OM

My formative years were spent in Taipei, Taiwan and the family immigrated to the US in my teens. Growing up on two continents, I realize often that my ideas and beliefs are very much mixed. Contradictions exist between the interior and exterior selves; however, the advantage of experiencing two strikingly different cultures outweighs the differences, opposite extract. Mixing of cultures yields the best of worlds more often than not. Mixing English and Chinese while conversing with my parents and siblings happens often. The speech might seem schizophrenic to a listener, yet, this is how it is, all mixed up, and it just flows.

“Language,” William S. Burroughs first reminded us, “is a virus from outer space.” “You know, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as TV. I mean, they just keep showing you the same pictures, over and over and over. And when they talk, they just make sounds. They more or less synch up their lips, that’s what I think.” Lyrics from “Language is a Virus”, one of my favorites among many that Laurie Anderson performed during her 1984 Home of the Brave concert in San Francisco. Her multi-media remix left a deep impression in my being. Now, the same phrase reappears as I read Paul D Miller’s “Rhythm Science”, is it synchronicity? Let’s put a spin on it, I’m on a loop looking for meaning. Is there meaning in anything? Most of the time, most things are meaningless, but that is exactly the point, the meaningless is the meaning. We are all spinning in circles endlessly. You get my drift.

Miller writes, “The beginning. That’s the hard part. Once you get into the flow of things, you’re always haunted by the way that things could have turned out.” We are certain of the uncertainties. Is there a beginning or an end? “The ten thousand things are produced and reproduced so that variation and transformation have no end”, from the book, Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate Explained, written by Zhou Dunyi, a Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher and cosmologist. He was concerned with the relationship between human conduct and the universal forces in the 11^th century. This infinite space we called the universe, the site of all sources and resources. If we are on a loop, we just step into the loop at any given point at birth, ride the roller coaster of life, fall off the loop at the time of death. Along the Milky Way, we mix and remix all that we come into contact with, there’s always the next generation picking up where we left off, the variation and transformation have no end. Endlessly mixing.

Paul Miller, AKA DJ Spooky, conceptual artist, is mixing technology and art, creating endless variations of sonic sculptures. Welcoming the constant bombardment of information, sound, objects of this 21^st century, incorporating all styles of music, breaking patterns, loops, and transforming rhythms into new dimensions, fraying the lines that holds the present and the future, embracing diversity as a basic way of life. He is mixing it all up, cultural ideas, algorithms of everyday life, patterns, and repetitions digitally, globally, and universally through the cyberspace. If one can visualize the Internet, this web like structure, we would see all the electrons firing at any given moment in time; it would be the ultimate firework show ever put on display, a continuous finally. This is the century of hyper-acceleration, from now to the beginning, it is a record spinning, endlessly. You get my drift.

In regards to the 21^st century, the century of hyper-acceleration, I can’t help but wonder how technology affects the human psyche as a whole. Every human being is encapsulated in a physical shell; the only way to relate to one another and the environment is through means of communication via the five senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. In this techno manic society of ours, there are true advances that challenge our sight and hearing; however, at the same time, it is retarding our taste, smell and touch as human beings. I think this imbalance can or might already have brought serious damages in our survival as a specie. With the gamut of techno gadgets one can accumulate, one never has to leave ones home as long as we are attached to our I-pod, I-phone, Nano and laptop computers. Yes, we are thoroughly connected wirelessly in cyberspace; yet the people closest to us seem like strangers. Internet is at our fingertips; do we recognize the faces of those who are near? Or does one need to invite them as friends on Facebook in order to connect and to relate?

In closing, I’d like to quote a passage from Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, “Siddhartha listened. He was now listening intently, completely absorbed, quite empty, taking in everything. He felt that he had now completely learned the art of listening. He had often heard all this before, all these numerous voices in the river, but today they sounded different. He could no longer distinguish the different voices-the merry voice from the weeping voice, the childish voice from the manly voice. They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of the dying. They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life. When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: OM-perfection.”