Wellsbaum.blog

A catalog of emotions

October 3rd, 2022

We live with a catalog of emotions, whipsawing between highs and lows. Most of the undulation is due to poor internal weather.

We are not neutral, pushed inside and outside by competing forces. One minute we’re a lover of rule-breakers with scrupulous indifference; the next, we’re just another lemming, a sheep jumping through hoops.

We don’t aim for mediocrity. We shoot for the range of emotion — that long-term serotonin of being ourselves.

What individuates the individual is the armor of absurdity. Uniqueness treads underrated, and brilliance shines at the edges. We stand in to stand out — dialectic reflections reinforce the true self, that which is original.

Everyone’s brain comes uniquely hardwired; the difference is what one decides to shed versus the flawed attributes one decides to radically accept. Under the delusion of reprieve, those confused and jealous never get bailed out.

Divergent thinking offers a sanctuary, sheltered from the periphery’s fabricated emotions. Never take anything personally from society’s grip — the standard is injurious and little more than noise. Other people’s thoughts and feelings, albeit sticky, remain detached from the Personal Legend that makes us stretch.
Together as spiritual completeness

September 26th, 2022

It is human desire to share. It is also human desire to compete. The two — cooperation and competition — bleed into each other to test human resolve.

One excels in their particular field to consume another’s comparative advantage. As soon as those walls close down, trouble is lit. Every man for himself, absolute freedom, begets pure paralyzing chaos.

So we invent realities, make laws and pacts, and develop a socio-economic hierarchy. We drink the liquid of tacit agreement, a mere human perception.

The fear of breaking the bond threatens the tissues that hold everything together. On the whole, we prefer to bathe in a murmuration of order rather than concede to germs. What the hell is going on?

As products of our environment, we seek spiritual completeness. We need inner peace to focus on what matters to us: our families, work, hobbies, etc.

Of course, life is not linear. Relapses, and dips, are expected. Some exposure to vulnerability keeps things alive. Yet, some spend their whole lives trying to master the self, breakable at a moment’s notice.

The paradox of stress is long-term durability. Constrictions stretch our zones of comfort. Power concentrates around the individual but dedicates itself to the mirror of others.

Despite our differences and quirks, working together is a form of art.
Under the trained eye

September 19th, 2022

The eye works as a paintbrush, coloring the world with a palette of vitality. Unfortunately, the constant bombardment of external stimuli torpedoes our attention, bankrupting what’s interesting.

After all, the attention merchants plant eye candy and other UX wiles to captivate us and throw us into a ludic loop. But we can see our way through the artifice to avoid the delusion of our times. It’s not what we see but how we digest information, ignore the fodder, and redirect our focus on what’s important.

We desire a special kind of perception that is not soupy. One can’t see the forest for the trees without seeing several things jointly — how the individual parts connect, clash, and blur.

There is a well-intended space between the notes and poignancy at the edges, swaddling us into their spell. Hence the importance of resetting the dopamine balance to get us off the leash of commercial thought.

Cognizant of the psychological nudge, we refuse to let the marketers smuggle distractions into our heads. We probe carefully, create life intentionally, and exhaustively test any overprescribed vision.

The best way to goad the eye into visibility is through wide-eyed observation, to balance out that which conflicts or permeates a particular view. Under the trained eye, we latch onto a artful perception with the greatest wonder to avoid living someone else’s story.
A mind run riot

September 12th, 2022

Creativity occurs when the imagination runs riot. The mind, an inherently jumpy organ, delves into its own fruitful space — probing fantastic and experiential possibilities.

Truth is not the matter. Searching for what’s real and pure invention harbor the same goal: to pile up ideas. So we write a shitty rough draft or build a prototype to drive the concept forward, all in the name of the affirmative.

But making time to focus and start the work is only half of the job. Maintenance is the biggest challenge. What sustains mental and physical energy for any great project is a crazy assertion of persistence.

All else flows when we make up our minds to show up, practice, and ship daily. Process — the groove of habit — fuels a numbness against anxiety, doubt, and fear. “This may not work” is a reason to keep going.

The arteries of life hinge on what we can create, let go and transform—action gestures at such possibility. Instinct puts us in the best position. We keep running the experiment, vaccuming up and spilling out alpha, freshly windexing perspective with effort, experience, and time.
Inseparable opposites

August 29th, 2022

We’re always in the middle of fictional thinking — vacillating between what we’d like to do versus what we’re scared to do. Utopia and dystopia keep us on our toes before we filter for the truth.

We’re also paradoxical role-players — toggling between obedience and standing out depending on our internal weather. Authenticity often remains the most hidden.

The life process is replete with ups and downs, the yin and yang, sinking and then floating again. We move firm in one direction, only for the opposite to have its day. But “The Way taken as the way cannot be the Way that is always taken,” as the Dao-de-jing reminds us.

The dialectic likes to shock and prevent the mind from life’s fullness. Upfront and honest, practicing the art of negativity is to skip the myopic bullshit and embrace the agony of risk, including what typically follows: disappointment and underachievement before succumbing to the pitfalls of ennui.

“Everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance,” Kurt Vonnegut’s aphorism remains sharper than ever. Consistency is burdensome and complicated and vigorously attacked by mixed psychology. Real-life gains navigate the muddy opposites: chaos and certainty, tension and relaxation, excitement and exhaustion, security and freedom, all of which have their moments and days.

All things exist as well-defined problems yet remain mystical as inseparable opposites.
The spotlight of attention

August 22nd, 2022

Willpower rests on the brain’s set point for pleasure. Get used to indulging doses of dopamine, and the mind goes numb to any lack of stimulation.

Redirecting the spotlight of attention enforces a deliberate curb on the amygdala’s hijackings. Overriding how we feel is at the core of managing life’s compass. When we’re under control, there is no fight nor flight, only stillness of thought before taking purposeful action.

Analysis need not be paralysis; rumination need not beget catastrophe. The gears eventually unstick from loops of doom.

We can’t understand the anxieties of the present without understanding what caused the trauma of the past. When the going gets tough, we draw on experience and competence to accommodate the nakedness of confusion.

Being mindful is not just a suspension of judgment but the pursuit of discomfort. Reality bites, and it never makes an identical shape twice. There are always new challenges posed to the human mind, requiring we pay attention differently.

The attention habit of consciousness determines the design of aliveness. The inner narrative is the artist now, and it embraces our story before animating onto the canvass of the external world.
In the spell of imagination

August 15th, 2022

To remain in the spell, unmoored from the compass of time and place. The inner narrative reverberates off our surroundings. We become how we see, think, and respond.

The mind is always in the process of masticating the materials to prepare the imagination for lift-off. Moon shots take their shape at the precipice of unfettered possibility.

The fact is, reality is pretty dull. Voluntary dreaming allows the brain’s resources to flow freely and productively against the mental trap of what’s “reasonable.”

Riding the wave of creativity helps one tap into spontaneous ingenuity. All is food for thought.

After conjuring a story with clarity and detail, the subconscious decides whether or not the fantasy sticks. Intuitively, the mind leans toward the edge to gather the most compelling stuff, the string worth keeping.

The optimist says that we can match what we’re seeing with what we say. As long as we sit down and do our thinking, we can describe what we see with our august imagination,

The underlying cause of boredom and stuckness is in our heads. The magic is sitting down and working out the cognitive muscles to reignite those powerful stories repeatedly.
Writing takes guts

August 8th, 2022

Writing is a bitch. It takes routine, grit, and lots of induced anxiety to show up every day and put pen for paper. There’s a reason few do it: it’s depressing.

But for those who do, like runners, consistency means everything. Putting words together is like jogging the brain; working on prose keeps the artist one step away from lunacy.

Writing, as in life, is a rough draft. Remaining wide-eyed in an uncontrollable universe, we dare to make new mistakes.

The scribe is on a mission of discomfort, but the outpouring of ink is a form of therapy. Each blank piece of paper begins without a plan — well, maybe a hunch — and then, slow and steady, the words fill the page with imperfection and uncertainty. Bird by bird, the continuous present churns the valve of frustration.

Writing is an extension of breathing — an activity for sweating creativity. Surrender to it and get a share of its spoils.

No one is more insane than the person who opts for the struggle. But that’s what a true writer does. They sit in a chair and produce something from nothing, and interruptions are damned if not welcomed to break the deliberate intensity. The most challenging part of the writing process is getting started.

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open,” advises Stephen King. Writing is an invention on screen. Stare into the light long enough, and the letters jumble into pixels of starlings. Blink, and the brain momentarily goes into a fog; any words will do. Even in the poorest form, one still has something to play with.

The artists grows tired and unmotivated, of course. The dark clouds hang over the pen with the slightest silver lining. The resistance tries to pickpocket our attention by telling us we suck and that the sentences are worthless. Just buy bitcoin and work at Mcdonald’s, they said. How selfish is it to think other people care about what we have to say, anyway?

The words greet those bold enough to wrestle with them. But when one’s called to their vocation, they’re roped in — to the odd, banal, abstract, empty, and off limits. Invested is an understatement.
Memes are a hurricane of influence

August 1st, 2022

A meme is a hurricane of influence. It finds a human host, a signal booster, who spreads the meme before it takes on a life of its own.

Historically, words are the simplest of memes, necessitating a language of thought. But most memes today are visual concepts manifested in viral images shared on social media.

These images might be misunderstood — birthed from snarky Redditors before they become part of the online zeitgeist. The most transmissible, like human genes, are the ones that reproduce.

Memes, like any mimetic behavior, are less essential for thought. These contagious representations celebrate culture but bankrupt it too. Here, the adage rings true: images speak louder than words.

Reveling in the same memes standardizes how we dance, which is usually unique and personal. The psychological elements of herd mentality create a flurry of uncreative behavior.

The hive mind synchronizes with a remixed version of the internet’s infinite archives until originality loses its course. What’s viral rarely retains or sustains.

Memes offer a special kind of amassed perception, a snapshot of culture, without supplying something vital in return. We want to pursue things that are different and extend our learning. For that, we deviate toward what is radical and what is possible.
The bright rush of ideas

July 26th, 2022

Where do good ideas come from, and how do they form? They come from extensive research bolstered by the ability to connect the dots between knowledge and different experiences.

Good ideas form through time, osmosis, long walks, boredom, and the misheard; a fruitful combination of work, rest, and fearless play.

Maintaining curiosity motivates part of the unconscious; quieting the monkey mind delivers interesting ideas that err on openness and possibility. It is ignorance, like indifference, that portends a slow grind downward.

Not everyone cares about learning or showing compassion. Most people seek entertainment, amusing themselves to death. They seek minus knowledge and construct a self-narrative dependent on suppressing emotions. What they don’t know bars the synchronicities, making them “stronger.” In reality, they are less than average.

First-class minds, however, are prepared to confront their stupidity and adopt the perspectives of others so they can see the other side.

Only when people realize that there’s a solution for insouciance and stuckness — called EFFORT — is it too late. To remain active in imagination and love is to stay wide awake. People need each other because they need ideas.

We wield the baton and conduct our senses, coloring the world with our eyes. Immersion constitutes a sense of self, making all the difference in discovering the bright chunks of ideas waiting to emerge.

Awareness is a kind of anti-paralysis, liberating over-thinkers from the tyranny of thought and providing them a passport to freedom.
The invention of things

July 18th, 2022

Most creativity depends on building on top of what’s already there.

Novelty exploits and aggregates preexisting stems to manufacture new and different, which is all people pay attention to.

However, what’s new isn’t always copy-pasta, nor is it always welcome. Most inventions and reinventions are dull and undeluded, shocking just at their orientation.

No to new

Newness intercepts everyday exposure by stressing out the senses. For instance, the red stop sign is ubiquitous, obeyed, yet trite and overlooked.

Convert that sign into a magenta-based pentagon, and drivers face an awkward, uncomfortable practice. Paying attention to the road becomes a nuisance again.

We like banal conditions because they rule out the fuss. We dislike unfamiliar territory because of the time it takes to adapt. Refamiliarization triggers an accelerated grimace.

The brain, initially in denial, processes routines slowly before absorbing them. At first, we deny, and then we surrender. Just look at the prevalence of masks during Covid. Initially rejected, the spread begged the normality of N95s to enforce obedience.

Norms are the arbiters of enforcement. Rules are rules, hence the difficulty of going blind to the status quo. As authorities relax and the masks drop, bare face reigns supreme again.

We are conscious automata, often forced to revisit severe control issues that screw up our mental hardware. The least groundbreaking disruption is welcome only to test our patience and wake everyone up again.
Swallowing the elements

July 4th, 2022

Deliberately bad, mashed up, distorted like a Francis Bacon painting.

Ugly art brings the worst of our subconscious to the fore as a means of hobbling our concentration. It goads people into fully grasping how they feel, like a good old-fashioned puke, where the vocal cords saddle up and ride a ribcage as tight as body armor.

“It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done,” once said Oscar Wilde. Art offers the best revenge for both maker and consumer; both parties bring all their beliefs and biases to any situation.

The serpents continue to slither for their niche audience. After all, the frequency and provocation are what keep the momentum going. And the ideal viewer is more present and emotionally detached; curiosity is not neutral.

The interested student pays scrupulous attention to detail regardless of their mood. The scrutinizer’s eyes scan unemotionally and reward the work with a second look.

The most interesting pieces deserve the utmost attention, as each subsequent blink brings forth undiscovered light, shade, textures, and other materials. To see and “think different” help swallow the elements.

What remains unenforcible is sophistication. Appreciating context and complexity is vital — experience, education, and temperament bring to the purview everything.

No to new