There was a comedian at the Tomorrow Show — name was Kyle Kinane — who said something like, “When I get into a debate with someone with a lip piercing, I figure… well, if you made that mistake, why should I listen to anything you say?”

Along those lines, if you haven’t solved something important… like the problem of mankind’s corporeal mortality, or that we have to play the mundane and illusory socio-economic game that is modern survival, or that we are required to reduce an entire planet of happy little life forms to food and afterwards shit them out… it pretty much invalidates whatever philosophy you preach.

Over a Hundred Billion Humans have been created and will probably be destroyed. And most of them never realize they are only cells in a larger Organism that they can’t see or understand. After a short time, they reproduce, try their best to pass on their knowledge, and die.

It’s fun to point at the other cells and believe “that guy is the conspiracy, not me.” But from outer space, we’re not all that different from each other. (So don’t get too excited about how enlightened you are, because the aliens might not even be able to distinguish Joel Bauer from The Chosen One. I know I can’t.)

Maybe we really are just silly Sneetches.

To the universe, the earth might be a concrete, steel, plastic, sodium, and carbon monoxide factory, getting ready to ship its product. And maybe all we’re doing is arguing over the fastest way to get there.

Can we learn to enjoy our ride through space, while working in this factory? Is that the point of it all? Should we narrow our focus to the context of gossip, entertainment, and sports to distract us from The Question? Give up and take some medication? Pretend we don’t know this is all a joke? Pretend we think the Monopoly money is real?

Or should we keep searching for something bigger than our imagination?

Because we know it’s there.

Right?

Here’s a theory.

We all have an internal movie screen. Projected on it are abstract and mystical sensations — something beyond us. It’s like a sensor that only detects the secret, underlying messages in art. It filters out the crisp details, the literal meanings of words, and what we’re left with is a strange and compelling dream viewed by a child-like caveman. Maybe we can never understand the contents of that movie with the conscious, rational, analytical mind.

Is that OK? I think it is.

Plato believed in something called The Theory of Forms. That everything we see in the real world is only a “shadow” of reality — they are only archetypes or abstract representations.

Whether you agree, it’s an idea worth exploring. Instead of claiming one mode of experiencing the world (and yourself) is morally superior, maybe you can learn to switch between them voluntarily. Maybe they are both meant to be used together for a holistic experience.

I’ve found that as I learn the science behind things like music, screenwriting, and cinematography, it’s easy to forget about what’s playing on that internal movie screen. Instead of suspending my disbelief during a film, I see acts, camera angles, and exposition.

The problem is that this can be fascinating, at least at first.

Over time, technique develops into its own language. Is that the language you want to translate all art into for the rest of your life? Maybe disassembling the machine kills it.

Here’s an exercise: when you experience music, try not to listen to the notes, scales, chords, or instruments.

Don’t watch the projector.

–
This is my public blog. You can also Join My Cult!

According to Janna Levin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University: “The Big Bang is often misunderstood as an explosion in Space, as though Time and Space existed. But Space itself is created in the Big Bang.”

“I don’t usually do television. I believe television is killing us. So we must declare a war. A holy war against talk shows, commercials, and Bonanza.”

If you walk into any Barnes & Noble or Borders, you should be able to locate a magazine in the Computers section called 2600 (The Hacker Quarterly). 

Earlier this year, Dr. Zoltan wrote an article called “Hacking Music” and it has been published in the Autumn issue:

http://store.2600.com/autumn2008.html

Dr. Zoltan could scan and upload the article, but he would not want to ruin the magical experience of reading the printed magazine in your local bookstore. 

It is an honor to be in print for the first time in nearly 3 years.

Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk
Hollywood’s Most Innovative Entertainer Since Carrot Top
drzoltan@drzoltan.com>
http://www.drzoltan.com
http://www.myspace.com/drzoltan
http://www.youtube.com/drzoltan
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10795446153
http://www.lastfm.com/user/drzoltan

Katie Konrath at getFreshMinds has written a blog about Dr. Zoltan’s 81 Ideas On Creative Career. 

Her site was recently named one of the top Innovation Blogs by Guy Kawasaki’s site, AllTop. 

Subscribe to getFreshMinds in your favorite RSS Reader!

The Northern California Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy have applied some of Dr. Zoltan’s “81 Ideas On Creative Career” to their training.

{ This post was written and approved by Dr. Zoltan! If your pectoral muscles are good for pushing other people down, visit http://www.drzoltan.com/blog. Speak loudly and carry a heavy backpack. }

Are You The Same Enough To Be Different?

Humans have a hard time perceiving differences between one thing and another unless they are mostly the same. 

How much difference is there between:

Coke and Pepsi?
Sprite and 7up?
Ford and Chevy?
Forks and Spoons?
Dogs and Cats?
Star Wars and Star Trek?
Blondes and Brunettes?
Los Angeles and New York?
Mac OS and Windows?
Community Radio and Commercial Radio?
Republican and Democrat?
Condenser and Dynamic?
Lakers and Celtics?
Serif and Sans Serif?
Gibson and Fender?
Heterosexual and Homosexual?
Angels and Demons?
AM and FM?
English and Spanish?
Vegetarian and Carnivore?
McDonalds and Burger King?
Islam and Christianity?
Ketchup and Mustard?
DVD and Blu-Ray?
Yin and Yang?
White Wine and Red Wine?
Socialist and Capitalist?
Coffee and Tea?
Men and Women?
Rich and Poor?

Not much. Their fundamental sameness makes all the difference!

{ This post was written and approved by Dr. Zoltan! When your hearing starts to go, visit http://www.drzoltan.com/blog. Or just drink some Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda. It will help stabilize your psychotic mood swings. }

What Every American Needs to Know (and Do) About FISA Before Tuesday, July 8th from Tim Ferriss on Vimeo.

The above video is from The Blog of Tim Ferriss. Dr. Zoltan followed the instructions presented below and urges all humans in the United States to do so also likewise. 

Daniel explains below several important reasons to act in the next few hours (much more in the video), but for those who are prepared to spend 60 seconds to help protect their liberties and prevent warrantless wiretapping from becoming a new standard in the US, here are two options:

1. ALL AMERICANS: Go to the EFF website here and put in your zipcode to find your Senator’s phone number. Call them and read the short script on the same page. If no answer, click the link at the bottom of the page to e-mail them.
(Tell others verbally to go to “www.eff.org” and click “take action”)

2. OBAMA SUPPORTERS: Go to My.BarackObama.com here and join the group requesting he oppose (as he did earlier) the amendment. This takes about 30 seconds. I suggest changing “ListServ” in the bottom right to “Do not receive e-mails.”
(Tell others verbally to search “obama please vote no” on Google and My.BarackObama.com will be in the top 3 results, currently #1)

“So America is isolated economically: we don’t produce anything here anymore – we can’t be self-sufficient in terms of industry. We don’t make shoes here; we don’t make umbrellas, pencils. We make entertainment and information. We don’t even make the computers! We produce the ideas that occupy the computers. That’s why artists are so important right now – it’s one of the few things that we actually produce. So the arts are hot, some artists are successful – this whole area around here is full of artists, and they drove the real-estate prices up. So, now you can’t move into this county for less then 250,000 dollars. Thanks to the artists! You wonder why people get angry at artists – it’s not our fault – we’re just looking for low rent but the real-estate developers are following us, sniffing our butts wherever we go to find out where the next beautiful cheap real-estate is going to be…”

…and a special bonus:

“There’s no leftist movement in America, there’s no populist movement here, and the best think that could happen is that this thing just breaks up. So right now I am in favor of the politics of the very worst. I wasn’t going to vote against Bush. For one thing, I’ve never voted in my life and I didn’t want to ruin my lifetime record for something as stupid as that. I didn’t vote FOR Bush either, but I knew he was going to win whether it was legal or not. It was clear that he would win. Actually, we are very close to some kind of weird post-modern fascism here, including the Reichstag Fire and the whole thing.”

To read the entire interview with Hakim Bey (including the curse words, which were removed from this post), go to: http://sasha.miltsov.org/krasoty/bey1