What a weekend!
But first, I'll need to say this: I am going to make this as brief as possible as primo sleep time is fading away.
I took leave from last Thursday to today inclusive just so that I could take part in this year's edition of the Autumn Flute Fair. I got to be a part of a concert with the King's Flute Choir, playing The Big Flute, instead of being just my usual bug-every-dealer-in-the-Fair mode.
I met Chara; it wasn't awkward. It was just like as though the five years didn't happen, and really, did it? Everyone's different post COVID-19, me included. At least we spoke on friendlier terms and shared a little about our lives thus far, just like it all was before we decided to go serious.
SOTA as a venue was alright, though the behaviour of their assigned support staff/ushers/security folk was... odious. I can understand about them needing to do their jobs, but man, when they are front-of-house, their attitude kinda stinks. For instance, on day one of the Flute Fair, me and a bunch of people who have repair appointments at the earliest time slot were just sitting on the public seats outside the Gallery (where the repair technicians and the dealers' floor of the Fair were), knowing full well that we weren't supposed to go in because it just wasn't time. An officious woman from SOTA stepped out of the Gallery thought it proper to walk up to each of us and tell us ``Exhibition not open yet---it opens at one o'clock ah!'' Internally, I was just thinking, `no shit, that's why we're sitting here!', but externally I just frowned.
At the concert that I was not playing, another equally officious woman from SOTA was policing the seating with the rigour that would make the drill sergeant blush.
``No pockets! Move in!''
That was the command that was barked about. Now, there was nothing wrong about asking folks to move in to fill in the spaces; after all no one likes gaps in a concert call audience that prevents others from filling in easier. But there has got to be a better way of doing so.
And that woman barked that command at the dude who rented the concert hall from them to run the concert in the first place, when he was doing his usual I'll-move-around-to-oversee-things. He's a chill dude, and that was one of the few times I saw him get upset enough to stop explaining things, and just get up to walk out; the kind of action that often took these days when I realised that the situation was something that I just didn't have to put up with.
The level of power tripping from these front-of-house staff was just appalling.
That said, back-of-house staff was chill and helpful. They got shit done, smoothing things out, and were a joy to interact with.
But back-of-house was not the thing that the audience sees; the entitled attitude of the front-of-house staff was offputting. Maybe it's their way of showing that they were ``classy'', but I wouldn't be surprised if it was this attitude that made the SOTA venues less enticing for rental for events.
Or maybe that was the intention all along.
Anyway, there was naturally more that happened over the past few days, and I could write about them, but it is getting way past stupid o'clock, and if I do not crash out now, my sleep schedule is going to be utterly fucked by the time I need to start heading back into office.
Till the next update then.
Monday, November 25, 2024
Saturday, November 09, 2024
Part Four of Pain: Done
Ah. Yet another pain point/milestone has been completed, and I can breathe a little easier.
Just a little, mind you.
November is reaching the second-third, and different things have started heating up. For instance, I really should be practising some of the more challenging parts for the contrabass flute for the upcoming gig on 2024-11-24, but I'm just feeling all tired and am trying to recover from... I don't know what. Burnout?
🤷♂️
Aaanyway, let's talk politics. No, not US politics, just the philosophy of politics as a whole.
To me, politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, given the actual number of people who are directly involved in the making of the said decision. To be apathetic in politics is a declaration that one simply does not care about the decisions that are being made, and there are only a very limited number of sets of people who can get away with that---the really privileged whose personal circumstances make them more or less immune to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, and the misled who are convinced somehow that they belong to the really privileged set of people who are somehow immunte to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, without the necessary personal circumstances that can make that a reality.
The rest of us though, we need to pay attention to the politics.
Since politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, it naturally contains big entanglements of different types of questions that need decisions to. There are no easy win-win decisions most of the time, and there are also as many possible decisions to be made for a single problem as there are people.
But this complexity cannot be used as an argument to stall any form of decision making---the longer a decision (any decision) is delayed, the more confounding and unpredictable the consequences.
So as humans, we start taking shortcuts. In the modern version of things, we create sub-sets of people with broad political ideologies that attempt to articulate some general principles from which their decisions (should they be in power) will follow. Think of it as some kind of ``axiomatic schema''. We tend to call them ``political parties''.
Here's the thing about political parties---it is but one way of having like-minded people (with respect to principles in the setting of policy) to band together to give enough heft behind their bid to advance their idea of how the big decisions are to be made. Political parties tend to be more... rational in some sense, because one needs to subscribe to the overarching principles in order to be a willing member of the said party.
But political parties are not the only way to organise like-minded people, least ways not in the modern age. And the reason for this, is the increasing ease for anyone to communicate with anyone else on their ideas, and to create virtual communities.
Now, there is nothing ``fake'' about virtual communities---they are as real as the pain one feels when one stubs their toe. However, there is still a qualitative difference between virtual and physical communities---the former requires a lot of heavy-lifting from logos, while the latter can rely on the tried and proven firmware of pathos that has been refined over the existence of humanity as a species. Thus, I am claiming that the ``increasing ease of communication'' is paradoxically not a good replacement of what we have done for aeons through face-to-face communications in meatspace. This is especially true when one takes into consideration the current political infrastructure---only political parties have the right (and legacy-driven capability) to actually rule after they become the government, and not any virtual-only communities.
This becomes a problem in that the virtual communities: as they increase in generated communication content, they start to think that they are amassing a more clout/followers/disciples, and eventually they will, as Biggie might say in dismay, ``get high on their own supply''. The echo effects make the virtual communities think they are really strong, but without much of the accompanying actions within the physical reality that conforms to the current political infrastructure, the only thing that currently counts in this iteration of the rule of politics.
It's not about left-wing versus right-wing. It's not even about liberal versus conservative. It's not even about immigration. It's literally about not paying attention to the actual rules of the processes involved to get into the position where the actual decision-making can be made, only because of one's hubris.
``MT, are you criticising the US election?''
No, I'm not. I'm criticising all elections that have a very vocal online presence about wanting change, without the physical support ``on the ground'' to back it up. And no, I don't think trying to co-opt an existing political party to advance one's causes that have traditionally not been a part of that party is the right thing to do either. Mostly because of the way humanity's firmware is run---those who are in earliest and the longest will tend to hold much more sway on the direction than might be initially seen.
As we beware the old who exist in a profession where many die young, we should also beware the veteran politician who stays in a political party that has tried to remake itself many times. Johnny-come-lately may have the piss and vinegar for change, but it is the grandees who give the final call on direction, and those types do not always have the patience nor wherewithal to think otherwise than their own counsel.
Till the next update.
Just a little, mind you.
November is reaching the second-third, and different things have started heating up. For instance, I really should be practising some of the more challenging parts for the contrabass flute for the upcoming gig on 2024-11-24, but I'm just feeling all tired and am trying to recover from... I don't know what. Burnout?
🤷♂️
Aaanyway, let's talk politics. No, not US politics, just the philosophy of politics as a whole.
To me, politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, given the actual number of people who are directly involved in the making of the said decision. To be apathetic in politics is a declaration that one simply does not care about the decisions that are being made, and there are only a very limited number of sets of people who can get away with that---the really privileged whose personal circumstances make them more or less immune to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, and the misled who are convinced somehow that they belong to the really privileged set of people who are somehow immunte to the consequences of the big decisions that are made, without the necessary personal circumstances that can make that a reality.
The rest of us though, we need to pay attention to the politics.
Since politics is the art and science of making big decisions that affect a disproportionate number of people, it naturally contains big entanglements of different types of questions that need decisions to. There are no easy win-win decisions most of the time, and there are also as many possible decisions to be made for a single problem as there are people.
But this complexity cannot be used as an argument to stall any form of decision making---the longer a decision (any decision) is delayed, the more confounding and unpredictable the consequences.
So as humans, we start taking shortcuts. In the modern version of things, we create sub-sets of people with broad political ideologies that attempt to articulate some general principles from which their decisions (should they be in power) will follow. Think of it as some kind of ``axiomatic schema''. We tend to call them ``political parties''.
Here's the thing about political parties---it is but one way of having like-minded people (with respect to principles in the setting of policy) to band together to give enough heft behind their bid to advance their idea of how the big decisions are to be made. Political parties tend to be more... rational in some sense, because one needs to subscribe to the overarching principles in order to be a willing member of the said party.
But political parties are not the only way to organise like-minded people, least ways not in the modern age. And the reason for this, is the increasing ease for anyone to communicate with anyone else on their ideas, and to create virtual communities.
Now, there is nothing ``fake'' about virtual communities---they are as real as the pain one feels when one stubs their toe. However, there is still a qualitative difference between virtual and physical communities---the former requires a lot of heavy-lifting from logos, while the latter can rely on the tried and proven firmware of pathos that has been refined over the existence of humanity as a species. Thus, I am claiming that the ``increasing ease of communication'' is paradoxically not a good replacement of what we have done for aeons through face-to-face communications in meatspace. This is especially true when one takes into consideration the current political infrastructure---only political parties have the right (and legacy-driven capability) to actually rule after they become the government, and not any virtual-only communities.
This becomes a problem in that the virtual communities: as they increase in generated communication content, they start to think that they are amassing a more clout/followers/disciples, and eventually they will, as Biggie might say in dismay, ``get high on their own supply''. The echo effects make the virtual communities think they are really strong, but without much of the accompanying actions within the physical reality that conforms to the current political infrastructure, the only thing that currently counts in this iteration of the rule of politics.
It's not about left-wing versus right-wing. It's not even about liberal versus conservative. It's not even about immigration. It's literally about not paying attention to the actual rules of the processes involved to get into the position where the actual decision-making can be made, only because of one's hubris.
``MT, are you criticising the US election?''
No, I'm not. I'm criticising all elections that have a very vocal online presence about wanting change, without the physical support ``on the ground'' to back it up. And no, I don't think trying to co-opt an existing political party to advance one's causes that have traditionally not been a part of that party is the right thing to do either. Mostly because of the way humanity's firmware is run---those who are in earliest and the longest will tend to hold much more sway on the direction than might be initially seen.
As we beware the old who exist in a profession where many die young, we should also beware the veteran politician who stays in a political party that has tried to remake itself many times. Johnny-come-lately may have the piss and vinegar for change, but it is the grandees who give the final call on direction, and those types do not always have the patience nor wherewithal to think otherwise than their own counsel.
Till the next update.
Friday, November 01, 2024
No-vem-ber?
It is now November. The astute among yinz would ask me what is this year's NaNoWriMo entry title/topic.
And my answer is simply: I'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.
I mean, check it out: 15 NaNoWriMo entries says something. I'm not burnt out on writing, but rather, a couple of things come to mind as to why I am not participating this year.
Firstly, I just have too many other things to do this time round. I'm playing with the King's Flute Choir again, this time for the flute choir concert at the Autumn Flute Fair 2024. I'm playing on my recently acquired contrabass flute in C called ``The Big Flute'' (yeah yeah... imaginative name). The Big Flute is unlike any other flutes that I have played so far---it is by far, the largest flute with a total length of about 2.73 m shaped like a 4, with an inner diameter that tapers off from 49.62 mm. In short, I needed time to both rehearse the contrabass flute parts, as well as to get used to the different embouchure, breathing, and fingering positions over the large vertically oriented flute.
Secondly, the organisation running NaNoWriMo itself was getting too damn weird and offputting. NaNoWrio's AI policy was controversial, and the next most recent not-so-nothingburger was the aftermath of some serious child grooming scandal. Something of an older vintage was the messed up web design update that happened a few years ago that broke many things, among which was the loss of almost all of one's writing buddies.
It also probably did not help that the municipal liaisons for SIN city have stepped down for their own reasons.
I say that NaNoWriMo was getting too damn weird due to the slow and steady evolution of what was a very clear [but dumb] idea of ``here's thirty days of November, here's a word count goal of fifty thousand words---go!'' into some general writing programme for young writers in the US while still maintaining some kind of international presence, with some rather vocal self-declared leftists turfing out their own fiefdoms of safe-spaces within the forums themselves. I'm all for being inclusive, but I do not necessarily subscribe to the metaphorical carving of feudal lands in what was essentially an open agora in the first place. I resent the hypocrisy of alleged inclusion through the use of identity politics---if you want some safe space for your kind of people, maybe do it elsewhere, and not carve up the public space and practise the hypocrisy of accusing others of being discriminative while practising discrimination on their own.
Thankfully I was never in a position in NaNoWriMo where I had to worry about that---I stick primarily to the regional forum and stay far, far away from the places where the hypocrites lurk---but I cannot help but notice that their sheer vocal loudness was definitely shifting the overall tone of NaNoWriMo itself.
NaNoWriMo was always about reaching the fifty thousand words within the month of November---it was never about what was written. Even the word count tool, when it was still around, did nothing about reading the contents except to count the literal number of words through counting the number of whitespace segments in between the words. So why would anyone care if someone's NaNoWriMo story was some racist diatribe, or if someone wanted a white male as their protagonist with nary a female in sight, or if their writing of the behaviour of the woman in the story was close to some messed up erotica than what a ``real and normal woman'' is?
So yeah, NaNoWriMo was getting weird and offputting.
Will I get back to it next year? Who knows---let me survive my upcoming birthday first, then we talk.
------
In other news, Cookie Clicker. This has been running almost continuously in the background of Eileen-III for the past two or three weeks. Big numbers with big names for big numbers are always fun.
And then, there's Persona 5 Royal that I have been playing after work. It... reminds me too much of the time when I was still studying. Cleared three Palaces, and there are more to go.
I'd keep writing more, but then I realised we're past stupid o'clock. I'm on leave tomorrow (or rather, today), so it's not that big a deal, even though I really want to catch up on sleep.
And thus, adieu.
And my answer is simply: I'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.
I mean, check it out: 15 NaNoWriMo entries says something. I'm not burnt out on writing, but rather, a couple of things come to mind as to why I am not participating this year.
Firstly, I just have too many other things to do this time round. I'm playing with the King's Flute Choir again, this time for the flute choir concert at the Autumn Flute Fair 2024. I'm playing on my recently acquired contrabass flute in C called ``The Big Flute'' (yeah yeah... imaginative name). The Big Flute is unlike any other flutes that I have played so far---it is by far, the largest flute with a total length of about 2.73 m shaped like a 4, with an inner diameter that tapers off from 49.62 mm. In short, I needed time to both rehearse the contrabass flute parts, as well as to get used to the different embouchure, breathing, and fingering positions over the large vertically oriented flute.
Secondly, the organisation running NaNoWriMo itself was getting too damn weird and offputting. NaNoWrio's AI policy was controversial, and the next most recent not-so-nothingburger was the aftermath of some serious child grooming scandal. Something of an older vintage was the messed up web design update that happened a few years ago that broke many things, among which was the loss of almost all of one's writing buddies.
It also probably did not help that the municipal liaisons for SIN city have stepped down for their own reasons.
I say that NaNoWriMo was getting too damn weird due to the slow and steady evolution of what was a very clear [but dumb] idea of ``here's thirty days of November, here's a word count goal of fifty thousand words---go!'' into some general writing programme for young writers in the US while still maintaining some kind of international presence, with some rather vocal self-declared leftists turfing out their own fiefdoms of safe-spaces within the forums themselves. I'm all for being inclusive, but I do not necessarily subscribe to the metaphorical carving of feudal lands in what was essentially an open agora in the first place. I resent the hypocrisy of alleged inclusion through the use of identity politics---if you want some safe space for your kind of people, maybe do it elsewhere, and not carve up the public space and practise the hypocrisy of accusing others of being discriminative while practising discrimination on their own.
Thankfully I was never in a position in NaNoWriMo where I had to worry about that---I stick primarily to the regional forum and stay far, far away from the places where the hypocrites lurk---but I cannot help but notice that their sheer vocal loudness was definitely shifting the overall tone of NaNoWriMo itself.
NaNoWriMo was always about reaching the fifty thousand words within the month of November---it was never about what was written. Even the word count tool, when it was still around, did nothing about reading the contents except to count the literal number of words through counting the number of whitespace segments in between the words. So why would anyone care if someone's NaNoWriMo story was some racist diatribe, or if someone wanted a white male as their protagonist with nary a female in sight, or if their writing of the behaviour of the woman in the story was close to some messed up erotica than what a ``real and normal woman'' is?
So yeah, NaNoWriMo was getting weird and offputting.
Will I get back to it next year? Who knows---let me survive my upcoming birthday first, then we talk.
------
In other news, Cookie Clicker. This has been running almost continuously in the background of Eileen-III for the past two or three weeks. Big numbers with big names for big numbers are always fun.
And then, there's Persona 5 Royal that I have been playing after work. It... reminds me too much of the time when I was still studying. Cleared three Palaces, and there are more to go.
I'd keep writing more, but then I realised we're past stupid o'clock. I'm on leave tomorrow (or rather, today), so it's not that big a deal, even though I really want to catch up on sleep.
And thus, adieu.
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