#art is human existence it is who we are when we're most honest with ourselves

[freshairforrabbits]

any anti-problematic community/"problematic" community itself

i think only in cat pictures srry

Oh my god, I love all your cat pictures ❤️😂 and shit, yeah, to be fair they can totally both look like the cats on the left, I have witnessed some things in my wonky wobbly time on the Internet. But the people simply enjoying art and enjoying their friends art without shaming them for what they read, create, or find creative satisfaction in are truly the best ❤️ the right picture is how human creation should be; not a competition, not a moral grandstanding, but like coming around a table to share and indulge in each other's cooking, loving brewed teas, and passing big bowls and plates of food around-- deciding if something is to their taste and if not, they happily pass it over to someone who would enjoy it far more rather than decide it shouldn't be enjoyed by anyone at all because cranberry sauce is too bitter and icky for them.

We were meant to share and support each other, not walk on eggshells and virtue signal to our so-called friends that Look! Look! We're the Good Ones. People are going to hate you for pretty much anything you do, someone out there will hate you for the smallest, innocuous thing, they'll think you're horrible and awful and undeserving for just existing, so the best you can do is prop up your friends, even their artistic interests you don't understand, even the ways in which you can't figure out how they can stomach certain storylines. It's not productive to try and understand everything and everyone. It's not productive to train yourself to have knee jerk reactions to certain words, to be hyper vigilant of every miniscule detail, of trying to weed out Us from Them when the lines blur so fucking much. When I know for a fact people who condemn works like mine are the very ones to read them, to read my fiction and claim it's somehow a cut above the rest, that it does it all "right"-- which it doesn't, it's not, it's ugly and raw and it feels slimy and unproductive to know people hold stories like pretty boy snuff film up against others.

And in the same breath it's not productive to allow your triggers or discomforts to dictate the decisions of others (insert all of groupthink throughout history and today here).

I hope for people to one day be able to have the image on the right and that they move away from friends who would stab them in the back given half the chance. I hope that the people who read my fics and enjoy them and discuss them with their friends, who have to be so, so careful about what they say and feel as if they're being watched, stalked, and made to curb their most honest reactions and feelings– I hope they too find people who will let them speak openly and without fear of unfounded retaliation.

I hope for everyone to be able to share themselves wholly and completely, their darkest works and their thoughts included; how else are we gonna learn to grow and shape ourselves, y'know? How else can we learn to relate with others without being honest with ourselves.

Get freaky with it. And find people who support your work for you, not for the act of doing it all good or right, but for doing it bad and not giving a fuck. For fucking up grammar, for fucking up spelling, for getting gross and weird and wrong and complicated. For feeling safe and secure in your ability to create and your ability to share as you were meant to.

There are people out there; you don't gotta stick with assholes who'd sell you for a corn chip and some Purity Points. Keep looking and keep making ❤️

[faygeleh-system]

credit !

key: j / art / benjamin

System Questions

When did you discover that you were a system?

we actually "discovered" we were a system about... 8 years ago, i think? when we were around 13? and at the time the system as a whole was very, very different. i dont think any of our current alters existed then, including myself, at least not in the same way we do now. the old host at the time was a very immature person (i dont hold it against him - again. literally 13) and didnt handle our system in a way that was responsible, tbh. When I took over at approx age 15, i made the mistake of suppressing our entire system, blocking them out, pretending i didnt notice them or that they weren't there. i basically gaslight myself into thinking we arent a system, writing off all of our symptoms as parts of my other disorders. i only just started accepting that we were a system again about two years ago, and only really let lose earlier this year.

Are you polyfragmented?

yep! we have fragments that come and go somewhat frequently

How did you discover that you were a system?

we've "discovered" we were a system a few separate times. the first time that i "discovered" was actually a re-discovery after doing some internal searching, when i felt like two previous names we had gone by were not just other names, but entirely different people. after a lot of self-searching, meditation, and discussion among ourselves, we've concluded this is true and that they were previous hosts. the first shared memory, as far as we can remember, of an "original discovery" was that previous mention at 13. the previous host had discussed it with an old friend, who was also a system .

How do you communicate with your system?

i struggle to communicate because i dont have access to the headspace - at least not to the same extent that everyone else seems to. i basically communicate through things exactly like this (see others in the "answering questions" tag); basically just writing a lot and letting anyone else use the keyboard as much as they want to I basically "manage" the headspace, if we want to phrase it that way. I consider it my personal responsibility to make sure we are all as safe as we can be, fronting or not, and making sure that we front responsibly. We may talk in the headspace, or through writing, like J mentioned.

Do you know how many alters are in your system?

We have four primary alters, with a few fragments and some "others" who choose not to make themselves known.

Do you have any introjects or non-human alters?

we're all some variation of non-human, mostly dogs and/or cats of some kind ; whether as our actual species or spiritually through therianism, etc :3c i am also a fictive but don't like to discuss my source We've recently started to suspect that I'm an introject of an abusive friend we had in high school. I think I look a lot like her, we're the same age, and if I had to pick a birthday I've always felt like it was in December; her birthday is in November, but we had an extremely traumatizing incident with her happen in December of 2019. I am almost certain I existed prior to this (maybe as a fragment?), maybe even as early as 2017. But to be fully honest I do not really remember much prior to December 2019 aside from a few shared memories that J also has. There are also a lot of differences between myself and this friend, namely that I am very strictly a gay man and she is a lesbian trans woman, but otherwise there are enough similarities that I could see our brain splitting to create some kind of "alternate version" of her...? Not sure.

Who fronts the most?

me, usually, but co-front frequently with art and Ben as we've previously mentioned

How often do you switch?

this is a really difficult question to answer , tbh? i wanna say "a lot", as in, at least a couple times a week, if not more - but we also struggle a lot with amnesia and time gaps, so its hard to say for sure

Are you open about being a system or do you mask in front of others?

it depends on who? we absolutely mask around people we don't know or don't trust irl, i.e. at work or around strangers . however our closest friends and my gf all know about us being a system, and we're open about it online since most of our online presence is about trying to be open and authentic and positive, so that includes all of us (:

How do you feel about being in a system?

after years of surpressing im trying so hard to learn to be okay with it. not that i dislike any of my alters - if anything i love them like family, and we get along so well - but its a direct result of the worst trauma of my life and is so hard to think about. some part of me i guess still feels some shame for the trauma i endured as a child. idk.

Do you have a system journal? If so, do your headmates have different handwriting?

this blog is the closest thing we have to a journal, so kinda? but we dont physically write often enough to say who's handwriting looks like what tbh

Is your amnesia strong or mild?

Very strong. For all of us.

Are there relationships within your system? This can be siblings, parents, or romantic partners.

None of us are in romantic relationships with each other, but both I and J consider ourselves "older brother" figures for our little, Red. He's six and struggles to be function alone, and we're very overprotective of him for the sake of his safety.

What do you like most about being in a system?

we work really well together as a unit, which i am incredibly thankful for, especially after how hard we (mainly i) tried to suppress it for so long

What are your thoughts on how DID is represented in media?

its... bad lol. ive never seen a single representation of DID in mainstream media that's even trying to be sensitive or positive representation - it's just serial killers, abusers, "crazy people", etc - we don't get to just exist in any way. this is honestly a big part of why it took me so long to accept being a system again.

[emanuelstefancu]

Consciousness is in us

I disagree. I believe that a man who is honest with himself does not dare to offend because he knows that he can be as brutal if it would've happened otherwise. A man who is honest with himself is a man who met his shadow, as described in the Jungian literature. I like to live my life with trust, hope, confidence and faith in my fellow companions that one day they will genuinely desire for kindness, surrender, redemption, love, service etc.

IMO, the era of mind and body is dimming, nearing its end, due to their limitations. The era of consciousness is underway. Above animals, the homo sapiens triumph. The body developed a new mechanism to compute the sensorial data. This data is the mind. It is a machine generating thoughts after thoughts. It is impeccable. It brought us this far. We are developing our society towards the highest standards. We gather knowledge to understand existence and non-existence, to improve our comfort through technology, medicine, science etc. Through emotions, we created art, poetry, music etc. We started imagining harmony, divinity. We pounder thoughts after thoughts, through trials and errors, and we developed the desire for love and peace. We're learning. We are becoming more and more aware of our surroundings, of our inner self, of the universe through theories, experiments, introspection, analysis, interpretation, sensorial experiences etc. We embrace all possibilities and we try not to exterminate ourselves. We are the human specie and each one of us is part of it. Within the body, there is a mind and above them there is consciousness. This flesh, this carcass is the vessel, while the mind is the machine developing consciousness' next container. In these circumstances, one might argue that consciousness is harmful to us. While others can accept it as the greater good. One side fights against consciousness, one side accepts the enlightenment. One side adheres to conservative means to postpone the inevitable which is consciousness, while the other adheres to the Ubermensch and devote our lives to consciousness. The era of consciousness is an era of an ethical and moralistic competition, where the latter has an universal set of rules: kindness, surrender, redemption, love, service etc. Embrace them because where the mind has limitations, technology overcomes them. However, I believe that, in time, technology will replace most of our functions allowing consciousness to transfer from a biological entity to a non-biological one. It would then be the dawn of the human specie. I believe that it will be then when technology will decimate us. We would be of no use, unless we find another way to serve consciousness. Faith, IMO, is our only hope.

[zethirdmind]

Dude I Hate Entrance Exams

A few weeks ago I was in Patna for an entrance exam, a concept so uniquely bastardised into Indianity that it no longer resembles any goals or visions or ambitions. It exists to torment. Aside from dealing with the terrifying ordeal of being in Patna, I was also at that moment faced with the agony of having to sit for a completely inane system of examinations that I knew would have no bearing on my actual (perhaps more accurately the innately perceived) academic and intellectual ability I possess (let's be honest I am dumber than I think I am), only to end up with a most probable gap year which I would, you guessed it, spend preparing for another competitive exam (a term that I find increasing in use at an alarming rate). Why do we subject ourselves to this nonsense torture? Why is it that our worth is measured in our ability to select single answers from a group of four ridiculously closely chosen options worth a single mark? Can anyone honestly tell me in my eye that if I tell you the correct answer from between 1950, 1951, 1952 or 1953, it tells you anything about my knowledge, or about my quick thinking reactions, or my bullshit ability, a skill so important in academia it is revered almost to the level of a 12-page paper written in the language gibberish with 200 citations, indicating no actual original thought. No, it tells you that I either have a remarkable memory, which had its uses in days when... let's see...you did not have the entirety of human knowledge in your pocket, accessible at all times. It also tells you that if I know the answer, I have spent ages mugging it all up in a coaching centre where because of your completely predictable patterns of choosing questions, Biharis have figured out the most efficient way of "cracking" your exam, another uniquely Indian word, cracking, as if we're opening a safe purely by ear. What I fear are the students who actually secure good marks in these exams. These are people who, instead of focusing on becoming knowledgeable or at the very least capable, have mastered the art of giving exams, and so, finding very little to actually do in the fields that they enter after the fact, return to the safest world they know, and open their own coaching centres, raising another generation of tuition teachers. And so the cycle continues. Of course, if I get a good result in my entrances all this stands moot I am smarter than you go jump off a cliff.

[ispywithmythirdeyeofficialbct]

Welcome all, and Goodbye Sun! Spent all day on uni today. So here's a reeeeeally long post. A lot to reflect on. My writing style may seem odd to some, but its how I retain a good memory of it all, by putting a lot of words on paper. So here's my paper of reflections on my first day back in #ctec502 with Roy and our korero.

Also my paint arrived. Hell YES. MORE PAINTING.

Carol Dweck on The Power of Yet,

I like that there is this method of teaching, how we think at a very young age, the power of critical and developing thought. It is innately in built into us from a time perhaps before birth, since it is consciousness that we are transforming and interpreting here, using our capacity to think, but CONSCIOUSLY.

There has been a book available in a well voice acted audio version on YouTube called The Tao of Pooh. This insightful little story teaches us the way of the Tao, as in the perspective of Lao Tzu, a particularly old and equanimous monk.

In the famous Winnie the Pooh by A.A.Milne, the archetypal too-busy-working, close/fixed-mindset, is played by the character Rabbit, a woodland creature that is so caught up in their mind they don't actually interpret what they experience or can learn from others or themselves.

In relevance to Carol Dweck's studies into 'the power of yet', it really is all about culture, ethics, opportunities and social conditioning. Childrens minds are like sponges were told, and we see it everyday, even in ourselves. We understand that yes, there is a need for workers and people who can do repetitive tasks, as how it is taught in a modern conventional schooling system, BUT THE ACTUALITY IS to any student where they are given the opportunity to choose what they want to learn, are made aware of how they can learn and evolve when given a certain challenge, in a non judgemental and constructive environment, we can drastically enhance the collective intellect of our whole interlinked social network within the short span of a year as claimed by Carol Dweck.

Here is some art that was created by myself during a 4 day Stay at Home MURAL Festival that had the theme of bringing light to issues of the world but in a positive and beautiful way.

With over 700 artists in 50 or more countries... even this simple idea to bring intelligent and simple, beautiful, artistic, childish action, that's bold for its first year running!! All from Covid-19.

Casey Reas on Digital Algorithm Art

In the first online lecture given by Roy, I was surprised we would be using algorithms so quickly in our physical work, and it took me back to my day of using procedure based processing to create scenes in a program made to generate 3D environments, this program was called Terragen 2.

Using the software called Context Free to render simple shapes and sophisticated 'real' clouds in a 2D representation even if it is generated in 3 dimensions if programmed, (and 4 dimensions if animated) it was interesting to understand why my PC I used up to 10 years ago clogged with animal fur, would die on me when I left it to render a scene in ridiculously high quality over a period of multiple hours. It was because of the amount of shapes I'd set my PC to fully render without understanding that the picture is more sophisticated than a simple blink and reality is made, it is GROWN AS A SERIES OF INTERCONNECTED OBJECTS and it adapts to or from the environment with the interconnectedness that is afforded by their state of consciousness (programming) and the matrix of energy they take form as in this sedimentary moment in reality.

The past affects the future render layer in a moment of rendering. Also the future affects the past layer by building or deleting or transforming itself, this seed from moment to moment. This Animation. To give an object a code or seed to existence, even if you can't control all of its inputs, simplicity can create diversity and complexity and vice versa.

The amount of revelation I can place in rendering in procedural matrix or lattice realities...I would love to see that in my work on mixed media and mixed reality assignments or projects I endeavour to entertain or seek out.

But this in itself is a paradox. Am I pulled to this future by my simple minded flow toward this source, as is entropy, as is the movement of all things. ..There is more than black and white to all situations. Usually it's black and white or white and black. Lighter darks or darker lights.

I wouldn't be at university because I didn't have a revelation to attend it last year. I wouldn't be at university if I felt so depressed I needed to leave. I wouldn't be at university if I wasn't allowed to attend. Nevertheless I know. I know that I am pulled forward to where I'm meant to be, as much as I am falling into old habits, they're not old, they're new, but its my consciousness that calls them old and tries to outdo the habit one moment, while another moment were relieved we didn't listen to the critical mind saying we shouldn't do what we don't want to do. Everything has a cause and effect like the render in window. Like my life on pen and paper. Like my mind engaged in its word spinning and weaving.

I digress back to my art in context of the Casey Rea's YouTube video.

A fun aspect of my art is it would look amazing even in a quick render with plenty of visual noise, but I love the simplicity of procedural based virtual world and object creation and the layers it can develop or devolve into.

Another thing is using Photoshop to apply visual post production enhancements was also something I really enjoyed as a part of the iterative process, and this has been reaffirmed in a book I have just picked up called Photoshop for 3D artists V1 by 3dtotal Publishing.

I watched all the videos recommended by Roy in his pdf today from the lecture and I can summarise my views on them:

Carol Dweck: This type of learning should be more widespread in our culture. Only way it will change is if we change, and teach others the same way. It begins with us. I enjoy the way Roy engages with us in our lectures like we're human beings and not students. I think this is the most important thing about his teaching that enthuses me, and the themes of his classes are quite informative.

Casey Reas: I like his work, I'm not new to this idea of art, but I did like to see his process. I wouldn't certainly seek out a video like that one given but it definitely was insightful into his particular environment and methods of producing ideas.

John Maeda: Wow this guy really looks like he's on the guide for dummies, and he definitely could write a few of them. Was a great insight into his perception of reality and how he expressed his ideas and himself was also simplified complex ideas and that they are readily available to see or interact with including his book. Simple. It's right there in front of you. All it takes is a shift in perception to discover what was currently scanned over as unimportant details by our consciousness. It's all right there in front of us, or if we feel something, from within us.

Warren Berger: Well to be honest, he didn't excite me as many of the other videos because his idea was so simple and not really that much of a paradigm shift within myself. It always can come down to refinement of an unwanted edge. Does one see a wave as something that can be answered? Can you answer that question? How about the question preceding this one? Can a bird fly as well as a fly can bird? Why is a raven like a writing desk? Why do we play 20 questions? We are always in an iterative process of rendering our existence and our legacy in this reality by the choice we have when faced with a question. Depending on its complexity or cryptically contrived hindrances, we will always be faced making a choice, or answer the question of our existence, with our consciousness in this moment. And can we use that moment to ask something we have never thought we had an idea about before...like why isn't my skin purple? Where did my consciousness come from and why is it specifically in belief that I am me, every time I get up at 8 am, but not while I am in the throes of a dream?

Riddle me that and I'll ask you why

Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie.

I have seen my lives

In my eye

Simply put, I never die

It's not a riddle, it's who am i

Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie.