Graphical Representation

(Editor's Note: Another essay written as a writing sample for an application. The promt is originaly from an SAT II test and is reprinted here because I can and becase we still need more entries as part of our testing phase for whipping everything into shape. Enjoy or not, but it's here.)

Life is a journey, a quest, a movement that takes all of us from birth to death to complete. Everyone has a different journey, everyone walks down their own path, and many of us spend the entire journey trying to understanding the meaning of our quest. Sometimes the journey moves us forward, sometimes we move backwards. The journey may send us running in circles, or it may turn us upside-down and jostle us about for years on end. Life shows us many things, but understandability, consistency and uniformity never seem to appear. Thus applying a form or figure to represent our journey through life is both a difficult and illogical task. However, by drawing simple conclusions about the journey from our experience, the world around us, and the wisdom found in art and literature we can obtain a much clearer idea of the shape or form we may use to represent our quest.

Because life is a journey and journeys usually extend from point A to point B, a line might be the simplest and most logical form to use when envisioning life. However, the simplicity of this one dimensional figure is incapable of displaying anything other than linear movement. Life is devoid of many things, and linear movement is one of them. Our journey takes us from some point A, to another different point B, but the path is far from direct. In between point A and point B, we may move backwards, take wrong turns, spend time walking in circles, and meandering endlessly. In addition to its inadequacies when representing the path of life, the line fails to capture a number of other important aspects of life. Most notably, the changes in perspective that result from our experiences and environmental influences are devoid from linear representation. that shape our view of life and the world around us throughout our lives. The circle, with its added dimension, is a much better representation of life than the line, but it too has short comings. The circle, as well as other two dimensional geometric shapes, is regular, exact, and is only able to capture at best one of the many complex aspects of life. Another figure, one which combines the movement of a line, with the changes in perspective of a circle, and a third dimension to display the depth of the human sprit is needed.

The Möbius strip is just that, a one sided figure that can be constructed by taking a strip of paper twisting one end one hundred and eighty degrees and attaching the two ends together. If you place at any point on a Möbius strip, and draw a straight line without removing the point from the paper you will eventually reach your starting point after drawing your line on every surface of the Möbius strip. This object can represent many aspects of a typical human life. The line on the strip represents the movement and change in the journey of life, the circular nature of the line can represent both the cycle and occasional circuitous nature of the journey. The dual dimensional nature of the Möbius strip is puzzling and thus is apt to represent the puzzling nature of our journey and the enduring curiosity of the human mind. It seems that it is this curiosity that leads us to contemplate this question in hopes of understanding ourselves, our journey, the world around us, and our place and purpose in the world.

More than any other single source, our experiences on the journey help us to draw the best conclusions about the nature of the path. Feeling and seeing life's trials on a daily basis can give us the best impressions of a realistic form to represent our journey. At different times in our life we experience the world around us from different perspectives and we travel in different directions; more often than not, we are confused by the reasons and the path that we have to travel. Beneath these experiences is a relentless and undying curiosity about all aspects of life which we as a species seem to possess. Without this thrust and inquisitive nature our existence seems to lose meaning, purpose, and forward drive. These experiences suggest the Möbius strip as a perfect representation of the human experience because it embodies nearly all of the characteristics of the human experience in a concrete and lucid manner.

Academic studies of various disciplines, while not as concrete in nature as studies of our own experience may provide us with an even clearer idea of the form of the sojourn we make. Throughout the studies of literature and history we find numerous examples of the nature of human thought, as well as unique views of the human quest and insightful looks into various parts of the journey from different perspectives. By looking into historical events and figures we can look at the journey of another as a whole from beginning to end. The accounts of the lives of great leaders, and important activists shed light on the lives of those who impact the world in profound ways; their journeys are important and can help us to determine the path we all follow in some form or another. Likewise, the study of literature and the arts can help us to trace the journey of the common people through life and can give us insight into more particular parts of the journey than most historical accounts. Other academic pursuits such as science and mathematics can lend further support in the quest for the meaning and shape of life's journey. The Möbius strip itself is the result of work done by nineteenth century German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius and it is his work in the field of topology that has allowed us the ability to give form to life's journey. Without studies into science and the humanities, we wouldn't have any notion or grounding in who we are and where we've been. Without such grounding it would be impossible to determine where we are going, and the representative form of the journey as a whole.

The form, structure, reason, purpose, and shape that our journey through life takes is a subject of immense importance and with the assistance of experience on life's road. Through certain academic pursuits we are able to theorize what shape life might take if it were represented in a physical shape or object. The Möbius strip presents itself as the likeliest form for the journey to take. Möbius strips incorporate characteristics of many aspects of the human existence and journey, such as the changes of perspective, the circular and linear directions of the path, and the undying curiosity of humanity for the nature of the journey. All answers lie on the journey; proper investigation of the human quest will only result in more questions, but then again that's the way life is.

New Fronts and a Prime Directive

As of 11 am Thursday, 19 December 2002 I was finished with the work and all the exams for this semester are completed. Thank God. Also it's really nice that I don't have to go back to school until the 6th of January. I need the time to rest, recuperate, and recharge, and also to do some of the things that I haven't been able to do for the past few months. Writing, reading, computer coding, and staying up and going to bed really late are all fairly high on my list.

I've also been working with Amy to get TealArt converted to the new Quarto CMS. It's going really well, and I have two files that I need to create, one that needs to be fixed and two functions that aren't working the way they should. The file that doesn't work is a related problem to the functions that aren't working, I think; but my knowledge of such things is somewhat limited as anyone who's ever helped me with PHP will attest to. In a few days we'll get there.

One of the things that Amy said in her weblog at one point that I'll probably talk about more latter is that she "saves the present and future for herself and writes about the past for her site" (a rough paraphrase, I'll get the entry at some point.) This really struck me, and I think its something that might separate a good weblog from a lousy one (the term is used loosely). This should be the prime directive of blogging. Go Forth, he said, and Write only about the Past. So there.

Perfect Notebook Bliss

(Editor's note: Despite the fact that I don't particularly like this post, or find that its relavant, or think that its particularly well done, I need another entry to post for testing reasons so here goes nothing. Enjoy it, or not.)

For various reason I've been referred to as a geek, and I'd agree with this assessment most of the time: I'm really good with computers, I have lots of mobile technology equipment and experience, and I use technology to assist my productivity as much as possible. The odd thing is that in many senses I'm incredibly retro. The biggest testament to my retro hippness, is the fact that I do a lot of writing with a fountain pen on paper (mostly pre-writing and other short things when I'm out in the real world.) Being a fairly compulsive person, I like to keep things in some semblance of order and a number of various notebooks, and other collections of blank paper help me do this.

I've tried unlined sketch books (which would have been great had it not been book bound, thus disagreeing with my left-handedness and portability demands,) low grade wide ruled notebooks, high grade collage rule books, memo pads, tablets, and finally steno pads. My demands are fairly high. Spiral binding is required, I need to be able to fit a medium amount of stuff on a page and I need to be able to throw it into a bag with ease, the paper has to be smooth and absorbent so that it agrees with my pen(s), the notebook shouldn't be that thick because I like to be able to fill up a notebook every so often so when there are about 5 million billion sheets I never feel like I'm accomplishing anything.

For a long time I'd been muddling through a notebook that wasn't perfect but it did the job fairly well, and one day as I was walking through Wal-Mart looking for batteries or t-shirts I walked by the notebook isle and saw something that looked perfect: a baby-blue steno pad for 97 cents. I really should have thought of it sooner, but in any case I bought it and took it home. It worked perfectly and a few pages into it I started writing an entry about finally finding the perfect notebook. It was entitled The Perfect Notebook Bliss and in it I planned to celebrate finally finding a notebook that was as near to perfection as I could manage.

Then I went on a canoe trip. While my prized note book didn't get nearly as wet as some of my other things, one bottom corner got wet and the ink bleed through a little. No big deal. I rescued some of the most badly disturbed pages and kept using it.

Only hours ago, I went for a longish walk and had a good time (sarcasm) while it rained and thundered on me for about an hour. I hoped that the combination of my bag, my speed, the distance and my ability to maneuver my way between the rain drops without an umbrella would protect me and my belongings from becoming drenched. It didn't work and most of my stuff got a little wet. Thankfully it all dried out fairly quickly, but the thing about fountain pen ink is that it will run with abandon if it gets a little bit wet.

I've given up on that steno pad, it's cursed, and the bottoms of the white sheets have dark bluish color and the lines have washed away. Thankfully I know now what the perfect notebook isÖalmost. For my next foray into the realm of blank paper, I'm looking for something that is spiral bound across the top, has medium to high quality paper, is fairly small both in height and length as well as depth, and if I can find one that is meant as a drawing or sketch pad (thus no lines), I may have finally found the perfect notebook. Bliss.

Respecting Other Forms

(Editor's Note:Another short piece I wrote for school about my writing ability and the character of my writing strenghts and weeknesses. Here because we need content. Hopefully this will be over soon.)

I am a fiction writer who dabbles in nonfiction essays and articles; or maybe I am an article and essay writer who dabbles in fiction. In either case, it's fairly clear that I am not a poet or a dramatist. It could be a lack of skill, experience, or talent. More likely, this pitfall in my ability is due to divine will rather than anything under my control. Some peopleóincluding meóare not capable of to write poetry or drama.

To say that I can't write poetry isn't to say that I'm physically or mentally incapable of writing in verse; however, I haven't been able to amass any evidence that I am capable of writing poetry, and not for any lack of effort. Numerous times I've tried, and tried to write poetry, I've worked with a great deal of dedication without producing one poem that fills my definition of good poetry: a group of words that sends a message that is somehow larger than the words on the sheet of paper. I am somehow incapable of doing this.

Unlike poetry, my chances of ever writing drama are not quite as dire. With a great deal of time, effort, planning, and blood letting, it is conceivable that I could write and/or produce scripts that would at least equal the quality of my prose. Despite a familiarity with the form, I have yet to find success writing scripts with a satisfactory similarity to the picture in my mind's eye. This isn't to say that a work needs to end up exactly like the creator foresaw, but the work needs to maintain a certain continuity with the authors evolving vision.

Just because I haven't been able to write a good script, and because I doubt I'll ever be able to write a poem, I don't hold any ill regard for either of these forms. In fact, good drama and poetry has a greater influence on my prose than the novels and short stories that I absorb. Quality poetry has the ability to express a message in the purest most beautiful form. Almost every good script, produced or not, can boil a plot into the most visual and descriptive form with minimum use of adjectives and adverbs. The lessons learned in story telling from drama, and the lessons about language learned through poetry transfers nicely into other forms, such as the fiction and non-fiction prose I write. I can only hope that some of this genius is rubbing off on me.

Working on It

Here is the whole scoop. The server's been gone for a few days and there really hasn't been an explanation, and now the pages aren't quite right, and plus the archives have disappeared, and I'm sure you want to know what happened. Right? I mean if there's anyone reading this after all that is happened.

Some how sometime the server crashed or something. I haven't gotten a good explanation for what happened, but it was fairly clear early on that things were gone and that they weren't coming back; but for some unknown reason our email was still working. Sort of: Mary Beth was having some problems and in retro spec my email was sporadic at best. Finally that gave out too, and so I arranged other hosting and as a result we've moved into much more spacious and equipped digs and I only had backups for the files but not the databases where all of the important things were. I managed to zap some life into this instillation of b2 and everything works as well as it might, sans data. (And for some reason things aren't being pushed off the index page as they should which is part of the reason for this post.)

In any case I remembered that Amy of Domesticat.net offered to let me have a go at her new (and really fab Content Management system). It's a little buggy now, but I'm told that there's already an update on the way, and I really like it, the main problem is that Amy hasn't yet posted (she's making good progress on this one too) the PHP functions necessary for display. Given my knowledge of PHP I could probably write the functions myself, but I'm not really up for that right now so I'm biding my time and currently have b2 and Quarto until the display functions start to work. Thankfully though, Amy's functions will work perfectly for me given that the idea for most of my code features come from things I've seen used on her site. When we switch over in addition to all the things you've grown used to, we're going to try to add a surfing diary/link list as well as a really neat category system.

On a more personal note, Chris (but we call him Andy) has been done with school until next semester for about a week, and I'm free as of this Thursday at 11 o'clock. I'm hoping to get a sizeable chunk done on the book, as well as a few other writing and web project work. It's going to be an interesting break, and I really can't wait for the freedom, again. I just need to get done with this semester. I have two more papers to finish up and then its home free.

More later, I should get back to work; and I'm sure there are tons of typos so just lay off.

A Way With Words

Note: This was originally written as a free-form test entry for Quarto (Domesticat: The CMS); I liked it so much you're now reading it here on TealArt

Also: Amy asked for test entries, so I started typing and 300 some words and a bit of editing later created this entry. Now that I've read over it, I think that I'm going to post it over on TealArt too.


There are two kinds of good books: books that say interesting things and books that say things in an interesting way.

I read tons of fairly bad science fiction books because I'm interested in the characters or what the author has to say. A lot of really great authors just say interesting things. I love reading interesting things that provoke thought, in many ways that is what TealArt is about. These kinds of books have influenced my development as a writer such as it isóand have a definite impact on the kind of person I am.

On the other hand, there are books on various subjectsómost of which I could care less aboutóthat say things interestingly. Barbra Kingsolver and Anne Lamott spring instantly to mind as authors who can take a subject that I don't have much interest or care for, and tell a story about it in a way that is simply amazing. Language is an amazing art form that I don't think receives the kind of attention it disserves. I'm not talking about story telling, or persuasion. I don't mean to say that the ability of an author to make a point using language is all that amazing. Most people, given enough time, editing, and training can write good enjoyable books, stories, and other enjoyable compilations of words; but it takes some strange kind of genius to put language together in ways that have the power to affect people in profound and extraordinary ways.

In the right hands, language is capable of being witty, honest, reverent, insightful, irreverent, revealing, and comforting all in a paragraph or less; and that is only the tip of the iceberg. My hope is that I can be all of those things over the course of a single or even a career.

Lost Ground and Fresh Starts

Something unfortunate has happened dear readers. The entire databases for this site as well as CollectiveArts were lost. When all, or most, of the content of a site is stored in a mySQL database, site management becomes really easy and the file structure becomes clean and logically arranged: it's great. When you're old hosts sever craps out and you must move to a nicer facility with out a database dump: it's a pain in the ass.

Nothing's changed, and everything works as it should, unfortunately, all of that old content is here. I should be moping around and fighting like hell to get a fairly recent backup of the database, but I'm not. Its ok, and Chris and I will be able to move forward. After all a fresh start that clears out all of that start that I've started to get a little embarrassed about is an okay thing. I'm not celebrating it, but it's not a bad thing. I've posted two of the entries from my personal archive that I'm rather proud of (and I did postdate one), and we'll continue from here.

After a month of not having a working website, I'd think that it's good to be back.