Predetermined Free Willy

Do you believe we have free will?

The popular position among neuroscientists seems to be that it's nothing more than a handy dandy self-delusion that keeps society going. Our actions are merely the shiny, polished products of an extremely complex input-output program: our brains.

According to them, there is no "I chose to do this" in the terms most of us are accustomed to—just a big wad of neurons that weighs all the options with prior experiences and makes you do things. In oft-cited studies by a researcher named Benjamin Libet, the brain even lit up and revealed its intentions before subjects noted their own awareness of what they were doing (although I admit I'm a little dubious of evidence that relies on self-reporting.)

A common argument for free will has people saying "Well sometimes I want do something but then I don't!" But if, for a relatable example, you were deeply in love with your best friend's grandma, the act of resisting that mighty craving wouldn't mean you've conquered your impulses and your brain.

Many a scientist would say that before you even became conscious of it, good ol' brainington already considered that pursuing gammy would probably damage your friendship, alienate you from society and that she might reject your too-smooth body anyway and break your heart. Even if it was a difficult conclusion to come to, it was out of your hands.

But this all just a sloppily paraphrased version of one theory.

Is it so unfathomable to think that this sense of being on autopilot might be the illusion? That there's something we've yet to fully understand about how the brain, consciousness and our perception of reality works? Sure, maybe. Maybe it doesn't have to be so strictly one or the other, freedom versus determinism. Maybe it depends on how you define free will.

What's scary is the notion that if it somehow, someday it becomes a consensus that there is no free will, what would that mean for our legal systems? I didn't do it; that awful meatball in my head did.

5 foot dreaming

I saw an interview with singer/songwriter Regina Spektor the other day and thought it was interesting how she described her old dream of being a classical musician. She compared it to a person whose dream is to be the tallest person in the Guinness World Records but only grows to be 5 feet tall. While she admits that that kind of dream fades away on its own, she insists the first dream doesn't have to be the last one. Or even the right one.

I'm guessing most people can relate, at least to some extent. Sometimes it just seems like there's a natural dead end to what you're doing, and I'm not just talking about a limitation of innate talent (neither was Regina Spektor, I don't think). Maybe you just grow out of it, or you get stolen away by a new passion. But for a lot of people, it could be what some psychologists call the O.K. plateau.

This is when you come to a point in your growth where reaching the next echelon would require an amount of focus, passion and hard work that you're not willing or ready to commit. Whatever your rationale may be, you're content to stop. It doesn't mean you can't ever start again, but sometimes you just know when to leave it behind, even if it's disappointing.

For me, for five or six years I was devoted to animation, comics and illustrated poems. For most of that time, that was where my dreams were. But I exhausted where I could go with all of them.

It came down to the fact that I'm a doodler, not a full-fledged artist. Anything beyond the simplest poses and drawings were complete agony for me, and I had little to no interest in actually developing my skills to make it less agonizing. Sometimes I'd just think of the headache of it all and procrastinate forever.

This severely limited the kinds of stories I could tell, and before I knew it, I felt like I'd used them all up. I hit 5 feet, and you can only go so much farther with your high heels of Photoshop know-how.

I won't say I'll neverevereverevernenevnenreever make a comic or animation again. If it's a side dish, I don't care as much about pushing my limits. But I know what I loved best about both was the writing. They were perfect playgrounds for an insecure writer to cut his teeth because the visual charm can be so disarming and what you write never has to stand alone.

I'm more than ready to just write now though. I'll try, anyway. I'm not so naive as to prematurely assume this is the right dream, but It's already better in that I crave to work at it every day.

So let's hope I can be a little taller this time! Or at least fatter. I'm tired of being skinny.

Recalculating

Sometimes you just don't know where it is till you get there, uh huh? Huh uh. Uh.

The newerfangled Newfangled Death -- that poetry collection I was supposed to be working on -- has mutated  several times and undergone extensive stem cell therapy since I last spoke of it. But like the mighty Frieza, I believe it's found its final form and is ready to fight suddenly blonde people.

So yeah, it's now a collection of short stories! And a couple poem/short story cross-breeds. Some are short, some are long, but all of them will love you equally. There's an overarching theme of death, but it ain't all doom and gloom. If you're familiar at all with the black humour and sad-smiles I seem to gravitate towards, this stuff shouldn't be too scary.

Looking at a total length of 7000-ish words. Still $1 price tag for eReaders or computer reading. I'd suspect early April somewhere. No foolin'! Print editions to come later, compiling a few of these kinda volumes -- probably both at Lulu and Amazon.

Now I need to run off and be a sickly recluse again. It's one of the perks of being a writer.

Snapeshots

Severus Snape is "a professor with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin." His eyes "were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels," and he has "uneven, yellow-ish teeth."

Do you see him in your head? Or do you see Alan Rickman?

Before the Harry Potter movies, every reader's Snape would have been unique in how the individual put his key features together and filled out the rest.

After the movies, I think it's safe to say most of these millions of Snapes have been usurped -- or at least annexed -- by Rickman. Yes, he has that wicked tuba voice and is perfect in the role, but I'm not concerned about him personally. It's the Snapey homogenization that brings up some mixed feelings.

I'm not attacking movies or visual media. And I'm not longing for some fanciful purity of imagination, because even if it were possible, it'd make us all islands and erase our shared experiences. It can be really beautiful, everyone seeing the same awesome thing.* And in cinema, Alan Rickman's Snape is as iconic and awesome as it gets.

I just still kinda mourn the Snapes that lived in people's heads, even if they can't measure up to Big Ricky. But I know they aren't all lost and it'd be melodramatic to really claim they were. Evidence of Snape diversity is readily available in fan art land, an always growing and occasionally disturbing menagerie.

So, I'll just say long live Snape, whoever he is to you.

*You could argue we don't see the same thing even in a uniform image, as individual responses are unique. But that's another matter! Sort of.

Aha!

There's something remarkable and uniquely satisfying about the eureka moments that you unearth as you try to put together a creative project. The sudden connections, the sudden answers, the sudden ends of the dead ends.

Just as powerful is what can happen the day after

when you realize it's all wrong.

When are you most creative?

According to this it's when you're sleepy. A cloudy brain makes it easier to connect ideas that would've been separated by analytical walls otherwise. And then when you're more awake, you can assess whether it's insight or insane.

Any truth to this in your personal experience?

For me, the one benefit of insomnia is the rush of ideas that occasionally comes with it.

Or maybe it's the rush of ideas that's keeping me awake.

In either case, I'd still rather sleep.

Sometimes.