pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
And I'd still like to know what you're most committed to
The Depths
- Thread starter pattycakes_
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pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
All good. Do you 
luka
Well-known member
I am basically antagonistic towards the deep. Particularly when it seems to be acting as a synonym for the tasteful. the mature, restrained expression of refined feelings. That I consider to be anti-life. Where notions of the deep can be useful for me, is, as I keep coming back to, as slowness and deliberation and careful considered attention. I enjoy speed. I enjoy operating at speed, mentally. I like formulating and articulating thought and impressions at speed but the danger lies in snatching at things. In coming to too sudden a conclusion. In being superficial. Everything opens up with time and space and attention. Gives more of itself. Reveals other layers. More detail. More granularity. It's that other mode of life. The rural. The pastoral. Rooted. Under the big skies.
It's useful to me to step out of the social game and social self and trance out a bit. Not relying on an instant take but letting things settle and reveal those aspects of themselves that need that time and space and patience. Landscapes do this too. You need to sit in them or move through them very quietly before they open out and you start to see the patterns and the rhythms. The forces that moulded it. The way the light and shadows model it. The way the birds and animals use it and travel within it. In fact landscapes, nature, the outdoors tends to be where I look for this experience. Music for me is something else. As a city boy the country completely reprograms my nervous system. The effects are very profound. I think that is my version of listening to dj sprinkles. It's not depth though, it's space and time and tranquillity. Something falls into sync. The mind stops racing. The breath slows down. I'm a different person.
It's useful to me to step out of the social game and social self and trance out a bit. Not relying on an instant take but letting things settle and reveal those aspects of themselves that need that time and space and patience. Landscapes do this too. You need to sit in them or move through them very quietly before they open out and you start to see the patterns and the rhythms. The forces that moulded it. The way the light and shadows model it. The way the birds and animals use it and travel within it. In fact landscapes, nature, the outdoors tends to be where I look for this experience. Music for me is something else. As a city boy the country completely reprograms my nervous system. The effects are very profound. I think that is my version of listening to dj sprinkles. It's not depth though, it's space and time and tranquillity. Something falls into sync. The mind stops racing. The breath slows down. I'm a different person.
droid
Well-known member
There's no contradiction there. When you work at speed you are drawing on you unconscious, by definition, tapping into the deep, the unseen, removing the ego & super-ego from the process, disabling the filter. The key in creative work is to allow this to happen, to let it spout, and only then to analyse and edit.
When I'm deep in the mix, images of the next record sometimes appear in my mind, unbidden. Sometimes I get stuck on a tune and then dream of the next record to play. One of the great unsung disasters of MP3's and digital DJ'ng is the severing of these visual shortcuts to the unconscious.
When I'm deep in the mix, images of the next record sometimes appear in my mind, unbidden. Sometimes I get stuck on a tune and then dream of the next record to play. One of the great unsung disasters of MP3's and digital DJ'ng is the severing of these visual shortcuts to the unconscious.
luka
Well-known member
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
but there are such things as deep sensations. imo instincts are deep by nature. buried within the code, as droid eloquently put it above. and it definitely doesn't have to be slow. think of DMT, the speed of the information unravelling. faster than we're able to comprehend and pretty much as deep as it gets. and so to be able to attain a level of high velocity flow irl, i think most of us have to have 'gone deep' first in order to have that access to that side of abilities. trite as it may be, i think martial arts is a fine example of this. or playing a musical instrument, or even chopping vegetables. muscle/mind memory.
couldn't agree more on anything fitting into those types of bougie, dignified discernments. i feel the same way about most elitist thinking/academia and general high society bourgeois shit. totally anti-life. if by life we mean actual living, experiencing. a human being vs a human doing. turning off autopilot and putting yourself into challenging situations. it's easier said than done though for most. the routine is just far too comfortable. even when it's miserable. but like padraig said on the first page re: seeking depth & transcendence:
it's like a form of empowerment. another word loaded with stigma, but also conveniently explains a multitude of tangents from where we are. doesn't even have to be dramatic. and deep definitely does not have to have any connection to anything bourgeois. those people need signifiers and validation of their status. i don't think either of us are anywhere near as concerned with that as they are. so we can reclaim the word and use it however we like.
absolutely, that slow form thinking/acting is important for all of us.
one thing i've realized recently is that writing is difficult for me because it's too fkn slow. i'm saying the words in my head as i type them. obviously, i normally talk much faster than i type. i've even considered trying a speech to text thing because the way my brain works is kinda rapid fire reacting to whatever's going on. like i love to jam with musicians, love to have long meandering conversations with plenty of room for playing around, love to dance because it's so direct and freeing. but typing is a strain. my words end up coming out weird compared to when i'm just talking. i wish it was as simple as just slowing down my thoughts, but when it comes to words i find it hard to do that unless there are substances involved. i proofread a lot of what i post and then end up editing it again after noticing weird flow or pacing. it's probably way too pedantic, but i have that type of personality. whatever. anyway, yeah operating at speed is a lot of fun when you have the tools and abilities to play with. but you need to put in the time to get to the point where you can do it on a satisfying level without snatching and being superficial, and i guess that's where your point about the slowness/deliberation comes in.
what i think i'm getting at is that i think we're basically in agreement here. the word is loaded is all. padraig is doing a better job than me at explaining it. but i think we could go further on this shit. hopefully more people post examples of their idea of deep music and a bit of explaination as to why.
btw, nice blog name
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pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
i grew up in the Lake District and totally relate with what you're saying. like being surrounded by all those different shades of colours and the way the landscape changes over the day in relation to the natural light is mystifying. i personally would use deep to describe this experience. but hey, semantics.
a few years ago i was living in berlin and the concrete there was straight up oppressive. it was changing how i felt inside to such an extent that it made living there difficult. i get that plenty of people are totally fine living there. i'm just over sensitive to my environment. luckily there are some nice parks to decompress, but somehow there was always some reminder that the concrete is never far away. after that i moved to leipzig which is this quaint, compact, green city with lot's of parks and even some nice lakes only a short bike ride from the center. the effects of moving there were stark. i slowly regained some sense of self which had been scrambled by berlin's soviet landscapes. yeah i guess i'm a snowflake. but interestingly, right now i'm in the 11th biggest city in the world. and there aren't many parks around at all. london, berlin, leipizig all had way more than here but, what they do have is a fuck load of trees all over the city. and i swear, this place doesn't feel anywhere near as heavy as london or berlin to me. the trees make such a difference.
the view from my window in the barra funda (which translates to 'deep bar' lol) area. it's pretty central. and this is normal here. i don't think people appreciate it because they mostly laugh when i bring up the trees. but man, if you took them away. it'd be a different place all together.
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
Interested to know what kinds of things you project listening to drones. For me it's like a mind cleanser. If I close my eyes it's pretty much blank visually with very occasional textures in very darkened colors. But I think that has more to do with having seen so many visualizers in winamp n shit. I try to wipe the screen clean when I don't want them there though. Works most of the time
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
This post slipped under the radar. Bang on. Depth is like an antidote to the current condition. And people are seeking it in lots of ways. Like the retromania thing and artisan cheese and fancy beards. All of those things represent a time when things were much more meaningful. I don't think it's just about reclaiming innocence. This is why I started this thread. And now it's blending into dematerialisation
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pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
Anyone care to chime in on this?
luka
Well-known member
I went to Berlin once, just for a few days and I had them same violent reaction. That place is hell. The worst environment on earth. It's not just the concrete, it's the uniform height of the buildings, the unbroken regularity of form and mass and tone and texture. It's the very wide roads and all that dead and deadening space. It's brutalising. It does violence to the psyche.
luka
Well-known member
As regards writing and speed it's a learned discipline. You have to hold on to the thought you are articulating and not let it get away. You have to hold it there as you type, not chase after all the other pretty things it suggests or you'll lose your thread. It's a kind of muscular effort of focus. It feels like exerting physical strength, because you're preventing something from flying away.
luka
Well-known member
You do the thinking as you type. You don't stop and mull things over. You weigh words as you move along the sentence, through that line of force, so the time you spend typing is active, there are multiple decisions to be made. You want the energy to be transmitted through the sentence so take out what slows it down and muzzes it up. The inaccuracies and fudges, the breath markers and verbal shrugs.
I guess. And shit. Pretty much. Man. Like.
Those slacknesses and flabby parts. Ideally every word should be working, a load bearing structural necessity.
I guess. And shit. Pretty much. Man. Like.
Those slacknesses and flabby parts. Ideally every word should be working, a load bearing structural necessity.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
kind of
definitely about going beyond i.e. transcendence - doesn't necessarily have to be knowing (comprehension), can also be feeling
atavistic is a good word, but it doesn't have to be literally primal, as wordless drones in mist-shrouded forest depths
it can be any means of reaching out for universal points of human experience, emotion, etc - that sense of "race memory"
not just a literal folk consciousness sense tho there is undoubtedly overlap, as in the case of the drone
it's related to some of our (or at least my) recurring themes - i.e. the space between known and unknowable which is the realm of psychedelic potentiality
luka
Well-known member
Betwixt the in-between
Of is and might have been!
Yes, that's where it happens. No argument from me on that score.
That hermaphroditic space of pure potentiality. The impossible space
Of deep magic. Right there in the centre of it is not a frightening place
But there's terrors on either side, if you're just a hair out of alignment.
Of is and might have been!
Yes, that's where it happens. No argument from me on that score.
That hermaphroditic space of pure potentiality. The impossible space
Of deep magic. Right there in the centre of it is not a frightening place
But there's terrors on either side, if you're just a hair out of alignment.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
it's really about the tension between lucidity and mystery
logic and oracles, the Parthenon and mystery cults, Pythagoras the original science-magic liminal figure, The Bacchae
Alexander, Aristotle's student and employer of engineers, who built his myth on oracular prophecy and slept every night with a copy of Homer
the Romans for their materialism, also retained some of their earlier, chthonic religion - read the story of Publius Decius Mus and devotio
that known/unknowable tension is one of the oldest recorded human dynamics, likely tied to the rise of civilization
I wouldn't say deepness is necessarily about reaching past the former to the latter, but possibly about trying to resolve that tension, knowing that it cannot be resolved
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
that's certainly true
stare into the abyss and all that
leviathans lurking in the protean depths