trenches parallax leapfrog Quotes

“There is a lonesome field of tall grasses within which one might pass a warm dusk eve and watch the stars and fireflies bring new illumination against the periwinkle sky and amidst the faint symphony of crickets and marsh frogs. A breeze whisks over and nearly flattens the fibrous stalks, and there is a sense of renewing peace that fills the form on this eve that one might wish to carry forward into all moments thereafter—a resplendent sense of contentment. All is finally and lastingly to one’s satisfaction.

And yet, right now, this notion of satisfaction seems illusory and unattainable.

At these depths, it seems too like a childish game.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“The ones to fear are those who cannot realize it: the ones who just see the structure and bind themselves to it because they are otherwise afraid. They look at the structure, and they just see no other way. They cannot seek anything beyond it or do not want to. Yet, they will also vehemently deny that they are unable to venture beyond the structure and castigate others they perceive to have that inability so as to make themselves feel superior. They will even delude themselves into assuming that they are free of structural influence and will violently oppose any who say otherwise. They will say that the structures are a pragmatic necessity for social cohesion, but that they, even as willing participants in it, remain capable of acknowledging external terms and associations. They just choose not to—that’s the line they go with. They choose the structure for a lack of any better alternative and will not go
without one. Perhaps they are naïve, in that sense, and it is easy for them to believe that those who seek to negate their structures are either unscrupulous, foolish, or ego-driven.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“Look out the window of the train: you’re moving, but you can’t remember leaving. Jagged brown crater dwellings run across the landscape, pipes with thick black smoke pouring out. Smoke overflowing, as the buildings themselves are caked with a sort of black tar.
Evening sun peeks over the horizon through rusted steel water towers and other ancient skeletons. Their frames stand fixed, albeit hunched forward, anchored in by the ankles in scrap iron dunes that stretch for miles with frigid desert rats scurrying through as giant shivering Scarabs hover in the sky: wired-in and vigilant, murmuring ancient mantras, overshadowing newer, but desperately cruel partisan inscriptions of code in the soot-stained brick facade.

Look at your superimposed reflection in the window across from your seat and envision subatomic particles acquiring sentience in the vacuum of an Accelerator. All wondering how it is they got there, who it is they presume to be.

Always wondering. Spiraling...really! Always spiraling at breakneck speeds through the vacuum—eternally in doubt. You are suddenly reminded of the words of that great Algorithmist painter, Carlotta Wakefield, 'Mediocre painters portray that which they understand. Fabulous painters: that which they Surmise...'

You wonder if that, too, applies to our constructions of reality, ersatz or otherwise.

(From the short story "Leapfrog")”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“Perhaps one is to first learn the signifiers denoting esteem and conveying authority and from there build the foundation of knowledge based upon this arbitrary system of reputational faith.

This logic seems agreeable to me—one must start somewhere, after all!—but, at the same time, I would first have to convince myself that there is something, anything at all, worth knowing.

Right now, even this seems a rather challenging proposition.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“The rocks are craggy/unmanageable
without sufficiently lacerating my Self ~ scarcely
solid ground, but more accurately a foothold. Yet in smoothness, the rocks are even less effective against the sweep of the tides than the sands of the shore. I sit here, not terribly concerned about the bruises and scrapes the jagged rocks lend in the moment, but concerned nevertheless by the waves that sweep back so effortlessly over the catchstones and eternally beyond reach—evading capture, leaving only a dissipating froth upon the black ridges to signal, at the very least, that 'it' happened: for whatever 'it' is worth.

There is a distinctive tenor to this declaration of presence, this collapsing flow—Something that reminds me of...?—the reverberations of which remain beyond the span of cognition. Reverberations: there exists a memory of a memory of a dream I had once, but
never an authentic rendering of the essential
Moment. Still I can hear it in dreams of memories of memories of dreams.

In dreams: a faint voice.

A persona, a belief system distinctly its
own, yet for now, the roar of the tides are a
whisper ears strain to grasp. Seemingly a clue to a memory locked within. Or it’s all imagination:
perhaps the sound of the ocean causes me to
assume I’m remembering something. Gives the
memory a sentience of its own and a vessel
allowing it to surge in and ebb out. Yes, I’ve heard such things mentioned before: the stimulus that reverse engineers the very memory it is presumed to trigger.

Still, it bothers me: this evasive, timeless
notion.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“All probabilities have
stacked up to this imminent form, and
all causes have aligned according to
this pathway and not another. I could
otherwise have been another complex
of particles, another material altogether,
and perhaps also another form, for how
much does the material influence the
fingers that shape it? Does the material
similarly shape the whims of its
sculptor?”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“There are ribbons that ensnare, it
seems, though I cannot feel these
restraints: a tangle of shared
understandings, expectations, values,
and obligations that demarcate sentient
boundaries and frame the articulation
of essence. Yet, there is also something rather arbitrary and inadequate about
these ribbons and their juxtaposition.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“The sounds of my breaths slowly begin to fade away, and I can hear again the waves in the darkness. The waves again! Reverberating through a hollow tube. Focus inward, and ignore the sound! Ignore the cause. Think not upon the cause of that cause or upon that cause’s cause’s cause. There is more than we will ever be able to explain. More than I will ever know and observe, and thus our systems are riddled with gaps.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“I can hear the nettlesome wails of these rowdy children arguing over whether some object in a crayon rendering is, in fact, the sun or the moon or otherwise simply a lopsided sky egg. I wonder briefly at the intention behind manifestation, but then resign myself to an understanding that all of this work is arbitrary. There will always be the indelible contradiction that introduces doubt, and this will serve to overwhelm the purpose. And so, no decisive answers can be had with respect to this rendering, and I cannot help but feel rather sad myself at this.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“The shame of it, of not being adequate in this conception of possession.

The value of the entity rests on its resourcefulness in procuring and manipulating material, and so in this respect, the prominence of this deficit serves to expose our deep-seated and irredeemable flaws.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“There are underwater cables that seem to emerge and interweave the various objects drifting and rotating in space. I can imagine their intersections and junction points and synapses ~ the remote hosts out in the fringes. The control stations on terrain that re-route incoming impulses. A flood of light information is passing between domains, all of it insulated within these submerged cables unseen to those on the surface. There is something unsettling about this. Even the sharks seem to steer clear of the cables as though in instinctual protest to the coded impulses passing throughout and beyond, evading the frequencies that comprehensively register and reflexively influence all conceptualization, inclination, and movement.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“There’s an overlapping echo of waves dancing in my brain, and I can hear amidst it also the skittering exodus of a thousand crustaceans over the shifting sands of Riptide.

Are they exploring?

Scavenging?

Migrating possibly.

I cannot see them in this darkness, yet hold in mind briefly the image of their silhouettes against the shimmering sea reflecting the crimson evening sky, and through this immersion it becomes difficult to know what is real...”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“What if each breath were a specialized container encapsulating a Moment? It is reasonable to imagine that we should thusly give each breath and each contained Moment the gravity it deserves so as not to diminish the value of either or neglect the scarcity of both. It feels different when one considers each to be precious. In that respect, I have only been careless and imprudent thus far.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog

“The feeling filters in for an instant, then rushes out, leaving lasting watermarks of nostalgia. Neurotransmitters will only impart tired old platitudes of common structure: trite anecdotes with predictable elements. No doubt the perception of this Moment will recede back in with the waves and leave me once again looking to symbols for recollection. But then, perhaps it is wrong of me to think of it this way.

It is, yes.”
― Ashim Shanker, trenches parallax leapfrog