hijack the rest of the brain

7/31/2019 Hijack the Rest of the Brain

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Image number one

Judgements about film - thresholds

When I see something really good, I think: This is it, this is me, this is about me.I am in this film and I am choosing to look where the camera is pointed.

This is all inside my head and I am the world.The sort of hypnosis a good film is capable of is like a zip being pulled up that joins you upcompletely with what youre seeing.

When people talk about characters being relatable or character-driven-stories this is what I thinkabout.


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Image number two

Methods of making progress - Nuurgh!

Where are you, problem-wise?The bottom one is Buddah, so youre not in that one, neither am I, or any Buddhists, theyd be

the first to admit it, if theyre any good at being Buddhists.What about the top one?All a bit of an effort, is this what it feels like, couldnt we just do that other thing for a bit though?

No?Wed have to give up a heap of expectations to experiment with that kind of thing.

Better to be a lion in hell than a sheep without a sufficient sense of autonomy?


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Image number three

Im being funny - another swear!

Being the funny one is always a bit of a trap I think.

But so is breathing.Theres a measure of control with everything though isnt there if you think about it?Hold your breath a bit, breath harder, we can choose that kind of thing, mostly.

A swear is absolutely required here, it was optionally funny in image number one.


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Image number four

Being entirely happy

Is this not-really-enough for a picture?Maybe its just here to set a tone?

Setting you up for something, positioning you, if you dont mind being positioned, to look at thenext thing from a particular angle.I hate it when things that seem under-conceived turn out to be part of the artwork.

Im not sure thats allowed.Well, it is, but its like taking out a loan which you have to pay back later.

If you dont pay back a certain number of questions with a certain number of answers peoplebecome very irritated indeed.

I know I do.


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Image number five

Inside my head

Im perfectly serious about this, psychologically.Far too serious for a cartoon commentary actually..

Me, the one speaking, Im just the pilot fish, down here with my words.The whale makes the pictures, mostly.Theres all sorts of research that proves we think things before we could possibly put them into

words and rationalise them into justifications and arguments..Maybe if you dont know what to do next you should wait and see what your whale does.

I really like the nice whale.


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Image number six

Universal signs for evil

This was from a series I edited out of this collection a bit.The Universal signs for exploration cartoon wasnt really up to it.

It would have done a nice job of lowering your expectations but it was trying to make everyonethink too much. This is much more friendly and like a little joke.Point number three could also read:

Not understood by mathematicians, cartographers, division signs (sister of implied multiplicationsign) y, or z (offended siblings of unfairly maligned letter x)


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Image number seven

What things mean

Bits of this are actually useful for a kind of psychology algebra we might get into later on, ifyoure up for it.

Bits of this are just there to broaden the context of what signs can be for.Important note:# now means something quite different - this was drawn in about 2004.

now # = attention seeking on the internet


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Image number fifteen

Parts of the brain

This came from all those bits of evolutionary theory that were flying around a few years ago.The lizard-brain hijacking the higher cortex when we get afraid.

That sort of thing.


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Image number sixteen

Game

This wasnt so much about predetermination or anything. Using this metaphor it might seemthat the winner and loser are fixed before the game is played. This might be the probability but,

of course, games can have lots of outcomes, no point in playing otherwise.This was more about putting game elements into a different metaphor and trying to make themfit.

I wanted to get a better idea of what games mean to people and why and how we use them.Not sure this exactly helped but I like that there is a decision-making axis (the bow string) thats

both delicate and the key to how the whole thing works.I like that, so expect to see it again.


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Image number seventeen

Parts of the brain

I genuinely had this dream one night, years ago now, that I was curled up within a womb-likespace and I knew I was inside the left hemisphere of my brain.

I suddenly had a powerful urge to see what was on the other side of the corpus callosum, so Ipried it open.On the other side there was something like a planet-sized ruby crystal that was rumbling as it

was turning, lit from within.I woke up at once without any idea of what it might mean but I was left with a fantastic

impression of what might be possible for the nature of our thoughts.I have slightly different ideas about what a soul is as a result,

maybe more later on that.


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Image number twenty

Everything you say to yourself is us

Hahahahha put this on a T shirt.


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Image number twenty five

The perfect conscience as a Whale

This is a non-nihilistic notion of resignation.What if the subconscious is capable of doing this and we just dont let it?

That would be a relief.Probably not as easy as all that.But then, thats exactly the way we all miss out on the the obvious good stuff.

With doubt-ridden little self-conscious thoughts like that.Shut up little fishy.


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Image number twenty six

Reassurance as a lighting strike

Pilot fish never shut up, ever.You can try to make them shut up and you just get them saying, Shut up, shut up, shut up.

To themselves.Maybe they build up a need for reassurance that can only be discharged by a periodicresignation and connection with the unconscious mind.

This also happens in cases of self-sabotage and hijacking of the rest of the brain by thoughts inrebellion. The unconscious mind both reassures and humbles the conscious mind with a simple

wordless act which could be as powerful as a lightning strike.When assailed by temptations and terrors, Buddha simply touched the ground, a gesture which

says a lot or nothing at all depending on how you engage with it, but it certainly debunks thenarratives of desires and fears that are coming at you.


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Image number twenty eight

Ideals as distant flights of birds

It was fellow diagramarian Edward De Bono who wrote that, though it is exceptionally useful toknow which way is North, its not necessarily a good idea to live at the North Pole.

Is this what ideals are like?Things that move in relative migratory patterns which might be good to follow but maybe not toofar?

Not sure we get anything absolute when I think about it that way, but then some things are soclearly obviously good or bad, maybe it just depends on shifting your perceptions.

Physicists engaged in problems concerning Quantum theory certainly get different resultsdepending on the way they measure something but Im not sure reducing anything to this sort

of level is useful.Maybe we dont need fixed ideals, just people better-able to live in useful and healthy ways.


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Image number thirty one

Biters

Whats the point of a shark? To set up a bit of creative tension?The basic function of our mind is to orchestrate survival.

To predict and negate threats we need to make models them and, in so doing, take them insideof our systems.This is what the shark is for.Its not a bad thing in itself.

Its a placeholder for warnings.This is great, but putting it in charge without any moderation isnt going to work out well.


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Image number thirty three

The Pilot Fish

This is the image of the very worst things about immediacy.Its the primacy of the plan that you think is in-play right now.

Not what your subconscious thinks is going on.The pilot fish thinks you can only do things if you stick to the plan.Like a stereotype of a cold war Russian General.


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Image number thirty four

The Whale

Does not explain itself


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Image number thirty five

Business plan

Jason Donovan once said, on TV last night, that achieving success wont bring you happiness,but achieving happiness can bring you success.

Where did he get that from?Im going to Google it.Oh, I think it was him. I think it was actually Jason Donovan.


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Image number thirty six

Humility

So, so, so close to humiliation.Our Whales like to kick our sharks in the abdomen once in a while.

Just to let them know they can change the game if they want.This can be nice but disturbing for a pilot fish, like an earthquake for their value system.However, struggle against it and youre only putting off the inevitable.

Sometimes the entirely innocent are emotionally attacked but the very nature of there serenitygives the attack no purchase whatsoever.

Whales simply arent afraid of sharks.


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Image number thirty eight

Freuds brain

Im not saying any of these ideas are new.The Buddhists, always with the Buddhists, say that enlightenment is like freshly baked

bread, the recipe is always the same but the work of the process is something which must beundertaken anew every day.So maybe this is just for me and youll actually have to come up with your own way of thinking

about this before its any use to you.


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Image number forty one

The pyramid of human needs

People have theories for everything. Again, these theories can just be meaningless stuff but ifyou can make use of them to change the pattern of your life then that can turn into real help.

The pyramid of human needs is an idea that was going around to explain why peoplemisbehaved or werent any good at getting jobs etc.The idea was that people couldnt proceed to live authentically - something the old Freud-Jung

axis referred to as self-actualisation - until theyd got all the supporting blocks in place.In my experience I did not find this to be the case.

I needed to explore things more widely before feeling like I could get things together and startliving well. The pyramid needed a broader base.

In Joseph Cambells study of comparative myths The Hero with a Thousand Faces hedescribes one of the ultimate goals of the Universal Hero figure as Freedom to live.

My own theory is something like the idea that we are all driven towards mastery of the oppositeof our natural gifts.

Artists seek to produce work to order and to regulate their inspiration.

Administrators ultimately seek elegant and trascendent solutions to problems.We cross and meet and shrug off people heading the other way sometimes.


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Image number forty four

Typical paradigm

We cant even see these any more.We learn the systems when were very young and now we already expect them to turn up for us

to interact with.I wonder how many people have taken things too far and ended up doing something criminal orvery unhappy because they were expecting an Are you sure confirmation to stop them..

Im not complaining about this.Im just saying.


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Image number forty five

Where we all always are

Try not to think of an elephantIf you immediately thought about something completely different and filled your mind with

questions and details about that different thing to successfully keep your mind active, and if younever checked back to make sure you didnt think about the elephant after all.You won.

But the prize is actually nothing.Which in a spiritual sense is incredibly valuable.

I have a personal theory that the soul is not a thing but an absence of a thing. When you loseyour soul, youve allowed something into that sacred space and once there the compass of your

life always points to it.But maybe youre happier like that.But maybe youre very much not.


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Image number forty seven

Stuff about nothing

Another survivor from the Universal signs for... theme.Im not impressed with my own rendering of Olde Englshe here.

But the laziness is definitely part of the work, emphasising how distant and impossible it is for usnowadays to think about geographic unknowns.Were sat-navd up.

What happened to all these solar flares that were going to wipe that all out?Even then, wed still know that the world is just the world.A lot is talked about to do with the idea of wilderness.

Mystics need a wilderness to walk into.If we cant have them geographically any more it might explain the flight of man into virtual

realms.And the quirky delusions of those poor souls who are convinced were living in The Matrix.

God, that was a good film though.A friend worked with someone who had changed their name to Neo from Neil on the basis of

that movie.See image one in this book.


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Image number forty eight


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Protest is easy - alternatives are harder

Doing nothing is even easier still, unfortunately.But disillusionment is hard, painful.

So we cling to our illusions and buy stuff to shore them up.

What are we going to do?


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Image number forty nine

Do the inconceivable

I actually corrected the spelling of this with my free cheap-o version of Photo-Shop.The authentic one reads Do the inconcievable.

I used to think I was dyslexic as a child but now I think I was just a conscientious objector toforced premature articulation.There are several other spelling mistakes throughout this work which are also radical acts of

protest.I am not fully sure where they are.

But I stand by them.


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Image number fifty

Sanity is a localised phenomenon

It is.So no need to push to understand everything.

It could all invert itself in an instant.Like, what seems like a piece of art in one context actually isnt art at all in a relatively similarcontext, say, an advert for example.

With reference to that specifically, I saw a man selling framed pictures in a town centre once,hawking at passers by to try to get them to buy large gilt frames filled with photographs of

puzzled dalmatians and babies giggling at their out-of-shot mothers, he shouted;You know its art cause you LOVE it.

and we were all quite relievedand happy.

Cachecope Bell 2012

hijack the rest of the brain

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