Application for Skye
Application
Application
BASICS:
Name: Skye Syn (Synnestvedt)
Gender/Sex/Affiliation: Female... affiliation? Zuh?
Age: 18
Location: Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, Earth.
INQUISITIONS:
What attracted you to this community? Under interests search, I typed in "theories" and I found this, which I like because it seems like a more intellectual group whereas all I've found thus far has beeen otherwise, to dysphemize. The reason I was searching for theories is because I'm terribly fascinated with different bodies of thought. I love philosophy and schools of thought of all sorts. The reason I clicked on this link in particular (for this group) is because I saw the words "collective consciousness" which immedietly drew me in. That's something central to my beliefs about the Universe - a very fundamental belief. What those beliefs are should be revealed at a later time, seeing as their complexity far exceeds that for discussion in a mere survey. For now, I'll remain an enigma *wink*
What is the highest level of school completed? Finishing up my senior year of high school right now.
What are some of your major interests/hobbies? Reading, writing (though I'm a bit rusty), socializing, conversing, walking, photography, meditating, dreaming, sketching, listening. I have trouble listing hobbies and interests, because I more or less just am. I just do things; I don't really conform to any patterns, mostly accidentally. I get sidetracked easily because my interests are all over the place and I'm very fickle. Thus, I'll throw myself into something for a while and then abandon it for something else. I try not to, but it's a current challenge for me to persue.
What about the human psyche most appeals to you, and why? Its complexity. There's nothing more fascinating than the human mind and its expansiveness. Humans are the only species granted this remarkable gift of consciousness. Not only do we have the potential for this individual awareness, but it's also possible to transcend the self and gain access to a universal or collective consciousness. We can connect with others even on a mind level. This, to me, is the supreme evidance of our inherant interconnection with the Universe. The mind is evidence of our Grand Unity. Unfortunately this evidence is written off by most as New Agey bull#~*&. (By the way, do people here take umbrage at the use of an occasional curse? I avoid cursing for the sake of preserving its effectiveness, but sometimes they slip out...) The ability to transcend oneself is a marvelous and fascinating fact of life. I think this is sorely overlooked and the ego impedes our ability to connect, and therefore empathize with one another. Intuition is a connection to and communication within the inherent worlds of our connected minds. Archetypes. I suppose the most appealing aspect of the human psyche for me is not only its complexity, but that it forms not only an irreplicable network within itself, but is also intuitively linked to all other networks of mind on some level on higher planes.
Type of music most enjoyed: Too much. Pink Floyd. Rock, I suppose. But usually extremely quirky, alternative rock or alternative in general. Check out the Dresden Dolls. I love anything that has a unique sound to it (a genuinely unqiue sound.) It's hard to find gunuine artists nowadays who are able to surprise their audience with new methods of producing sounds. There's a woman by the name of Regina Spektor who is a marvelous example of this: she uses clicks and lip vibrations and all sorts of variations of the mouth to employ a wide range of bold and almost whimsical sounds into her music. I love the fusion of silliness with sincerity. Any artist that can remain dedicated and emotionally attatched to their work yet not take themselves too seriously is great in my book. Experimental music can be pretty fun, too, but I'm not one much for twelve minutes of silence interspersed with the occasional clank of a glass or screeching brakes.
Books/authors: David Sedaris (funny guy, that one), Huxely, I know it's terribly cliché and probably a turn-off because of that, but I'm a big fan of Shakespeare. Quite the mind.Toni Morrison isn't bad. Um. Daniel Keyes. E.A. Poe.
Something special or beautiful about your brain: Awareness. Cognizance. The ability to acheive levels of understanding. The imagination, I think is the most prominent. See above, with 'psyche'. This is related and I've already went into considerable detail in responding to the general topic. For now.
Are you an artist or writer? If yes, please post some of your work. Not enough to say I'm an artist or a writer. Some really excellent voice once wrote that, "I am not a writer except when I write."
I will post a nice pithy poem I wrote, that I'm particularly fond of:
"Gifts for Granted"
O! What a wasted marvel, the mangled mind
in modern thought. It's been clear skies
in the seeds and roots of our bodies; not one electric storm,*
not one cohesive thought. And the ghost in the shell,
the brains' companion. How we strive to look
and see nothing.
So this one seemed relevant, so I also included that. The purpose of this one was to write a five-line poem in the Anglo-Saxon style. This means incorporating caesura, alliteration, and kennings.
*When producing a thought, the hemispheres of the brain fire electrical impulses, much resembling an electrical storm.
=======================================
"Star"
If I had a star
I would wish upon its brilliance
And politely demand its illumination
For down here, beneath its crippling brother
I fear that we are evenly matched and feeble leaves
Of the same stem, and of the same soil
Battling for warmth and light
For we fear more the pruning
Than the uprooting
================================================
-
What color was George Washington's white horse? Clearly, it was green. Think Oz.
OPINIONS:
Organized religion: I try as hard as possible to remain open-minded about religious institutions. I truly believe, though, that it has done more harm than good. The history of religious establishments speaks for itself - very critically, at that. I don't think it's necessary to go into that here. So many atrocities have been inflicted upon innocent people in the name of what is holy. Look at the current events - we're in a holy war. I've heard some people say that it's ridiculous to seperate spirituality from religion, but that doesn't make sense to me at all. Religion is the process by which one implements spirituality into their daily life (or so it's supposed to be!) It is certainly not something to enforce or inflict upon other people. It is not damnation. It is not even judgemental. Religion, in theory, is a great idea: it brings people of like mind together to live by their beliefs so that a harmonious community and sense of unity can be established. Unfortunately, it's like communism. Nice in theory, but it really blows in all actuality. Spirituality is SUPPOSEDLY what religion is founded upon. Spirituality is personal. It is what one makes their own. The option of making religion one's own is a personal choice. I digress. But as far as organized religion is concerned, when dealing with humans in any form of establishment or organization no one, and no system - as flawless as it may seem in theory - is exempt from corruption filtering into it.
Society: Deeply troubled and brokenhearted over that one. Lately I've been struggling with coming to terms with the condition of mankind. Apathy is our monster. We wage war on drugs, on religion, on smoking, on other nations, on ideals and opinions. What could possibly be more dangerous than apathy? You can blacken your lungs with tar and poison your blood, but indifference is the ebola that will bleed out your eyes, your every oriface. You become a zombie. You are entrapped and enslaved to a life of indifference, of unfeeling. This lack of feeling is one of the major, major contributors to the depreciation of the quality of our lives. Why do Americans have such a high depression rate? You think that you're special because you walk around with an emotional disorder. You're the one in five hundred. Well, you're not. Every other person has a dysfunctional personality or mental disorder (NOW. I am not claiming that there is no such thing as mental disability or severe mental conditions. However I think this is exaggerated, and we lose perspective as to what is disease and disorder and what is life.) What happened to feeling? What happened to thinking? For the love of God, what happened to empathy for our neighbor? No one gives a damn about the current issues in the world. No one really bothers to investigate what's going on outisde of their microcosmic life. You can't live a fulfilling life in a box. What's outside? Are you going to live on heresay or see for yourself?
So many feel insignificant in this world and incapable of making a difference... so why bother? It's a terrible attitude to adopt when it's the collective responsibility for our generations to change the world.
I could actually go on about this forever. This was just a brushing overview. Seriously, it's so bad that I've been finding myself terribly depressed - excuse me, disheartened - over the past several weeks because of the condition of society and the depreciation of life. Have you ever cried over the condition of mankind? I hope you have, because you know what? You may feel too deeply and ache for your fellow human being, but it's so important that this be the case because you don't have your head in a hole any longer. When you cry about people in foreign contries that you've never met, you're alive. I know I have. I'm still working on rebirthing myself to the liveliness of the world.
The occult/paranormal: Just the best thing ever. I never got too heavily into the ghosts and those aspects of the paranormal, but I still believe very much in magickal theory. But I suppose this doesn't really have too much to do with the occult/paranormal, in my opinon. When I hear 'occult' or 'paranormal', I think of that which is not perceived as natural. I couldn't see magick as anything more natural! I'm terribly interested in the subjects, though (of the occult/paranormal in general). So educate me!!! Exclamation point!
The environment: Aching. Pleading. And beautiful. I was a Pagan for a while. I'm not sure about that now, but I maintain those ideals. I see the Earth as an incarnation of the Divine. Divine manifestation into this dense, material world. I abhor the treatment of our environment. I still consider a career in environmentalism, some branch. I will most definitely be involved in political activism for environmental causes at some point (man, I can't wait to get out of high school...) At one point some years ago, I was a misanthropist and despised humans for the mistreatment of the Natural gifts that surround us, and our feigned superiority. Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that though most tend to believe otherwise, we are inextricably linked to the environment. Not only in the sense that we are dependent upon it, but also that we are a part of it. And it is a part of us. We are all fundamentally one in the same...
The Arts: Vital to existance and inherant in everything. If art is the depiction of that which is true (check out "Poetry, Language, and Thought" by Heideggar), then isn't art essentially everything good about life? I think so. Art is what colors existance. It is the visual, auditory, and mental depiction of emotion. A fusion of the richness of existance.
The Sciences: Wonderful when they don't adamently oppose anything other than itself. You're entitled to your own opinions, but you aren't entitled to your own facts. Science needs to become a process for the search for truth again, not another organized religion denying anything but itself. The process of science itself is to persue the truth, detatched from any bias or one's own theories to establish oneself. Modern science, to me, is becoming more and more of a joke. The sterility of it shows evidance of science's terror in having to admit that there might be a more spiritual side to life. Is this political correctness? Perhaps if we don't allow room for there being something higher than oneself or anything unexplainable, or additional to matter then no one will get offended! Then science will be infalliable and trusted because everything that exists can be observed! Of course, this is not the case with new fields of science appearing. I am a firm believer in the emerging fields of science.
Drugs: I do those occasionally (rarely), but it's not a habit. Mind-altering experiences can be life-changing. WHEN THEY'RE EXPERIENCES AND NOT A WAY TO MITIGATE BOREDOM ON A FRIDAY NIGHT AHEM. I've seen too many people go the way of "getting fucked up" without really getting anything out of the experiences. I have little, if any, respect for that. However, I certainly condone the use of drugs for altering states of consciousness as a form of enlightenment. Not a temporary enlightenment that lasts a couple of hours, but something that you can take with you outside of the high. Wisdom to be gleaned. The problem, here, is that people become dependant on drugs to alter this state of consciousness instead of learning from it and trying to naturally reproduce the effects of the experience through sheer practice and (clear) will of the mind. Drugs, when used appropriately, are kind of like a rowboat out to an island. You don't know your way getting there, or sometimes you forget, so you go over and investigate once, but the experience is so much more gratifying when you swim there yourself afterward. Okay, so this analogy has a bunch of holes in it. Still.
Pornography: Not a fan. I don't really hold much of an opinion on this. Well, erotic literature is kind of fun for me. After all, I was named after the central character in a sex novel (who happens to be historicallyt he first female pirate, thankyouverymuch!) Skye O'Malley. It's a nice indulgence every once in a while. A lot of people seem to be addicted to erotica and pornography, though, which I frown upon because it's an addiction. I'm sort of about balancing indulgence with self-discipline in all aspects of life. This is no exception.
ALSO: I have no desire to judge ANYONE on their opinions. You're entitled to yours, and likewise I to mine. So please, if we dissent then don't feel that disagreement is an attack. I appreciate clashing views sometimes, too, because all of us can grow from opposition.
WORD ASSOCIATIONS:
List the first word that comes to your mind after the following-
Nun: "The Nun's Preist's Tale" (That's Chaucer, thanks)
Blood: Lab
Cerebral: Ideas
Library: Knowledge
Words: Communication
Butter: Dairy. My guilty pleasure
Mirror: Depth
Lord: Equalibrium (The sequator there was Lord + Lady)
Semen: Passion
Heart: Chakra
Manic: Depressive
Revolver: Velvet
Cut: Schism
IMAGES:
Post 3 or more random images that express who you are (None of yourself!!):
Application
BASICS:
Name: Skye Syn (Synnestvedt)
Gender/Sex/Affiliation: Female... affiliation? Zuh?
Age: 18
Location: Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, Earth.
INQUISITIONS:
What attracted you to this community? Under interests search, I typed in "theories" and I found this, which I like because it seems like a more intellectual group whereas all I've found thus far has beeen otherwise, to dysphemize. The reason I was searching for theories is because I'm terribly fascinated with different bodies of thought. I love philosophy and schools of thought of all sorts. The reason I clicked on this link in particular (for this group) is because I saw the words "collective consciousness" which immedietly drew me in. That's something central to my beliefs about the Universe - a very fundamental belief. What those beliefs are should be revealed at a later time, seeing as their complexity far exceeds that for discussion in a mere survey. For now, I'll remain an enigma *wink*
What is the highest level of school completed? Finishing up my senior year of high school right now.
What are some of your major interests/hobbies? Reading, writing (though I'm a bit rusty), socializing, conversing, walking, photography, meditating, dreaming, sketching, listening. I have trouble listing hobbies and interests, because I more or less just am. I just do things; I don't really conform to any patterns, mostly accidentally. I get sidetracked easily because my interests are all over the place and I'm very fickle. Thus, I'll throw myself into something for a while and then abandon it for something else. I try not to, but it's a current challenge for me to persue.
What about the human psyche most appeals to you, and why? Its complexity. There's nothing more fascinating than the human mind and its expansiveness. Humans are the only species granted this remarkable gift of consciousness. Not only do we have the potential for this individual awareness, but it's also possible to transcend the self and gain access to a universal or collective consciousness. We can connect with others even on a mind level. This, to me, is the supreme evidance of our inherant interconnection with the Universe. The mind is evidence of our Grand Unity. Unfortunately this evidence is written off by most as New Agey bull#~*&. (By the way, do people here take umbrage at the use of an occasional curse? I avoid cursing for the sake of preserving its effectiveness, but sometimes they slip out...) The ability to transcend oneself is a marvelous and fascinating fact of life. I think this is sorely overlooked and the ego impedes our ability to connect, and therefore empathize with one another. Intuition is a connection to and communication within the inherent worlds of our connected minds. Archetypes. I suppose the most appealing aspect of the human psyche for me is not only its complexity, but that it forms not only an irreplicable network within itself, but is also intuitively linked to all other networks of mind on some level on higher planes.
Type of music most enjoyed: Too much. Pink Floyd. Rock, I suppose. But usually extremely quirky, alternative rock or alternative in general. Check out the Dresden Dolls. I love anything that has a unique sound to it (a genuinely unqiue sound.) It's hard to find gunuine artists nowadays who are able to surprise their audience with new methods of producing sounds. There's a woman by the name of Regina Spektor who is a marvelous example of this: she uses clicks and lip vibrations and all sorts of variations of the mouth to employ a wide range of bold and almost whimsical sounds into her music. I love the fusion of silliness with sincerity. Any artist that can remain dedicated and emotionally attatched to their work yet not take themselves too seriously is great in my book. Experimental music can be pretty fun, too, but I'm not one much for twelve minutes of silence interspersed with the occasional clank of a glass or screeching brakes.
Books/authors: David Sedaris (funny guy, that one), Huxely, I know it's terribly cliché and probably a turn-off because of that, but I'm a big fan of Shakespeare. Quite the mind.Toni Morrison isn't bad. Um. Daniel Keyes. E.A. Poe.
Something special or beautiful about your brain: Awareness. Cognizance. The ability to acheive levels of understanding. The imagination, I think is the most prominent. See above, with 'psyche'. This is related and I've already went into considerable detail in responding to the general topic. For now.
Are you an artist or writer? If yes, please post some of your work. Not enough to say I'm an artist or a writer. Some really excellent voice once wrote that, "I am not a writer except when I write."
I will post a nice pithy poem I wrote, that I'm particularly fond of:
"Gifts for Granted"
O! What a wasted marvel, the mangled mind
in modern thought. It's been clear skies
in the seeds and roots of our bodies; not one electric storm,*
not one cohesive thought. And the ghost in the shell,
the brains' companion. How we strive to look
and see nothing.
So this one seemed relevant, so I also included that. The purpose of this one was to write a five-line poem in the Anglo-Saxon style. This means incorporating caesura, alliteration, and kennings.
*When producing a thought, the hemispheres of the brain fire electrical impulses, much resembling an electrical storm.
=======================================
"Star"
If I had a star
I would wish upon its brilliance
And politely demand its illumination
For down here, beneath its crippling brother
I fear that we are evenly matched and feeble leaves
Of the same stem, and of the same soil
Battling for warmth and light
For we fear more the pruning
Than the uprooting
================================================
-
What color was George Washington's white horse? Clearly, it was green. Think Oz.
OPINIONS:
Organized religion: I try as hard as possible to remain open-minded about religious institutions. I truly believe, though, that it has done more harm than good. The history of religious establishments speaks for itself - very critically, at that. I don't think it's necessary to go into that here. So many atrocities have been inflicted upon innocent people in the name of what is holy. Look at the current events - we're in a holy war. I've heard some people say that it's ridiculous to seperate spirituality from religion, but that doesn't make sense to me at all. Religion is the process by which one implements spirituality into their daily life (or so it's supposed to be!) It is certainly not something to enforce or inflict upon other people. It is not damnation. It is not even judgemental. Religion, in theory, is a great idea: it brings people of like mind together to live by their beliefs so that a harmonious community and sense of unity can be established. Unfortunately, it's like communism. Nice in theory, but it really blows in all actuality. Spirituality is SUPPOSEDLY what religion is founded upon. Spirituality is personal. It is what one makes their own. The option of making religion one's own is a personal choice. I digress. But as far as organized religion is concerned, when dealing with humans in any form of establishment or organization no one, and no system - as flawless as it may seem in theory - is exempt from corruption filtering into it.
Society: Deeply troubled and brokenhearted over that one. Lately I've been struggling with coming to terms with the condition of mankind. Apathy is our monster. We wage war on drugs, on religion, on smoking, on other nations, on ideals and opinions. What could possibly be more dangerous than apathy? You can blacken your lungs with tar and poison your blood, but indifference is the ebola that will bleed out your eyes, your every oriface. You become a zombie. You are entrapped and enslaved to a life of indifference, of unfeeling. This lack of feeling is one of the major, major contributors to the depreciation of the quality of our lives. Why do Americans have such a high depression rate? You think that you're special because you walk around with an emotional disorder. You're the one in five hundred. Well, you're not. Every other person has a dysfunctional personality or mental disorder (NOW. I am not claiming that there is no such thing as mental disability or severe mental conditions. However I think this is exaggerated, and we lose perspective as to what is disease and disorder and what is life.) What happened to feeling? What happened to thinking? For the love of God, what happened to empathy for our neighbor? No one gives a damn about the current issues in the world. No one really bothers to investigate what's going on outisde of their microcosmic life. You can't live a fulfilling life in a box. What's outside? Are you going to live on heresay or see for yourself?
So many feel insignificant in this world and incapable of making a difference... so why bother? It's a terrible attitude to adopt when it's the collective responsibility for our generations to change the world.
I could actually go on about this forever. This was just a brushing overview. Seriously, it's so bad that I've been finding myself terribly depressed - excuse me, disheartened - over the past several weeks because of the condition of society and the depreciation of life. Have you ever cried over the condition of mankind? I hope you have, because you know what? You may feel too deeply and ache for your fellow human being, but it's so important that this be the case because you don't have your head in a hole any longer. When you cry about people in foreign contries that you've never met, you're alive. I know I have. I'm still working on rebirthing myself to the liveliness of the world.
The occult/paranormal: Just the best thing ever. I never got too heavily into the ghosts and those aspects of the paranormal, but I still believe very much in magickal theory. But I suppose this doesn't really have too much to do with the occult/paranormal, in my opinon. When I hear 'occult' or 'paranormal', I think of that which is not perceived as natural. I couldn't see magick as anything more natural! I'm terribly interested in the subjects, though (of the occult/paranormal in general). So educate me!!! Exclamation point!
The environment: Aching. Pleading. And beautiful. I was a Pagan for a while. I'm not sure about that now, but I maintain those ideals. I see the Earth as an incarnation of the Divine. Divine manifestation into this dense, material world. I abhor the treatment of our environment. I still consider a career in environmentalism, some branch. I will most definitely be involved in political activism for environmental causes at some point (man, I can't wait to get out of high school...) At one point some years ago, I was a misanthropist and despised humans for the mistreatment of the Natural gifts that surround us, and our feigned superiority. Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that though most tend to believe otherwise, we are inextricably linked to the environment. Not only in the sense that we are dependent upon it, but also that we are a part of it. And it is a part of us. We are all fundamentally one in the same...
The Arts: Vital to existance and inherant in everything. If art is the depiction of that which is true (check out "Poetry, Language, and Thought" by Heideggar), then isn't art essentially everything good about life? I think so. Art is what colors existance. It is the visual, auditory, and mental depiction of emotion. A fusion of the richness of existance.
The Sciences: Wonderful when they don't adamently oppose anything other than itself. You're entitled to your own opinions, but you aren't entitled to your own facts. Science needs to become a process for the search for truth again, not another organized religion denying anything but itself. The process of science itself is to persue the truth, detatched from any bias or one's own theories to establish oneself. Modern science, to me, is becoming more and more of a joke. The sterility of it shows evidance of science's terror in having to admit that there might be a more spiritual side to life. Is this political correctness? Perhaps if we don't allow room for there being something higher than oneself or anything unexplainable, or additional to matter then no one will get offended! Then science will be infalliable and trusted because everything that exists can be observed! Of course, this is not the case with new fields of science appearing. I am a firm believer in the emerging fields of science.
Drugs: I do those occasionally (rarely), but it's not a habit. Mind-altering experiences can be life-changing. WHEN THEY'RE EXPERIENCES AND NOT A WAY TO MITIGATE BOREDOM ON A FRIDAY NIGHT AHEM. I've seen too many people go the way of "getting fucked up" without really getting anything out of the experiences. I have little, if any, respect for that. However, I certainly condone the use of drugs for altering states of consciousness as a form of enlightenment. Not a temporary enlightenment that lasts a couple of hours, but something that you can take with you outside of the high. Wisdom to be gleaned. The problem, here, is that people become dependant on drugs to alter this state of consciousness instead of learning from it and trying to naturally reproduce the effects of the experience through sheer practice and (clear) will of the mind. Drugs, when used appropriately, are kind of like a rowboat out to an island. You don't know your way getting there, or sometimes you forget, so you go over and investigate once, but the experience is so much more gratifying when you swim there yourself afterward. Okay, so this analogy has a bunch of holes in it. Still.
Pornography: Not a fan. I don't really hold much of an opinion on this. Well, erotic literature is kind of fun for me. After all, I was named after the central character in a sex novel (who happens to be historicallyt he first female pirate, thankyouverymuch!) Skye O'Malley. It's a nice indulgence every once in a while. A lot of people seem to be addicted to erotica and pornography, though, which I frown upon because it's an addiction. I'm sort of about balancing indulgence with self-discipline in all aspects of life. This is no exception.
ALSO: I have no desire to judge ANYONE on their opinions. You're entitled to yours, and likewise I to mine. So please, if we dissent then don't feel that disagreement is an attack. I appreciate clashing views sometimes, too, because all of us can grow from opposition.
WORD ASSOCIATIONS:
List the first word that comes to your mind after the following-
Nun: "The Nun's Preist's Tale" (That's Chaucer, thanks)
Blood: Lab
Cerebral: Ideas
Library: Knowledge
Words: Communication
Butter: Dairy. My guilty pleasure
Mirror: Depth
Lord: Equalibrium (The sequator there was Lord + Lady)
Semen: Passion
Heart: Chakra
Manic: Depressive
Revolver: Velvet
Cut: Schism
IMAGES:
Post 3 or more random images that express who you are (None of yourself!!):