden tables of cafes and in the dark long-staring eyes of endless strangers jostling by. It even manages to creep into the trash and the dog shit on the street and the roughly woven blankets of the silent poor who huddle in church doorways. The story that follows is but a small tangible example.
This approach to chance and consciousness is firmly rooted in the philosophy of idealism. Not the starry-eyed political or holding out for world peace kind, the Bishop Berkeleyan/Hindu-Buddhist/dream-within-a-dream kind. Its core credo is that all the cosmos and the beings that populate it are subjective, mental phenomena. That there is nothing outside our thoughts. That all reality is rooted in perception.
The Suicide
Jorge Luis Borges
Not a single start will be left in the night.
The night will not be left.
I will die, and with me,
the weight of the intolerable universe.
I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,
the continents and faces.
I shall erase the accumulated past.
I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.
Now I am looking on the final sunset.
I am hearing the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no one.
Here Borges mixes in solipsism, which goes a bit further in positing that not only is all existence a mental conjuration, it also resides entirely within one individual mind (presumably mine, or yours as the case may be). The concept isn't generally received with great accolades, since it amounts to calling everybody one knows figments of one's imagination. But it starts to open up when one reaches the inevitable question: or perhaps I'm a figment of theirs? Then one is back to plain pluralistic idealism once more.
So that's idealism. It provides some unexpectedly firm philosophical ground for an idea like Synchronicity to stand on. Since it doesn't really purport to act on physical forces, but the underlying mental forces that contain them, there isn't necessarily a clash with the principles of scientific inquiry.
Here's my take. Whether apparently meaningful coincidences truly are meaningful or are in fact purely coldly random, that they can appear meaningful is enough to make them worth paying attention to. When you're walking down the street in a strange city and you say to a friend "I'd like to find a bookstore", and then you both turn to the right as a big wooden creaky old door opens all slow and movie-like of its own accord, as if inviting you into the musty and sort of Neverending Story-ish bookstore that you happened to be standing right beside, a quantum physicist could elaborate on equations and models that might be helpful in understanding the logic of how the situation unfolded physically, right down to the duplicitous probabilistic interactions of subatomic particles, but determining whether it was just a freak roll of the happenstance dice or a somehow conscious deliberate life-path-beckoning is, for the time being, outside the quantitative materialist's realm of speculation. It's ultimately up to you and your imagination whether you'd like to play along. My feeling is: if it makes life more poetic or interesting, why not do so? The protagonists of fairy tales never expect to end up in them, and the mind that seeks out adventure and mystery and poetry is the mind that will tend to discover these things, whether the universe offers them up randomly or there is a deeper logic at work.
After that, my particular bit of coincidental symmetry might seem rather ho-hum, but it represents both a way of seeing things and a certain magical-mystery quality inherent to travel that feels particularly strong in Buenos Aires. It twirls and coughs in the brisk dusty air. It wheezes in the hydraulic brakes of old fashioned Mercedes buses and glints in their polished chrome wheels. It lurks in abandoned parks and the uniform wooden tables of cafes and in the dark long-staring eyes of endless strangers jostling by. It even manages to creep into the trash and the dog shit on the street and the roughly woven blankets of the silent poor who huddle in church doorways. The story that follows is but a small tangible example.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The Cats of Buenos Aires
The cats of Buenos Aires slink lithe along the walls of courtyards or stretch in the sun of windy garden paths or stroll in the cobblestoned cemetery avenues where their keen perceptions mingle with the moldy steam of Recoleta's aristocratic dead.
The cats of Buenos Aires are ragged but distinguished. They know hard times--a bent tail, a missing eye or limb--but their fur isn't so matted. Their eyes have a softness. Some will skeptically allow you to pet them.
The city shrugs and offers what it can. It bears them no malice. It lets them slink or sleep where they will, lets them yowl and shriek all night in their territorial spats and takes it in as just one more twangy chord tossed atop the smoggy urban song.
I've been three weeks in Buenos Aires and it still feels endless. I walk and walk and walk all over and Barrios blend into Barrios like watercolors that creep up faintly, intermingle, then deepen into distinctive shades at their cores.
I see New York everywhere. Either because they share a real similarity or because tossing myself into such a vast and disparate novelty has sent my mind scrambling for the only megacity blueprint it owns.
It's like New York without bridges, flattened and sprawled but more even and relentless in its density and bustle. It is surprisingly geographically intuitive. It has a strong consistency to its grid. Though half the intersections lack street signs, I can wander quite randomly without feeling lost. It lacks the linearity and compartmentalization of Manhattan. It is more like Brooklyn in that sense (thinking of Flatbush Ave in its Crown Heights/Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy-ish realms), but with an urban intensity closer to Manhattan. It lacks NYC's Deco gleam of purpose and efficiency. Its skyscrapers are gargantuan but sequestered to a relatively small strip and look a bit awkward standing off to the side over there, ogling the center with a thinly disguised jealousy.
A drunk girl from Texas asked me on my third or fourth night in my first almost-oh-fuck situation (while I'll get to in future posts): "What the hell are you doing here at the bottom of the world?" It wasn't some weird geographic slur--I knew what she meant. Argentina: a 'developing' but relatively prosperous nation, a geopolitically neutral nation whose gaze is set primarily inward, whose fears and troubles and ambitions are primarily, if a bit self-consciously, local. European roots have inspired a love of high culture and debonair style, but aren't truly looked to for guidance, just mixed in with a dash of yearning and a dash of nostalgia and a deeper unspoken conviction that it's better off this way--we're happy enough here at the bottom of the earth, 'overlooked', but too busy and bustling and dancing and in love to care.
Setting the city even further apart is the official autonomy of Capital Federal, the province of Buenos Aires. It governs itself with only selective oversight from the Argentine government. The term city-state comes to mind. I think it sounds about right. Maybe too limited. Buenos Aires, for cats and people, is more than its own state, it is its own world.
The cats of Buenos Aires are ragged but distinguished. They know hard times--a bent tail, a missing eye or limb--but their fur isn't so matted. Their eyes have a softness. Some will skeptically allow you to pet them.
The city shrugs and offers what it can. It bears them no malice. It lets them slink or sleep where they will, lets them yowl and shriek all night in their territorial spats and takes it in as just one more twangy chord tossed atop the smoggy urban song.
I've been three weeks in Buenos Aires and it still feels endless. I walk and walk and walk all over and Barrios blend into Barrios like watercolors that creep up faintly, intermingle, then deepen into distinctive shades at their cores.
I see New York everywhere. Either because they share a real similarity or because tossing myself into such a vast and disparate novelty has sent my mind scrambling for the only megacity blueprint it owns.
It's like New York without bridges, flattened and sprawled but more even and relentless in its density and bustle. It is surprisingly geographically intuitive. It has a strong consistency to its grid. Though half the intersections lack street signs, I can wander quite randomly without feeling lost. It lacks the linearity and compartmentalization of Manhattan. It is more like Brooklyn in that sense (thinking of Flatbush Ave in its Crown Heights/Clinton Hill/Bed Stuy-ish realms), but with an urban intensity closer to Manhattan. It lacks NYC's Deco gleam of purpose and efficiency. Its skyscrapers are gargantuan but sequestered to a relatively small strip and look a bit awkward standing off to the side over there, ogling the center with a thinly disguised jealousy.
A drunk girl from Texas asked me on my third or fourth night in my first almost-oh-fuck situation (while I'll get to in future posts): "What the hell are you doing here at the bottom of the world?" It wasn't some weird geographic slur--I knew what she meant. Argentina: a 'developing' but relatively prosperous nation, a geopolitically neutral nation whose gaze is set primarily inward, whose fears and troubles and ambitions are primarily, if a bit self-consciously, local. European roots have inspired a love of high culture and debonair style, but aren't truly looked to for guidance, just mixed in with a dash of yearning and a dash of nostalgia and a deeper unspoken conviction that it's better off this way--we're happy enough here at the bottom of the earth, 'overlooked', but too busy and bustling and dancing and in love to care.
Setting the city even further apart is the official autonomy of Capital Federal, the province of Buenos Aires. It governs itself with only selective oversight from the Argentine government. The term city-state comes to mind. I think it sounds about right. Maybe too limited. Buenos Aires, for cats and people, is more than its own state, it is its own world.
Monday, April 25, 2011
City Flash
An anonymous young man sits in a lightly rusted iron chair outside a café. An anonymous city streams over the sidewalk and the street. He flips through the pages of a well-worn book, looking for a story he hasn't read. He sets the book down, takes a gulp of lukewarm coffee, surveys the street, then picks up the book again.
He opens it randomly and there it is. The Flash, by Italo Calvino.
It is a short, peculiar tale told by another anonymous man. This man is walking casually down a busy city street when he is struck by an invisible flash. Suddenly, nothing the man sees is as it should be.
The people's hurried movements, the way they stare straight ahead or glance about or nervously avert their eyes--it is all totally wrong and absurd and so plainly mistaken that he cannot contain himself and so he blurts something like:
"Stop! Hey! Everyone! What are we doing?? Can't you see how ridiculous we are? None of this is right. Look! Just look at us!"
The people turn toward the man skeptically. Their expressions are weary and annoyed.
"What are you talking about? Everything is fine. What's wrong with you?"
"I..."
But before he can explain, the flash is gone. The street is ordinary again. The people walk and stare ahead just the way they should.
"I... I'm sorry. Nevermind. You're right. I don't know what came over me. Everything is okay." He looks at the ground in shame.
The people glare a few moments longer, then shake their heads and mutter disapproval as they continue on their way.
The reader looks up, sets the book down, and takes another gulp of coffee as the story settles inside him. 'Huh,' he thinks.
The city scene in front him appears clearer somehow. It has more depth now. It's more like something he can peer into, less like something flat and hollow that moves across a screen.
*
A few days later, he is walking to the grocery store when he runs into a girl he knows. They grew up in the same town. They are pretty good friends, but he often feels uncomfortable when he's with her. He isn't sure if this is due to unacknowledged sexual tension.
"Hi," she says. She has a tendency to glance to the side or into the distance when she speaks.
"Hey." He isn't sure whether he shares this tendency. Who introduces the awkwardness? Who mirrors who?
"What are you doing?" She asks quickly and flatly.
"Going to the store. I don't have anything. Want to come?"
She briefly contemplates a distant skyscraper. "Yeah, okay."
They continue side by side, not saying much. He loves the strange intimacy of walking with someone through a large city.
They get to the store. Standing in front of the automatic doors, he says: "You know, I don't feel like shopping anymore. Want to walk to the park or something? It's a nice day."
"Um, okay. Wait, actually, I should probably get home. I have to work in a couple hours and I really need a nap."
"Ah, okay then."
"Walk with me to my bus?"
"Sure, okay."
He looks at her. Suddenly, her face begins a subtle transformation. The nervous barricade between them seems to vanish. He feels that they are very close, two of the closest people in the world, that he knows her very well.
A sarcastically raised eyebrow punctures the moment. He wonders if he's been looking at her strangely. She would likely raise an eyebrow sarcastically even if he looked at her in a perfectly ordinary way.
They walk to the bus stop. She gives him a warm, hurried hug when the bus arrives.
*
That night, he is alone and bored in his small apartment. He opens his laptop and goes to Al Jazeera Live. He watches a young Syrian man's entire lower jaw get blown apart by a shot from government security forces.
The grainy video was captured by a protester and uploaded to the web. "Allahu Akbar," wails the cameraman. "God is great!" He zooms in steadily on the mutilated face.
"Look what Assad has done! Fuck you Assad! Allahu Akbar! Fuck you Assad!"
He repeats these words again and again. The wounded man lies in the dirt amidst a swarm of distraught protesters and the intermittent crackle of gunshots. He is pale and disoriented. He raises a single fist, a plea for calm. The camera shot moves in, in, in, swaying gently, until all is mangled cartilage and dripping blood.
*
A few days later, the young man finds himself at the café again, in the same chair, reading The Flash for perhaps the tenth time. He can't seem to stop. Each time he finishes, he sets the book down, sips his cold coffee, and the something that he felt a week ago is there again, a bit stronger, a bit brighter, a bit more unsettling. He wonders if something has changed chemically in his brain. He wonders what a neurologist would say. He doesn't know a single neurologist.
*
That night, he's on a rooftop sipping a can of cheap beer and enjoying the lukewarm breeze. Several others chat and laugh around him. Someone softly and skillfully strums a guitar. He's trying to explain The Flash to a friend of his, hoping he doesn't sound crazy.
"No way man. It's not crazy at all. Or maybe it is, and that's the point. Either way, could I borrow that book? I'm intrigued."
"Um, I'd like to hold onto it. I could make copies."
"Sure, okay, or I'll grab it at the library."
The huge city night invigorates them. He imagines the swirling air as electrified helium seeping into their skulls. Just enough for them to hover a few feet off the concrete.
The young man says to his friend: "Something is changing. Something basic. The core, the fabric, the underlying formula. Know what I mean?"
The friend nods. "Everyone notices it. I can tell. Most people try to ignore it, but they know it's happening. What can we really do? Isn't it beyond us?"
"I don't know. I don't know whether to sing my heart out or scream my heart out in fear."
"SING!!!" someone shouts as loud as they can from behind them.
Drunken laughter resounds. It's a good party. They stay on the roof until dawn.
He opens it randomly and there it is. The Flash, by Italo Calvino.
It is a short, peculiar tale told by another anonymous man. This man is walking casually down a busy city street when he is struck by an invisible flash. Suddenly, nothing the man sees is as it should be.
The people's hurried movements, the way they stare straight ahead or glance about or nervously avert their eyes--it is all totally wrong and absurd and so plainly mistaken that he cannot contain himself and so he blurts something like:
"Stop! Hey! Everyone! What are we doing?? Can't you see how ridiculous we are? None of this is right. Look! Just look at us!"
The people turn toward the man skeptically. Their expressions are weary and annoyed.
"What are you talking about? Everything is fine. What's wrong with you?"
"I..."
But before he can explain, the flash is gone. The street is ordinary again. The people walk and stare ahead just the way they should.
"I... I'm sorry. Nevermind. You're right. I don't know what came over me. Everything is okay." He looks at the ground in shame.
The people glare a few moments longer, then shake their heads and mutter disapproval as they continue on their way.
The reader looks up, sets the book down, and takes another gulp of coffee as the story settles inside him. 'Huh,' he thinks.
The city scene in front him appears clearer somehow. It has more depth now. It's more like something he can peer into, less like something flat and hollow that moves across a screen.
*
A few days later, he is walking to the grocery store when he runs into a girl he knows. They grew up in the same town. They are pretty good friends, but he often feels uncomfortable when he's with her. He isn't sure if this is due to unacknowledged sexual tension.
"Hi," she says. She has a tendency to glance to the side or into the distance when she speaks.
"Hey." He isn't sure whether he shares this tendency. Who introduces the awkwardness? Who mirrors who?
"What are you doing?" She asks quickly and flatly.
"Going to the store. I don't have anything. Want to come?"
She briefly contemplates a distant skyscraper. "Yeah, okay."
They continue side by side, not saying much. He loves the strange intimacy of walking with someone through a large city.
They get to the store. Standing in front of the automatic doors, he says: "You know, I don't feel like shopping anymore. Want to walk to the park or something? It's a nice day."
"Um, okay. Wait, actually, I should probably get home. I have to work in a couple hours and I really need a nap."
"Ah, okay then."
"Walk with me to my bus?"
"Sure, okay."
He looks at her. Suddenly, her face begins a subtle transformation. The nervous barricade between them seems to vanish. He feels that they are very close, two of the closest people in the world, that he knows her very well.
A sarcastically raised eyebrow punctures the moment. He wonders if he's been looking at her strangely. She would likely raise an eyebrow sarcastically even if he looked at her in a perfectly ordinary way.
They walk to the bus stop. She gives him a warm, hurried hug when the bus arrives.
*
That night, he is alone and bored in his small apartment. He opens his laptop and goes to Al Jazeera Live. He watches a young Syrian man's entire lower jaw get blown apart by a shot from government security forces.
The grainy video was captured by a protester and uploaded to the web. "Allahu Akbar," wails the cameraman. "God is great!" He zooms in steadily on the mutilated face.
"Look what Assad has done! Fuck you Assad! Allahu Akbar! Fuck you Assad!"
He repeats these words again and again. The wounded man lies in the dirt amidst a swarm of distraught protesters and the intermittent crackle of gunshots. He is pale and disoriented. He raises a single fist, a plea for calm. The camera shot moves in, in, in, swaying gently, until all is mangled cartilage and dripping blood.
*
A few days later, the young man finds himself at the café again, in the same chair, reading The Flash for perhaps the tenth time. He can't seem to stop. Each time he finishes, he sets the book down, sips his cold coffee, and the something that he felt a week ago is there again, a bit stronger, a bit brighter, a bit more unsettling. He wonders if something has changed chemically in his brain. He wonders what a neurologist would say. He doesn't know a single neurologist.
*
That night, he's on a rooftop sipping a can of cheap beer and enjoying the lukewarm breeze. Several others chat and laugh around him. Someone softly and skillfully strums a guitar. He's trying to explain The Flash to a friend of his, hoping he doesn't sound crazy.
"No way man. It's not crazy at all. Or maybe it is, and that's the point. Either way, could I borrow that book? I'm intrigued."
"Um, I'd like to hold onto it. I could make copies."
"Sure, okay, or I'll grab it at the library."
The huge city night invigorates them. He imagines the swirling air as electrified helium seeping into their skulls. Just enough for them to hover a few feet off the concrete.
The young man says to his friend: "Something is changing. Something basic. The core, the fabric, the underlying formula. Know what I mean?"
The friend nods. "Everyone notices it. I can tell. Most people try to ignore it, but they know it's happening. What can we really do? Isn't it beyond us?"
"I don't know. I don't know whether to sing my heart out or scream my heart out in fear."
"SING!!!" someone shouts as loud as they can from behind them.
Drunken laughter resounds. It's a good party. They stay on the roof until dawn.
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