Upon re-reading, I realized I can summarize that entire Second Life post into one sentence.
I have ideas.
But my ideas are mainly, of late, designed in a way that makes them impossible for me to implement. Last month I had a concept for the Microsoft Zune, with a few minor modifications, and one major throwdown / risk, to actually differentiate itself from the music market. This was a good idea, arguably a great one (if great idea is equivalent to one that can't be picked apart by anyone I know) but useless to me, because it require a kind of control that I will never have, and the ability to shift an entire division out of it's business model (I'll outline the idea later, possibly tonight).
That I'm spending my time and intellect (such as it is) acting in a theoretical strategic consulting position is troubling - I like the ideas, I like slogging through and tightening them up, but I can't make any of them into anything for myself. I'm creating permanently fictional concepts. This is, except for the mental exertion, a waste of my time.
I also don't seem to have any truly independent ideas, lately. Everything is in service of adapting old structures to new, and new structures to society (and vice versa).
So, hopefully, a new phase, soon. I'll keep commenting, and offering vague (and not fully fleshed out) solutions to what I see as problems, but I'll also refrain from wasting too much time making them complete. What that time will be spent on, I hope, is treading a new path, or two. Or seventy.
I'm also going to try to remain more on my current path, publicity. Persona Management. And, hilarious though it may be, back to artificialism, as more than just a theory, but possibly as an approach - the truth of intentional falsehood, and the power of being a constructed person in a reputedly transparent world.
Horrible illness is winding down. Content to follow.
Fully aware that half of my posts are explanations for the lack of posts. Am working on this, as well.
Many things bubbling beneath the surface.
As of today, as of this post, I am a Mac Panther. That is right, I have finally abandoned the microsoft universe and am now the proud (absurdly proud) owner of a macbook.
What does this mean to the readers of BrokenGentleman.com? Very, very little. But it does mean the beginning of mobile posting, and of more frequent updates. Oh, and of slightly more justification for my apple love.
Thought of the day is the lack of activity in the front of the poster as a narrative medium. I mean, Chris Ware does it, and I have a great Ray Fawkes print sitting on my desk, still awaiting framing, but why is there so little mixture of cartooning techniques with the idea of displaying it as an addition to a room?
More of this later, right now I have to back up 40 gigs of music, carefully and legally purchased over the years.
I'm looking for work, hence the lack of actual posting.
I realise this is far from informative, but what can I do?
Back soon.
I was distracted by finishing undergrad, and as a consequence haven't posted anything in a criminally long time. The most recent post I deleted later on, partially because I'd stopped feeling the way I did in the writing of it, and partially because I realised later that the stances and opinions I was seeing were more of less to be expected given the probably demographic breakdown of the site in question, and social networking sites in general. This is probably impenetrable to those of you who didn't read that post.
Anyways. I've finished university for now, as of yesterday. So, more content coming forthwith.
1) Definition inherently involves limitation. If a definition crosses cultural or linguistic borders, there remains a limitation of possible meanings. (as in, blue will never equal yellow, if explained properly. Cultural gaps might make blue violet or indigo, but never yellow.)
2) The creating culture of a concept defines it. If that concept is introduced into another culture, that culture will only create an isotope of the original meaning, it will not create something related, but different entirely in explanation. (A culture only exposed to the western concept of time, before a separate one is developed, will not conceive of a meaning of time in which things do not move in a linear fashion, excepting insanely unlikely circumstances.)
3) If a concept is adopted from another culture, it has inherent limitations based on the limitations it brought from the culture that came with it. These may change over time, but they still limit possible meaning. (If up and down are introduced as opposing terms, they may take on different meanings in terms of intensity, but they will likely not become different levels of up. I am not including negative values, obviously.)
4) Just because subtext, and some bias, is lost in translations, in no way means that definition stops having inherent limitations. It just doesn't. This is excepting situations in which things are not explained properly, or not understood properly by either culture.
[Sorry, I just had an excruciating argument with Angus about the last post over msn. I'm sure he was just arguing because he disagreed, but it got beyond irritating. It is bothersome when bringing up fundamental concepts like time as a proof is responded to with a statement that those concepts are fundamental, and therefore different. He might be right, but goddamn is it irritating. The infuriating thing, however, is that Angus is smarter than me, at least most of the time.]
From another blog. March 22, 2006.
i'm still dancing with the idea of the broken gentleman. right now he's the eternal and everchanging embodiment of the masculine ideal, the gentlemanly ideal. in the past, he lived as a renaissance man, as a wizard of electricity and science, as a philosopher, as an author, a playwright. now there's no defined ideal, and he can't embody the single famous people who alternate as the masculine ideal. the idea of the gentleman is dead. so he sits, and he shifts randomly between the ideals of the past, between different strains of genius and respectability. he's never in the same suit, but it's never pressed and ready. there's a few spots of stubble he's missed. he'll sit in the corner of the coffee shop, the library, the martini bar, and seem somehow born for his seat. he'll talk to you about nearly anything, and he'll do it as though he created the idea. he did, in a lot of ways. but he switches specialties and beliefs and personalities by the second. and he's not in love with the modern world.
the displaced man, the transplanted man. a relic of another time, a relic of every other time. he's the broken gentleman. he doesn't fit. but he can tell you every story, first hand, until the dawn of the anti-hero. and he'll do it in a distracted, disjointed manner, over a coffee, a manhattan, some coltrane.
(put better, the broken gentleman is the essence of a world in which a unified, yet fractured perception is a requirement for understanding.)
