Something Else – The Second Update
Tucson, Arizona. Three weeks have now passed since I published Something Else, the story of a training institute in Tucson, Arizona designed to serve local employers with training needs as part of the community’s workforce development effort.Most feedback suggests that readers find the SAIAT story well worth reading. Indeed, the place was quite a ride for your humble blogger. Although the city and county allocated $242,500 in funding to support the nonprofit institute last year, TREO, the economic development agency entrusted to administer the contract, kept 55 percent of these funds for itself, causing heavy losses for the small institute. As discussed in the document, after handling some items requiring handling, I resigned in May. I have learned that SAIAT will receive no support at all for this year. Guardian angels do not have much time.
Both this blog and my email provide a means for anyone to communicate. Several have posted commentary, in particular the astute Navigator who saw more deeply into the work than I had anticipated.
I have received very little negative feedback other than the comments one can read at the stories below. Via email and phone, minor modifications were requested and implemented within hours. No one has come forward to challenge any facts, assertions, or opinions. Three main questions have been asked via email.
1. Is the book published or will it be published in standard hardcopy format for sale? Answer, not yet and certainly not for many months. It remains available at the Web site indefinitely and continues to be upgraded in a manner consistent with the constructive criticism received. Formal publication would require professional editing, a marked reduction in images and permission to use them, and modification to address the loss of hyperlink functionality.
2. Is anyone reading Something Else? Yes.
3. Why did you write this? Answer: Think Mt. Everest. What started as general remarks tapped into Something Else much of which remains embedded and not yet discussed. The Navigator, Sirocco, and Zelph have noted deeper material exists. I’ve asked them to hold off further comment in this direction.
When one begins to see that the true nature of the work does not involve its content, one stands at a particular door. Readers considering the work a tirade about a funding cut are missing everything.
posted by x4mr at 9:24 PM
7 Comments:
I'd buy the book version. I'd expect an author's signature on the inside cover, though. :)
I will attempt to be brief. I have been lurking this site since september 06, and as time has progressed I have been taken more and more out of my depth. I read something else shortly after it's release (after much anticipation) and have sice come to the conclusion that I have no idea what you are driving at. I say this after careful consideration of some of the comments that have since been posted. While I have an appreciation for context and meaning, I must admit I am completely baffled as to what those are in "Something Else"
I'll explain. I spent a short time in the service, and was discharged (honorably) at the beginning of '06. My time in the service trained me to think in terms of making best decisions based on best information. I believe thinking in that way has created an intellectual blind spot. I have been thinking about "Something Else" since I read it. Simply put, whatever navigator, zelph, and sirocco have seen in this work is not visible to me. I'm not sure what i'm missing. I will re-read something else soon in the hopes of catching something I may have missed.
I don't know if you plan on laying it all out, but I think doing so would spoil the fun. I know this comment is all over the page, but I have a hard time articulating what I want to say, sometimes language just doesn't seem like it's enough. I'll simply sum up by saying that "Something Else" has proven to be a challenge I was not expecting, and that I really appreciate your writing it.
Blind Man
Blind Man,
I thought your comment was very authentic and articulate. No need whatsoever for the apologetic tone or its length, which was quite reasonable.
Seeing into any work of this kind requires more than a single read. If you have only read it once, expecting the ability to extract the deeper content is not realistic. To save you time, once you have read the first four chapters for background, there is no need to re-read them except for the parts in "Reality" about reality, depth, and the uncountable nature of consciousness. That wasn't just a math lesson.
The purple year chapters are critical as is the blue chapter. The Navigator does a lot of work for you in his insightful analysis, as do some of the other comments.
I appreciate your readership and am pleased to hear that you find Something Else it worth pondering. You are absolutely spot on perfect when you voice frustration about language. If you recall, at one point I say trying to put an experience into language would be like painting a chapel with a Buick.
There are places language cannot go. That insight right there, and you made it, is an excellent start.
One final clue for now. Do you agree with Descartes that you are a "thinking thing"? Is consciousness limited to thought? When one experiences a distinction, is it the result of "thinking"? Consider that you have a function that thinks. Is that you? Consider that it is not. If you believe it is you, and that you can control it, try telling it to shut up.
Buddhists spend years trying to shut it up. When they succeed, what's going on?
Oh, get that pink elephant out of your head.
Oh, Sirocco.
Should it ever get to real print, you, Liza, and the Navigator get free signed copies.
Zelph too, perhaps, if he behaves (no border indiscretions).
Blind Man,
I find myself skeptical of the blindness you confess. Perhaps your innocence makes your remarks possible, but odds do not support this. First, your post has the tone of vulnerability and exposure presented in Something Else, sharing information about yourself including effort, failure, and self-doubt, stabbing into the material x4mr addresses. I don’t think you are blind at all.
Comments including my own thus far have only scratched the surface of what x4mr has created. First, one must observe that the document is factual. Its content is REALITY addressing reality. He has crafted a document that uses truth to express something beyond the story being told, Something Else.
X4mr has wisely copyrighted his tome, but he has masterfully produced content that defies plagiarism. Who can claim to have been the executive director of SAIAT from 2003 to 2007? Who can copy this material and make it their own? Yes, the document can be stolen using another town and another organization, but the skills to do so are as rare as x4mr, and such individuals have no interest in claiming the art of another as their own.
I will risk his deletion key by pointing you to additional items to consider. In the final chapter, an unknown navigator is quoted. What other frontiers? Also, what are the implications of x not being x, except when it is? When is a computer lab a computer lab?
Consider the Chapter 15 material about dancing. X4mr is a dancer, not a marcher. Everyone knows how to march. We march through each day of our lives with the mechanical precision of well trained robots as predictable and automated as the tools we use. X4mr has rejected the march. He dances.
In closing, consider that he is not discussing fiction. His tale does not involve abstract concepts idly considered in a classroom. He led the LDP. That really happened. Read Errol’s Chapter 15 words a dozen times. Where do such words come from?
X4mr has gone to the border. He knows what is there from personal experience. He is 46, not 26. Judy, at 80 or more, is his superior. I would give just about anything to be a fly on the wall during the conversation Judy and x4mr had in that coffee shop.
Navigator,
I'm not sure what to think of you. Perhaps that goes both ways. I suppose I appreciate the praise, but frankly it feels strange.
Will you do me a favor and wait a month or two before tooting my horn again?
By the way, don't underestimate the Warhol quote.
Every time I visit this blog it seems to be more strange.
I must agree with Blind Man. I just don't get it, and I am not stupid person.
What is spooky about this is that you have delivered on every promise so far, and now you are making creepy promises.
No, I don't get the Warhol quote. Watching television? I also don't get Errol's question about what you were listening to.
Blind Man, you are not blind and not alone. I am in the same place.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is BS. There's something going on here, or maybe I should say "Something Else."
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