eliot was a businessman who had a benign brain tumor removed near the prefontal cortex part of his brain. he remains intelligent and seemingly rational, with a wry sense of humor. but he now has trouble making decisions, keeping appointments and has squandered his life savings on bad investments. ok, so do i sometimes, but the thing is these things don't bother him so he keeps making the same mistakes over again.

the university of iowa doctor who treated eliot has determined thru psychological testing that he has almost completely lost the ability to experience emotion due to his injury. we've known for a while the amygdala near the back of the brain processes fear, but research is showing that other parts are also critical for registering emotion, i.e. the prefontal cortex.

it's becoming clearer that emotion is a key element of learning. if you make a crappy investment, you feel bad about it and act more carefully next time - something eliot can no longer do. interestingly, logic alone doesn't make a good decision. we can't decide who to marry or where to live on the basis of reason alone.

but until recently, the western approach to thinking and feeling (cognition and emotion) has been to regard them as polar opposites - kant believed emotion was 'an illness of the mind'. i don't want to get all emotional here, but it seems like everything, everything, is connected somehow including logic and emotion.

ever think about what emotion is? how would you describe it to someone? darwin considered emotions to represent mechanisms for the adaptation and survival of the individual. skinner thought they were states elicited by ‘the delivery, omission, or termination of rewarding or punishing stimuli’. i personally like a the combo put forth by james... ‘bodily expressions’ which follow the perception of an ‘exciting fact’.

an 'exciting fact'. i like that idea. hopefully i won't get a head injury so i will continue to get excited about facts like these.

posted by bluematrix at 12/26/07 18:29 | link | comments (2)

ahhhhh. my final projects for my online classes have been uploaded. my certification exam and presentation are behind me and i have two classes under my belt that went quite well. the new bed was delivered this week and i am sleeping in 13.5 inches of the luxurious splendor of the spring air pillowtop beautyrest. i am relaxing fully this weekend without any thoughts of studying a damn thing. strange, but nice.

as i fished around for something to write about this week, i visited what i feel is the best personal development blog on the net by steve pavlina to see if it would trigger something. well at risk of posting two rehashed entries in a row, i invite you to click the link below to read a really interesting, get your ass moving towards your goals post. the part about creating and riding a thought wave really hit home for me, because a few years ago, when i had my rock opera burning in my head, it guided my life until it became a reality. after a long spell of not having this wave, i'm getting feel like i'm beginning to catch a wave now with my new training gig. rather than put my own spin on his idea, i offer it to you directly...break out of your current situation and surf the tao.
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posted by bluematrix at 12/14/07 18:20 | link | comments

this is something i typically don't do. rather than write something new this week, i'm pulling up an old entry. i know, kinda lame. but this week has really kicked my ass between final projects for my two graduate classes and my big presentation to be a certified software trainer at my new gig (yes i passed even though i felt like an idiot blowing an easy question on my topic - 'cadence one click patient registration').

so for my old readers i apologize, and next week will be a new, positive vibe entry. but for any new readers, below is very short story and one of the best things i've ever written. i had the story idea kicking around for a long time, but was never happy with the ending. then hiking around in the arizona desert it came to me. btw, i'm a sucker for happy endings.


Two Tree Hill


A hundred years ago, two seeds sprouted some distance apart. At first they struggled for sunlight within the tall grass, but each year the saplings grew taller, spreading long roots below the fertile prairie soil. They stretched leafy arms outwards - towards the setting sun, towards the foot of the hill, but more importantly, towards each other. Patient, as only a tree can be, they waited. A decade passed, and then another. The distance between them slowly closed.

They reveled in the warm sun of summer, leaves bursting with green life. They bore the golden change of each autumn proudly, before casting their multi-colored garments to the earth below. They slept soundly through the long winters. They silently rejoiced in each spring's renewal.

Year after year they waited through drenching rains and howling winds. Through deadly, root-drying droughts and through sap-numbing ice storms that threatened to break them. They stood quietly while birds, insects, and rodents made homes in their crown, coat and feet.

Over the many seasons, the two watched each other mature into towering pillars that could be seen from miles away. And they waited. Waited for the day they could go beyond looking longingly at each other. For the day they could do more than just listen as the other sighed with the movement of the wind. For the day they could do more than just smell the scent of their own kind. They awaited their first touch as much as the dawn awaits the day. Hoping that, with patience, they would someday find their limbs entwined, forever embracing, forever supporting each other, forever together.

But while they grew tall relatively quickly, the expansion of their width slowed to a pace that only a tree could endure. Many more decades passed. Their skin became thick and gnarled with age. Their once supple trunks grew less forgiving each season. From a distance or viewed from a certain angle, they looked as if they were already touching, but it was not so. Not yet.

But soon.

One year after awakening from a particularly harsh winter, spring finally arrived and with it the warming sunshine. Their limbs ached with longing. Their leaves danced with anticipation. A breeze would sometimes move them to within an inch of each others touch. A lifetime of longing was almost within their grasp.

Summer followed, the long days hot, dry, and nearly windless. One afternoon the trees sensed a change, the pressure of the air around them dropped quickly, as did the temperature. Dark rainclouds formed near the horizon and moved slowly towards them. The wind painted broad brushstrokes through the brown grassy fields to the south. The storm was nearly upon them.

Lightening flashed, followed by great claps of thunder - they had seen many such storms before. But this time, their branches were so close a strong enough wind would end their years of yearning for the others touch. They braced themselves, anxious, yet firm. This was it. But then the wind lessened. The rain slowed. 'No, no', they silently implored the Great Mother, 'We need this storm. We've waited so long and we're so close now. Give us this storm. Please!'.

And the earth responded.

A thick, white bolt suddenly reached down from the sky and up from the earth, and in a deafening crash of light and sound, shot through her tall, proud body, shattering, piercing, and bursting her aged wood into a great, incandescent, yellow-white, ball of flame.

For hours, all he could do was watch in horror as she burned on and on and on. He prayed the wind would carry the flames to his outstretched arms and he could join her in death, but her closest limbs had been severed with the initial blast and had fallen to the earth between them, barely missing him as they crashed downwards. The wind betrayed him yet again and blew her sparks away the opposite way from him.

She burned through the night.

The morning came and with it a gentle, steady rain. A sickly smell of charred wood and wisps of wet, steamy smoke curled from the blackened, split trunk. He stood numb as rain began to fall harder. Now the cursed wind finally grew - as did his anger. He had waited so long. He had been so close to touching her. It wasn't fair. IT WAS NOT FAIR! How could he continue on this desolate hill alone until he slowly rotted? How could he stare at her lifeless hulk day after day after day? His limbs quivered with rage. Another storm grew in the sky above him, unnoticed. He was a tree and trees were ever patient, but this, this was too much for even a tree to bear. 'Oh Gaia, why have you forsaken me?' he called to the great mother.

And the earth responded again.

As the lightening flashed through his body, and his limbs burst into flame, he thanked Her for his release, sparing him a life of staring at the dead remains of a love of a hundred years in the making.

When autumn came, there were no colorful leaves to sail in the wind around the hilltop and blanket the earth in gold and red. When winter came, there were nothing to break the winds rush over the immense plain. The animals moved to other fields.

But when spring came, after the snows had melted, within the tall grass where the trees had stood, two small seedlings pushed there way up out of the earth, their tiny leaves already touching.



©2006 Tim Deegan

posted by bluematrix at 12/07/07 20:38 | link | comments

I've started doing open mics again (thursdays at 'off broadway'). i run away with photography and video again and again, but music, my original love, always draws me back into her arms. there's a realness, a physicality to playing music that just isn't possible with doing photography, video or even painting. the touch of my fingers against the strings, the feel of the bass notes thru the back of the guitar in my stomach, the deep breaths required to sustain a sung note at a decent volume, even the tiny vibrations of my eardrum. you can take a picture of a flower or video it swaying in the breeze. but there is a temporal fleetingness to the real thing that can't be captured because its spontanaeity, its temporary nature is part of its beauty. so it is with live music.

in the days of darkrooms, the smells and mystery of photography had some of this physicality. and while i am totally digging my new digital camera, am constantly amazed by what myself and others are able to capture and manipulate in photoshop, and love the immediacy and visual impact of pictures, they don't reach into my soul like music does.

video is a most tempting mistress. building on the composition skills and color theory of photography, then kicking it to the next level by adding a level of reality thru movement and story telling. i love the challenges and the different skill sets needed - producing, directing, writing, editing. but as much as i love movies, and plan to make one some day, turning the sound off takes away so much of the experience.

so though i stray often from music's siren call, i will always return. composing, listening, playing, experiencing live shows. so real, so vibrant it can bring an emotion to the surface in moments. songs to make me happy, songs to ease my pain, songs that make me cry, songs that make me laugh out loud. songs to get me fired up to go out with my friends, songs that tell me stories, songs that take me back in time, songs that make me reflect on where i'm going. all available at the touch of a button. or better yet, at the touch of my fingers on the strings or the keys. its all about the touch factor.

posted by bluematrix at 12/01/07 12:58 | link | comments (1)