Forceps - Organizes

This chunk taken from my work of today:

Throughout my CEP, I have relied on various systems of organisations, or systems of ritual, to keep me on track, or to keep me as efficient as I can be.

Why?

A lot of the activities we do, especially around the times of work, are activities we require to keep us in the quite narrow state in which we can work. We have to be comfortable, well fed, not tired, not distracted, possibly in silence, possibly with the right kind of music on (I find lyrics too distracting), etc.

There are many parts of us which all want to do different things. Parts of us are impulsive, wanting social contact, food, to check Facebook, etc. We can be tired, we can be bored. But there is always a part of us that knows what we really should be doing. A kind of 'work superego'.

In some people, this superego is dysfunctional, too strict or too puritan, a 'work ethic', that proves counter-productive by drowning us in guilt.

I have put a lot of effort, over time, into making systems that allow me to be maximally productive when I choose to be. It started when I was drowning in GCSE ICT work. It came to the Easter, two weeks of holiday, before the hand-in. I itemised everything I needed to do, worked out I needed to complete three of these items every day to complete it on time. If I completed these three items, no matter how much work it actually was, I would give myself a generous reward. This system of goals and rewards placated my work superego and my id, and I completed all of the work on time, without getting stressed. I felt like I had done the impossible.

I have refined these systems ever since. The 8/2 rule, whereby you work for eight minutes and break for two, is very effective for making yourself start working. But at its core is a set of well-defined tasks, a comfortable amount of time in which to do them (I must believe it is possible), and a well-defined and generous reward.

Above all, to not be your own slave-driver.

What am I doing?

To remain in control of yourself is the most important thing. To neither let a 'work ethic' or an id take over. When either one gets hold, it is important to wrestle control away from them again.

Organisational systems are a way of keeping the right part of yourself in control. By allowing this 'ego' to write the rules of your existence, which are followed even when it is not so present, your control over yourself is extended.

The most important thing is joining this up. I can set myself a task, and do it, but then what happens? A moment of unsure takes over and I get into the notifications-loop and shed hours. For this reason I have strictly-defined behaviours, or rituals, to follow when I get to a loose end.

Currently, this behaviour is 'check the ToDo list', and one for the finishing of the ToDo list 'Make a ToDo list for tomorrow', after which I can rest until I sleep.

The main productivity black hole at the moment is when I wake up. There are a whole host of things I need to do after I wake up that are not codified and so can be stretched out, and I'll often start working many hours after I wake up.

Why am I doing this?

Though I am careful to not have a puritan work-ethic (I despise 'work-ethic', as if work was an inalienable good), these behaviours do seem problematic.

For about a year I have been interested in forming a working-practice that is less defined by ideas of 'work' and more by ideas of rest and play.

It is difficult currently due to my position in an institution expecting that I conform to ideas of work. I have been told that I am expected to work 30 or something hours a week! I am sure I exceed that currently, but the reference to a quantity of hours is striking in its resemblance to employment and also its absurdity.

Absurd, partly because it seems this course was drafted as an underhanded way to allow people to experience the transformation of this degree, with all the positives of getting a degree, but with the absolute minimum of work required. The module assessment criteria are transparently designed to let people get a high grade with a minimum of effort required.

It may seem that I am putting down the degree as a joke. This would be true if I saw required work as inherently good. I don't. This degree allows people to focus on their own development as performance writers and people rather than hitting criteria and ticking boxes. The lecturers proceed as if the assessment criteria was this personal and artistic development, but the secret-in-plain-view is that this is nothing to do with the degree-on-paper.

This raises the question: why do I make so much work for myself? All of my projects infallibly require me to do large amounts of work, and I end up spending the last month before the hand-in just about solidly working, at maximal productivity, exhausting myself totally in the process. I don't need to do it. So why do I?

Systems

First Phase

Early on in my CEP, my system consisted of coming into the library every day, staying for a long period of time, and writing a blog every day. I thought these things would keep me structured and focused. Eventually they proved to be insufficient to keep me from getting distracted, and insufficient to force me to produce work.

Second Phase

Here I fell into structurelessness, and got caught in constantly setting out to work, not knowing what 'work' was, and then getting distracted while I despaired of working it out. In this way I wasted(?) a few weeks in aimlessness and infatuation.

Third Phase

This is characterised by rigid structure.

• I have a number of mini-projects (or mini-CEPs), that I have to manage simultaneously. Infatuation sonnets, Things I'd Rather Be Doing, etc, all exploring particular themes.
  • Each of these projects have their own page in my notebook.
    • If a project requires more than one page, the number of pages to turn to get to the next page of the project is put in the title of the previous page.
• I have a numbered list of 'next actions' for each of the projects, so that I always know what I have to do next, and nothing gets lost in unsure.
  • After I finish the 'next action' for a project, I must immediately add a new one for that project to the list.
• I have a ToDo list, titled "TODO" and the current shortened weekday.
  • I have to complete all of these tasks in that day, crossing them off as they are completed.
  • One of the items will usually be a list of circled numbers corresponding to tasks from the 'next actions' list. These, I 'x' out when completed.
  • Recently I have been putting a section titled 'REW' to the right of the list, for rewards for completing the tasks.
  • Before I go to sleep, usually last thing before, I write tomorrow's ToDo list. This is so I immediately know what to do when I wake up the next day, wasting the minimum of time.
• To give myself energy, I drink one can of Relentless Juiced Energy Drink a day. Masturbation to orgasm brings my energy down enough to go to sleep reasonably easily.

Forceps - Poetics

Since I last posted here I have been in a bit of a panic. I've spent the long weekend trying to force myself to produce something. I made the dubious choice of reintroducing caffeine into my life and the bad choice of sating myself with ice-cream, but finally today I have a plan about what to produce.

I've been doing nothing but research since I started. The CEP is about responding to a context, so I need to do that, especially considering it's almost week SEVEN. But glandular fever is still here for the most part, so I'm finding it hard to accumulate enough energy (hence the caffeine) to write. I wrote automatic for a while and that helped, but it was really just a different kind of research.

Today I struck upon the idea (I'm still working with my idea about Antarctica and contexts being transformed by infatuation) of writing sonnets. It works perfectly because Sonnets are so often talking about women by talking about nature¹, nature and the countryside strongly modified by infatuation. (My CEP, and I'm sure plenty of other peoples going on right now, has been heavily tangled up with/by infatuation.) So I'm interested in strained metaphors, sexual frustration, helpless and pathetic desire, desperation, the uncanniness of men's love, vulnerability, love-failure, onesidedness, blindly seeing the person of your desire caught up with everything else. In short: love poetry.²

The Shakespearean sonnet is the obvious choice.

To end, a little bit of prose that fell out of my brain yeseterday, unnerving me a little, and amusing Scarlett:

Ice queen. I lost it at the thought of you, semen all over the ice, frozen instantly, preserved but impotent, like the memory of you in my head.

¹ Hmm.
² Is poetry really a form suitable for expressing or even describing infatuation or love?

Forceps - Returns

OK, back from distractions again. People are like landmines, you know, most are safe enough, but occasionally one will blow (my mind). But, luckily I can call it work, even if it was a bit disproportionate, and I am calmed down enough now that I can start writing some.

So currently I'm researching the Antarctic (well, mostly, the Arctic too), with a view to writing about someone who sets out there for their CEP, but finds it inescapably and maddeningly transformed by the last person he saw before he left.

(I feel less and less comfortable with writing in the feminine person. It becomes more and more apparent that I am actually writing in the man-writing-as-woman person, which I think must have marked differences. This whole thing is very problematic, so maybe I'll do it anyway. Thoughts welcome.)

Forceps - Deceives

Today someone asked me about my block. Where I think it came from, or what it consists of. I had, earlier that day, realised what it was, but I didn't tell her, and I acted like I would have done before I realised. I was embarrassed.

The fact is, though my anxiety may be more obscure in its origins, my block is fairly obvious. I am distracted, and trying to get away from the fact that I am distracted. I don't want to admit it,

Suddenly, like cockroaches under light, like bleach through a sink, the block clears. I am writing already, what I intended to write many days before. It is clumsy, filled still with chunks of the block, the current still uneven and dysphoric... but it is writing. I am writing. Writing am I. I can only write myself. My CEP cannot avoid being about my CEP, or it fails (like any). The title: SAVAGE PICTURES/DISTRACTIONS.

Forceps - Doesn't Write

Terrifying.

The only thing I can really analogize this with is Performance Anxiety, in the sexual sense.

I have come to a point in my CEP at which I want to do some writing, some prose poetry, in a similar style to Calvino's in Invisible Cities, but I find myself unable to. I know I can, that it's possible for me to do so, that I have enough creative brain to produce ideas good enough to write, and skill with text enough to actually produce some, but I end up staring at something blank. Something I intend to fill with writing, but find myself unable to. A lack, in other words.

And it feels very much like not being able to be hard. I know what I want to do, I know what is wanted of me, I know it's the simplest thing in the world, and it should be nothing. But even though I know I can do it, I can't. The scene in the latest series of The Inbetweeners where Simon has this exact problem depicts the frustration perfectly (if you're willing to sit through two blocks of ads, you can view this scene by skipping to 21m45s on this video.)

I can't recall the quote, or the author (one of the French feminists, possibly Kristeva?), but the analogy with the famous ink/milk metaphor is obvious. The two states of mind are quite similar, for me, that of Performance Anxiety and "Writers' Block" (possibly better named "Writers' Flop' in this case).

I would take solutions from one and apply it to the other, but neither are solved problems for me. I have managed to stimulate my writing-phallus manually before, but it seems like the solution can never quite be remembered, like a dream, or the sensation of pain.

Forceps - Accelerates/Decelerates.

My current preoccupation is with speed.

Various things are altering the 'speed' of my brain. Exhilarating stimuli, danger, desire, caffeine, masturbation, exhaustion, food, music, moving image, illness, glandular fever, coding, writing, these are all things that affect the my speed.

I need to keep my activities and my speed compatible. If my brain is running too fast, I can't read, there's a bottleneck somewhere in my processing of language (maybe my eye movements) that means I accumulate energy and can't concentrate. If my brain is too slow, reading makes me sleepy, and I can't concentrate. If I do something too understimulating, too slow in other words, for the my current speed, I'll get anxious and stressed. If I try to do something that requires a higher speed than I am currently, I just can't manage it.

Yesterday someone told me they wanted to kiss me, someone who hadn't told me that before. At the same moment—it was a digital-textual communication—I was just coming back from jumping the fence at the Performance Centre VIP Opening to avoid security (turns out they'd all gone to dinner anyway). At that moment, I had the right speed to just let that go through me (the analogy that strikes me is being at a high enough speed in a vehicle to go up a gear without the jolt). But nonetheless, the rush was quite intense.

I had hoped that taking some caffeine would step up this morning's sleepy anxiety into a productive euphoria. Unfortunately, and oddly, I feel absolutely no difference. Next route is music and maybe some writing. I tried reading already but I was too fast for it, and then watching a video—usually slowing me down—which made little lasting difference.

Is this a masculine phenomenon? I realised yesterday my utter terror in the face of women. They have the power to make me more vulnerable than I could ever let anyone make me. Perhaps all of my romantic relationships are a process of me regaining that control over myself. Perhaps that is the masculine approach to relationships, to try to resolve this sudden loss of control. Perhaps rape comes from that direction too (loss of control over sexual desire, resulting in a need to resolve this through control over the object (necessarily objectified, for the act of rape) which took said control away from him.)

I suspect men to be the more vulnerable gender, and possibly the more vulnerable sex.

[I have heard men on a few occasions lamenting their loss of productivity and ability to work due to having their minds disrupted by women.]

Which is why I experience women's emotional masochism, desire to have control taken from them, to depend on me, as the most insidious betrayal. It fuels my madness, my paranoia, my overload, my heartbreak.

Forceps - Goes Back

That's Marco Polo, by the way.

Caffeine defeats glandular fever. Today on the bus, or somewhere before, I had the idea of working from the form Italo Calvino uses for Invisible Cities. How to describe it... perhaps serial prose poems? His are prose poems describing cities, framed as by a fictionalized Marco Polo to inform the great Kublai Kahn on his vast empire. One of my favourites:

No city is more inclined than Eusapia to enjoy life and flee care. And to make the leap from life to death less abrupt, the inhabitants have constructed an identical copy of their city, underground. All corpses, dried in such a way that the skeleton remains sheathed in yellow skin, are carried down there, to continue their former activities. And, of these activities, it is their carefree moments that take first place: most of the corpses are seated around laden tables, or placed in dancing positions, or made to play little trumpets. But all the trades and professions of the living Eusapia are also at work below ground, or at least those that the living performed with more contentment than irritation: the clockmaker, amid all the stopped clocks of his shop, places his parchment ear against and out-of-tune grandfather's clock; a barber, with dry brush, lathers the cheeckbones of an actor learning his role, studying the script with hollow sockets; a girl with a laughing skull milks the carcass of a heifer.

To be sure, many of the living want a fate after death different from their lot in life: the necropolis is crowded with big-game hunters, mezzosopranos, bankers, violinists, duchesses, courtesans, generals - more than the living city ever contained.

The job of accompanying the dead down below and arranging them in the desired place is assigned to a confraternity of hooded brothers. No one else has access to the Eusapia of the dead and everything known about it has been learned from them.

They say that the same confraternity exists among the dead and that it never fails to lend a hand; the hooded brothers, after death, will perform the same job in the other Eusapia; rumour has it that some of them are already dead but continue going up and down. In any case, this confraternity's authority in the Eusapia of the living is vast.

They say that every time they go below thei find something changed in the lower Eusapia; the dead make innovations in their city; not many, but surely the fruit of sober reflection, not passing whims.

From one year to the next, they say, the Eusapia of the dead becomes unrecognizable. And the living, to keep up with them, also want to do everything that the hooded brothers tell them about the novelties of the dead. So the Eusapia of the living has taken to copying its underground copy.

They say that this has not just now begun to happen: actually it was the dead who built the upper Eusapia, in the image of their city. They say that in the twin cities there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead.

They say that in the twin cities there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead.

I have an idea to use this form to utilize this form, except replacing 'city' with 'CEP'. I think the CEP has enough relevance as a form beyond the course to sustain this. The CEP more generally stands for a project, a coming of age, a journey.

Which is where it comes into play more subtly. Marco Polo's feats were that of the journey, of what sights he saw, and that's one big analogy to the CEP. But similarly, in Invisible Cities and elsewhere, Marco Polo's truthfulness is questioned: did he really go to all of those places? In Invisible Cities, he responds to the effect that he never left Venice, and that all of these cities are to be found there, through different perspectives and understandings. Equally, I will not embark on any of these CEPs (or will I?), but note that they must of course exist within my CEP too.

Or something. I'm moving, it looks like, to Penryn. It's all happening very fast, someone's coming to look at my room tomorrow and I guess if it suits her then we'll be moved by the start of November. It'll be good for me, financially, dietarily, and emotionally. I hope.

Forceps - Misattends

Yesterday attended the second-year writers' lectures. I've missed having lectures, being part of a learning group. It's an important experience, I think. Think I'll go next week too. Can't go Friday, sadly, gotta miss Larry for a CEP tutorial (my CEP proposal was met with a worrying 'Tutorial on Friday?' response.

Was watching a random video in the library yesterday:

In this film we're using an actor to represent me. Directing her performance gives me another way of exploring what is real. This is something artists have long been interested in. But as recent events such as the collapse of the energy giant trading company Enron and the Dot-Com bubble show [that] businesses are just as able as artists to create fictions.

Which got me thinking: the CEP seems to be concerned with truth. One would never lie or blag their way through a CEP, not deliberately, because one would only be lying or blagging to oneself. In addition, my writing practice often adheres to truth, perhaps unnecessarily. I have found it quite liberating to take poetic licence with my words, to gloss over things which might be inconvenient to explain, which—though it requires a lot of self-honesty—is a very useful thing to be able to do. Why not go further, and 'make up' my CEP?

Surely, to be continued...

Forceps - Talks

Epic distraction today. Got talking to Adam at around four I guess, and stayed their doing the same until ten or so. Lots of talking, loudly, about various things, including male sexuality and post-orgasm blues. All very interesting. We ended up distracting a girl on the other side of the room quite seriously, when we talked about the penis as the most emotional organ.

Pornography as reassurance, masculine insecurity and overcompensation for fragile sexual organs, post-orgasm blues, our unique position in history where instant sexual gratification is ubiquitous through pornography, sex without penetration, sex without orgasm, sex without [blank], fiddling while Rome burns, masturbation & guilt as side-effect of post-orgasm blues, the Biblical story of Onan (who was struck down for spilling his seed) and its analogy to post-orgasm blues.

CEP aggregation site is so far failing. Oh well, it'll turn out useful sometime.

Must work out what to do next...

Forceps - Creates

Because it looks good.

Today I wrote another website. I'd guess maybe 300-500 lines of code. Exhausted. You can tell me what time it is.

Speed important though. Want to catch it from near the start (hah). Investigate what kind of a beast the CEP is. Why it's so important.

Library tomorrow, hopefully to some society. These things happen.

Forceps - Destabilizes

The world does its best to throw me off, again. New illnesses, new intimacies, targeting my fatigue, and my desire. Tipping me out of the narrow brackets within which I can be stable.

But I resist! I miss only one day of library, yesterday, due to illness (today I return to the library, to infect others). And in that day I coded a wiki, so I didn't lose any time. The wiki records every change I make to the pages, down to the individual character, so the writing's process in-time can be documented. Which is something I've not seen done before, though I'm sure it has been (perhaps not usefully, though).

Onto the dealings of the day...

Forceps - Returns

Seems I lied about posting here while I was away. Didn't even open my laptop, save for once this morning to read a couple quotes to Alex from About Men.

I've been on the train all day, and I'm quite tired, so I'm thinking I'll head to ASDA, get some food, head back and catch the cheap bus home. Probably do a bit of work at home (he says, every time this happens, and never does).

Weekend was good, interesting, new experiences, deviance. Made a book, too.

I've been thinking about how I can gain a sense of being male, what the experience of my male sexed body is. Coming out of post-orgasm blues, which has become a little debilitating. Not quite sure how to deal with it. Geyser.

I'm becoming increasingly worried about all these diversions. I need to gain some direction, or overview, or understanding of what I'm doing. Not being able to do that is starting to scare me a bit. SOON.

Forceps - Goes to Work

On the bus today I was thinking about how visual artists have studios, and they might spend work hours, 9-5 on weekdays, in their studio.

For me, this seems strange. Being an artist doesn't seem to be a full-time occupation for me. I imagine if I worked full-time (and I wasn't ill), and that each hour was more or less worth what a current hour of work is to me, I would be absurdly productive. Too productive, such that I would produce so much art there would be no way of managing it all.

My current practice is more leisurely, for the most part. Putting together research papers and documentation takes a considerable amount of time, intensely spent, but actually making work is quite a sparse affair. It's mostly thinking, waiting for ideas to sediment and stratify, reading, mapping things out, and then a relatively intense chunk of time doing the manual labour required to actualize it.

Part of me, and I guess one might call this classical masculine ambition,¹ wants to push myself to that 9-5 every weekday schedule. To work so much, produce so much, that I'm so far ahead of everyone else... to be brilliant, and produce brilliant things, and to have people recognize me as brilliant. When I was a teenager, I had a very well-formed dream that someone might call me a prodigy. No one ever did, and now—being 20—it's a dream that will never be fulfilled. I wasn't even on the gifted and talented list!

I tend to reject that part of me, for obvious reasons. It's arrogant, and it's the kind of thing that works people into their graves. After all, if I have problems with the working week, from an anarchist perspective, and I realise that it burns people out, why would I want to do that myself? The answer, it now occurs to me, is that I would be choosing it, and doing what I wanted to do.

But, on the other hand, I know it's not good for me, not in its current form anyway (I estimate that I have been working over 40 hour weeks in the library). But then, I say that now, but why do I think it's not good for me?

• Food: I'm not eating great while I'm here. Mostly fruit, crisps, various mixes (bombay, trail, energy, that kind of stuff). As such I've been getting hungry, and my time here has mostly been bound by the food I can carry with me. Additionally, it's been costing me a lot. All of these things, however, can be put down to my process of adjustment to living happily with my GI, and will eventually stabilise and improve. I'm already seeing improvements in reaching a functional diet, with grain/seed/etc mixes, bananas, and gluten free bread.
• Exhaustion: I've been getting increasingly tired. Every... maybe four or five days, I have a day where I just crash out completely. I'll sleep for the majority of the day, and not really do anything as a result. This can be put down to a mix of getting accustomed, and the food point above, and of course glandular fever. The mental/emotional exhaustion is somewhat more troubling, because it's different from the physical exhaustion that those reasons might explain.

But saying that I'm 'going to work' or 'going to the studio' holds quite a lot of cultural capital and prestige. It sounds purposeful, it makes me sound purposeful. It would make me feel good to be able to say that.

Anyway, I'm off to stay with Alex for the weekend tomorrow. Should be nice. You'll still hear from me, though. Back on Monday, maybe I'll come in, maybe not. As for now, home for laundry and food.

¹ the kind Kleist patronises Günderrode about in Christa Wolf's No Place on Earth.

Forceps - Types

So. Much. Typing. It's actually really exhausting when you're just typing out from a book for hours. Gets to me. Like too much current in my wires, heating up and burning out, like a lightbulb filament on too high.

You know what else tires me? Romantic imagery that excludes me. Cigarettes, coffee, red wine. Annoys me, a great deal. Because people treat romance as if it's this universal thing, and everyone necessarily must relate to your concept of romance, because if they don't then it might not be real and it threatens people. Which is one reason why I am straight edge, I'm sick of how drugs are seen as necessary for certain kinds of experiences that they really aren't necessary for.

It is quite certain that, if I weren't so boring w/ regards recreational drug use, I probably wouldn't be sitting in the library right now, and I'm probably be far better adjusted (or, possibly, far worse adjusted).

In any case, my proposal is handed in. And it can be found here.

Today I wondered about typing. What does it mean that I'm using both sides of my brain to type, rather than scribing which only uses the left side. Probably not so much, but perhaps something. It might mean more that, on my right hand, I pretty much only use my index finger (and thumb, for space), while on my left hand I use all of my fingers more or less as expected. In addition my left hand covers more of the keyboard than my right, covering Y-H-B. It is also interesting that my right hand is given all of the major punctuation marks save for ! and ".

Getting a bit off-topic today, aren't we?

Forceps - Proposes

Today I wrote my proposal. I'd show you, but there's not really any 'you' to show it to. Maybe I will anyway, later, when I 'hand' it in.

Hearing bad things about the performance centre. That distracted me for a while. As did Tilly, and Alex, and the silent boys.

Getting frustrated. Can't really work when frustrated. It seems like there are ideal conditions for working. Or like, there is only one emotion-space in which I can work. To work, I have to constantly regulate myself, try to reach that space. Perhaps exploring where that space is, its characteristics, and what I do to reach it, could be interesting. Ref. caffeine, food, etc.

Going home, eating food, etc. More later.

Forceps - Is Distracted Once More

Numerous things conspired to continue my distraction today.

J.R. dropped in. It is a little strange to have a recreational conversation with someone so much older than me with whom I have no 'professional' relationship. Nice though. Discussed the current disrupted architecture of the college, which is of course another interesting context of my CEP: working through the new systems and architectures. And what is the library, in which I spend most of my time, other than an architecture? Don't answer that.

Tilly also arrived, presented her zines (which, of course, have inspired me to do some creative writing), crushed on J.R. a bit, and then distracted me some more by taking me for what can only be described as a drink/banana (her the drink, I the banana), and then pushed me over in Tremough shop. No one paid any attention. Dead inside, I swear.

I decided to try out mild bombay mix, and I am becoming surer and surer that too much juice (or possibly bananas?) is bad for me. I really badly want some tofu, and was planning a trek to ASDA for it this eve, but now it is raining and so I can't. Sigh.

I finished reading About Men, and am typing up quotations from it now.

Anyway, the big event of the day involved quite a bit of emotional trauma for pretty absurd reasons. I won't go into it, but it was quite a derailment. Like we were living in entirely different worlds, unable to communicate with eachother (suddenly each word in our shared language had different meanings and different significances). Needless to say, emotional instability, another context.

What's arising is that my work is essentially a struggle against everything else. It is in harmony with nothing, and it is sheer force of will that makes it happen. My force of will is soon to be tested as the proposal is in on Thursday. Hard work begins, apparently. More in that later.

Forceps - Distracts

Mostly just got reading done today, About Men is a totally incredible book. Other than that, distracted/got-distracted-by Tilly, and then Mark's open mic night.

Good thing really. About the kind of rest I needed.

The work/play tension throws itself up again. I could easily let myself be derailed, if I wanted to. But for a few reasons, social and psychological, that would be a bad idea. Not disastrous (nothing so seductive, though it is that too), more like reoccurring dreams, muscle memory. Unhealthy. Got to break that habit. I don't trip—I'm already on my knees to start with, searching.

And you set me up, primed me, you know who you are. I want to say I won't forgive you for that, but I will. It was bad of you, though.

Anyway, aside from that, I'm particularly worried about being derailed (again). Isn't that a funny thing to say? Derailed? Thrown off of the very set path I am on. But assuming for a moment that it wasn't a bad idea, why shouldn't I want to be derailed?

Which is an interesting effect of this kind of process. I must discard distractions, no matter how exciting they might be, sacrifice them for focus and concentration. This is surely a dangerous thing. And yet I seem to find it necessary. Hm.

Today discovered that too much fruit juice isn't good for my digestion at all. At least I think that's what it was...

Forceps - Sleeps

Didn't go to the library today, for the first time since Tuesday. Needed to get food, so I got tinned stuff and gluten-free bread and pasta. Went home, considered going to the library again but got really tired and slept from maybe half three 'til eight or so.

Which is an important context that my CEP is emerging from. Fatigue. Summers so often begin full of plans and projects, but get derailed (happily) by someone new crashing into my life. On this occasion, this someone new came with small proteins that interfered with various parts of my body, a fever, sore throat, and now lasting fatigue.

Which means my CEP is currently characterised by a struggle against my body. Today my body won, or rather, failed to carry the burden of my will. I don't blame it really, I have been putting quite a bit more stress on it than it is used to, even without the fatigue.

So, in light of my previous post mentioning 'a mode of practice that would be congruous with play or relaxation', it seems increasingly important that I find something like that, at least until I'm less tired.

(Currently I feel a bit too puritan, I think, like I should be pushing myself to work as hard as I can. Perhaps because my current alternative is doing nothing. Not a great thing. But in any case, I resist relaxation.)

So, if I were to do it, find a way of doing this that doesn't exhaust me, how would I do it?

It might be an idea to tie the amount of work I get done to some kind of relaxing reward. That way I could separate the work from the rest and make both more effective uses of my time. But what if I could make my work restful? Is that possible? If it isn't, why not?

We'll see. I'm going to rest s'more now.

Forceps - Blogs

A German term for "mid-life crisis" is Torschlusspanik, lit. "shut-door-panic," fear of being on the wrong side of a closing gate.
    From Etymology Online on 'crisis'.

The night comes with hard decisions. I have a certain amount of food, I know tonight might be messy. Do I go home on the bus, the last of which leaves in a quarter hour, or do I stay as long as I intend to and walk back, with less opportunity for a hearty dinner, but I could justify getting chips on the way home.

I read ex (as in, excommunicator), thinking in some way that this might make up my mind. Tor helps me be secretive.

I've been asked, a few times, how my summer has been. Every time, I look away and say, yeah, it's been alright, not much happened. Why? A lot has happened, just like a lot happens every summer. But for some reason I don't discuss it. I can't quite place why... I'm scared of it, maybe, as one usually is when things are so bound up in emotion, and also it's hard to explain. And, I guess, perhaps it's just not that kind of question, that requires an honest answer. Should I be complicit in those questions, though?

---

I find myself wondering whether this is relevant. Like I need an excuse to tell even you, whoever you might be, reading this in the end. I guess I feel guilty about that. Like I must stay on track. Which is an interesting part of the CEP, and why I am finding it currently so difficult: it requires commitment to a particular 'line' or progression of study.

Soon I must propose what I intend to do. I must know this even before I begin. This is in common with every form of work I can think of, but of no form of play I can think of. It seems quite interesting that this would be the case. When I was trying to write my 3rd year proposal, a few months ago, I got a sudden burst of energy towards trying to find a mode of practice that would be congruous with play or relaxation. This is most certainly not going to be it, but why?

I need to find a better way of organizing material. Blogs are good for braindumps but their chronological organization doesn't allow for much coherence in a large project.

Missed the last student bus. Looks like I'm walking home.

P.S: It is relevant. My CEP emerges quite definitely out of the ashes of the summer. I want to be out of that house.

Forceps - Sustains

It occurred to me, on the bus into the library today, how strange it is that I am travelling quite a way, and spending money, just to do things in a different place, things that I could very plausibly do where I was travelling from (home). I create quite a bit of trouble for myself, trying to work out how to manage glutardism on the move, and still eat, and spending quite a bit of money on that too.

But it seems quite important that I do travel. It definitely seems like a practice very ingrained in our social consciousness, through the practice of travelling to our place of work. And yet I find it more necessary than a simple social norm would make it. So what is it?

Three components:

• Origin (Home)
• Travel (Bus, or foot)
• Destination (Library)

This presents three possible ways in which I might be affected, in descending order of obviousness:

• Being at the library.
• Being not at home.
• The ritual of travel.

to be continued

Forceps - Exhausts

I watch something, some House, for forty or so minutes, and when I come out of it I suddenly realise how exhausted I am. Not physically, but mentally, emotionally. Watching things lets my mind quiet down, which allows me to experience mental exhaustion. You know how when you're in it you can scarcely see it?

I should be resting, really. I'm still not fully well.

So much reading, so much writing, so much social contact. Makes me so tired.

But I don't really want to stop though. What will happen to me if I stop? What will be left of me? There's nothing really to me at the moment, aside from my work. It unnerves me slightly that this is true. That's quite a masculine condition, isn't it? Like becoming my father.

---

Today I will go to the library, but I'm not sure if I can muster making food. I was talking to Alex about this yesterday, how discouraged I feel by the fact that I can't just... eat. I'd like to just be able to pick up stuff from Tremough shop as and when I'm hungry, or eat at the cafeteria, but my gluten intolerance prevents me from that. I have to make lunches in advance, and it's so tiring.

I guess that's just part of growing up. Getting into a routine so making yourself do tedious things isn't quite so tedious.

Forceps - Emotional / Social

I should acknowledge currently, and presently, that one of my main reasons for being in the library so much are social. Being around people is very important for my psychic well-being. If I am alone too much, I go increasingly insane. Mander (1978) notes, when drawing an analogy between offices and sensory deprivation chambers:

Before total disorientation occurs, a second effect takes place. That is a dramatic increase in focus on any stimulus at all that is introduced. In such a deprived environment, one single stimulus acquires extraordinary power and importance. In the most literal sense, the subject loses perspective and cannot put the stimulus in context.

This seems to have a strong analogy to what happens to me. When I spend too long alone, I find myself unable to deal with even small amounts of social interaction, which only makes me further and further withdrawn.

So here I am in the library. I am trying to carve out a presence as a regular, such that my presence itself becomes a reason for conversation. Such that I become a part of the library, and my social interaction with other more-or-less regulars is legitimized by this. In short, I am trying to make the library, in particular this room—the group study room—a social space. I find myself unable to socialize in situations mediated by alcohol, and it seems best to try to find people where the people I might like might most likely be.

So far I have seen Henrik a couple of times, spoken with him a bit. Tilly came in today too, and I spoke with her quite a bit. It was, socially, quite a good day. Haven't formed any acquaintances yet, though. Still, it's only a couple of days in.

I wonder whether I should show anyone else this blog, or even make it public? It would be interestingly self-reflexive to have to consider my writing, again, from an outsiders' perspective. Maybe I'll tell Alex.

Alex distracted me from research again today, with some considerably important and emotional conversation. I came away from it feeling quite a lot better. I also emailed grace, as I am wont to do.

All of these things are important because they are threads that run in and out of the process of my CEP. I exist socially, and emotionally, and these aspects both play into and interrupt my work. Without them, there would be no stable myself, and no CEP. They support my work, and sometimes destroy it, or make it seem less important.

This will, of course, be explored a great deal further.

I have also become aware that my CEP is predicated very importantly on the condition that I not ask myself what I am doing my CEP on. It is necessary that I just do it. This self-deception is quite important, and quite curious...

On the logistic front, I now must walk home. I've decided that it is financially impractical to pay the £2.70(!) it costs to travel back to Falmouth by bus after 9:15PM. As such, when I leave late, which I almost always will I imagine, I will walk. It should take about an hour. Music will ease the boredom.

Mander, J., 1978. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, New York: Morrow.

Forceps - Recurses

CEP PROPOSAL 5: METACEP

Third sense, "higher than, transcending, overarching, dealing with the most fundamental matters of," is due to misinterpretation of metaphysics as "science of that which transcends the physical." This has led to a prodigious erroneous extension in modern usage, with meta- affixed to the names of other sciences and disciplines, especially in the academic jargon of literary criticism, which affixes it to just about anything that moves and much that doesn't.
        Etymology Online on 'meta-'

[from analytic philosophy] One level of description up. A metasyntactic variable is a variable in notation used to describe syntax, and meta-language is language used to describe language. This is difficult to explain briefly, but much hacker humor turns on deliberate confusion between meta-levels.
        Jargon File on 'meta-'

Reflexivity, recursion, introspection, are important cultural practices, and occupy a special place in human thought. It is telling that it strikes one as odd, slightly uncanny, that Jakobson's six functions of language includes metalinguistics (language about language). It seems strangely like the odd one out. I am reminded of the strange notion that Borges' Library of Babel has floors (and that a significant portion of each room is dedicated to ascension and descention, while traversing horizontally takes up no space.

It is out of this milieu that I intend to work on my CEP.

As artists, and as people, our necessary practice is that of self-examination. To consider what we are doing, why we are doing it; analysis, evaluation. It is the cornerstone of self-actualization, of any meaningful self-directed activity. It is a requirement of any revolution, no matter how small or personal.

As such, I propose that my CEP be an investigation into my CEP.

Forceps - Intimates, on Letters and Packages

CEP PROPOSAL 3: ART IN INTIMACY

I propose to investigate the kind of creative activity that goes on as part of intimate relationships.

Common examples of this are:

• Creative letter writing.
• Hand-made cards.
• Art given as gift.
• Playful note-writing.
• Love poetry.

There are few things more intimate than this, the most authentic, the most phatic of communications. Saying, "this is a part of me, a part of my life and a part of myself, that I want you to have."

It is no coincidence that these are often the possessions most treasured, often with their own dedicated place (commonly a box) in the recipient's life. They are actualizations of the giver, and actualizations of the giver and recipient's relationship. As such, they often remain as precious memories, long after the relationship—or the giver—has ended. In this respect they are similar to Susan Sontag's description of photographs:

"All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt."

In a world where distance-intimacy is increasingly relevant in most peoples' lives, such easily packaged intimation is becoming an important part of today's relationships. Different forms of transmission, email, post, SMS, are each being positioned as having unique creative-intimate possibilities. And it is lovers who are the vanguard of such technologies, far more desperate to bridge the gap than any poet.

I propose to investigate this sphere of creation, desperately important to many people's lives, yet necessarily private. In a world with such easy available creative potential, I would not be surprised to find that most people's artistic practice is the tip of an iceberg, while innumerable letters, poetics, and gifts remain submerged.

Forceps - Initiates

I'm ill. Or rather, I was. It's a reasonably exciting illness too, one that mostly comes from more interesting activities. And it came with some more interesting symptoms than your average cold. Swollen liver! How exciting.

But, currently, it's resulting in the fact that I'm going to be steeped in lethargy for an unknown number of weeks. So the usual way I have of starting projects—having an idea, getting excited, and then immersing myself in it—seems not to be working.

I have no conviction.

I have plenty of ideas, and I think they're pretty good ideas, but I have no motivation to pursue them.

So, I have taken the only available option: do all the ideas, and see what sticks.

('four' is a misnomer, I may have greater or fewer than four at any one time)

Maybe this will end up being my CEP...