Has It Been Awhile?Yes. Yes it has. Anybody miss me? No? Ok, that's fine....

Anyways, I could give some rambling explanation of where I've been, but does it matter? I've been "busy" lately, I think that's good enough

In the interim, I decided to make some alternative Pokemon "art" on my computer. Yeah, it's mostly photoshopping but I think the concepts are creative! If you get any of these reference, you are awesome. If you don't, completely fine

But yeah, I think it's fair to say I'll be back and a bit more active from here on out!

(And I missed my one year anniversary here. THAT IS A SHAME. Sad face)

Has It Been Awhile?Yes. Yes it has. Anybody miss me? No? Ok, that's fine....

Anyways, I could give some rambling explanation of where I've been, but does it matter? I've been "busy" lately, I think that's good enough

In the interim, I decided to make some alternative Pokemon "art" on my computer. Yeah, it's mostly photoshopping but I think the concepts are creative! If you get any of these reference, you are awesome. If you don't, completely fine

But yeah, I think it's fair to say I'll be back and a bit more active from here on out!

(And I missed my one year anniversary here. THAT IS A SHAME. Sad face)

Something PersonalWarning: This post is about some personal things in my life. If you aren't in the mood for something just about me, there's no reason to read this. I'm writing this for me and posting it on RT because this place makes me happy.

I recently discovered that I've been dealing with a minor case of depression since about February. Now, I, like many of you now, shrugged off a lot of things. I've always thought myself mentally tough, it's just a bad mood. One bad day. I could power through.

Then some bad days started compounding. Bad weeks came. Ever see a stretch where I didn't show up here or post anything? Hint, hint.

Luckily, over the summer, I was happy. There were so many good things in my life, that they overshadowed anything "wrong" with me. I was staying back with my family, whom I love very much. I was back where my girlfriend lives (she lives outside Sacramento, I live in Berkeley, about 100 miles apart). Things felt pretty good over the summer.

But there was a little emptiness. I want to digress here. I've known people with depression. Legitimate, major depression. That shit is no joke. They deserve all the empathy in the world and I truly wish the best for anyone fighting such a difficult illness. I do NOT have major depression. No, what I had was something less severe. But, it was there.

How do I know? The best way to describe it is this:

I could recognize happy situations; I should be happy because there are happy things around me and I should be enjoying them. Did I actually feel happy? Sure. But there was that "meta conscious" (if you will) that recognized that I wasn't as happy as I should have been. It spawns a really weird disconnect and dissonance between how you feel and your own rational consciousness. A split I was wholly unfamiliar with but just shrugged off. There was enough happiness in my life to keep me going, so why dwell on something negative like that?

Oops.

Well, I started getting worse in the weeks leading up to school. That disconnect grew. And grew. I started to feel apathy where I shouldn't. But I realized that fact. Which, again, is quite a scary sensation.

Another digression: for those who don't know, I spent my last year at college (1st year) under the impression that I was a pre-med student. Then over the summer, I decided to specialize and follow pre-optometry. Both of these routes are INCREDIBLY competitive and require a premium GPA. Think around a 3.7 at UC Berkeley. I know I'm smart, but that's difficult.

My classes have been going ok these first weeks. Definitely not where they should be for entry into such a competitive grad school environment. Could I do it? I think so. Would it break me down to the point that I actually enter a depression that I couldn't pull myself out of? Very possible. It was scary, seeing me work so hard for something that probably would end in failure. With nothing to look forward to but wasted money, time, and hope. If this sounds whiny, I apologize. We all have issues, and I'm POSITIVE mine are not worse than most people. But they affected me deeply. Why? That's a story for a different day.

Just know that by last week, I was doing bad. Real bad. Skipping class, lying in bed crying bad. I went back home for the weekend to host my charity golf tournament (more on that later) and my life turned around.

I have decided to not pursue a graduate level education. Instead, I plan on majoring in Public Health with a minor in Environmental Economics and Policy. I will not spend 4 years earning an advanced degree. Instead, I will begin my life, my true life, out in the real world. Maybe it means I can propose to my girlfriend 4 years sooner. It also means that I can stop focusing on fighting everyone around me for a stupid grade. Instead, I can focus on what I truly love. I get to learn. At a college that I chose to be at. I get to do what I was meant to do.

What it means most, is I'm pulling myself out of my depression, slowly and steadily. As my girlfriend, Angelica, says, my star is shining just a little bit brighter.

Something PersonalWarning: This post is about some personal things in my life. If you aren't in the mood for something just about me, there's no reason to read this. I'm writing this for me and posting it on RT because this place makes me happy.

I recently discovered that I've been dealing with a minor case of depression since about February. Now, I, like many of you now, shrugged off a lot of things. I've always thought myself mentally tough, it's just a bad mood. One bad day. I could power through.

Then some bad days started compounding. Bad weeks came. Ever see a stretch where I didn't show up here or post anything? Hint, hint.

Luckily, over the summer, I was happy. There were so many good things in my life, that they overshadowed anything "wrong" with me. I was staying back with my family, whom I love very much. I was back where my girlfriend lives (she lives outside Sacramento, I live in Berkeley, about 100 miles apart). Things felt pretty good over the summer.

But there was a little emptiness. I want to digress here. I've known people with depression. Legitimate, major depression. That shit is no joke. They deserve all the empathy in the world and I truly wish the best for anyone fighting such a difficult illness. I do NOT have major depression. No, what I had was something less severe. But, it was there.

How do I know? The best way to describe it is this:

I could recognize happy situations; I should be happy because there are happy things around me and I should be enjoying them. Did I actually feel happy? Sure. But there was that "meta conscious" (if you will) that recognized that I wasn't as happy as I should have been. It spawns a really weird disconnect and dissonance between how you feel and your own rational consciousness. A split I was wholly unfamiliar with but just shrugged off. There was enough happiness in my life to keep me going, so why dwell on something negative like that?

Oops.

Well, I started getting worse in the weeks leading up to school. That disconnect grew. And grew. I started to feel apathy where I shouldn't. But I realized that fact. Which, again, is quite a scary sensation.

Another digression: for those who don't know, I spent my last year at college (1st year) under the impression that I was a pre-med student. Then over the summer, I decided to specialize and follow pre-optometry. Both of these routes are INCREDIBLY competitive and require a premium GPA. Think around a 3.7 at UC Berkeley. I know I'm smart, but that's difficult.

My classes have been going ok these first weeks. Definitely not where they should be for entry into such a competitive grad school environment. Could I do it? I think so. Would it break me down to the point that I actually enter a depression that I couldn't pull myself out of? Very possible. It was scary, seeing me work so hard for something that probably would end in failure. With nothing to look forward to but wasted money, time, and hope. If this sounds whiny, I apologize. We all have issues, and I'm POSITIVE mine are not worse than most people. But they affected me deeply. Why? That's a story for a different day.

Just know that by last week, I was doing bad. Real bad. Skipping class, lying in bed crying bad. I went back home for the weekend to host my charity golf tournament (more on that later) and my life turned around.

I have decided to not pursue a graduate level education. Instead, I plan on majoring in Public Health with a minor in Environmental Economics and Policy. I will not spend 4 years earning an advanced degree. Instead, I will begin my life, my true life, out in the real world. Maybe it means I can propose to my girlfriend 4 years sooner. It also means that I can stop focusing on fighting everyone around me for a stupid grade. Instead, I can focus on what I truly love. I get to learn. At a college that I chose to be at. I get to do what I was meant to do.

What it means most, is I'm pulling myself out of my depression, slowly and steadily. As my girlfriend, Angelica, says, my star is shining just a little bit brighter.

I Bet Nobody Reads the Whole Thing...Stumbling through some old files, I found my final paper for my film class from last semester that I'm quite proud of I'll share it here if anyone wants to read it! Warning: it's long (10 double spaced pages, so continued in the comments) and about Matrix Revolutions so I don't blame you for turning away now. If you do have the courage, I salute you.

Uniquely Human

Like George Orwell’s legendary dystopian novel 1984, the Wachowski Brother’s Matrix Revolutions (2003) devotes the majority of its narrative content to building up a supposed and fundamental idea about human existence. In the film’s case, it works to convince the audience of the point of view known as the “posthuman,” that humans and machines naturally and inevitably draw together to form a cohesive being. From the digitized Warner Bros. logo up to (but not including) the final fight scene, the Wachowski’s adamantly defend the posthuman idea through a multitude of different characters, each straddling the boundary between man and machine. However, just like Orwell, the end of the film deals a swift and crushing blow to the ideas it set out to establish. In Matrix Revolutions, we see that humans and machines must and will forever remain separate because of man’s simple ability to choose, a uniquely human trait.

The Posthuman

Rather than remain sated with a vague definition of the posthuman, let us turn to an expert in the matter, Katherine Hayles. In her work How We Became Posthuman, Hayles offers an exceedingly detailed picture of the “posthuman view.” First, she asserts that “the posthuman view considers consciousness...as an evolutionary upstart trying to claim that it is the whole show when in actuality it is only a minor sideshow." Essentially, this means that our human ability of cognitive thought does not deserve the distinction of great importance. Rather, human consciousness becomes something of a chance occurrence, merely a byproduct of the biology of our brain. In this way, machines can then rise to (if not surpass) the level of conscious existence that humans in the traditional sense enjoy.

Hayles’ second qualification of the posthuman continues the elevation of the mechanized consciousness to that of the human. Specifically, she asserts that “the posthuman view configures human being so that it can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines." That is, human existence becomes a polymerization with machine, integrating the two into a perfect “cyborg.” This view assumes that intelligent machines fully possess the capability to join with humans and that humans provide the necessary biological base for such a union. Additionally, Hayles stresses the word “seamlessly,” implying that the overlap of man and machine leaves no boundaries intact; the true posthuman removes any semblance of humanity or mechanization in the presence of a singular cybernetic organism. To use her own words, Hayles says that “in the posthuman, there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between...cybernetic mechanism and biological organism." A rather radical idea, but Matrix Revolutions devotes a great deal of its running time to asserting this point of view, beginning with a redefining of machines themselves.

The Machines

One of the first scenes in the film places Neo, the protagonist, in a computer-generated “train station” designed to move computer programs from the real world into the Matrix. Within, he meets three programs, all of whom appear as normal humans organized into a typical nuclear family. The father, Rama, explains why he needs to smuggle something (his daughter) into the Matrix: “I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. But where we come from that is not enough.” Like Neo, we find ourselves perplexed that a program has risked his life for the “love” of his daughter. “It is a human emotion” Neo claims. Thus, we see that the Wachowski’s quickly establish what philosophy their film will convey: posthumanism. The lines between machine and man blur further when Rama explains that love “is a word” and “what matters is the connection the word implies.” Such a redefining illustrates the ability of the machine to adapt a supposed uniquely human concept to itself. This clearly satisfies one of Hayles’ definitions of the posthuman: that intelligent machines can articulate human consciousness.

Following Rama, several other machine programs express similar emotions that would typically belong exclusively to humans. For example, while in his exclusive dance club and after hearing of Neo’s presence in the in-between world, the power-hungry Merovingian program tells Trinity, “I am curious though, as to how it actually happened”. Soon after in the same scene, the Merovingian’s wife program notices something about Trinity: “she’s in love.” Another example comes when Agent Smith begins to storm the Oracle’s apartment building. Sati, the daughter of Rama, intimates “I’m scared” to a fellow program, an expression he understands. While many other similar instances occur in the film, all of the above scenes demonstrate a clear message, that programs can utilize concepts supposedly unique to human beings.

I Bet Nobody Reads the Whole Thing...Stumbling through some old files, I found my final paper for my film class from last semester that I'm quite proud of I'll share it here if anyone wants to read it! Warning: it's long (10 double spaced pages, so continued in the comments) and about Matrix Revolutions so I don't blame you for turning away now. If you do have the courage, I salute you.

Uniquely Human

Like George Orwell’s legendary dystopian novel 1984, the Wachowski Brother’s Matrix Revolutions (2003) devotes the majority of its narrative content to building up a supposed and fundamental idea about human existence. In the film’s case, it works to convince the audience of the point of view known as the “posthuman,” that humans and machines naturally and inevitably draw together to form a cohesive being. From the digitized Warner Bros. logo up to (but not including) the final fight scene, the Wachowski’s adamantly defend the posthuman idea through a multitude of different characters, each straddling the boundary between man and machine. However, just like Orwell, the end of the film deals a swift and crushing blow to the ideas it set out to establish. In Matrix Revolutions, we see that humans and machines must and will forever remain separate because of man’s simple ability to choose, a uniquely human trait.

The Posthuman

Rather than remain sated with a vague definition of the posthuman, let us turn to an expert in the matter, Katherine Hayles. In her work How We Became Posthuman, Hayles offers an exceedingly detailed picture of the “posthuman view.” First, she asserts that “the posthuman view considers consciousness...as an evolutionary upstart trying to claim that it is the whole show when in actuality it is only a minor sideshow." Essentially, this means that our human ability of cognitive thought does not deserve the distinction of great importance. Rather, human consciousness becomes something of a chance occurrence, merely a byproduct of the biology of our brain. In this way, machines can then rise to (if not surpass) the level of conscious existence that humans in the traditional sense enjoy.

Hayles’ second qualification of the posthuman continues the elevation of the mechanized consciousness to that of the human. Specifically, she asserts that “the posthuman view configures human being so that it can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines." That is, human existence becomes a polymerization with machine, integrating the two into a perfect “cyborg.” This view assumes that intelligent machines fully possess the capability to join with humans and that humans provide the necessary biological base for such a union. Additionally, Hayles stresses the word “seamlessly,” implying that the overlap of man and machine leaves no boundaries intact; the true posthuman removes any semblance of humanity or mechanization in the presence of a singular cybernetic organism. To use her own words, Hayles says that “in the posthuman, there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between...cybernetic mechanism and biological organism." A rather radical idea, but Matrix Revolutions devotes a great deal of its running time to asserting this point of view, beginning with a redefining of machines themselves.

The Machines

One of the first scenes in the film places Neo, the protagonist, in a computer-generated “train station” designed to move computer programs from the real world into the Matrix. Within, he meets three programs, all of whom appear as normal humans organized into a typical nuclear family. The father, Rama, explains why he needs to smuggle something (his daughter) into the Matrix: “I love my daughter very much. I find her to be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. But where we come from that is not enough.” Like Neo, we find ourselves perplexed that a program has risked his life for the “love” of his daughter. “It is a human emotion” Neo claims. Thus, we see that the Wachowski’s quickly establish what philosophy their film will convey: posthumanism. The lines between machine and man blur further when Rama explains that love “is a word” and “what matters is the connection the word implies.” Such a redefining illustrates the ability of the machine to adapt a supposed uniquely human concept to itself. This clearly satisfies one of Hayles’ definitions of the posthuman: that intelligent machines can articulate human consciousness.

Following Rama, several other machine programs express similar emotions that would typically belong exclusively to humans. For example, while in his exclusive dance club and after hearing of Neo’s presence in the in-between world, the power-hungry Merovingian program tells Trinity, “I am curious though, as to how it actually happened”. Soon after in the same scene, the Merovingian’s wife program notices something about Trinity: “she’s in love.” Another example comes when Agent Smith begins to storm the Oracle’s apartment building. Sati, the daughter of Rama, intimates “I’m scared” to a fellow program, an expression he understands. While many other similar instances occur in the film, all of the above scenes demonstrate a clear message, that programs can utilize concepts supposedly unique to human beings.