"Culture Is Your Operating System"

Ganked the photo above from warren_ellis , who writes: " Photo by Tom Taylor. A very Terence McKenna sentiment. Which reminds me: the Psychedelic Salon podcast continues to do a fine job in excavating and archiving old Terence McKenna talks, and they recently re-presented one of my favourites, "Psylocibin And The Sands Of Times." If you can get used to McKenna’s fairly arch and nasal delivery, you’ll find some fascinating stuff in his talks. I’ve been reading and listening to his work for, bloody hell, more than twenty years, and was even on his old mailing list before he died, and I still find new material in there. I liked that he wasn’t completely dogmatic, and was entirely happy to try on and discard new ideas as he roamed. There’s a connection there between McKenna’s intellectual life and the Exegesis of Philip K Dick, who generated and tossed several million words’ worth of ideas to try and explain (to him) the world he thought he was living in. As, I suppose, do we all."

Seems to me as good a sentiment as any for the weekend.

For my part, I've been buried in work both the kind I'm paid for and the kind I do in some weird, Quixotic attempt to accomplish ... something. Damned if I know what that thing is any more. Sometimes it's very simple: I'd very much prefer to be making my living making up stories and poems. It would be nice, wouldn't it, not having to divide much of my attention away from what's in all honesty my real work? Other times I'm certain I'd go a little mad without the rigors and structured schedule of a day job. I'm entirely too aware of my tendency to go a little deep into my own head at times, a tendency that played a big part in my decision not to go to grad school or pursue a career in academia.  I'm well aware of my need to remain a bit grounded, to stay connected to the world.

Still, I keep myself busy. Not much on my schedule at the moment, save for the workshop I'm teaching next month, but between Radius launching soon and Lea's anthology, Knocking At the Door, being almost out, I can see plenty to keep me occupied in the near future. There's a new short story on the edge of my consciousness, trying to work its way out. Something a good deal more grounded than Baby, Detonate for Me or A Fable of Worcester. Also itching to get back to the "heroes" blog posts, again. Lots of great ideas, including some thoughts on witches, and about life being an illusion. Because ... hey. Why not keep it light?

May have a little side project tomorrow. Will know soon. It involves learning to use new software that I'll need to learn how to use soon, anyway, so I might as well have some fun with it. We'll see ...