Can we go to Iceland yet? Pleeease? Not only does the weather never get above 80 degrees F, but they have geothermal hot springs (mmm) and pretty much the best musicians in the world (múm, Sigur Ros, Valgeir Sigurdsson, Olafur Arnalds, Johan Johannsson, Amiina, etc.)

And views of the sea.

And the aurora borealis.

~~~

In other news, I’ve been thinking quite abit about the future, how all the pieces of my life are going to fit together after college. When dividing my webness into two parts (my Facebook, professional website, etc. vs. Black Nix), the impetus was the need to differentiate between work and play, career and hobby, image and substance whathaveyou.

And then, this morning, I realized that my life itself is heading in the direction of that same division. Of course there will be connections between the two, overlaps (they won’t be *disjoint sets*), but the same basic structure will remain.

Work: AI research, hopefully. And I think much more can be done with AI than is currently the case, even if you don’t consider future technological progress. I mean, I don’t know a *whole* lot about what’s going on in the field, but it seems to me that most AI researchers are concerned with a little segment of intelligence, with finding logical algorithms that would create an output able to pass the Turing Test. But, seriously, our brains don’t work like that… we don’t have a “conversation” sub-brain and a “music” sub-brain and an “art” sub-brain with structured modules to accomplish a certain task and only a certain task. Actually, experiments have been done in which researchers transplant pieces of one segment of the brain into another segment of the brain and the animal adapts just fine. This is strong evidence that all out sub-brains, all our little modules, are composed of exactly the same stuff, and it’s really the interaction between the little modules that creates the complexities and differences of our intelligence. Mm yeah, that was a bit of a tangent. Sorry.

Play: Music, of course. Also, finding cool Icelandic friends (because I’ll be living in Iceland, don’t you forget) and playing music with them. And watching the sea. And the northern lights.

Why am I a math major, then? Why not just major in computer science and, I dunno, neurobiology? I think, in a sense, what I’m getting from this major is not necessarily the content but the process. The ability to think analytically, to logically step from one argument to another. And I think that’s something that will help me whatever field I happen to work in, or whatever hobby I happen to enjoy. I used to think that my life had to head in *one* direction, that I had to do a single *something* with it, that I had to find that *one right thing* to major in and pursue. But, really, life is grand enough in scope that I can pursue several things at once. I can be an AI researcher AND a web developer AND a mathematician AND a musician. And a lover of beautiful things.

Wouldn’t I just get bored any other way?

I do hate that it seems that all gay guys care about is sex. I know people say this all the time, but truthfully it’s not even just gay guys… it’s everyone, regardless of sexual preference. And I don’t mean just sex (although that’s often the case), but money, video games, drugs, music, chocolate, everything too easy to get and too pleasurable to be unimportant. Do people even know what they live for in life? Are people even aware of their own long-term goals, their desires? No – nobody knows and most people don’t even think about it on a daily basis. And yet we continually go about pretending we’re all cool because we’re rich, or we’re good-looking, or we have more friends or more video games or more… sex. Well guess what? We’re NOT. Because nobody really understands what the fuck we’re doing here and why.

You know what else pisses me off? I mean, life is a pain to begin with, but seriously — how often have your felt completely alone? Doesn’t it seem strange how little we know about each other? Now I don’t mean what we like to eat, our favorite foods, our favorite music, etc. I mean, what it’s like to live as they do. That brings up another question; in that case, how much do we really know about ourselves? How can we possibly compare ourselves to other people without ever being in their shoes, in their bodies, in their shells? I used to think there was a “right” way and a “wrong” way to live, borne by countless of years of tradition, perfected into an unwritten manual that was continually passed down to you by your elders. That’s bullshit. Because nobody knows how they’re living in respect to how others live, at the fundamental level. Everyone just does what they can to get by.

And I hate feeling trapped in this way, you know? Even when we’re politically “free”, we’re still always trapped in the limitations of our own physical and mental selves. It’s never “we” truly, it’s never “everyone”, it’s never even “you” or “he” or “her” because what do I know about a you? Only what my brain processes through my eyes and my ears and my nose. There’s such a barrier between ourselves and everyone else, and everything else. How do we stand it sometimes? How do we go on?

I think it’s strange that the universe is expanding when it seems we need to go exactly the opposite way. I would hope that we might one day be able to pull it back together (folding bedsheets), but it seems that really we might just be on the downhill side of the life of the universe. Are we witnessing the death of everything?

Then again, isn’t the beginning of life also the beginning of death?

Or maybe there’s more to it than the security of togetherness. Is it the glory of independence? (What does that even mean, independence?)

Whenever I have a long-term vision of what I want to be, it’s always something strong and independent. Without external ties, without external needs. Last year I got a vision of a dragon, red and orange, soaring through the stars. Fierce and strong and, invincible really, not because of the high-tech defense mechanisms but because of the sheer strength of will. The sense of purpose and direction. That purpose and direction was somehow strengthening. Was that how I envisioned my future?

A few years earlier in a fever-dream (I had the flu at the time) I envisioned what eventually became Kaos, bearer of the weight of the world’s hostilities, who became the hero in my novel In the Shadow of the World. It’s strange, to gain in life we always must first bear burdens — does that mean our gain is proportional to the burdens we bear? To be the most happy must I also be the most miserable?

I guess what it really comes down to is this: I want to live for something meaningful. Meaning does not equal sex, it does not equal video games, it does not equal money. And that, as strange as it sounds, severely limits my options. Because in this world, those are some of the easiest things to find happiness in. But then again, perhaps meaningfulness does not equal happiness either.

I’ve expressed the view to some of you that I want to go into artificial intelligence research. What if… instead of promoting machines that helped us externally, in society and in industry and in our households, we enhanced our own processes? What if we could all link together mentally? Wireless internet capabilities? Wouldn’t that be a step in the direction of togetherness? If all of our thoughts were linked together, wouldn’t we then be a cohesive human race? No more barriers? No more shells?

What if we could also enhance our own mental power, our own physical strength, through the use of add-on’s and plug-in’s. (Like Firefox!) Wouldn’t that be a step in the direction of independence? In the direction of strength through more than weight-lifting and intelligence through more than poring over manuscripts?

Why is everything always a trade?

Meh, just a random rant on a random Thursday night. Now I need to sleep.