Franz Kafka

I read a Kafka anthology this past week:
- The Metamorphosis
- In the Penal Colony
- Meditation
- The Judgment
- Conversation with the Supplicant
I particularly enjoyed Metamorphosis, Penal Colony, and The Judgment.

The human potential in everyday experience is incredible. When you look at things back in retrospect, there is a mindful recollection which recounts the physical details of that memory (i.e. the action and setting), but there is also (and possibly more importantly) a heartfelt recollection that recalls the atmosphere and emotion attached to that memory. Here's an application.
Two people walk out of the movie theater after watching a tearjerker film. One tells the other that it was a very sad movie. The other agrees saying that it was indeed a very sad movie. Objectively, both people agree that the film was sad and the strict rationalist would state that both people felt the same emotion. But what is often ignored is that the two people had two different ways of reaching the same conclusion, different ways that resulted from a different compilation of past experiences. A simplified example, the first person thinks (SPOILERS) that Bambi's mother being shot is sad because his dog was once hit by a car, whereas the second person thinks it's sad because it's animal cruelty, a social sensitivity she developed after seeing a pig being slaughtered during her youth. It's a really drained and exaggerated example, but if you consider the greater idea that a person's entire continuum of experience sums up to who they are at this very moment, it makes everyday experiences and those seemingly petty moments of insignificance just as important and fascinating as the moments of clarity or existential crisis (which is probably a blossom from those minuscule experiences).

Photography is tough! And more expensive than I would have imagined. If ever I can get a good shot during the summer, I'll be absolutely sure to post it. If it never appears, you'll know what happened...

Summer will be interesting. Lots of stuff going on. And yet at this very second, I feel nothing but sloth. It's funny. In the history textbooks, the greatest, kindest, craftiest, and evilest of all the people in the human timeline get their own pages. Never the lazy ones. Great > Kind > Crafty > Evil > ...Lazy? If the sloths can be lazy to fulfill their evolutionary pursuit, why can't we?!?

I am watching a Polish movie series called Dekalog (1 hr per episode, 10 episodes) by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Each episode is indirectly themed around one respective Ten Commandment. I wouldn't say its a religiously biased film since religion is not even mentioned or used as any central plot theme or device. It's really wonderful. If you can get your hands on a box set somehow, I would highly recommend (disregard any recommendation I might have previously made except Chinatown).

I STILL want to learn jazz. But I lack the patience.

San Clemente is a great beach town. One half is comfortable suburbia and the other half is a surf capitol.

Sleep calls.