Living in the Past

After a recent post where I documented a terrible thing my father did to me as a young boy, a family associate accused me of living in the past.  A summary of his criticism could fairly be paraphrased as, "You will never be happy unless you stop reliving these past memories and forget about them.  True happiness can only come through living in the present." He then proceeded to tell me that the only real happiness can come through faith in the living God and the love of Jesus.

An then it occurred to me that he himself was a self described "Born Again Christian."  And I thought to myself and replied back to him, "Isn't forming your entire personal life around an event that occurred 2000 years ago the most profound example of living in the past that exists?  And isn't THAT practice the most damaging psychological experience possible?"

Funny, I have not  yet received a reply. (for updates: see comments)

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Capitalism is Murder

Of COURSE your managers are trying to kill you. You are a direct threat to their job security if you are too competent, happy, or well adjusted. In the capitalistic system, your manager wants to kill you if you remotely approach his level of ability and influence in the company. Of course he won't use a gun, he will use overwork, unhealthful working conditions, psychological abuse, layoffs, and outright lying. My managers at Digital Domain and Rhythm and Hues all did that to me all the time, although I was blissfully unaware of it at the time. Capitalism is murder.

"If your wife is more attractive than your boss' wife,

  then you will get fired." - Mr. Atwater

copyright (c) 2016 

William Schaeffer

Friedrich Nietzsche

"Christianity promises everything and delivers nothing, Buddhism promises nothing and delivers everything." - Friedrich Nietzsche


This quote is from his book "The Anti-Christ" which is one of the most amazing theological books I have ever read (don't ask for a bibliography, but if you demonstrate that you have also read "James the Brother of Jesus" by Robert Eisenman I'll buy you lunch) The book is the most coherent and consistent book that Nietzsche wrote and was intended to be the first of a four volume set. Obviously he never finished the work. And unlike my expectations is is not a polemic against Jesus, but an analysis of the corruption of the organized Church doctrine. There are three pages in the book where he beautifully summarizes his interpretation of the original message of Jesus. Stunning. A "must read" for anyone with a clear mind and a strong heart.


Ironically Nietzsche himself was a "Christ like" character in that he gave his life for our benefit. With his penetrating intellect and deep insight he certainly could have used his ability to take advantage of the rest of us in much the same way the Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the fashion industry exploit our weaknesses. Instead he lived in virtual poverty and wrote his observations to help the rest of us understand the mechanisms working in mind and society. A great and tragic figure. I highly recommend all his writings although they take a strong stomach and a patient heart to read. I especially like his pithy aphorisms that are sprinkled throughout his writings. I have never been able to read Thus Spake Zarathustra because I cannot personally get past the fake biblical style writing.

There are two reasons I love Friedrich Nietzsche: 1. He has a brilliant mind and is absolutely fearless. 2. His last name has five consonants in a row AND they are in the middle of the word. There is not another name or word I know of that has that same quality.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Books to Read

There are many flavors of Buddhism today. For basic philosophy of life, I recommend the variety known as Zen Buddhism (Japanese) or Chanism (which is the original Chinese variant). Book "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" by Paul Reps is good. I also recommend "Book of the Five Rings" by Myamoto Musashi (spelling?). Also highly recommended is the "Tao Teh Ching" by Lao Tzu (translation by Gia Fun Feng and Jane English). Zen Buddhism was profoundly influenced by the Tao and I prefer the spirit of the Tao myself. Also, any books on the philosophy of the Samurai are very good. Lastly "The Lazy Mans Guide to Enlightenment" by Thadeus Golas is fantastic, but written in a casual 1960's Hippie lingo.


Also, I am just starting to read a book called "PRONOIA is the antidote for paranoia" by Rob Brezsny which seems to be a fabulous exercise in recognizing your own blessings and being receptive to the good in life and manifesting bountiful joy. I am surprised actually and am enjoying this book quite a bit so far.


When you finish those books (just kidding) -- read some biographies of famous people you respect or admire. They all had difficult lives and faced challenging times. Remember -- "there is no force without opposition." This is basic physics but applies to life also. No man rises to greatness in peace and comfort. Only in great difficulty and challenging times are our true strengths revealed and we are given the opportunity to exercise our great ability. Julius Caesar, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, George Washington, Nietzsche, Picasso, Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix, Socrates, and many others are remembered not only for what they accomplished, but also for the difficulties they overcame. Take Heart and Good Luck.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Another riot going on

commentary on a yahoo.com news story on violence at a White Supremacist rally somewhere:


Why doesn't this news story actually report the significant events of that particular incident. How did it start? Who started it? Why was it started? Who was injured? How were they injured? How was it stopped? Instead we get a "fake" news story that tells no significant information about the newsworthy event, but concentrates on irrelevant details related to the event while pretending to be a news story instead of an exercise in rhetorical composition. Are the salient details of the event even available to the general public even though the event is common knowledge? The answer is practically "no." If the public does not have good data, they cannot make effective decisions and are more easily coerced into compliance and obedience.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

The human brain

The human brain is fatally flawed and we are deluded into thinking there is any such practice as logic, truth, or morals in human social organizations.

Most people are just looking for a short cut to a "happy life" without having to work.

They naturally think they are entitled to Perfect health and Buddhist Enlightenment in addition to going to Heaven when they die and don't even see the logical contradictions.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Love it or Leave it?

If you criticize America, you have to remember that it was only the LOSERS of the rest of the world that came here in the first place. Who in their right mind would risk 25% probability of death in a sailing ship to go to a land where no one wanted them and there was nothing there anyway except dirt and rocks and trees? It was the only the con-men, criminals, prostitutes, debtors, and mentally deranged from the rest of the world that formed the breeding stock that gave birth to our forefathers in this great melting pot of disease, dysentery and diarrhea WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? GENIUS?

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Rotoscope Artists

When I started doing Rotoscoping (or roto) at Digital Domain, it was very popular to use Green Screen techniques to composite different elements of a single shot.  Because the software was primitive and the practitioners were optimistic, the general attitude was that Digital Paint and Rotoscoping would soon be replaced by software and my job was at best temporary.  Anyone who was doing "roto and paint" wanted to quickly move into compositing, or management.  On the movie Titanic, we only had five full time Rotoscope artists, and they were constantly made to feel like second class citizens by the rest of the VFX team, because everyone knew that "roto will be replaced."  I did not even get credit in the movie and I worked on it for six months.

Surprisingly the exact opposite thing happened.  Now ALL Compositors must know how to rotoscope efficiently to complete their shots.  In 2006 at Digital Domain, we had a staff of 30 roto artist working on Flags of our Fathers"  At Stereo-D in 2013 we had up to one hundred roto artists working on a single movie.  Today, most of the work is done in large factories in Mumbai, India, or Shanghai, China where up to ten separate people all work to complete the roto necessary for a single VFX shot

What we did not know then which I now believe to be true:

The human eye and perception has been efficiently developed by millions of years of biological evolution. The human eye is particularly suited to seeing the edges of objects in noisy or badly lit environments. There is no way that a team of even highly intelligent programmers can reproduce a system as efficient as the eye in a few months or years and effectively compete with millions of years of evolution. The brain has as many neurons as there are stars in the entire Milky way Galaxy AND each Neuron has a switching network that is as complex as the entire global phone system on Earth (in the 1990's at least). That is a highly complex brain who's behavior is not easily reproduced in a few hundred, or few thousand, lines of software code.

Some day, Rotoscope artists will be held in such high esteem like great mystic saints that 3-D artists will all scramble tirelessly to curry their favor.  NO THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN, but i couldn't resist a joke.   But it is true that VFX is a team effort and all the parts of the team are valuable and there WILL always be a need for rotoscope artists in live action VFX.


Addendum: It is sobering to note that almost HALF of the 2-D VFX artists working in 1996 have left the industry today and mostly not by their own choice.  Why is that I wonder?  Maybe THAT should be the subject of my next essay.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Visual Effects at Rhythm and Hues

It was in 2006 or 2007 and I was talking with a friend who was animation supervisor at Rhythm and Hues, a special effects company in Los Angeles, California.  He was describing how they were going to streamline and improve their animation department.  "We plan," he said, "to lay off the entire department and then hire new talent fresh out of college so that we can train them all to use the same correct procedures and processes.  This way we will get a better and more consistent product."

That was the moment when I knew there was no job security in the Visual Effects industry and no honor among the managers.  I didn't want to believe it and I thought my talents would give me immunity from the same management philosophy, but I was wrong.  When the stock market crashed in 2008, I could not find work for a year and a half.  I sent out a thousand resumes to no good result.

My friend's plan must have been successful because several years later, Rhythm and Hues won an Oscar for their work on "Life of Pi."  News reports that night showed mass demonstrations outside, because the company had also laid off nearly their entire staff.  My friend had managed to keep his management job through the turmoil.  Perhaps he was planning on hiring a new crop of animators now that his present compatriots had outlived their usefulness.  I have no idea, because we no longer communicate on a regular basis.

Visual Effects and Computer Animation is an exciting and dynamic field to work in.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

The Historian

There is a difference between documenting the past and "living in" the past.

A Historian documents the past so we know where we came from and how we got to the position we are presently in.  This has been an honorable profession since the ancient Greeks and Roman writers first started the concept two thousand years ago.  The practice has undergone some revisions in that time and because of historians we now have a better understanding of truth itself.  For in the words everyone knows, "Those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it."  For us to truly know who we are, where we are, and how we got here, we have to reference past events.  The Bible itself is an attempt to document the past to give credence to present claims.  Unfortunately, we have found that the Bible is self-contradictory and not a reliable guide to the truth of past events, but is instead a poetic record of the aspirations of men in history.

"Living in the past" is an imprecise description given to people who seem to not be aware of their surroundings or how customs and manners have changed in society.  

These two practices apply to fundamentally different spheres of life.  One is a description of a social function and the other of a psychological need.

When confronting evidence of history that we prefer to not remember, it is tempting to accuse the historian of being irrelevant by "living in the past," but if the documents he provides contain no errors of truth, they become valuable benchmarks against which we can all measure our present progress.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Happy father's day - glad you're dead

When I was four and a half years old, my father got angry at me and slammed my face into the wall. The impact split my lower lip open and I bled all over the place. I had to go to the emergency room and have three stitches put in my lower lip. I still remember laying on the table with gauze on my face as the doctor stitched my lip without anesthetic; while my father was faint at the sight of blood. The doctor sternly told my father to sit with his head between his own legs to prevent fainting. I still remember thinking that it was kind of odd that I was experiencing all the pain and my father was having all the difficulty. For the next two weeks, my father joked about how stoic I was and how he could barely stand the sight of blood. I was surprised when they took the stitches out that there was no pain and the threads just "slipped out" after they were cut. I do not remember my father ever apologizing to me or even asking me how I felt. Happy father's day. Glad you're dead.


I feel sorry for him, because he and my mother were all by themselves in a strange city and there was no one to help them. His parents, and brother were (perhaps understandably) self centered jerks as I remember. There was no community in our neighborhood and there never really was the rest of my life. People laugh at me when I say, "There is no love in America" and they do not understand how true this is, because they haven't really had any serious problems, yet. Look at all the homeless people living on our streets right now. Who loves them? Who cares about them? Where IS the love in America?


Answer: The LOVE in America is in your heart. It is not what you get, but what you give that counts. You forgive the past and strive to be the person that you wish everyone else could be. I post this story so that some young adult somewhere will maybe think twice before beating the living shit out of their child. Maybe one day there will be a little more LOVE in America, but not as long as we spend HALF of the GNP on weapons of mass destruction, as we have for every single year of the past 50 years of my life. Good luck.



For the cost of the Iraq war, the USA could have built a brand new house for every single family in Iraq. Do the math and figure it out for yourself. Imagine how different the world would be if we put our money where our mouth was and actually acted out of LOVE instead of HATRED. Imagine how different Iraq would be today if we had built all those houses. Imagine how different the USA would be. Good Luck Everyone. Good Luck.

 copyright (c) 2016 

William schaeffer

Rude and impolite light bulb riddle

Q: How many assholes does it take to change a light bulb?

A: NONE.  They just sit there in the dark.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Meat Eating is an Addiction

Meat eating is an addiction. Meat eaters act like they have an all consuming addictive behavior that they must talk about incessantly. If I do not eat meat, or meat products, at all for three weeks; then the actual smell of meat cooking seems to change (my olfactory processing changes obviously) and the meat cooking smells bad, like a heavy greasy rotten garbage smell. I am surprised to notice this and it is not necessarily enjoyable.

copyright (c) 2016 

William Schaeffer

Background Actors and Crew

Why the crew members occasionally treat the background actors poorly.

In my opinion, the dynamic is obvious. As actors, and especially background actors, we are "special." We are "on camera." Very few are ever selected to be "on camera" and we are LUCKY. This is like "passing through the gossamer veil to the inner circle." This is like "crossing the river Jordan to the promised land." NO ONE else that is on the set will EVER be invited to be a part of the inner circle and THEY ALL KNOW IT. They are not handsome, beautiful, talented, or clever enough to do that, AND THEY KNOW IT. Therefore, to keep some psychological balance on the set, the crew needs to be given extra perks of money, food, priority and "status" because at the heart of the matter "THEY KNOW THAT THEY ARE NOT VERY SPECIAL" and YOU ARE. Acknowledging this dynamic, you graciously accept the work and politely tolerate their grumbling and abusiveness if it occurs, because YOU are the bigger person and YOU are special.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

One gram of fiber for every one hundred calories

If you are trying to maintain an appropriate body weight for your body frame you might consider this guideline that I developed: "One gram of fiber for every one hundred calories." Only eat, or purchase, food that meets these requirements. And, only drink water (or tea, or coffee).

You need 30 grams of fiber a day for 2500 calories. This equals 1.2 grams of fiber for every 100 calories. Then round the result to the nearest integer (for ease of calculation) and you get the equation "One gram of fiber for every one hundred calories."

I guarantee that if you religiously follow this guideline with all the food you consume, then you will maintain the proper body weight. I lost over 50 pounds on this program over 15 years ago. The nice thing about the diet is that ALL Fruits, Nuts, and Vegetables and most Bread and grain meet the criterion. For processed food you must read the box and do the math, but the math is so simple that if you cannot do it, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Your body uses the bulk of fiber to signal the end to hunger (and NOT a chemical analysis of the food consumed) so you can eat as much as you feel like, whenever you feel like, with no feeling of restriction at all.  This makes eating fun again.

You should avoid meat, cheese, milk, alcohol, cola, fruit juice, and candy. 

The results are worth it.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Civil War

my commentary on a facebook posting on the next USA American Civil War:

Since you mentioned it, I will now share my opinion: "We are at the beginning of the ten thousand year dark ages of humanity. World War Three has already begun. Before it is over, every major city in the USA and on Earth will be destroyed. This will lead right into environmental devastation caused by global warming and overpopulation. All the Glacial and Polar Ice on Earth will melt and the oceans will rise over three hundred feet. Every major city ruins on Earth will be buried under a few hundred feet of water. Fortunately, humanity will survive and be humbled by this inevitable result of their hubris and ignorant pride. People will no longer live in cities or rectangular structures and will live in a distributed system of circular dwellings all connected with a network similar to the internet. From there we will begin the conquest of space like mold growing in a refrigerator." You heard it here first.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

War is Fun

War is Fun

In all the hand wringing social commentary about the state of affairs in the world today many authors lament the horrors of war and struggle to understand HOW this could possibly happen, but nobody seems to address the reason why war exists in the first place:

War is Fun

The reason that war is started, war is studied, and why war is continued is simple:

War is Fun

There is no other reason.  The people and powers that promote Warfare have two motivations Fun and Profit.  They expect to make money and this is the quickest and most enjoyable way to accomplish those two objectives.

War is Fun

Men enjoy fighting.  Men enjoy being victorious.  Men like the thrill of victory.  There is nothing on Earth as fun and satisfying as kicking ass and taking over, if you are a fighter.  Just ask the gang bangers and street fighters WHY they are involved in that lifestyle: IT IS FUN.

War is Fun

We will never have Peace on Earth unless we find another way to have fun. Something besides sports and competition and victory to prove that you have personal worth is what is necessary.  Perhaps a spiritual revolution of intellectual awareness and empathetic feeling will help more people understand the true nature of life and War.  But until that time, we will continue to have War.  Everybody knows this, but nobody talks about it.

War is Fun

When do we start?  Are you ready to go?  Are you ready to Win?   Are you ready for victory?  Do you want to be a hero?  Let's get going.

War is Fun




copyright (c) 2016
William Schaeffer

Have a Good Day

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer

Women marry Careers

Most women in America do not marry men -- they marry careers.

Once you lose you career, you lose your wife.


This is also why many older women in America are reluctant to get married again:

they already have their own career, so they do not need to marry one.

Life in America.




copyright (c) 2016
William Schaeffer

violence is a meme

Violence is a meme.

A "meme" is a recently discovered concept that refers to a self replicating idea that lodges itself in the mind and reproduces itself in thought and action in much the same way that a biological virus exploits a living cell to replicate itself.

Violence and trauma can create a meme in the mind and the body that wants to self replicate itself by committing violence and causing trauma in a similar manner.

This seems to be a "natural" function of the mind, and unfortunately can only be stopped with much time and self conscious effort.

This seems to be a central complicating issue in human relationships, organizations, and living arrangements.

Violence is a meme.

copyright (c) 2016 

William Schaeffer

Why you hate your coworkers

Interesting thought: We tend to weight the value of our experience when we create a memory. Negative memories are remembered with much more vivid strength than positive ones (estimates are three to ten times the strength). If you are constantly interacting with an individual person, their unpleasant or negative character traits will be much more noticeable and memorable than your positive interactions. Over time, you will be much more inclined to remember and characterize that person by your negative experiences than your positive ones. This is a real memory optimization phenomenon that all human minds are subject to. THE NATURAL RESULT of this memory feature is that we tend to learn to dislike the people we work with constantly. This is not very pronounced in day jobs like acting, but in ordinary 9 to 5 office work it is very pronounced. We learn to hate the people we work with. In my limited experience, this seems to be a common experience in the USA workplace -- especially in the factory or the office.

 80% of all working Americans dislike their job.

The natural result of this phenomenon is that long term employees of 20 years (or more) are frequently seen as "not good enough" and they get fired or laid off for no substantial reasons. This is a real career issue and one of the reasons that the labor movement was started. Unions exist to protect your long term employment and protect your life.

X

They also get laid off cause management thinks "We could get a kid out of college and pay them $15k + less, so ..." I worked at a firm and they continually hired kids with no experience out of college cause they knew they could pay them less. They all ended up staying only a max of 2 years as they went on to graduate school etc.- but the firm would just go get more recent college grads and rinse repeat.

That is true also. But the danger of this phenomenon is that no one is immune. I have to work to ameliorate the symptoms myself. If you work for a small company for twenty years, you are in big danger. In other words: "The more people get to know you, the more probable it is that they will dislike you" This seems to be a universal principle of human society.

 There is no employer in America that has any interest in providing you with a living. The ONLY thing any employer is interested in is maximizing profit which means getting the most work for the least money. This is why Academics have tenure. This is why labor unions exist. This is why Supreme court judges get a job for life.

You Complain Too Much

People that tell you that, "you complain too much" are people that are not really interested in you, OR your life, and they are probably correct.  You should spend less time with these people and more time working on solving your own problems.   Most people in life are only interested in themselves and why should you expect otherwise?  Just be pleasantly surprised if it happens to occur.


copyright (c) 2016
William Schaeffer