Meta: The first thing I’d like to note today is that yesterday’s meta-worries were both baseless and valuable. They demonstrated both these properties (virtues?) and in doing so characterised what is perhaps most valuable about this diary-style writing, namely, “try-it-and-see” and “learn-from-experience”. Yesterday’s example is perhaps in itself not profound – worried that too much attention was being given to the activity of literature scouring. There was, of course, no need to worry; it was something to try. What’s more, even if it doesn’t need to be repeated, it still taught me what it looks like to do so, and thus provided a crystallised instantiation (if we consider this a museum) or perhaps a tagged specimen (if we consider this a reservation) of experience.
Meta: Another thing that I’m realising is that it’s OK to just write. Just go meta (go native?). The worry prohibiting this is perhaps the same as in the previous paragraph. That is, that it is in something akin to being frivolous, without purpose, redundant and so also superfluous. But this – this thought, concern, experience, data – is none of those things. By being it is real and thus worthy of attention. By being written down it becomes a record (e.g. for a museum, reservation, etc). Case closed. And what if, worst-case scenario according to this vigilante concern, there should be a repeat of this nature? A duplicate copy in the museum? Well then presumably I’ll begin to understand the phenomenon all the more. It doesn’t herald the first stumbling steps of a delirious descent into the wilderness of OCD. More likely it’s just something that benefited from additional regard (another critter tagged and documented, GPS signal tracking on the main computer, etc etc).
Meta: Since I’ve got some sort of rhythm going here, why not continue… The above “Meta” pieces responded to my awareness of what goes on in this medium (and in saying so, I gain level +1: “Meta-meta”), and in doing so I’m starting to form a representation of the shapes I can fit inside it. One of these (tautologically? I mean, “tautologically” since I’m in this meta-space?) are the “Meta” tagged notes, as just described. I’ve also committed a couple of days to doing summaries of readings of scientific literature (aka Journal Club perhaps)… I didn’t start open this tag (i.e. “Meta”) with the intention of beginning a filing system. (Not yet, anyway). Instead, I’m satisfied merely to acknowledge this growing awareness, and in parallel, hope to experiment further. I’m beginning to see this space as a true tabula rasa. A blank matrix. An operating system that reboots every day (yet capable of running whatever data it saw in previous states). This is a profound realization for me. Though I must admit it is marred by a lingering limitation in my understanding of it. I’m still struggling to deal with its input-output dichotomy. Obviously, they are not identical processes. But are they symmetrical? At this stage, or at least, at this moment, they feel qualitatively different. Bah! That’s all my obsession with categorization. Applying little bar-codes and filing by the Dewey decimal system.
Really what’s bothering me is that I’m not sure how I want to read this. I’m still learning how to write it. And anyway: what’s the hurry, so, no worry.
[……………..awkward silences are (normally) invisible on the written page, but they still exist (an idealist would retort – who too would disappear but for the merciful hand of the author), they exist in the breathes taken while the keyboard falls silent. By that definition, they are the most invisible function of writing. The anti-thesis to writing. A black hole? It can only ever be written around. Ungainly metaphors stand as hollow pointers, aligning themselves with broken grass and melted snow, showing that something could have been there. But there isn’t anything there, is there? So what are you even talking about?]
[I meant only to ask, what do I want to write about?]
[INSERT JOURNAL CLUB]
[So… I can say what I wanted to write about. Or I can just write it. Same outcome. Except that I wanted to say also, as if it wasn’t obvious, that I can write whatever I want. But it is obvious. So why not just do it
[?]
Meta: I can plan for the future. I can create lists and programs and plans. The acts as a tower from which to look down and lay down architectural planning and battle strategies. And though there is no intonation to show it, I mean that in jest. The “tower” shadowed “ivory” in my cobwebbed Turing machine. “Having said that,” there is a time and a place for all things etcetera (which I should expand to its fuller meaning, viz. sometimes I “should” do that [REASONS PENDING]). Often there is no need to climb the tower. Especially (!) not when it’s in order that I should work with the soil in the gardens. In fact, it seems to me that the best reason to climb the tower is for the view of the gardens. At least, every so while. Most other times (so it seems to this poorly substantiated mind) I’m best benefited by my presence in the garden. I can plant roses and build mud castles. That sounds like fun.
