Ennui advice required

[andrewducker]

I feel like I need something, but I don't know what. Some part of me that used to be satisfied with cheap science fiction and wall-breaking psychadelic fiction - that would open up my world and show me something brand new. Everything seems like repetitions of the patterns I've seen before.

I remember when I could hear whole new _kinds_ of music - music that didn't sound like anything I'd heard before; when I could read fiction that worked in ways I hadn't seen before. And now, while there are some nice tweaks out there, some interesting riffs and variations, I haven't heard or read anything in a while that felt wholly new to me.

Part of this, I'm sure, is purely because after 11733 days of experience I've encountered a vast number of things. Not, by any means, everything, of course; but enough to get a general feel of a large number of subjects. Enough to get a general idea of how micro-economics links to psychology, links to sociology, links to politics, etc. Enough to get a feel for how the world flows around me and cope with it without it driving me mad with incomphrension. I've studied enough philosophy to know why looking for ultimate answers is just a nonsense.

Similarly, very little new technology stuff interests me - I've known computers get faster every year since 1990 - knowing that this years graphics card produces nicer graphics than last years just doesn't excite me - I haven't been impressed by CGI in a couple of years now, just by the uses it's put to.

And that's the other factor - the endlessly mutable possibilities of the digital age. In many ways the photograph killed representative art as anything more than a curiosity - what was the point of striving for authenticity and realism in your painting when a camera could do it so much better? In a similar vein - when computer artists can produce absolutely anything with their digital paintbrushes, why is anything more impressive than anything else? True - we're not there yet - but we're definitely very near the point where any image or effect can be produced - and when you've reached the stage where you can produce a horde of orcs rampaging across a post-apocalyptic New York, while the Statue of Liberty battles it out with Godzilla in the background, how can you possibly top that?

The same is true of music. Once you reach the stage where music is deconstructable into its component parts, each of which can then be stretched, compressed, distorted or otherwise mutated, you've opened it up to infinite possibilities. While we obviously haven't explored those possibilities fully (what with them being infinite and all), we seem to have hit the point where there are no more _kinds_ of exploration available. Making music faster, or slower, or crunchier, or more distorted, or simpler or more complex (etc, etc.) have been tried, along with introducing entirely non-musical elements and, indeed, removing the music altogether. Which brings me back to my earlier statement that it's been several years since I heard anything that didn't seem to be a variation on a theme.

This doesn't mean that I'm not generally happy on a moment-by-moment basis. But the things that drove me (looking for the next big thing, new experiences, new toys to play with) aren't driving me any more on a larger scale. There's a lack there, something I need to fill if I want to feel whole.

Any suggestions?

Comments

[cruft.livejournal.com]

Jesus!

[cruft.livejournal.com]

C.S. Lewis's thoughts (rather patronizing but maybe correct):

People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on "being in love" for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves that have made a mistake and are entitled to change -- not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last. The sort of thrill a boy has at the first idea of flying will not go on when he has joined the R.A.F. and is really learning to fly. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there. Does this mean it would be better not to learn to fly and not to live in the beautiful place? By no means. In both cases, if you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. What is more (and I can hardly find words to tell you how important I think this), it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction. The man who has learned to fly and become a good pilot will suddenly discover music; the man who has settled down to life in the beauty spot will discover gardening.

That is, I think, one little part of what Christ ment by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go -- let it die away -- go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow -- and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them. It is much better fun to learn to swin than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I quite like that actually. Certainly you do get to a stage where you realise you can't endlessly prolong what we used in the sad ol 80s in my circles to call Desperate Fun. Or not at any rate without an indefinite supply of cocaine, and maybe not even then..

I suggested creating things rather than just consuming things, art, sensuality, physicality :-)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Are you trying to suggest Andy should learn to cook?

(does his cooking still suck, btw?)

There's three phases to Andy's cooking that I have witnessed.

Phase 1: The Student Years - Everything grilled/fried goes with potato waffles.

Phase 2: The Tentative Steps - Everything in a wok

Phase 3: The Curious Exploration - Everything in a steamer

Perhaps cordon bleu cooking will sate our chum's aching desires.

[derumi.livejournal.com]

Maybe Andy should subscribe to my food journal, as occasional as my posts there can be. : p

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

If you're not impressed by what is already out there, then be the one who -makes- something that is out there and is different.

Or, rather than looking to the future, look to the past.

Learn to do woodcuts, paint with tempura, become a conductor, play the lute or the lyre.. heck, invent a new system of movable type.

Yes, you can do anything with technology (and here I remember the kid in Fame saying "Who needs an orchestra when I have a synthesiser! I am an orchestra!" or something similar), but you're still doing it with technology. You can produce the same effect, but is the end result ALL that matters? If it is, then yes.. you are in a bit of a pickle in some ways.

If, on the other hand, the MEANS matters to you, then heck, go the long way round. Find something astounding that's created the old-fashioned way.

Or, in a simpler vein, go to the library. When I was bored one summer, I'd go to the library every two days, and check out four books. On the first day, they were four authors whose books I'd never read, whose surnames began with "A". Then the next time, go for "B"... They could be any books, picked at random, so not from genres/authors/publishers I might normally read. I didn't get all the way through the alphabet, but if you're that stuck, why not go for it?

(for reference, genre Westerns and Mill & Boon novels are bad. Very bad.)

[andrewducker]

You're right about making stuff. I just have to put the effort in.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Try some interesting non-fiction (John McPhee's works are always good), look for some higher quality SF (there is essentially no high quality fantasy around today, so there's no point in looking for it), travel to another country and sightsee, investigate anime or (if you are already into anime) look for other SF/fantasy related entertainments that are completely new to you. What your brain needs is new and different sorts of input - we live in a large world, you just need to look for it.

[andrewducker]

Sightseeing actually does very little for me. I spent two weeks once travelling from SF to LA, via Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. I then spent 4 days on various student floors in Texas, gaming. I enjoyed the latter a lot more...

Cheers for the advice tho.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Or you could try stillness. Constant stimulation is not the answer, as I keep telling myself while ordering the next fix batch of books from Amazon.

Me, I'm sating my thirst for the new by a course on How Paintings Work at Ed Uni Lifelong Learning.

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

"Everything that can be invented has already been invented."

-- Charles H. Duell, director of the U.S. Patent Office, 1899

"Everything seems like repetitions of the patterns I've seen before."

-- Andrew Ducker, self-confessed geek, 2004

[andrewducker]

Well yes, I'm hoping that next year a whole new musical genre will appear. It'd be very cool if it did.

[tigrrgrr.livejournal.com]

See now I was going to suggest massive quantities of chocolate and learning to cook. Someone already suggested the cooking though.

After .3 seconds of thought I have decided to stick to my original answer. Learn to cook. Really cook. Not hamburger patties or beef stew. Pick out your favorite Chinese cuisine and learn to make it better than you've ever been able to buy it. Or your favorite dessert. Or whatever. Just learn to be an excellent cook with one item. Then go from there.

[darkoshi]

maybe you'd enjoy doing something physical... yoga, martial arts, dance, join a drumming group or chanting group, etc.
I could send you copies of those 2 mix cds I made last year... probably nothing on them that'll knock your socks off, but you never know.

[freemoore.livejournal.com]

take up a meditative practice. read some of Ken Wilber's non-fiction, remember to pay attention to the many times PRACTICE is advocated, try to keep an open mind to the possibility that there are developmental capacities within you that are qualitatively different from the normal experience of your rational mind. then do the practice, and eventually you will come to experience new things, which are not regressive, nor delusional, nor fictional. read the theory, try the practice. please don't dismiss non-rational out of hand; there are ideas which deserve your respect if you would only give them space; if you do the experiment properly in the laboratory of your awareness you will get valid and striking results.

it ain't all bullshit.

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

Y'know, trying something non-rational (as opposed to irrational; do leave the Reiki and the UFOs alone) might open up a whole new world of experience. Make an effort to use the other half of your brain. It's hard at first because the rational half hates it when you do that and will deny access to the other half's resources and provide you with all sorts of rational reasons why it's not a good idea. In fact, it's necessary to to starve the rational half of your brain, to actively scorn rational activities. Paint, sing, act, make films, write science fiction, crochet tea cosies, but don't write code, don't fall back into rational patterns of thought. And it's important not to analyze what you're doing: the moment a concert pianist starts to think about where his/her fingers are going, the music becomes mechanistic. Just do, don't think.

When I'm engaged in some creative activity between contracts (the months when I'm out of work, when I'm not forced into a rational mode of thought eight hours a day), I'm aware that my mind is operating in a significantly different mode, a non-rational, non-thinking, doing mode. What I churn out may be rubbish, but it gets done and it's very satisfying.

But sometimes it's hard to go back. The non-rational side of the brain is just as hungry for your attention as the rational side, and once engaged it won't let go without a fight. When I'm back at work it is hard to re-establish the other mode and I resent the ugly rationality of it all. But my creative output also dries up. I can't write/photograph/draw anything decent while I'm working -- not because I don't have the time, or I'm too tired, but because I'm aware that the rational side of my brain becomes dominant again.

OK, I'm at work and I don't have time to edit this to make much sense, so I guess what I'm saying is this: Use the force, Luke.

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

Its this simple: You're getting *old*. In doing so, you lose your sense of wonder.

[darkoshi]

Oh, and try getting enough sleep too. Never underestimate the potential revitalizing effects of a good night's sleep.

And maybe I'll try to follow some of my own advice one of these days.