Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse Virus pt. 5

Here we are. We've arrived at part five of our series. Here I'd like to jot down some general notes and ideas on the current state of affairs during this historic moment. Mostly of a personal nature. I've saved part 4 for detailing the historical aspects and news headlines. Reading through those headlines in part 4 really gives you the wider picture beyond me and my now solitary life. 

First, my life has fundamentally changed. Maybe not forever but for the indefinite future. No more guitar and singing at open mics. No more hangouts with friends. Now I live the humble life of a guitar playing, writing, gaming, grocery store worker. It ain't much, but it's a living. But at what cost? 

Some of my relationships have been put on hold. Others have gone south in some aspects. A friend of mine wants to hang out but he's got a weak immune system so I dare not hang out with him, lest I unknowingly spread the virus to him, and kill him. Another friend of mine got into it with me over comments on social media, saying that I was being delusional. I'm not going to be seeing any friends anytime soon. That much has sunk in. I've started a new life, not without them, but away from them, temporarily. 'Social distancing!' Once this thing blows over, I believe my friendships will be stronger than ever. But in the meantime, the distance has brought a rift between us. I feel sad about it, but alas, this is the fate of all. 

Well, that's grim. But remember this is only temporary. But until then it is indefinite. These are the facts, the new reality, the brave new world. Let's see how brave we really are. I'm going to keep practicing social distancing and avoid going out of the house except for work. I can't risk spreading the virus to my family, friends, or even coworkers really. Which brings me to my next point. 

Although my personal friendships are going through some rough patches I have to admit that my relationships at work with customers and coworkers have improved a hundredfold. The staff, employees, and management have really come together, showing me that even if my own friendships are put on hold, at least I have my coworkers to depend on. We've really come together at that little store. There have been so many changes, so many alternating managers and employees, that we have no other choice but to come together. Showing the power of human solidarity, our workplace is a great example for others, a beacon of hope.  We will get through this and prevail.

Lastly, I can't say that personal life has improved. It's become more solitary. More hermit-like. I really only talk to or hang out with family and coworkers. I do talk a lot to friends online on social media but social media isn't like real life. You can fake being happy or sad on social media or texts. It's artificial.

I've spent a lot of time in isolation writing nonstop. I'm going through a creative spike. I've also been playing a lot of guitar. Listening to a ton of new music via YouTube, especially classic jazz albums from the 50s and 60s that I've missed over the years. I've been reading a lot and posting my book reviews on Goodreads. Currently, I'm ranked as a #12 Reviewer in the US, ranked #19 in the world. Not too shabby for a guy who loves to read and write. You can view my ranking here. Keep in mind you have to have an account to see view it. I've also been gaming a lot to relieve the pandemic stress. I believe that nowadays more than ever we should have a good amount of time just for dumb fun. Now more than ever. 

Until the next post in this series. Keep the faith. 

Gestalt

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about art, music, history, ideas, philosophy, zen, and the like. Almost a year ago I came upon the sudden realization that my focus was attenuated by my own distractions, resulting in poor work service and social skills among my friends and peers. Thankfully, I've been working on all that and things have been going swimmingly. You could even say people love me, even people who aren't my family or apart of my immediate friendship circle. I'm ready for the Orlando Fanclub LOL. 

In all seriousness, what I am truly talking about here is thinking processes on a metaphysical level. Gestalt actually. This is a German word for shape or form, and its the idea that systems and their properties should be viewed as a whole, not as loose collections of parts.

What really got me going with this was reading Heidegger's Being and Time, a book so immensely prolix that I'm not quite sure anybody who's read it quite understands it, or definitely doesn't understand all of it, but perhaps portions, or segments of it. Being and Time got me thinking about life metaphysically. What is life, what is being, what is time, what does it mean to be apart of the worldhood of the world? Etc. 

I've thought about these things as part of Heidegger's thought processes but that is too complicated to go into here [blog in the future incoming on that book], so rather I'll focus on what I think about these ideas. 

Life is the optimal persona [don't ask, its a California thing] of the soul, of a person, place, or thing. Being is the consciousness, so to speak, the thing that makes it a life plus everything else. This includes personality, physical, and mental traits of the person, and the way they make their thoughts process. Time is the standard measurement of life. To be apart of the worldhood of the world means to be a willing participant in the game of life, to want to be apart of social conventions. This includes work, friendship, family obligations, girlfriend, wife, kids, etc. Plato has different variations on these ideas, as does Heidegger.

My own thoughts on these ideas are simple, they're still valid still fair game. My thoughts on Being, or as Heidegger calls it, Dasein, has brought me to a new idea, a new way of thinking, thought processes. Basically, you don't have to think about your thoughts as being apart from each other. Rather, you can look at it as one entity. All your ideas could be thought of as one spontaneous act. Cycles of reality if you will. Your whole entire day could be thought of as one smooth motion rather than many different acts within 24 hours. That sort of thing. Frank Zappa had a word for this that I've since forgotten. But basically, he thought of all his recorded body of work, music, as one entity, rather than as individual albums or single inspirational moments. I'm thinking about daily ideas, activity, and thought processes in a similar way. 

This could also correlate to activities. You could do many things throughout the day with many different people, see a lot of places, do many things, and at the end of the day, you can look at it all as one activity, one single act of motion. 

I think about all this as cycles of reality, an idea I got ironically from a jazz song, from a modern jazz muso from New York, a drummer whose name I've forgotten. For me its a way of thinking in a more meta way, thoughts are more cohesive rather than random and disorganized. This isn't to say that all your ideas are related, rather when you think in this vast linear fashion, the worldhood of the world changes a bit, not it in itself, but rather the way you fit inside of it. It can come in handy sometimes when boredom is so ready at hand in the humdrum of everyday life. It connects everything together, you're more alert, so you don't look up and go, either in your mind or speaking to another person, "what?" 

What can I say? These Germans have me thinking metaphysically.