User:Ssstephen/prototype/20231106

blurring the boundaries of the self

what does praxis mean? why do people say it all the time?

1. practice, as distinguished from theory. modern political praxis is now thoroughly permeated with a productivist ethos
2. accepted practice or custom. patterns of Christian praxis in Church and society

I want to make a browser plugin that blurs individuals names. Becuase I feel uncomfortable showing them on a screen. Actually a chrome extension already exists that lets you add custom css called https://stylebot.dev/ so i installed that and gave it a little css:

.zF, .yP, .gD{
	filter: blur(0.25rem);
}

why are you here stephen? (at leeszaal answering your email)

I'm trying to look at behaviors and actions that fall in the category of "work". I'm curious about what they are and what meaning they bring to the people involved. I'm curious about the structures they fit into and the technologies, habits, etiquette, narratives that form these systems. I'm trying to look at these things in a different way. So more specifically this evening I'm going to answer my emails as a public performance. This is a type of communication act that is usually done in private. It is a major component of "work" for many people, although few would see it as an important skill, their profession, or their vocation. It takes time and labour. By inviting you here as an audience, I am asking you to become a part of this event. I am wondering if performing this ritual in an unusual setting will prompt us to see it differently. Performances are often about celebrating, affirming, defending, justifying, challenging, exploring or reforming our beliefs. I'm pretty uncomfortable with this so I've made a small effort to hide the identities of the people I'm communicating with by blurring their names. When I'm finished checking my mails in front of you I'd love to chat about it together.

what just happened?

• I'm really interested in how other people experienced this process, does anyone have any thoughts about it?
• It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable to reveal these things, does that come across?
• Is answering email labour?
• Do you get paid for it?
• Do you manage your time?
• Do you enjoy it?
• Should it be celebrated?
• Questioned?
• Why?
• Im not really sure what the point of this is, do you know?
• Are you bored?
• What's boring about this?
• Why are you still here?

les trois reves

Why three dreams? Seems like a very christian number. What was descartes relationship with his family? What was his medical history?

Content of the booklet:

My rationale for sending this to you

I dont think it's enough simply to say 'this is shit'. I want to propose an alternative or alternatives. Maybe I'm just tired in my body. No my brain and heart are tired today too. I'm emotional and in truth exhausted. I need some rest. Why are the shimmering lights appearing now? I suppose I'm going somewhere. Or my spirit is being called or moving somewhere. But I think maybe to cling to my body is appropriate at the moment, I am still on the earth and I value it. I love it. 404 years ago on this night three dreams were dreamt. A 23-year old white man enters a feverish sleep in Ulm, Germany. The philosophy that it lead to, the Method of Properly Guiding the Reason in the Search of Truth in the Sciences, will be suppressed by the churches. I'm a bit confused I guess. Sometimes I wish there was a point to all of this and it's hard to exist without one. Things only stop existing if you stop believing in them. I don't believe in graphic design. Do I believe in grids? In structure? The grids thing is very personal, it's to do with my training and my practice. It's a belief system I have largely built myself. Is it even bad? I am very suspicious of it but there is a possibility it will survive this inspection. The grid is solid, very solid. The aim is not in any way to answer the question maybe. I just want to ask it louder and angrier and full of confusion.

An english translation of Baillet's account of the dreams

A translation of A. Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes, i, Paris 1691, pp. 80-86.

found in Browne, A. (1977). Descartes’s Dreams. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 40, 256–273. https://doi.org/10.2307/750999

1

After he fell asleep, his imagination was struck by the representation of some ghosts which appeared to him, and which terrified him so much that, thinking he was walking in the streets, he had to lean to his left-hand side to be able to reach the place where he wanted to go, because he felt a great weakness on his right-hand side, on account of which he could not hold himself up. Ashamed to be walking in this way, he made an effort to straighten himself; but he felt a violent wind which, carrying him off in a sort of whirlwind, made him spin three or four times on his left foot. Even this was not what terrified him. The difficulty he had in dragging himself along made him fear that he would fall at every step, until, noticing a school open along his way, he went in to find a refuge, and a remedy for his trouble. He tried to reach the school Church, where his first thought was to go and pray; but, noticing that he had passed a man he knew without greeting him, he wanted to turn back to pay his respects to him, and was pushed back violently by the wind, which was blowing against the Church. At the same time he saw in the middle of the school courtyard another person, who addressed him by name, in civil and obliging terms, and told him that if he wanted to go and see Monsieur N., he had something to give him. M. Descartes imagined that it was a melon which had been brought from some foreign country. But what surprised him more was seeing that those who gathered round him with this person to talk were upright and steady on their feet, although he was still bent and staggering on the same ground, and the wind, which had nearly overthrown him several times, was greatly diminished. He woke up imagining this, and at that moment felt a real pain, which made him fear that it might have been the work of some evil genius which wanted to seduce him. At once he turned onto his right side; for it was lying on his left side that he had gone to sleep and had the dream. He prayed to God, asking to be guarded from the evil effect of his dream, and to be preserved from all the evils which could threaten him as punishment for his sins, which he realised could be heinous enough to draw down the thunderbolts of heaven on his head; although till then he had led a blameless enough life in human eyes.

2

In this situation, he went to sleep again, after an interval of nearly two hours, spent in various thoughts about the good and evil things of this world. At once another dream came to him, in which he thought he heard a sharp, explosive sound, which he took for a clap of thunder. His terror at this woke him at once; and, opening his eyes, he noticed many sparks of fire scattered about the room. This had often happened to him before at other times; and it was not at all unusual for him, when he woke in the middle of the night, to have sparkling enough eyes to see the things nearest to him. But, on this occasion, he wanted to have recourse to reasoning drawn from Philosophy; and he drew favourable conclusions for the state of his spirit, after observing the quality of the visual images which were presented to him when he alternately opened and closed his eyes. In this way his terror dissipated itself, and he went to sleep again quite calmly.

3

A moment later, he had a third dream, which had nothing terrible like the two first ones. In this final dream, he found a book on his table, without knowing who had put it there. He opened it, and, seeing that it was a Dictionary, e was delighted, hoping it could be very useful to him. At the same moment, he found another book under his hand, with which he was equally unfamiliar, not knowing from where it had come to him. He found it was a collection of poems by different authors, entitled Corpus Poëtarum &c. He had the fancy to read something in it; opening the book, he fell upon the verse Quod vitae sectabor iter? (What path in life shall I follow?). At the same moment, he noticed a man whom he did not know, but who showed him a piece of verse, beginning with Est & Non, (Yes and No) and praised it to him as an excellent piece. M. Descartes told him he knew what it was, and this piece was one of the Idylls of Ausonius, which were to be found in the big collection of poets which was on the table. He wanted to show it to this man himself, and he began to leaf through the book, whose order and arrangement he boasted he knew perfectly. While he was looking for the place, the man asked him where he had got the book, and M. Descartes answered him that he could not tell him how he had come by it; but that a moment before he had handled yet another book, which had just disappeared, without knowing who had brought it to him, or who had taken it back from him. He had not finished speaking when he saw the book reappear at the other end of the table. But he found that the Dictionary as no longer complete, as he had seen it the first time. However, he found the poems of Ausonius in the Collection of Poets which he was leafing through; and not being able to find the piece beginning Est & Non, he told this man that he knew another piece by the same poet which was even better than this, and it began Quod vitae sectabor iter? The person asked him to show it to him, and M. Descartes was setting about looking for it, when he came across various little copperplate portraits: which made him say that the book was very fine, but it was not from the printing which he knew. At this point the books and the man disappeared, and effaced themselves from his imagination, without waking him, however. The strange thing to notice here is that, wondering whether what he had seen was a dream or a vision (songe ou vision), he not only decided that it was a dream, but interpreted it before sleep left him. He judged that the Dictionary meant nothing other than all the sciences joined together; and the Collection of Poems, entitled Corpus Poëtarum, indicated especially, and in a more definite manner, Philosophy and Wisdom joined together ... M. Descartes, continuing to interpret his dream in his sleep, considered that the piece of verse about uncertainty as to the way of life one should choose, which begins Quod vitae sectabor iter? indicated good advice from a wise person, or even Moral Theology.

pictures of squares

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