from the poem Hard (i) by Joy Camburn in response to this post.

night sky brooding
frosted wind blowing
soft music playing
over the car stereo
– 12/4/09 – 2

Joe McNally Photography- On location with the Nikon D4 from Joe McNally Photography on Vimeo.

A BTS look at several shoots by Joe McNally, for the Nikon D4 campaign.

All footage shot on Nikon D4 and D7000 cameras.

So a few things have changed around here.  For the first time, walljm.com is no longer being run by the custom cms I built in college, and is instead running on the nifty wordpress platform.  Truth is, I just got tired of doing my own support.   Things are still a little rough, and hopefully as time goes by, I will tweak things and it will start to feel more like home.

In the mean time there will be fresh content.  I have about 180+ pieces of poetry to put up, and I want to post the occasional photo story and/or single image as well as the odd long/short form piece when the mood strikes.  Look for a new poem every week, probably on mondays, unless I decide I like a different day of the week better.

For instance, in a recent excerpt by Jason Kottke on Altruism in Economics the author of an article in Ode Magazine writes this

The theory is based on the premise that humans evolved in small groups with strong social contracts and plenty of contact with strangers. Cooperation within the tribe was advantageous so long as free riders were punished. It was also the best gambit on encountering strangers. Cooperation, particularly in times of famine, was the only means of survival, so altruism became a favored evolutionary trait.

(emphasis mine)

What strikes me about the use of the word evolutionary in the last statement is how its not exactly untrue, even in a creationist viewpoint. This happens all the time when scientist appeal to evolutionary theory to explain observed behaviors in people. It is entirely possible that a created humanity learned the use of altruism as a necessity in certain situations. That humanity is adaptable isn’t in question. The use of the word evolution here can be seen as descriptive of the situation, but because of the broad connotations, it implies cause that hasn’t been demonstrated.

I have become increasingly more and more frustrated with the act of trying to stretch or make something mean more than it really does, and i recognize that i am probably as guilty as anyone of such offenses. But it would be nice if we were more careful about making assumptions, or trying to make an observation mean more than it does…

oops… that just became a screed. err… sorry.

I was thinking about introversion today, among other things, and as is my want, my thoughts turned inward. It seems, for good or ill, my self is the dominant subject of my mind. My thoughts on introversion, sparked by an article on said subject, raised a thought I’d thought before, mainly that, though I identify very much with the introvert, I’m not fully one. On a scale, I seem to be to the side of center. Such thinking devolved. It usually does.

I find myself fascinated with neuroscience and psychology. This fascination is new, or at least, relatively new. It occurs to me that it grows out of a long standing and persistent need to be in action who I see myself in thought, the constant tension between idealism and practice, and the … frustrations of not having control over my own self.

Neuroscience, it seems, reveals a persistent bias, long suspected. We are paradoxical. Perceptions, the product of our senses, are filtered, adjusted, stitched together and modified for our own consumption. We take shortcuts. And often, we lie to our own selves. We feel certain about things that are false. Often. Yes, it does happen. And I can’t help but wonder how, with all the false information, and all the flawed perception, it is possible to know anything with any certainty at all. Pascal summed it up best I think, for he said, “It is not certain that all is uncertain”.

I used to hate to end a poem on a low note. They always felt incomplete, unfinished. Somehow there had to be a way to resolve the tension. For all the lack of understanding there is in this world, there seems to be a very real need for harmony, a way to take the disparate parts of our soul and impart meaning.

I still hate to end a piece on a low note. Somehow it feels like giving up. There is vital part of myself that refuses to give up hope for the resolve, that fantastic and satisfying moment in a symphony which has been building, back and forth, never quite reaching the tonic, and finally coming to a close, takes all the disparate themes, the discordant notes, the unsatisfying moments along the way and ties them up, settling once and for all the whole of the matter.

Well… that’s all for now I think.