Observations from a Pseudo Philosopical Positon of a Someone who exchanges Labor for Liveilhood

Something has been bothering me lately. Well something is always bothering me, not in the emotional aspect of life, but also not in the cerebral aspects of it either. In fact it is something that is really quite difficult to put my finger on without an entire meadering course in which I spill a whole bottle of ink to just throw away several different drafts. This being the first real attempt to get this into writing. There are sexy problems of the moment, let's worry about what th twenty-four news cycle, or the instatnteouse gratiification news cycle which is probably more realsistic. It's not directly that, nor the elemnts which appear in such presentations. Its not the tchnological dvelopments of the last couple years and the rise of AI. I don't even know how to evn begin writing this essay, nor to what end it will serve. That is probably its greatest strength because of not knowing these things, I am completely free and at ease with just presenting my story even if it is messy, jumbled up and quite a bit chaotic. This is not going to be Euclid's wonderful and logical organization of concepts. This is going to Pollack's exploration of fractuals of complexity no matter the scale of observation.

In a medium sized, third tier city in the US of A, a rather average arena sits in the downtown center. Larg scale events lik rock shows, inter sporting events and other such presentations happen on a nearly nightly schedule. At least on nights when a large nough percentage of the local population can afford to purchase admission and perhaps does not have pressing obligations the next morning. The night in question, this night right here, it is a minor league hockey game. The hometown team is not very good this season but this weekend is military appreciation weekend so there is a strong showing in attendance. Perhaps coicidentially, it is also thie first night in what might become a major expedition on the global stage pitting this country's military against another regional power in thier own territory. The advent of War.

Thirty years I have earned money by laboring for other's visions to be realized, all manner of positions but most frequently within the Entertainment Industry. Professional stagehand. Book mover, bicycle messenger, line cook, house painter,; always in places where I am not front and center of an audience or the public. Behind the scenes, in the dark, a simple title, an awkward description. I have a parchment from a learning institution that says I covered the curriculum for Information Technology, Business Management and Mathematics. So that got me overwhelming student loans and the right to say that I finished a five year project. But this only gives me a very informed positon by which I can participate in technology as a hobby. Not a profession. I do not write code but have a passion for FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).

I like the contemporary development of AI chatbots. I have several increasingly more extensive projects I am vibe coding - although the vibe is always in shades of frustration. I also like to vibe philosophize. Typically, this is me throwing out a concept of dubious value and then poking holes in it, finding out where the journey of the conversation will take me, and then when I get to a point, because I have realized that there is a context window that I am dealing with, asking it to document this conversation in some manner. Wild and crazy pursuits, fantastical elements, realistic groundings, all of it gets thrown at the proverbial wall and none of it really sticks. But still it is engaging and entertaining to see what the bot can do.

In the mid-Nineties, while I was trying to break into the Film & Television industry in NYC, I read several different books about the various crafts. Like How to become a Screenwrite, or the Actor's Guide to waving his hands about while mechanically uttering lines, or some other things that someone who bothered to write. The titles are not the important thing here, it is my observation that each of the authors all expressed in one way or the other that pursuing a position within the industry was going to alter your very perceotion of the product. Certain camera tricks will be revealed as illusions, and so forth. This was an idea which I grasped immediately. ALthough now I am begining to see something on an entirely new level and this is why I am writing this essay.

Imagine you are a future anthropoligist, from the year 4135 or something like that. And while you are pursuing your journey into the meaning of everything we know everything about at that time, you are studying quite intensely the surviving information from the year 2026. You have a very detachted view of what society was like in that day and age, as removed from us as we are from the Roman Republic. Sometimes, when I am on a show call as a spotlight operator in this large arena bowl, I get a feeling or thought that is disguised as a feeling that I imagine a priest well maybe not an actual priest but someone in the mystery cults of Roman temples who was an initiate into the mysteries but was not the focal point of the temple activities might understand. I understand the machines that create the moments when the congregated audience collectively experiences a guided emotional experience.

In the late aughts, as a pariticipant in a series of IRC chat channels, I answered a call to volunteer to represent the community at the United Nations as they had a summit on ITC decisions that was being made. This gave me the opportunity to have lunch with Richard Stallman, so that I could name drop him here. I can probably drop numerous other names of somewhat distinction throughout this ramble of a story. I will try not to do so because they are all minor tangents to this life of somwhat disconnectedness and close call brushes with human kind. Once I graduated from the university which I attended online, the world was coming out of the big global economic crash. Social networks were a rising force in society and everyone got caught up in the Big Tech companies divide, classify and conqueor prequeal to what might in fact become a full blown surveillance state around the world (if it isn't already in that condition.) But I project and presuppose I know what follows this moment.

The behind the scenes vision, how magicians perform their tricks, how priests deceive their flocks, how politicians graft their consituents, and how technologists pull all of our strings, are all something that seems like a genuine insight. From a certain perspective. From behind a spotlight. From the choirloft. From the server room.

Perspective Changes People

There is a joke in the staghand community, "What is the difference between GOD and a rigger?" The answr of course, is that GOD doesn't think that they're a rigger.

From a hundred feet over everyone else, your concerns are not falling, and not dropping anything. After that it is what your next point is and then you become aware that there is a bigger picture. But you are seeing all th people far beneath you, scurry about, doing their processes, having their connections, and conversations, occaisionally, a couple of them will group together and hold a conversation and then the voice in the radio sqawlks at you to go make and adjustment. When you work on the floor, you har all the decisions, and are part of the process of shaping the workflow. You are surrounded by the sounds of other departments, and sometimes when you've bn there long enough, your voice has the final call on decisions.

I have these days, where there is a pressure which rising up within me. This push to cry or melt happens but there is no emotional context which I can identify. This is Alexithymia. It is a disconnection from the moment, unable to name the emotion you are feeling because it is too small and not a strong enough signal. There is frustrationwhich comes with this, because, why am is this pressure here, there is nothing to be sad about, there is nothing to be angry about. But this inexplicable pressure which if it were much stronger would make me cry, is sitting in my chest.

There is a woman I work with. Her energy is always laughing, always smiling. Always seems to be right in the middle of the moment, alive in a way that is very animated but with out being cartoonish. It is not a romantic attraction but I want to stand next to her, even though I don't feel like I am connecting with her, just sort of lurking about, doing my work competently, quietly without applause or notice. Even on days when I do not have a rigging call, I end up tying knots in ropes because that is what the muscle memory does.