Holiday blues setting in already?

No blues here just now, I'm feeling happy, but just to have something to blog, I'm posting a possibly topical excerpt from The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul This quote is (C) Copyright Rudy Rucker, 2004.

At the emotional level, I find it’s interesting to think of my moods in terms of homeostasis. In principle, I would like always to be calm, happy, productive and cheerful. With the accumulation of years of bruising experience, I should by now know to avoid those actions — like yelling at someone — which are sure to have a bad effect on my mood. But my common sense can still be overridden by a conflicting homeostatic drive — such as defending myself against some perceived slight to my self-esteem. It’s striking how easily I’m shunted off into new trajectories. If someone smiles at me, my mood goes up; if the neighbor’s gardener turns on a leaf-blower, my mood drifts down.

My moods continue to vary even when I do manage to be behave optimally and think nice correct thoughts about everything. I might suppose that this is because my moods are affected by other factors — such as diet, sleep, exercise, and biochemical processes I’m not even aware of. But a more computationally realistic explanation is simply that my emotional state is the result of a class four unpredictable computation, and any hope of full control is a dream.

Indeed I sometimes find a bit of serenity by jumping out of the system and really accepting that the flow of my moods is a class four computation akin to the motions of a fluttering leaf. It’s soothing to realize that my computation must inevitably be gnarly and uncontrollable, and looking out the window at the waving branches of trees can be a good reminder.

Buckminster Fuller once wrote a book called I Seem To Be a Verb. His dictum brings out the fact that the individual is a process, an on-going computation. In the same spirit we might say:

I seem to be a fluttering leaf.

One shouldn’t place too high a premium on predictability. After all, the most stable state of all is death. We stay chaotic for as long as we can, postponing that inevitable last output.

Before the holiday feast, a scouting party staked out Magic Door Beach.

Vigilance rewarded; extraterrestrial craft spotted.

The radiolarians carpeted the coast, sending one of their number inland.

Back at the rancheria, the ambassador was found to have established a symbiosis with a beloved family pet, taking on the appearance of a rubber tongue. A win-win-win.

We roasted a beast, and were at peace.

Dawn at the bottom of the year.

Two daughters! With the scary Santa robot.

Imagine writing or reading a blog on Christmas day. Electronic sharing. What if your TV could see you, and show your images to random viewers? In my novel Wetware (Avon, 1997), I describe a future Christmas morning like this Louisville, Kentucky, featuring a daughter named Della just returned from the colony on the Moon.

***

When Della woke up it was midmorning. Christmas! So what. Without her two sisters Ruby and Sude here, it didn’t mean a thing. Closing her eyes, Della could almost hear their excited yelling — and she realized she was hearing the vizzy. Her parents were downstairs watching the vizzy on Christmas morning. God. She went ot he bathroom and vomited, and then she put on her flexiskeleton and got dressed.

“Della?” cried her mother when Della appeared. “Now you see what we do on Christmas with no babies.” There was an empty glass by her chair. The vizzy screen showed an unfamiliar family opening presents around their tree. Mom touched the screen and a different family appeared, then another and another.

“We’ve gotten in the habit,” explained Dad with a little shrug. “Every year lots of people leave their sets on, and whoever wants to can share in. So no one’s lonely. We’re so glad to have a real child here.” He took her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Little Della. Flesh of our flesh.”

“Come, dear,” said Mom. “Open your presents. We only had time to get two, but they’re right here in front of the vizzy in case anyone’s sharing in with us.”

It felt silly but nice sitting down in front of the vizzy — there were some excited children on the screen just then, and it was almost like having noisy little Ruby and Sude at her side.

***

[If you want to read the rest of my novel, don’t accidentally get the wrong Wetware — some guy ripped off my title for a completely different book in 2002, meaning that there is a bogus Wetware in the marketplace. My Wetware is out of print just now, although used Wetware copies can be found.]

***

Merry Christmas!

Brian Silverman sends a link to Mark Owen's amazing pages on the Wireworld cellular automaton .

Christmas gaining momentum here. I went skating in San Ho again with one of the kids. The PA system was playing “Octopus's Garden” from Abbey Road and I was happy.

The other day some of us hiked up onto Saint Joseph's Hill behind the Jesuit residence. We call the hill in this picture Donkey Hill, as usually there's a pair of donkeys living there. I'm always happily amazed at finding such a rural-looking corner within walking distance of my home, here on the banks of Route 17.

This is part of a really big eucalyptus tree. I love when trees have wrinkles as if they were soft flesh.

I had a line about this in my novel White Light :

“I stood under a big twisting tree, a beech with smooth gray hide made smoother by the rain running down it, tucks and puckers in the flesh, doughy on its own time-scale.”