Sometimes, I have no idea what to do.

It can be rough, when my own brain gives me a sense of all-pervasive confusion. I just sit in my room, and my mind goes completely blank. With all my CDs, and DVDs, and a computer, and a television to watch; I feel completely incapable of forming even the simplest of ideas.

The fog in my brain can be awful. (It's a symptom of my illness, dysautonomia. It makes me feel a bit useless -- as though I could not produce my own last name, if I were pressured to do so. It turns all the ideas in my head into misty nothingness; too insubstantial to grab a hold of. Sometimes, when anything is possible, that very promise could almost be perceived as a threat. Far too much is possible, for me to handle.

I need to clear my brain of these unproductive notions. Divest it of the sheer weight of ideas and possibilities. As if it is unwanted clutter on a computer hard drive. The feeling is one of the physical weight, sometimes. That I only have so much space in my head for ideas. I certainly can't write my book, if I feel in a state of intellectual disorder -- chaos, even. The best thing to do, is to make a conscientious attempt to retain only the good ideas. This even works, from time to time. This post is an act of catharsis.

I can move on to good ideas, now.

Plato, and his cave

Yesterday, I decided to look at Plato on iTunes. Admittedly, I didn't expect to find much. Instead, I found many of Plato's works; in their entirety.

I settled on The Allegory of the Cave, from The Republic. The piece, itself, is quite brief but powerful. It only takes up about nine pages of The Republic; however, those nine pages or so, deal with the very nature of reality and how we perceive it. What do we find to be real, and how do we express the findings? Are we too comfortable, within our own, little shell. Perhaps we are too content, to accept the shadows we see on the metaphorical cave wall -- rather than seeking the objects, themselves.

If we were to see life, as it really is, would that revelation be painful? This is where a lot of the philosophy from the trilogy of Matrix Movies comes from. I have not done the theory justice here. I cannot convey the enormity and the brilliance of Plato's thinking. I simply implore you to read Plato for yourselves. It changed my life, and will continue to stimulate my thoughts.

My video about it:

The Anthology: 1947-1972... Muddy

allmusic ((( The Anthology: 1947-1972 > Overview )))

This is a fantastic album. Anyone who has an interest in the blues, and loves the music, should own this! This will hopefully be the first in a long line of album reviews. I am pretty sure this was the first Muddy Waters album that I ever owned. It is very difficult to overstate the importance of Muddy's music, within the landscape of popular culture. The figure of the man is immense. His body of work is so good, it's intimidating.

It is difficult to find weak spots in this anthology, or to say bad words about it. There have been many compilations made of Muddy's music -- this may be the best.

If I have not convinced you yet, there are the many equally talented musicians, to were featured on this album, to back Waters; like Otis Spann, Willie Dixon, Little Walter... etc.