Dreamvirus

user since: Mon Jul 16 2001 at 01:20:02 (7.2 years ago )
last seen: Mon Oct 6 2008 at 20:52:46 (17.7 hours ago )
number of write-ups: 384 - View Dreamvirus's writeups (feed)
level / experience: 8 (Seer) / 28857
C!s spent: 775
mission drive within everything: pulling sparks across dead synapses
specialties: irrationality
motto: Do what you have to do
most recent writeup: September 28, 2008

1 node per day for 30 days, to take place in the month of November 2008.
Like Nanowrimo, but for the greater glory of E2!
Our divine patrons are Apatrix, Avalyn and grundoon. I am not sure exactly who will be doing what (and perhaps the doings of the gods are best not known to ordinary mortals), but I think that Avalyn and grundoon will be dispensing XP in the form of blessings, while Apatrix will provide "Goodies other than XP"
Rewards: dependent on the will of the gods, but I would hope for:
- 100xp for every 5 writeups submitted as part of the challenge.
- 500xp, plus some of Apatrix's mysterious "goodies", for successful completion of the challenge!
There is no minimum length requirement. The node must simply survive the month under normal editorial conditions.
Maximum of 5 daylogs.
Preparing nodes in advance is fine. I mean, if participants stop noding AT ALL for the whole of October just so that they can save up nodes for the quest, I'd consider that counterproductive, and against the spirit of the quest. But we're all going to need a certain amount of preparation and storing up material.

If you think you have the guts/stupidity/whatever to take on this challenge, /msg me. I will be creating an official quest node sometime in October.

There are various attempts to jumpstart E2 at the moment through technical means. Personally, I can't or won't contribute much to those. My preferred way to contribute is through the generation of content, and this challenge is in that spirit.

EVEN A GLORIOUS FAILURE IS SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF

Ðℜ∈ΔΜγ↓ℜ∪∫

Any man can handle adversity. If you want to test his character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

I have discovered for myself that the old human and animal life, indeed the entire prehistory and past of all sentient being, works on, loves on, hates on, thinks on in me.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Even when you were at your most miserable and losing at a poker table, you were happier then your happiest at work"
- my friend Ricky

Sometimes I'm on /CHATTEROFF, usually if I'm in a strange mood and more likely than usual to get into stupid fights. If you want to talk, send me a /msg.

YES I AM UNSTABLE, YES I AM HAPPY THIS WAY

"May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing till it is proved, influence your mind too much in other things which cannot be proved in the same way, & which if true are likely to be above our comprehension."

- Emma Darwin, in a letter to her husband Charles

Those who know me have no need of my name

I like to write, and read, all kinds of things, but I have a particular love for poetry. If you think you've got a good poem on here, and you feel it deserves a C! or at the very least an upvote, /msg me a link. Poetry can sometimes get a hard time here.

I DOWNVOTE RECIPES

I don't make lists of people I like or writers I think you should read. E2 is enough of a popularity contest already, and lists are by nature far more about exclusion than inclusion.

And one day we will die
and our ashes will fly
from the aeroplane over the sea

But for now we are young
let us lay in the sun
and count every beautiful thing we can see

...

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
that is circling all round the sun

And when we meet on a cloud
I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see -

Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

from In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

it all started off as a game and now it's gotten so serious and i'm sorry and i do wish it was still a game but i don't know how to go back and i'm scared but i'm excited too and oh oh oh can you remember that silly-serious silent white light from so long ago, that's what i wish for you, and me, and me, and me

I am not objective and I am not sorry.

This whole tower of knowledge is built on shifting sand.

4 years, 124 days, 4 hours, 33 minutes, 1 second.
That is how long it takes to come full circle.

Fragments Against Ruin

You can see a few more of the Fragments, and some of my photos, at alanpeart.net.

Take a spin once a day to keep the gods of chance happy. Get some Easter Eggs and go /FIREBALL someone in the catbox. Don't keep spinning. Addiction leads to destroyed lives.

Science, like humanity itself, is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. When talking to irrational New Age types, I am sometimes perceived as a dogmatic scientist. When talking to over-rational scientific materialists, I tend to come across like a fuzzy New Ager. No one likes me in those kinds of discussions, because what I always argue for is balance, and so few people have any idea what that really is. They tend to think that balance means surrendering their own point of view. Actually, balance in its fullest sense encompasses all points of view and integrates every possible way of thinking about the world. All perceptions and thoughts and feelings and expressions have value in their own relative frame, and all that exists are relative frames. Yes, this leads to "moral relativity". No, that does not mean the same thing as amorality.

The thing to wonder is: what fulcrum does all this mass of concepts and perceptions balance around? What is the still centre that allows integration? A star, for example, has such a thing as a centre of gravity. Gravity pulls the star into shape around this notional point, but the point does not actually exist. There is nothing remarkable at that point, and that is the point. What is your awareness? Where is it located? All of you has collected around a point that cannot be found, but that you yourself know a priori to exist.

The value of science to the non-scientist, apart from the technology it gives us, is in its ability to give us metaphors and concepts we can use in our daily lives and in our quest for further self-integration. If you intuitively know what I mean, then don't let scientific materialists bully you out of speaking about what they consider to be their domain. In 99% of cases, while they think you don't understand what they're talking about, they also don't understand what you're talking about. The difference is that they think that what they don't understand (or what "isn't science") has no meaning. The definition of "meaning" is the problem. Science and economics have tried to convert "meaning" into measurables and have won a vast victory over the entrenched institutional religions in whose context science had to fight for conceptual space. However, as we all know, the successful revolution can very quickly become the oppressive regime, and "meaning" must not become entirely limited to that which is measurable or communicable, or there will be no null point for the whole of human discourse to center and integrate itself around.

At the heart of the human experience, and at the heart of our awareness, I believe that there must be something incommunicable, utterly subjective, intuitively recognized, and vital to all of the perceptions and conceptions that surround it. You can call it the human singularity if you like. At a certain point all the words and concepts you struggle with in your philosophies begin to merge and disintegrate, and arguments begin going in circles as meaning itself begins to be up for grabs. Eventually, if you know what's good for you, you'll just sit down and shut up, and maybe look at the sky for a while. What you're looking for is always where and what you already are. If you find yourself lost in concepts and always arguing, you're blind to the huge inner movements, the swell of billions of years pulsing inside you, seeking expression. Our words are like surf on an internal sea whose size we don't allow ourselves to perceive fully, for good reason, but whose existence we must acknowledge. In the end, it's not as scary as it first seems, because there at the bottom of the sea, full fathom five, pearls for eyes, peering silently through the waters, it's you. Only you.

WHEREIN WE MAKE LISTS OF STUFF WE HAVE LIKED A LOT

In No Specific Order

DISCLAIMER: Lists are subject to constant update as I discover new things, remember old stuff I had forgotten, change my mind about things, or generally fail to do this in any consistent way. The only real purpose is to help people discover things that I thought were cool.

Albums