I started this blog when I was working through Thomas Pinter’s A Book of Abstract Algebra. I absolutely loved the quaternion group, and still think that it’s neat.
Quaternions are imaginary numbers, but taken much further. i is the square root of negative one, which you probably remember from Algebra II. Quaternions introduce j and k, which are both also distinct square roots of negative one. (This is less surprising than it seems; 2 and -2 are both square roots of 4.)
To graph complex numbers, which have both real and imaginary components, you need a 2d grid. To graph quaternions, you’d need a four dimensional grid! When I started this blog, I was really interested in that sort of thing; how do you approach topics with many dimensions? How do you make sense of systems that you can’t even visualize?
Anyway, until yesterday, the blog was called Quaternion Daydream. Quaternion because lots of dimensions, daydream because rather than finding anything definitive, I was content to speculate.
Vibe Shift
Blogging every day (this month) has made me realize: I just don’t feel like mucking about with dimensions all that often. Sometimes, sure! I have a post about cellular automata in the pipeline, and I bet AI will claim some future energies. But most days, right now, I’m more into aesthetic. Aesthetic is itself a multidimensional concept, but here I mean something like “the surface layer.” Rather than figuring out all the component parts of some phenomenon, I want to explore the texture of experience. I’m interested in experimenting with clothes, with habits, with how surface-level interventions permeate to deeper levels.
I still like daydreaming, much as I still like quaternions. I hope to continue daydreaming, and often, for the rest of my life. But what I want to blog about, these days, is something different. To explore first-person experience requires focus, and perhaps being awake.
So, new title: Lift High The Muse. The main reason is a personal joke, which those readers who love me best will quickly understand. I like this aspect, since I want this blog to feel personal, warm, cozy. But another reason is that, like my last namesake, I tend to grind.
Lift High The Muse
What does grinding have to do with lifting, or muses, or height? Well, much has been written about inspiration. The rumor goes you have to chase it with a club, or that it has to find you working. Concerning.
Let me add to the rumor mill. Right now I’m blogging daily. I usually blog weekly, and I always write every day. I’d like to imagine these practices as elevating my personal muse, as taking my font of inspiration and hoisting it for all to see. Muses can be heavy, and with care they grow heavier. But the more of them are elevated and honored, the more beautiful lights bounce between them, and the more dazzling shapes, colors, and other surface-level projections can fall back down to Earth.
Anyway, your emails will be from Lift High The Muse rather than Quaternion Daydream, now. I hope you stick around!
Nice change!