the path to enlightenment now comes in a plastic bag (2/10)

I spend most of the winter holiday season trying to enjoying the time off with my family and friends.  It's difficult for me because this is the time of year where the horrific consumerism of our world comes flying at everyone full throttle.  Every time I see a Hummer idling in the parking lot of a toy store I get a little nuts.  Not slash their tires nuts, but I certainly am not happy with the way things are.

The dream of a industrialized family seems to be unending comfort--being rich enough to worry about things that don't matter.  This time of year reminds me mostly of how immature and trivial people need to be in order to participate in consumerism.  The treadmill of always buying the latest version is shocking in its waste and unerring message that "if you really loved your family, you need to spend more money."  

Forget that.  As part of my UBBT, I am buying nothing new (besides the obvious exception of food and other things that don't come used--like underwear).  Now, I accidently bought something new around three weeks ago (I wasn't paying attention and thought I was buying it used, which is stupid of me), but otherwise have been good.  In conjunction with this, I am trying to cut severely down on my spending--because most of the crap we buy we neither need nor really want.  There is a gaping maw in all of us--call it ennui, malaise, or plain boredom.  Many just buy silly crap in order to distract themselves from an empty life.  But others lead a full life.  So kill your television, don't set foot in West Ed this season, spend time with your friends and practice your heart out because even I have figured out that's what matters.

Which leads me to my second living hero.  Thomas Pynchon is the author of several books, including my all time favourite: The Crying of Lot 49.  His works have been called 'hysterical realism' and are dense and complex as well as very funny.  While Lot 49 is a short, intense book, his most well known novel, Gravity's Rainbow is a sprawling epic of headache proportions.  He has won several prestigious awards, including the National Book award and nearly the Pulitzer (the jury unanimously recommended it but the Pulitzer board rejected them and no prize was awarded).  

He has also never accepted these awards in person--for the National Book award he hired a comedian to pretend to be him, it's pretty funny.  There are very few photos of him and he has pretty much avoided any contact with journalists for the past forty years.  I'm sure the guy is a bit shy and reclusive and I don't recommend this sort of life.  After all, he has the means to have a decent chunk of the world listen to him and chooses not to, which is a waste considering the power of ideas.  But there is something else in that reclusiveness.

In the primped up, self-important and overly romanticised world of literature, Pynchon rejects the glamour of being an author.  Now I could be wrong about this, he just might be shy but still have a shrine to himself in his house, but it at least seems like he doesn't want to win awards or go on talk shows, but rather write.  That's what I like and that's an important lesson.  Strut around telling everyone you've got a black, brown or whatever coloured belt and you will end up in trouble.  Get in a hissy fit because you think your martial art is the best (if you're curious what I mean, venture out on to the wasteland of the internet and see) and you will be contributing to some of the major problems facing the martial arts today.

But if you practice and never forget the love of just studying kung fu, if you can find as much enjoyment in countless reps of kempo as a flying spinning kick--then you'll have caught on to both my points. 

i bet the queen of england has no friends

My roommates have started reading this blog--so hello there roommates.  I wasn't comfortable with them doing so, it took a fair bit of persistence for them to get the address out of me.  In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure why I was so resistant to them reading this--it's hardly like I'm not proud of what I write here.

Firstly, I don't exactly like the idea of having a blog.  Most blogs are just self-absorbed navel gazing and I was worried that I would fall into that trap, thinking that for some reason the internet needs to hear about my day.  But snobbery aside, I feel somehow that my private and kung fu lives should be separate.  I'm perfectly willing to talk someone's ear off about kung fu or write a blog posting about philosophy or music I like, but it seems to me that somehow Graham (hey, guess what--that's my name) and Sifu Robertson are two different people.   

A good example of this is my heroes posting about Adam Morton.  One of my roommates noted that I didn't include any sort of criticism or cons about professor Morton, which is a good point.  Now, I doubt any students or black belts would have felt comfortable with that.  There's a supposition of authority as a black belt, I'm supposed to know what I'm talking about.  But to my friends, I'm just myself--free to make mistakes, etc.  Do my friends challenge me to improve by not knowing me thourgh my status/accomplishments?  Or by forefronting my position, does it carry a responsibility to blog the best I can?

Heh, I bet you were all expecting me to answer that question.

i'm pretending it's sunday so this counts as last week's entry

Lately I've been thinking a lot about unobservables, which is completely a noun. They're a hot topic in the philosophy of science, because it's actually kind of hard to tell whether some very tiny things exist.

Take neutrinos for instance, which are a type of particle that are streaming through your body right now with no effect. They in fact can go through a mile of lead without reacting to it. But they are involved in some stuff, such as solar flares. Detecting them involves (I'm not kidding) a gigantic vat of cleaning fluid buried underground becoming slightly radioactive over time.

But what if neutrinos don't exist and this indirect observation of them is caused by something else? It's perfectly plausible: since you can't just point to a neutrino, maybe they're imaginary. Now, one obvious answer is to point to the success of science at this sort of thing. Scientists are pretty good at predicting phenomena they can't observe--only to have it confirmed later when the technology advances.

Another argument is to simply ask why we should care if neutrinos exist. All we should talk about is if this theory is useful at making predictions and such. It doesn't matter, in a sense, what these unobservable things are. Those of you playing along at home might be thinking to yourself: "hmm, isn't there something at kung fu we can't observe, but prove through its effects?"

Well good job, rhetorical device! We have, of course, chi. I know some people are uncomfortable with, or at least sceptical of, the concept of a mysterious energy (characterised by some sources a breath) that pervades all living things and the earth. But the wacky stuff that many of us are capable of and the utterly mind-blowing feats performed by masters around the world should at least let you know that something is going on.

If you're not sure what it is and don't like that fact, just relax, maybe chi exists, or perhaps it's neutrinos that gives people strength without using their muscles. Point is, whatever causes these things is, well, causing it—so calling it chi can be seen as a handy marker.

Not a very funny entry. I'll try and liven it up:
Tom was brushing his teeth one morning when he bumped into the sink. "Oh no, I've knocked over my toothpaste!" He said, crestfallen.