Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve done one of these that I nearly forgot how I structured the titles. But I remembered how to write poetry today, that’s pretty fucking nice.
Today is a very prominent day in my history. It has to do with my introduction and coming-of-age story that occurred over the course of five years starting in 2013. Back then I thought I knew everything. And every succeeding year after that, I continued to. At least when I was in high school I was a real narcissistic prick, but college gave way to a more ego-minded person. At least when I got into college I was ready to accept I would be among peers. This was true for a while.
Still, self-awareness isn’t valiant in and of itself. You have to do something with it. Self-actualize a little bit. Not let the mandala effect take over and erase all the good stuff.
That’s why Reality City is organized the way it is. Over the years since its inception, it’s developed into this theory of metacognition and a way of visualizing it. I approached my psyche professor about writing a paper on it as part of an optional piece we can do this quarter, and he was fully on board. It helps that he double-majored in philosophy when he was going through his master’s program.
Wordy wordy word word. Sorry about that. It’s just been a while since I’ve done a journal, today is a historic day in my life for a variety of reasons, and since my last journal things have drastically changed.
I’m now under the employ of a full-time, benefits-giving job that effectively triples my wage. Relationship stuff last week entered a fever pitch and now we’re in the aftermath of an impossible decision, Kirke and I. I’m now a professional photographer today with the assistance of a couple of friends who needed some wedding pictures done. And I look towards the future with more vigor than I was looking a month or so ago.
Something today has been renewed in me. Maybe it’s reading poetry indirectly meant for me that does the trick sometimes. Or just getting out and taking pictures of some very happy people ready to celebrate each other. My life since 5/20/13 has revolved around relationships, and now more than ever that’s true for only the best of reasons.
With university looming, I’ve now decided to save up for a new car that isn’t quite as destroyed as my jeep (and it turns out I might like subcompacts, the newer manual Fiat 500’s to be specific). Which, due to recent events, is no longer marked with my name. Anonymity on my part is the current name of a game that I can’t quite yet talk about, but when I can the fucking doors are going to blast open. No NDA, but simple timing is a weapon right now that I must use effectively. Don’t worry, Radio Reality City will not be cloaked in obscurity for very long.
That being said, the title of this journal is the sound an A10 Warthog makes when it fires its guns! Which is exactly what’s going to happen when the truth can be wrought.
See, Reality City is all about reality. If you know your ingsocs or thought police, even reality can be subject to interpretation and mismanagement. My fear of memory loss has even made me aware of confabulation and implantation, which are actually even more terrifying prospects than losing it all entirely.
So today I’ve been able to open up my notebook for a good honest crack at writing I haven’t been able to stomach for at least a month. I’ve been producing, just nothing done. Kirke seems to think I’m too hard on myself, but I think that’s exactly the opposite of what’s going on. I’m not hard enough on myself!
And over the course of the last month instead of writing I’ve been really focusing on photography, drone stuff, graphic design, and a bunch of other things that aren’t primarily writing related. I’ve overwhelmed myself and needed to get my focus narrowed again. Getting to go do a day-long shoot with a few of my friends helped the photographer in me be satisfied for a couple of days:
And with the gold of May pouring onto trees at sunset I was able to get some good pictures of that, too.
And I’ve also been experimenting with a thing called “databending”, which is where you take an image, turn it into raw data (.tif file format works best, encoded with U-Law), put that data into Audacity, apply an audio effect to the result, and then retransmit that back into an image file (save as… mp3, but then change it to “other uncompressed formats” and apply your own file type extension).
It’ll turn this photo
Into this one
And this was achieved with a reverb effect over 6 minutes or so of the resulting data’s audio. Quite neat to do! I’ve done this after some fractal stuff in GIMP. So that’s pretty cool, I think. I don’t know what practical use it’s gonna have yet, but hey, it’s a thing.
LOT OF DIFFERENT CREATIVE FRONTS I’VE DECIDED TO BURY MYSELF IN
Sheesh, this comes off of testing out stream stuff in this thing I posted today, too.
But today I remembered music can make me think. Not about 5/20/13 or 5/20/14 or 15 or 16 or indeed 17. I had to be Somewhere Else. So I listened to GH by Deadmau5 again for the first time in a long time and the creative taps opened.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to churn some more out. I’ll take my camera to Pierce, leave my laptop here, and continue about my day with notebook at the ready. It’s a nice break from being buried. Probably been why I’ve been creatively blocked lately. I even got a proper twitter @JakeThomasShaw in my frenzy to expand. Still haven’t used it.
Back to the roots, eh? It’s 10:30 PM here and there’s coffee in my veins.
Think about it. A year ago, did you think you’d be here? I certainly didn’t. Voyagers, Foxes, Apocalypses, Destinations, Drones, and Psychopaths. I never thought I would ever be here. Made it this far, though. There’s so much more to go.
Thank you for tuning in, once again. Radio Reality City survives off of listeners, for if there’s no one to listen to one interpretation, there’s quite no point in being different people. And then there’s no point to defining reality.
There’s only 73 days left to Year v! So go forth, make stuff, and consume reality!
Radio Reality City!
Consume Reality! 