Indy
06-09-08, 10:40 AM
Bear with me here, I need to get this down before I forget it, and it is about racing.
Last night, I was surfing youtube and came across this Joe Rogan interview about DMT, the "King of Psychedelics." He said that DMT is the neurotransmitter produced by the Pineal Gland, and that every night in REM sleep we all, in essence, trip out on it, which is why we have crazy dreams. The problem is that whether you take it as an illegal substance or take advantage of it naturally, the visions are so intense that the brain either protects you from remembering them or perhaps you are not able to remember them in your normal conscious state, though you can sometimes remember fleeting glimpses of the experience.
So I went to bed intent on trying to remember my dreams, and I did awaken with a memory of one.
In my dream, I was sort of floating in the middle of space, surrounded by music, except that this music was not something I was hearing with my ears, but instead sort of sensing in a way I can not describe. The music either made sense to me or it did not, and I was vaguely aware that this was the difference between "good" music and "bad" music. I was sensing songs that I previously thought were good and realizing that they were crap, and vice versa. This also gave me an amazing insight about art, because at the same time that I was able to make these judgments, I also realized that the judgments were entirely dependent upon the limitations of my human self and my ego, and that thus the entire concept of the artistic merit of the music was only relevant with the frame of reference of my waking life.
The thought that occurred to me upon waking was this: the "art" of the music is only relevant to the person who creates it. Should it be relevant to anyone else, then perhaps it may have value in some way, but that is without value in the greater sense of what is "good" music. I often go on about what is real and what is phony, but the reality is that it is all irrelevant to me if I do not create it myself. I can appreciate it or not, and that is my choice, but to label it as good or bad is nonsense. Needless to say, there is much out there which intelligent people deride, mostly produced by big business (Brittany Spears, for example), but its value to us has no bearing on its content, because its content has no meaning and can not have a meaning outside the context of the creators. Perhaps it is crass commercialism in action, or perhaps not, but there are really no meaningful qualitative judgments possible because we are so trapped in our own frames of reference. It simply is.
I think this has changed my outlook on racing. I have been (like most of us, I assume) disturbed by how things have turned out, and I have tried to be positive about the future while inside I have been left feeling betrayed and disgusted. What occurs to me now is that racing is not really an athletic endeavor, but more of an art. Like any other art, there are those who make it a business, and those who do it for the sake of self expression. But, in the end, no matter how we fans feel about any of it, it exists for the participants. No living person can understand what a perfect apex meant to Senna and none of us are in a position to judge the value of the what has been and what is yet to come. Furthermore, we can no more demand that Da Vinci live forever and paint a million Mona Lisas than we can demand that 1993 CART be reproduced for us in perpetuity. Those who are the creators are the only ones who can decide, and they do so for their own reasons, and for a person like me to demand "more" of them is not only gluttonous but selfish as well.
I have roses blooming now in shocking reds. They are stunningly beautiful. I think I have allowed my interests to become too narrow, my demands too stringent, to the point that I would rather complain about "bad" art (or racing or whatever) than risk being creative. I am going to spend a little time with those roses.
Last night, I was surfing youtube and came across this Joe Rogan interview about DMT, the "King of Psychedelics." He said that DMT is the neurotransmitter produced by the Pineal Gland, and that every night in REM sleep we all, in essence, trip out on it, which is why we have crazy dreams. The problem is that whether you take it as an illegal substance or take advantage of it naturally, the visions are so intense that the brain either protects you from remembering them or perhaps you are not able to remember them in your normal conscious state, though you can sometimes remember fleeting glimpses of the experience.
So I went to bed intent on trying to remember my dreams, and I did awaken with a memory of one.
In my dream, I was sort of floating in the middle of space, surrounded by music, except that this music was not something I was hearing with my ears, but instead sort of sensing in a way I can not describe. The music either made sense to me or it did not, and I was vaguely aware that this was the difference between "good" music and "bad" music. I was sensing songs that I previously thought were good and realizing that they were crap, and vice versa. This also gave me an amazing insight about art, because at the same time that I was able to make these judgments, I also realized that the judgments were entirely dependent upon the limitations of my human self and my ego, and that thus the entire concept of the artistic merit of the music was only relevant with the frame of reference of my waking life.
The thought that occurred to me upon waking was this: the "art" of the music is only relevant to the person who creates it. Should it be relevant to anyone else, then perhaps it may have value in some way, but that is without value in the greater sense of what is "good" music. I often go on about what is real and what is phony, but the reality is that it is all irrelevant to me if I do not create it myself. I can appreciate it or not, and that is my choice, but to label it as good or bad is nonsense. Needless to say, there is much out there which intelligent people deride, mostly produced by big business (Brittany Spears, for example), but its value to us has no bearing on its content, because its content has no meaning and can not have a meaning outside the context of the creators. Perhaps it is crass commercialism in action, or perhaps not, but there are really no meaningful qualitative judgments possible because we are so trapped in our own frames of reference. It simply is.
I think this has changed my outlook on racing. I have been (like most of us, I assume) disturbed by how things have turned out, and I have tried to be positive about the future while inside I have been left feeling betrayed and disgusted. What occurs to me now is that racing is not really an athletic endeavor, but more of an art. Like any other art, there are those who make it a business, and those who do it for the sake of self expression. But, in the end, no matter how we fans feel about any of it, it exists for the participants. No living person can understand what a perfect apex meant to Senna and none of us are in a position to judge the value of the what has been and what is yet to come. Furthermore, we can no more demand that Da Vinci live forever and paint a million Mona Lisas than we can demand that 1993 CART be reproduced for us in perpetuity. Those who are the creators are the only ones who can decide, and they do so for their own reasons, and for a person like me to demand "more" of them is not only gluttonous but selfish as well.
I have roses blooming now in shocking reds. They are stunningly beautiful. I think I have allowed my interests to become too narrow, my demands too stringent, to the point that I would rather complain about "bad" art (or racing or whatever) than risk being creative. I am going to spend a little time with those roses.