Smoothness Study
James Bowden
I wouldn’t say that I’m confused, more just don’t know
which way to look with all this information consuming
me at all times. How many Hz is my brain running at?
Would a hummingbird, a mosquito be better equipped
to take my place? I would think that in every creature’s
head, it must be a smooth operator. Imagine being a bug,
a bumblebee perhaps, all jerky and out of control. Oh.
Counterexample. Well, in my head, at least, processes run
quickly enough to leave me bored but slowly enough to
leave me overwhelmed when I do try. There are so many
dimensions to existence, and I want all of them. Though
lately everything has felt like prisoners’ dilemmas. I try
to reach out but you defect before I can even make contact.
I mean, maybe fair. I’ve not really [been] shown that I’ve value
for just existing. What can I offer you? There are flowers
on the floor. Our intuitia suggest something depressing,
but no: they’re simply growing there. I don’t know why,
but they’re glorious and it’s morning anyway. What’s that?
Oh yes, it seems you’re involved now. My apologies. Reading
poetry requires an eye from a trusted thing and an eye
from an unquilted thing. If you’ve only one of those at present,
here, let me help you, there, quilt’s off, there are flowers on
the floor! Corn. What I’ve been looking for, hoping for,
is someOne or someThing greater than me so that I may be
Held, Fully Understood. Uh oh, looks like you’re involved now!
Someone to simulate me differentiably and manipulate me
good. I realized that my old basis was bad. So I constructed
a new one from all the people around me I could love. But
here’s the prisoners’ dilemma again, people defect, my basis
is strong but not robust nor stable, so back to the drawing board.
Looks like you must be uninvolved now. Here, let me help you:
I would like to spit in <redacted>’s hand once again.
Okay, maybe that was overkill. I was weaned on the school of
seeing optimal, believing in optimization, but not being able
to optimize all things worth optimizing. Now I’m getting my
PhD in machine learning. I don’t think I’ll ever learn. Some
day I’ll love Frank O’Hara and Ocean Vuong, but for now
I think I’ll post about them on Instagram. Enter dopamine
rush for virtual people caring about me. Today I love James
Bowden! I feel like I’m killing romance, leaving no space
for it in my life. I’m trying to lay my shoulders bare but
keep getting slapped for it. One power I never fail to
attribute people: the power to repress. Perhaps
much of what we’re asking for in companionship is
just for self destruction to be made a little
less easy. Reenter the real world. It’s grey and bleak outside
the window behind me and I shall soon be forced to depart.
The trees are lovely and I’ve been allowed to wear a long-
sleeve. I’m really not that unhappy, ever, in the present.
Only when my present stretches out to encompass the past
and the dreaded future which of course, by the Markov property,
will just be the present and happy enough if I can manage not to
think about the future future when I get there. Maybe my brain
just wants all of its functions to be smooth. Namely, its model
of the world. Its model of my trajectory. Call that
security? Yesterday, the past and future
invaded my sleep and lent me a dream of everyday (quite ordinary)
terror (nothing special). I woke shaking and screamt into the void,
just let me be dead for a little while,
I will come back. I just can’t bear the weight of my entire lifetime at
each
single
moment.
Wow, I am really fond of calling things studies! You must be tired of that by now. But it tickles my brain so oh well. I pulled the “it seems you’re involved now” part from Howl’s Moving Castle, how I love that movie.