Learning Blender

Here is the result of my first modeling tutorial. I think it's pretty cool. It took quite a while. I think it looks reasonably realistic. Many of the ones on the website looked like the sky was too dark.

On the silliness of fear

I thought this was a really good video. I have no idea who this guy is, but he sure seems like he's not stressed about life. Especially cool is his use of the word "nonexistiantial". Anyway, enjoy, and think about what he's saying.

Halted beginnings

It feels like one of those times that feels like the right time to say something, but nothing readily comes to mind to answer the question of what is to be said. A little pondering (which works best when the fingers are moving) is in order. Here it comes. The infinite void slowly becomes material, and I step from the shore into the shallow waters of purpose. Do my toes experience a biting cold, or does the vastness welcome an inquiry? It is pleasant, and the sun still tarries above a dusky grave, so then it is safe to roll up my pant legs and venture at least a little ways into the water.

False alarm... I've got nothing.

Cool Video About the Brain Hemispheres

So what do you think?


The thought that came to mind is that maybe some schooling tends to suppress the right brain - the intuitive side. I'm studying engineering, and sometimes it becomes difficult to break free from the ultra-rational method of thought and come to an understanding of things in their relationship to one another. Perhaps the flaw with education is that it tries to institutionalize the learning of intuition. Isn't the only real way to understand the world to experience it? Doubtless, there is great value in learning the concrete and compartmentalizing information, but maybe we have tried to shift learning into a spot where it can do both but have only ended up teaching neither adequately.

Lately I've become aware of a decreased ability to understand concepts. It has gotten worse over the years of my schooling. Granted, there is the possibility that the material is simply harder to comprehend, but that doesn't explain the more general feeling of a cloud or veil that "shrouds" (for lack of a better word that isn't a Discovery Channel cliche) my ability to think clearly. Hopefully, my intuition has not be educated out of me.

Just a thought. Feel free to disagree. And as a disclaimer, this obviously does not apply to all education.

Book Review

This is the latest of the books I've read. It was written in the 50's by Owen Barfield. Somewhere I read that he was a member of "The Inklings", a group of men that included the well-know philologist/author J.R.R. Tolkien. Barfield, like Tolkien to an extent, is a believer that knowledge of people of the past can be derived from their language. The book History in English Words opens to us a sense of the mind of ancient people and also shows the reader the influences of events on the language we speak today.

I have to admit, here at the outset, that it took me a great length of time to read this book. It is one of those books that I have to be in the mood to read. Specifically, I have to be in the wordy, etymology mood to really delve into this book. But once I was in, I was truly fascinated by what I read.

History in English Words is not simply a book filled with random facts about words that most people don't care about. The book ends up being about the history of the consciousness of man, how he has evolved from a superstitious and sort of mythical point of view in which his destiny is determined by the occurrences of the universe or the acts of the gods. What has gradually become of man is that he now views himself and his world more objectively. We commonly think of ourselves as being the authors of our own destinies, whereas the ancients believed that they were being acted upon by the universe. Barfield explains that we can hardly relate to some of the thinking that went on in the ancient days because we have such a different language now. He argues that language is used to form thoughts; since our language is so different from, say, 1,000 years ago, we can scarcely now build the same thought structures that existed then.

This all seems somewhat of a stretch, and the book needs to be read to get the full effect of what I'm trying to paraphrase here. It was an interesting read, and I was able to take a lot from it. The book provides the knowledge to look at the world differently. It has helped me to think about the words I use, and it has showed me the real meaning in much of the English language.

It is not a very long book - about an inch in thickness. It should really be standard reading in high school or colleges. It's that valuable.

Either the smoke is clearing, or this is the onset of premature grumpy old man syndrome.

Sometimes (or maybe not) when we look back on life there are the moments when we can see the smoke clearing from the battlefield, and everything that has occurred in this day of life is revealed in the light of the sun. Why do I say "battlefield"? I say it because that's what life is, isn't it? We are in a constant struggle to obtain some sort of purpose, some ideal end to this world of dust. We put all our efforts to tear down the things that are an evil to our purpose, but we forget sometimes that perfection cannot be created from this gritty material of mortal life. The science of alchemy proved to be hopeless to achieve it's ends, but somehow we think that we can change the stuff of which our world is made into something higher in nature. You can't make gold out of lead (well, not stable gold).

What do I see now that the smoke vanishes into the wind? I see desolation. I see the rotted fruits of times past, the empty gaze of the survivors who once held such brightness in their eager eyes. Nobody has anything to say because they're all thinking the same thing anyway. We did everything right. The enemy lay lifeless on the green field, and water trickles through the adjacent creek, though now a few of the dead release their own red life into this artery of the earth.

You become dizzy. The horizon tilts and you suddenly feel blades of grass on your face. The survivors are gone, and so are the dead. There was never anybody else in the fight, just you. The preceding strife and destruction only destroyed yourself.

I spent years in high school being only quasi-outgoing. Never did sports; never played in the band; never really did much. The three or so years preceding this previous year, I really tried to be outgoing. It worked. I made lots of friends. Most of them have moved on down the road of life. Some of them don't bother to say hello when they pass (perhaps I should say hello too, but they're the ones not making eye contact). Some there are that have always been friends, and they always will be to me. That part doesn't really change. Time apart doesn't change it, and station in life doesn't change it. When times of reuniting come, all is well.

This doesn't seem to be going into any specific direction, so I'll just say what I came to say. I think we burn ourselves out socially. We try so hard to become who we think will get us what we want in life. Sometimes, we feel like we have to destroy things that get in our way, but we ultimately find that we've only destroyed parts of ourselves. Evening hits, and we see the long shadows of our ambition lying on the ground, but we are alone to behold the scene. In the end alone. The same shallow people that you tried to impress fled when it was apparent that you could not sustain the effort. I see these kids get all excited and confident because they're doing what they think they're supposed to be doing. They have validation of their life. But that validation fades. That validation is mortal. That validation is meaningless.

The only validation we need comes from He who is better than the substance of this world. He is the Great Alchemist. He turns us into gold. The excitement of the world and the social scene will fade. Facebook statuses and "tweets" will be forgotten with time. Fads are forgotten before they are known. There are few things that are steady and certain, but those that can be so categorized are unequivocally so.

New site

Perhaps it's due to the insatiable desire for the human spirit to attain perfection in its endeavors; perhaps it's the glow of Jupiter's red storm on the rings of Saturn; some say that it's because the changing poles of the earth increase the kinetic energy of nerve signals to the pituitary gland. At any rate, I've made a new website. It's different from this blog because it'll be focusing more on hobbies and technical things, but it seems to be a good outlet for those sort of things.

Initially, it was going to replace this site and maybe the others on blogger, but the creation process has left me still wanting to muse less publicly. I don't think there are many that read this blog, and I don't have a problem with that - in-fact, I think I'd prefer that. I think less readers makes me more open to explore abstract thoughts and feelings, whereas a knowledge of many readers of this blog would make me less open and personal. Personal may be a bad thing on a blog, but oh well.

Coming up, I'll be doing a little book review to change it up. That is, I'll do one if I can ever finish the book. Finals have gotten in the way a bit. The book is History in English Words, by Owen Barfield. It's probably the most fascinating book I've read in a long time. It's taken me a very long time to read, but that is mostly because you have to be in the right mindset to enjoy it and to be interested in it. And it's not just etymology; it touches on so much more than that alone. So be excited.