On Mood

That which appears to us as mosaic inwards yet fades to the background outwards. Experience deals with phenomena–that which appears to us. Sorting out the patterns and motifs– the recurring, persistent motives, all related to being-in-the-world. We sift out the many uniting stimuli from the world that we are inherently a part of.

We are not distinct from it.

¡SENSATIONS!
Comes out at you, fleeting
linked to your body;
The body– lived.

| Emotions |

Directed towards –> something 

Based on culture<–>beliefs.

The body as source that expands in its world that is dasein's.

{ m o o d }

works in the background of experience

changes the way something appears to you

m o o d– elusive and difficult to describe. Expressions like "seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses" or responding to a "how are you?" from a close friend by describing "feeling blue". All appears to be vision based. We let our m o o d be dictated by changing wavelengths we call color and often judge them as illusions. And yet, this dasein does not look out of his window and sees things as different shades of blue when sad or bursting red when in a bad m o o d or romantically rose-tinted when nostalgic. 

Everything appears just as vividly from one m o o d  to another. Cinema betrays us in that regard, it does not reflect our being-in-the-world, but instead projects its own as an illusion separate from our being-in-the-world. If we see a sepia tint on the screen simultaneously with music that we've been conditioned by our prior experiences (culture-beliefs) to empathetically feel– then the relationship becomes reinforced and tied together to project a sensation that understands the phenomenon as a united artistic or informative thought. Top it all that with sound effects, choice of cuts and gluing scenes together, it all becomes a bottom up mosaic inwards, fleeting outwards. 

Sensations appear the most fleeting, followed by | emotions | which lasts as long as one would measure with the word "moment". M o o d  on the other hand appear as impure as cinema is an impure art. M o o d takes from the sensations and | emotions | that it influenced prior and shapes its own palette. Color appears the intuitive metaphor for m o o d but when all different kinds of shades get mixed in, eventually color becomes a brown, almost blackish display of mush– black, thought of as the absence of color. And even if we take it using physics, where the opposite presumes to happen, the uniting of all colors brings about white (presumably the culmination of all colors).

We cannot think of m o o d  like this. M o o d  acts not as a spectrum that gets added or negated to different extremes, m o o d  acts as a silent precursor that interacts bidirectionally within the patterns and motifs of this mosaic. Attempting to untangle it would be just as useful as trying to figure out what the make up of our brain contains all the way down to its respective atoms. 

Instead, what needs to be done requires a more holistic approach, much like the disciplines biology and psychology take foundationally. Each dasein must take its being as being-in-the-world and focus its ontological questions on m o o d phenomenologically. For dasein understands itself more as it relates itself as being-towards-death before sensations come to link the | emotions | evoked from apprehending the concept of being-towards-death.

All this worked behind in the background of m o o d, silently elusive and difficult to describe. Perhaps one shouldn't try to describe it and instead be aware of it as one encounters time and its unity with one's being-in-the-world. M o o d  manifests itself just as quickly as thrownness, projection, fallenness, and all the other important jargon Heidegger takes as the characteristics of dasein. All that remains that Heidegger leaves us to? The body's relationship with being as being-in-the-world. To dwell on our time-linked-phenomena– aware that sensations, | emotions | and m o o d all come together mosaically yet also act as distinct sub-entities that relate phenomena with universals through the body. All this culminates to a united oneness to the world that we are indistinctly a part of. 

Questions of being: Filipino (From filipino philosopher blog, now deleted)

I found myself today at 9 pm, the very end of a day that was meant to be productive. I last remember waking up 20 minutes before I had to leave for an appointment but then decided to sleep longer so I cancelled it. When I got up around 15 minutes after I was meant to leave, it turns out the next appointment was not for another month and a half from now minimum.

That guilt should have sealed the deal to make me want to be productive. And that's how my morning started off. I studied and took notes for a class and then spent a whole 2 album cycles listening to grouper's Ruins album while I cleaned my studio. I then had a bass lesson for an hour, cooked lunch then quickly went to grab a milkshake, thinking that since my parents are visiting tomorrow that I wouldn't have a chance for a cheat day any longer.

When I got back, I felt the food coma and decided to watch a little Netflix. I found a show I realized I had only watched the first season but since the second season had yet to come out, I forgot about it.

It was here that I binged 10 episodes straight and found myself today at 9 pm. I realized that this was a form of an immersive escapism masquerading as a kind of productivity. This was a backdoor to a previous mental state back in my senior year of high school. And now that I look back, it did feel like it.

I have this bad habit of procrastinating through binging whenever I'm faced with work I don't want to do. I am very willing to throw myself into the subjects I love (philosophy for one). But perhaps that goes without saying. Albeit a truism, I think there's insight into this.

I think the kind of person I am tends to binge when faced with uninteresting work because binging provides that same mental state of productivity without the lackluster unappealingness. While binging, I was actively observing plot and different details, throwing myself into this other reality. And at the end of it I felt drained. If the eye strain is put aside, I still felt mental fatigue– perhaps an indicator of keeping my brain active and working.

Reflecting on the content I've watched, I realize I also tend to feel good and motivated from it and I found that when switching shows, I tend to go for the ones with lots of hardworking experts in their field. I realize I was riding their momentum as a kind of vicarious wish fulfillment.

So I decided to start this blog for myself and perhaps anyone who happens to stumble on this to write about motivations and not momentums. To reflect on what motivates me to be the kinds of role models I identify with.

So without further ado:

I believe I'm motivated by the desire to learn things that don't appear to be outright useful for conversations but indirectly teaching a lot of skills that I find valuable. I want to one day be like those experts I see on shows, despite the debatable other reality or perhaps fictitious fantasy presented for me to believe. But these myths are my culture. I model myself on the kinds of behaviors that provide the best hit of dopamine when I reach those goals. These binging behaviors are only symptomatic misunderstanding of wanting to achieve short term goals and be productive without so much effort jumping over hurdles I dislike.

I need to get into the habit of reflecting on what motivates me and how the things I'm doing help me achieve the goals no matter what kind of momentum I'm on. I can't stay on the aesthetics train for too long and neither can I go for the academic. The proper balance lies in these projects and I think the first project I need to set myself isn't to find productivity but rather to get myself back on track towards a healthy mental state and attitude towards the goals I've set myself up to achieve.

That or I'm just saying this to make myself feel better after a binge. Either way, this is a good step forward because I'm doing something to change this behavior that might have become a bad habit at this point.