On My Mind Lately: Street Memorials and a New Word…”Individuate”

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Individuation (Latin: principium individuationis) is a concept which appears in numerous fields and may be encountered in work by Carl Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, David Bohm, and Manuel De Landa. In very general terms, it is the name given to processes whereby the undifferentiated tends to become individual, or to those processes through which differentiated components become integrated into stable wholes.

In developmental psychology – particularly analytical psychology – individuation is the process through which a person becomes his/her ‘true self’. Hence it is the process whereby the innate elements of personality; the different experiences of a person’s life and the different aspects and components of the immature psyche become integrated over time into a well-functioning whole. Individuation might thus be summarised as the stabilizing of the personality.
…..(more on individuation)…..

Whats Left of a Life Pt. III

If these sidewalks could talk…
Would they weep?
Would they be still?

I never knew you – and it seems I never will.

New Dead Prez: Summertime – Shot all UP in my Neighborhood….

The Revolution Will be Uploaded

Uploaded today via Twitter

I’m trying to figure out if it’s the fact that a lot of American journalists are banned from getting on the ground coverage of the protests following Iran’s obviously rigged elections, or if it’s just a smug praise gesture towards our new media that has turned a devastating injustice into a promotion for twitter, facebook and youtube. How much do people even know about Mir Hussein Moussavi anyway?

As much as I love the power of the people via citizen journalism…I’m just curious…what’s the bigger story? The fact that Ahmadinejad is a tyrant (that’s not news to anybody); the largest Iranian protest in 30 years; or the fact that new media is changing the shape of news in countries where free speech is not encouraged? I really think it’s the latter. Look at me, I’m a blogger blogging about this communication. And it does excite me to know that I can see videos from a peaceful protest in Tehran that are happening right now. And if it weren’t for youtube, this news may not have had the chance to make it out of Iran.

Police attack peaceful student protesters. Tehran, June 14, 2009

Well, I am a journalist. Smug, perhaps. New era. New media. New age.

Ways to stay on top of news developments in Iran:
The Lede
iranriggedelection.blogspot.com
Seach twitter under #iranelection

What’s Left of a Life, Pt. 2

There’s something so vulgar about this one…

If inanimate objects are able to retain memories, then these must be some traumatized objects.
I’m sure the human beings who once lived among these things have left a lot more behind than this trash, but still…to me, this is all I can assume I’ll ever know about these people who were once my neighbors.

What’s Left of a Life

After you die in a nursing home. After all your remaining unclaimed belongings are put out on the curb. After scavengers hunt out the goods from the pile. After waste management comes for the weekly bulk collection, smashing your mirror, lounge chair, lamp and clothes in with the banana peels, tea bags and crumpled essays, this is what remains on the pavement as a sense of memory, or at least, a thought in my mind, to wonder more about you.