Jonas David's Blog, page 27

Why do we hate the poor?

[image error]

The plight of the Joads in this story makes me think of how we treat refugees, homeless people, and any other needy people in this country. The family in this story has been kicked off their farm by the corporation that owns it, and along with thousands of other families is fleeing across the country to California, where everyone has been told there is work to be had.

When they get there, though, everyone treats them like villains, looks down on them, tries to get them to move on, or just tries to exploit them for money or cheap labor.

It sounds really familiar to how we treat immigrants and refugees today. But in this story, the people even treat other American’s that way!

Why do we look down on people in need? Refugees and immigrants and homeless folk have gone through hell to get where they are, and then we spit on them and turn our backs. Why? Why do we put spikes on the ground so homeless cant sleep? Why do we remove all the benches from cities and kick people out of their tents and make it illegal to sleep in a car? They have it hard enough not having a home, but we’ve got to go out of our way to spend time and effort to make it worse for them? Is it human nature to be shit to each other? To distrust and hate someone who is at the worst, hardest point in their life?

Sometimes humanity disgusts me.

[image error]

My phone has become self aware

During the past Holiday weekend, I took a fair amount of video and pictures with my new Pixel 2, which has a super great camera. What it also has, apparently, is an AI that edits together pictures and videos and creates video clips for me, complete with music and effects. All of it without me asking…

There is something very strange about seeing a notification on my phone, and seeing a video made for me that appears to have had a lot of attention and care put into the choices of what clips would be used. (I got a minute long video of images and video made out of perhaps 10 minutes of video and a hundred pictures to chose from) how does it decide what to use? It doesn’t appear random… but machine learning is scary. The videos are all family stuff that I don’t want to post here, so I did another one for an experiment. I took some video while driving ( I know, bad me, but it was so pretty) a bout 2 minutes worth of videos. Then I had the ‘assistant’ make me a video out of it. Here’s what it came up with (I picked the title, it did everything else, and the original is way better quality than what WordPress let me upload here)

 

First off, it is so awesome that it stabilized everything. I obviously don’t have an immovable arm, I was driving and it was bouncing around etc. If you look at the dashboard at the bottom of the video you can tell, but my ‘assistant’ edited it all (and it made this video in about 15 seconds) so that it seems smooth and steady. And how did it pick those clips? Why did it? It is very intriguing to me…

Whatever it is doing, I love it, and am going to be taking a lot more video to see what it comes up with.

[image error]

HO HO HO

Have a happy day!

[image error]

Christmas Cat

[image error]

Happy Holidays! I hope you are all having a great time with your families and friends and pets. Give the little furballs extra treats and hugs!

Pets can detect emotions, so the cheer will spread to them too, if you let it.

Don’t leave them out in the cold!

[image error]

Caged light

[image error]

Something about this light caught my eye. It struck me as so bleak that I stopped for a closer look.

I liked this picture at first because of the symmetry, but then I started to imagine all kinds of symbolism, as writers tend to do. A dull sky and a prison-like wall, and a light trapped in bars of metal. Maybe the light represents our minds, struggling to shine out from the bounds they are ordered to stay within. Or maybe it represents our creativity held back by the requirements of society.

Or maybe it’s just an ugly light on a cement wall.

[image error]

Pictures–they are fun?

I have been taking lots of photos because my new phone has an amazing camera… maybe they will show up here? Photos on a writing blog?? What is the world coming to…

I think photography is similar to writing in that you take a situation and slice out the portion you want to show the audience. You zoom in on a specific aspect, and the rest fades into the background. You can’t describe everything, in writing or photography, or the picture becomes something more utilitarian and less artistic. Like an aerial view of a city with no visible people, versus close up shots of people doing things. You could say that is something like world building versus character development.

Time to snap some photos of every leaf or bug I see anywhere. Yay.

New things

I got a new phone, with all kinds of fancy new features that my old phone doesn’t have. I wonder how long it will be before I take them for granted, and couldn’t imagine a phone without them…

Technology moves only a bit faster than we are able to get used to it…

mind realestate

The more responsibilities, and worries, and stress, and plans and work you have going on, the less free space you have in your head for creative thought. It becomes a depressing trap. The spirit is withered by the dull grind of daily life. You can’t think about an alien world or a mystical dragon because you’re thinking about paying your taxes or taking out the trash or how to pay the mortgage or your appointment with the doctor or your promotion or how messy the house is or how to get the car repaired or the family reunion or your kid’s grades or fixing the ceiling fan or cleaning the bathroom or washing the dishes or doing the laundry or taking the cat to the vet or a million other things that can’t be avoided and take up all the space your mind has to breathe.

Sometimes I wonder how people manage to be creative without being slovenly antisocial hermits…

maybe they don’t….

[image error]

Stop thinking up reasons not to write

[image error]

Whenever I don’t know what to blog about (like today) I just open up ‘Several Short Sentences about Writing’ to a random page, and then I have a blog topic.

Today, I read this:

Anything you think you need in order to write–or be ‘inspired’ to write or ‘get in the mood’ to write–becomes a prohibition when it’s lacking. Learn to write anywhere, at any time, in any conditions, with anything, starting from nowhere. All you really need is your head, the one indefensible requirement.

So many ‘writer memes’ I see are about whatever special pen or lucky notebook, or certain ritual that writers have to do in order to write. They write at 4pm exactly, in a room with complete silence, with no messes and when they have their tea in a certain mug, and with a specific song playing. All this is, really, is a list of reasons not to write. Can’t find my notebook? Guess I won’t write today. Out of tea? Guess I won’t write.

Maybe instead we could come up with a list of reasons TO write. Have a blog and write a post every day. Write 50 words before you can have a drink at the end of the day. Write 200 words before you can watch your favorite show. Make up your own! Write everywhere, about everything!

 

Horrors of the world

[image error]

Rings of Saturn’s seemingly random topic hoping is all coming together, related in the big picture by every thought, every piece of history he talks about seeming to show how humans are terrible, or maybe that the world is terrible.

Aside from the overt bleakness of the historical stuff he talks about, there is a subtle kind of darkness overlaying everything, just in the way he describes things. Below is a section for example, when he sees some people below him at a beach:

I crouched down and, overcome by a sudden panic, looked over the edge. A couple lay down there, in the bottom of the pit, as I thought: a man stretched full length over another body of which nothing was visible but the legs, spread and angled. In the startled moment when that image went through me, which lasted an eternity, it seemed as if the man’s feet twitched like those of one just hanged. Now, though, he lay still, and the woman too was still and motionless. Misshapen, like some great mollusc washed ashore, they lay there, to all appearances a single being, a many-limbed, two-headed monster that had drifted in from far out at sea, the last of a prodigious species, its life ebbing from it with each breath expired through its nostrils.

There are many ways one could describe a couple having sex on the beach… this way of doing it is certain to create a strange, creepy feeling for the reader…

[image error]