1 .  Narrative :

+ = and

The question was simple, the setting was appropriate + the discussion held within itself the answer humanity has endlessly been searching for .  In hindsight, the library was probably not the most ideal environment to have such a heated conversation but the third floor offered such a beautiful view of the harbor,  littered with white sails + white clouds .  Standing between the towering wisdom of eclipsing bookshelves, we prepared to say farewell for the time being .  He began by hurling his ball-point pen down towards the floor .  Reasoning that the only justification for doing so, was to make a point, but that all previous events in his life had led him to this exact sphere in space whereas everything had been manipulated by other causes + therefore reached that specific effect @ that particular moment in time .  I disagreed wholeheartedly .  You could sense we were both immensely passionate about our ideas though even more so were we impassioned to truly know :  What was our purpose ?  Not encompassing the reason for absolute life but the reason for intelligent life .  The sum of all free will + apparent choice .  Was it all a byproduct of cause + effect or better yet were we (individual human beings) responsible for our own existence ?  Free will + choice have habitually been the topic of discussion amongst great philosophies , religions + scientific theories ,  but here we were , two twenty somethings gazing into each others eyes looking for answers - the answer . 

    "What's the point" is an idiom so often used one sometimes fails to realize the depth + scope of such an inquiry .  We ask it in everyday conversation, trying to bypass the details which makes a story its own unique time-line of colors, scents + actions, but we unfailingly want the point - the purpose for such beautiful articulation .  Why were we choosing to sit in this academic milieu conversing about our very own actions which took us here + better yet, remain to mull over the choices in which we would entertain as we left ?  I wanted so desperately to know .  He argued that our purpose was nothing more than a loyal performance dictated by previous causes incurred by previous effects .  We were nothing but actors performing someone else's play .  I barked back with the assumption that I was choosing to be there - I could leave anytime I desired to .  Not because of some previous action taken or withheld from but because I was making a choice in that very moment subjected to those very circumstances . 

    [Cause + effect is the easy way out,] I insisted to myself, inside the conversation being held between my mind + heart .  [It makes society irresponsible for its actions, allowing people to act as if nothing they do matters .  Everything we do matters .  Throwing down your plastic, blue pen has infuriated me beyond the degree of simple cause + effect - it has proved my point :  you have chosen to do so - nothing forced you, no one recommended it of you .  Your personal neurons fired in such a sequential pattern that the free will decider inside of you, chose that making a deliberate action such as hurling one's pen would influence my perspective to agree with yours .  I don't believe choice is commanded by cause + effect but rather choice is influenced by such .  Ultimately, our conscious mind makes a decision based not only on previous experience but on new information .  I believe our purpose is to make our existence, our cumulative experience the most harmonic as one can hope for .  What else could we be here for ?]  But I did not speak this aloud .  Instead I looked him in the eyes + said, "I used to be like you .  I have journals describing your exact claims, with great eloquence + reasoning .  Now I have journals counteracting such claims with even grander evidence ."  "I'd like to see those," he responded .  "Okay ." 

    I had already grabbed him + pressed my lips against his with more passion being held back than actually distributed .  I doubt he knew .  The argument brought me back to sleepless nights of enduring pain from breaking down the principles of everything I knew + never imagined .  I had been where he was .  I had argued myself both ways so many times that I couldn't even respond to him with what Truth I had discovered .  I would let him do it on his own .  It is better that way - we all must find our purpose on our own .  We said goodbye with a short but meaningful embrace + a quick "goodbye ."  I left with thoughts to reexamine once more;  I hoped he had found new ones .

2 .  Definition :

Definition itself is something which cannot be encompassed .  It is as if trying to paint a picture of a tesseract to scale .  It cannot be done - not in three dimensional terms . 

Definition is something that effortlessly eludes being defined by endlessly remaining  just out of reach - constantly left on that thin branch of assumed understanding .

Definition is only defined within an individual being's mind or not defined .  We only understand each other on relative terms based on our previous experiences .

Definition is an attempt @ creating a mutual page of interpretation amongst literate beings .  But in the end - we only see our sole interpretation of the page .

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words .  If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words ."  -Philip K. Dick

"I explore the area where two points meet, and how they give meaning to each other.  And two more, so on, over and over.  Music is built in the same way that it becomes so convincing- it just makes sense; the way the sounds are arranged, or not so arranged, and what I’m willing to expect.  In a work of art, I position objects in ways that will affect their neighboring bodies, like musical notes create intervals.  The images and their placements express my interpretation of topics such as science and tradition, which I’ve been taught are more complicated ways of saying that at the center of the universe there’s two tiny bits of something bumping against each other, and it goes on much the same from there..."

-Greg Ferris

3 .  What Is Life ? :

This article painted a pretty picture . 

I have found a relation between the idea of the living biosphere of Earth which is infested with human beings who are sustaning their environment while simutaneously killing their host planet along with William S. Burroughs idea from Electronic Revolution that "viruses are obligatory cellular parasites and are thus wholly dependant upon the integrity of the cellular systems they parasitize for their survival in an active state. It is something of a paradox that many viruses ultimately destroy the cells in which they are living...”  I find this interesting because I frequently view mankind as a virus to the Earth itself .

4 .  MixMasterBlog :   Week 2 .

Instead of writing my own take in response to posted comments, I decided to mix up quotations from current posts, creating an argument within itself .