7.7.14

Moving Forwards...

I am moving the content of this blog to a new place:

Create Infinite Dreams

Hope to see you there!

-TB

6.7.14

Waking Life Excerpt #4

"The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant is to say yes to all of existence." 

2.7.14

Waking Life Excerpt #3

You know, they say that dreams are real only as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life? See, there's a lot of us that are out there that are mapping the mind-body relationship, of dreams. We're called the oneironauts. We're the explorers of the dream-world. Really, it's just about the two opposing states of consciousness which don't really oppose, at all. See, in the waking world, the neural system inhibits the activation of the vividness of memories. And this makes evolutionary sense. See you'd be maladapted for the perceptual image of a predator to be mistaken for the memory of one, and vice-versa. If the memory of a predator conjured up a perceptual image, we would be running off to the bathroom every time we had a scary thought. So you have these serotonic neurons that inhibit hallucinations that they themselves are inhibited during REM sleep. See this allows dreams to appear real, while preventing competition from other perceptual processes. This is why dreams are mistaken for reality. To the functional system of neural activity that creates our world, there is no difference between dreaming a perception and an action, and actually the waking perception and action. 

24.6.14

Waking Life - Excerpt #2

"Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. And this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like, you know, "water." We came up with a sound for that. Or "Saber-toothed tiger right behind you." We came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting, I think, is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we're experiencing. What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say "love," the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person's ear, travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain, you know, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I'm saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They're just symbols. They're dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It's unspeakable. And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we've connected, and we think that we're understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it's what we live for."

19.6.14

Waking Life - Excerpt #1

"The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us for the new century. I'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately, sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it's a philosophy of despair. But I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life. But one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it. It's like your life is yours to create. I've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about. It's something very concrete. It's you and me talking. Making decisions. Doing things and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting. Nevertheless, what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. Makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are."

14.6.14

Requiem of a Colloquial Soliloquy

I stood there, alone, swallowed by the darkness, rain pouring down,
staring, staring at what was left of me, lying there on the ground,
blind shock coursing through my invisible veins, trying to remember,
remember, what path I took that would see me dismembered,
and was there pain, or simply nothing, those memories no longer flow,
and that I will no longer grow, this makes me furious and so I grow
a hundred times the size of normal
whispered howls of one immortal
destined then to roam the planet
breaking things like plates and granite
they say to go to the light - well can it
'cos thats not how it goes, oh no,
theres so much more that you don't know,
from my perspective, I see things
the meta-world,
no peace indeed,
i talk to no one, my cries unheard
when all i want's my solo words
to fly high and chirp so sweet,
a bird is nestled at my feet
the feet that do not touch the ground
I hover and make rustling sounds
but no one notices, nobody cares.
so i try remembering things that I've done in my life,
was there really truly that much strife?
was life as hard as i made it seem?
its seems much simpler from this side of the screen
but its ok though, you get out what you put in, and whatever. nothing can be done now, there's no such thing as a time machine right? and even if there was, where does that leave me? I'm now outside of the realm of space and time (for the most part) so even if time and space could revert back to a restore point, would I be able to go back and jump back into the old home like the old days? i doubt it, leaving just a shell, just like that magic shell chocolate syrup that you put on ice cream and it hardens, its like a shell with cold sweet nothing inside of it. maybe, maybe thats how it works. I guess i have eternity to ponder it. while im here though, might as well check out the exotic places that i didn't check out back then. Ill start with Egypt - those pyramids are quite intriguing and I'd like to find out more about them.


4.6.14

Colin Kaepernick....

Just became the highest paid QB in NFL history. As a 49er fan, a Kap advocate, and an experienced Fantasy Football player (hah), I think that this move, while overpriced based on experience, was something that needed to be done one way or another. His ceiling is super high, having only started for a 1.5 seasons and making it to 2 NFC Championships, and one SB. He's got one of the strongest arms in the NFL,  is one of the fastest QB's in the NFL, and is physically capable of bringing a team to the next level. He needs to work on his progressions and his decision making, and he'll be right there where the $$$ is. Plus, in 3 years this contract might just be the norm - better to lock in a player of his caliber now then let him shop for other deals later.

YOU THE MAN KAP!!!!!!!!!!!

3.6.14

Chalk Art in Denver CO, so many awesome pieces!!! This one most represents my current mindset ;)

Today, June 3rd 2014

Today is my birthday, the 27th year that I have been on this planet.

What's more, today is also Alan Ginsberg's birthday, an intriguing fellow who wrote a critical poem/letter that shaped my young adult life more than a decade ago (though it was written a lot longer ago than that). An abstract way to deliver a serious and radical message -- that was my biggest takeaway when I first read the piece. While there are tons of incredible writers and minds on this planet, to be able to express your thoughts in almost cryptic ways, so much so that it becomes something more than art, but it is art in itself, abstract poetry of insightful expressions, where the art truly protrudes from it, while at the same time capturing an idea or ideas that are real and here -- that is true magic.

The title to this masterpiece is Howl, a piece that I memorized when I was 15 and recited to a class that I had in high school. Time certainly flies.

Here is a snippet of Howl, in tribute to the birth of Mr. Ginsberg. Cheers!!

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night
with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,
incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,
Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,
who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo....

25.2.14

Noam Chomsky...

...once wrote a sentence as an example of one that is grammatically correct, but semantically nonsensical.

The sentence is:

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

To me, this is a truly beautiful sentence, and one that really touches close to home, as many of my thoughts are made up of such abstractness.  It's funny how famous this sentence is, written in 1955, because of the way that it feels like it should make sense, the grammatical pieces of a sentence are there, but really it doesn't make sense, so they say. When in fact the sentence makes perfect sense to those whose minds see in the way that the sentence lives. Sure, colorless green ideas, where an idea should not be able to be both colorless AND green, but those who say that are of the feeble hearted, those who have not visited the deep palindrome of one's infinite dreams, created then and only by they who dwell within it. Such a sentence in such a place aforementioned is commonplace, a dull observation in such an extravagant universe.

That is all.

-TB

21.2.14

In those days folk still believed in... #qwikRite

Famous Line: "In those days folk still believed in..."
5 Words to use: Kooky, Backpack, Somersault, Hiccup, Goofy
10 minutes...BEGIN

 In those days folk still believed in love at first sight. It was as if, for some reason, when a person looked at another person that they had never seen before, something within them became magnetized, fireworks within their heart, and it was all over for them. Sometimes, this whole 'love at first sight' notion happened between two humans that had seen each other before, just not in a long time, thus defeating the purpose of the whole premise. We know now that this is obviously not a true statement, or something that actually happens. We humanoids have evolved past the time when Love was something that would make one act foolish, or GOOFY, or KOOKY, or some other pointless feeling, which got those Y2K humans into so much trouble. No, this is not something inherent, but make believe, a way to give one meaning when that meaning was being evasive. Like doing SOMERSAULTS down an escalator of a crowed public mall -- as this exerts one's masulinity, we do not rely upon such act to find a mate, as that is discovered by the Sorting Hat. There is no reason to tie love or strange feelings into a relationship that exists solely for the procreation of our species. Simply HICCUP into your mate's mouth, a simple flick of the forehead, and presto, a fetus begins to grow from the BACKPACK that the male carries around. What more needs to be said?

END

hahaha. I have no idea, so don't ask.

Full famous line: In those days folk still believed in witches, and trembled at a curse.

Whoa, wayyy different direction. Love it.

18.2.14

Garbage Trucks (c. 2007)

Garbage trucks.  Hormonal lottery of the urban waste, picking the luscious fruit from the garden of anguish and horror, though it shares a boundary line, an infinite one-dimensional entity that sums its existence to less than a single piece of litter, the breeze merely a tiny whisper of Mother Earth, a fluttering hymn that tells the stories of all of time, sometimes a deep melody, an account of the scars that have grazed the epidermis, the muscle, the bone of our very dear planet; on its tongue the trash rests, in and around and out and between and during and under and through and after and before it knows and can see or believe, it becomes itself apart of the toxic the clutter the empty pizza boxes the rotting food the trillions upon trillions of streaming data that exists between and around and within us, every moment that passes, our minds experience this by the thousands, the millions, the billions, the trillions, the googolplex search engine that anyone can use, and many do use it, but alas; Ex Square Triangle Circle in a Diamond Club Spade Heart of Gold Silver White Black as Night Day for a Walk Run Swim Dance in the Clouds Rain Water Bottle Drink Flow Release Repeat the First Second Third Eighth Ninth Eleventh but not the Seventh Son Unique Antique as a Rock Mountain Forest Dinosaurs Our Mind, brought to us in an instant, when we as creatures were ready, had evolved to a stage, had become ready, ready for the necessity to Think Reason Doubt Feel Believe Lie Love Hate Regret Cry Welcome Create Destroy Ponder Wonder Imagine Dream Wink Explore Forget Remember Play FUCK Dance Swing Laugh Protect Invent Win Lose Smoke Drink Hurt Bloat Kill Demand Accept Judge Bother Deny Purchase Sell Listen Taste See Feel Hear, but not only as any other creature can use its senses, but to grasp with the intellect what we perceive, what we Hear Think See Feel Taste, to know it and register it and understand it, to remember it and tell stories about it, to decide on it, to change your mind about it, to feel differently than another about it, to live it, that moment, forever captured, your life a script from your eyes, to be seen and interpreted by only that which is the `I’, the thinker, the intellect, the you that makes you, but as a computer the brain like a program runs as a stream of data, can it be discovered, access to ones mind, ones soul, or simply the physical brain, where memory may be stored, to create films of all intellects lives, and non-intellects, the animals the fish the dogs the spiders the caterpillars the bunnies the jellyfish the lions the birds the rhinoceros the bat the bear the elephant, all minds eye in a file, on record documented and kept locked, and  we are watched, and we are no longer the free will we were given by God, by The Supreme Infinite Being, The Creator of the universe, for a Bang so Big does not happen on its own, an illogical concept, for if one can truly understand, know, grasp the concept that all effect must have a cause indubitably, then in effect the effect of the start had a cause that caused the effect in effect, for no cause to cause an effective effect can not not effect the effect that was caused by the cause; the point remains, and can be reflected upon, like a graph of symmetry, which is a concept from the language of our Universe, our Cosmos, our all encompassing Dimensional Field of existence, speaks slowly to us, eases us through and through, and slowly teaches us, guides, us, and we understand more, we translate the language better faster harder stronger, we read the language of the Infinite, but to what avail? IS there reason to reason, to implore and explore, to discover and progress, where do we head? What is the sum? In the night, Bumps find the heads of those who cannot find the way through the labyrinth, twisting path of uncertainty and mystery, but one continues, for at the end lies _____. And then what? One must head back in the same direction one came from, the exact same route to take you to the exact same spot where it all began, and one can try it again, on a track like runaways, always going, never stopping, unless they deem themselves safe, and when this is so, it can never remain.  In the beast of the belly one may find oneself, the liar a companion, your only friend, for eternity and change, and the light is gone, and the dark prevails, but not because of what it is, but because of what it lacks.


-   Tyler Benz 2-20-2007

17.2.14

WHERE'S MY MIND

Many thoughts racing through my mind, one hundred miles per hour, kilometers per second, feet per foot, never ceasing, always active, of life and love and creation, to manifest art in such a way that it defines the essence of my being, explains who I am deeper than I ever could do in simple English, or Spanish, or spoken word, and so I feverishly jot down loose thought to paper, to digital parchment, to remember those fleeting ideas that may or may not have purpose, but to forget is definite uselessness, a pity, a shame, but to write them is to preserve them, and so those thoughts collect dust and pile high, higher still, kept secret when they should really be shared, viewed, other pairs of eyes to glance them and more than likely brush them off but still it is better than no eyes ever glancing them, a transference of raw thought, perhaps a seed to grow within another's mind?






I am in the process of writing a novel, and for better or worse I WILL complete it, one way or another.